Conductive metal wiring and liquified quintessence flowed from Seras’ fingers as she traced a very rudimentary shape onto the wide metal board. When it was all said and done she leaned away from the desk and stared down at her handy work.

  It… wasn’t pretty.

  Her first attempt at Magitech engineering was as crude as all first attempts were. It was a board roughly half a meter across with several pieces of magic and technology roughly glued to it. And connecting the two different paradigms of mortal ingenuity was a simple magic formation drawn in both magically conductive material as well as electrically conductive.

  There was lots of room for improvement, but seeing as this was more proof of concept than a production model Seras was alright with the flaws. For now.

  “Moment of truth,” she said to herself as she mentally commanded her arm to open up and reveal the compartment within. Seras pulled a single shard from the data port and slotted into her own rough recreation of a shard reader. Several multicolored lights flashed from within at rapid intervals, so quick it almost seemed like one ever shifting light instead of a thousand pulses of light.

  She waited, and waited longer, and waited some more, until the translation rune in the center of the board begun to hum with power, and then the magic projector on the other side began to project a cone of light and cast its image onto the wall of her rented lab.

  Seras stared for a long moment as the opening scenes of her favorite rom com began, the faint noise of upbeat music coming from the projector filling her heart with joy.

  It was working. It was finally working.

  Ten different attempts, over the course of four days of frustration, and it was finally working. Even better yet the image was coming out perfectly instead of the garbled staticky mess she had been getting prior.

  She looked down at the esoteric translation rune she had dug out from a very strange magic book. Every other conventional translation rune had failed to properly read the data on the shard and had given her very disturbing results. The version before this had produced a mostly coherent image, except for the fact that all the characters had the facial orifices swapped and had way too many legs that were far too short. How did that even happen?

  But in her ever-increasing desperation to make her first essence ability to work Seras was directed to a book of incredibly strange and inefficient magic circles. It was supposedly written by an absolute mad gold ranker who needed to be permanently suppressed for her own good.

  But during her permanent incarceration at an asylum she had begun writing incredibly strange books on magic theory that by all accounts shouldn’t work. They were only kept because despite all that some of it did work, though the mad woman could never explain how or why she made them. She would have to thank the shifty looking clerk later for directing her to this.

  Seras chuckled to herself, as she stared down at the strange circuitry like magic circle in the work book. “They were missing the other half, that woman somehow created a field of magic circles ideal for Magitech. How did she do it though?”

  Seras shook her head and turned back to the projector, softly smiling to herself. She looked down at her finger and summoned the blue glow of her inscription power, “not so useless now huh, all it took was another Outworlder’s notes on Magitech, hundreds of hours of magical research, and the rambling of a mad woman.”

  She dismissed the work book and Magitech projector to her pocket space and sighed. “It’s a good first step, but a long, long way off of what I need.”

  Seras stretched her arms above her head and began to leave the magic society campus for the first time in days.

  As she walked down the streets of Cupric she couldn’t help the small skip in her steps, she looked up wistfully at the bright blue sky above and felt much lighter than she had in days.

  “There she is!”

  “Get her, quick!”

  Seras was completely unprepared for the giant strong arms that lifted her up and through her over a set of broad shoulders.

  Seras reacted quickly by teleporting away from the muscular Leonid trying to kidnap her, she began to summon her rifle but was quickly tackled by a second muscly figure. She squirmed underneath the iron grip of her captor when she suddenly felt their grip release her. Seras turned over off the ground and had only a second to realize why the second person had released her as the large rear end of a Heidel smushed her against the ground.

  “Ha, you got her, good job Buck!” A loud and boisterous voice called out. It was a familiar voice.

  “Petra, what the hell!” Seras roared out from beneath her Heidel’s rear end.

  A foot tapped against her head, “hey I’m here too you know.” Athena chided.

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  Seras gritted her teeth, “Buck, if you don’t get you fat ass off me right now-,”

  “-Don’t listen to her Buck, she’ll just try to escape again.” A young voice interrupted her this time.

  “Wha-, Dallas!” Seras roared in outrage.

  A face appeared in her limited field of vision, the young Smoulder boy was grinning widely, “hello Miss Seras, its good to see your alive. You should have at least said ‘hi’ before disappearing for a week.”

  Seras sighed, she hadn’t seen the young nephew of Dustin since before she left to take care of the Omeda. She probably should have stopped by the tavern to at least say hello to the rest of the Caravan crew before she went about her business. “It hasn’t been a week,” she protested.

  “Five and a half days is close enough,” Athena added.

  Seras silently fumed under her Heidel’s ass, she sat there and waited until her cool down timer hit zero before teleporting again. This time she appeared on Buck’s back and had her gun in her hand in less than a second. She looked around at her assembled friends, making sure each of them saw her scowl. “Well for your information it was a very productive week, I got my adventurer society badge, met with both Adventurer and Magic society directors, two different Gods, and made a major breakthrough in Magitech.”

  “Wait, which Gods?” Dalas asked.

  “Whoop, finally got your badge!”

  “What kind of advancement?”

  Seras smirked smugly at the three people below her. Said smirk was quickly transformed into a concerned scowl as she felt Buck’s muscles tense beneath, “don’t you dare-,” was all she got out before her Heidel began to live up to his namesake.

  Seras clung on admirably, for about a minute, but somehow Buck had become stronger in her absence. Seras flew high into the air, and would have faced a ten-fifteen meter fall if a building hadn’t mercifully broken her fall halfway through.

  Seras teleported back down to the street and punched the awry beast in the side, “you fucking bastard!”

  They all laughed at her as Buck made a ‘who, me?’ sort of look.

  Seras blinked, that was too intelligent for a Heidel. She reached out with her aura and felt something surprising within the animal, magic, a lot of it, almost enough to reach into iron rank power. “Dead gods, since when did Buck have magic?”

  “It started after you left, Buck started getting really hungry and strong until one day he broke the stable he was in. Uncle says Buck’s close to iron rank, just needs to bond with a rider. Just like him and Jessie,” Dallas said this all with an envious look.

  Seras stared at the Heidel for a long moment. Out of all her plans for the future, bonding Buck as a familiar hadn’t even been on the list. She hadn’t even considered it. She, she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Despite all the trouble she loved the damn beast, but did she want to create a permanent bond with him.

  “I’ll need to think on that,” Seras said eventually.

  Buck didn’t seem offended, or at least that’s how Seras interpreted the heavy lean into her.

  “Hey, enough with smelly Heidels, whip it out!” Petra called.

  Seras blinked, “alright, but its not much to look at. No different from yours.”

  “Well, I think mine might be a bit bigger. Big hands and all that.”

  “Nuh-uh, they’re the same,”

  Athena coughed, “you’re talking about your badges, right?”

  Seras and Petra turned to the two of them, Athena had a slightly pink face and Dallas’ skin was burning a bit brighter. “Of course, what the hell would we be talking about.” Seras answered innocently.

  “Yeah, of course,” Petra said, though she seemed confused by the two reactions to their unintentional innuendo. Did Petra not get it, or was she a better actor than Seras gave her credit for?

  Seras summoned up her badge and Petra reached into a pouch to grab one of her own, to Seras’ chagrin Petra’s was a bit larger. Probably to compensate for her much bigger hands. For a surreal moment Seras recalled that she was talking to a giant Lion woman, one with fur, claws, and bright white fangs. Strange how normal it felt to talk to what was for all accounts an alien, maybe it was due to how normal Petra felt.

  She shook her head.

  Dallas was looking at her badge with envy, the young man still wasn’t a full iron ranker yet, though he had seemed to pick up a new essence since Seras had left. Athena stared at the little badge with a complicated expression before she caught Seras staring and smiled at her. “Congratulations, is this why you were gone for so long, taking the entrance test?”

  Seras chuckled awkwardly, “no, they had a special hearing for me. Apparently Outworlders with combat experience and power have joined up before and they made a way to wave the usual tests since it would be a waste of time on both our parts.”

  “So you were gone for a week for other reasons,” Athena said flatly.

  “Ah, it’s like I said, a very productive week.”

  Athena didn’t look convinced, “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I did a lot, come on, lets get back to the tavern and I can show you what I’ve done.” Seras turned and mounted Buck in one smooth motion.

  They quickly made their way back to the tavern, chatting about small things, occasionally prodding Seras for hints as to what she wanted to show them.

  She gave Buck a quick pat down, gave the troublesome animal some extra apples, and returned to the tavern. Rohan, Chase, Garret, and Frank were all playing cards around a table. Dustin was looking over a map and plotting different routes. And Flint was reading a book off in a corner.

  The boys looked up from their game and greeted Seras with smiles.

  “Our problem child returns from the great beyond,” Chase said teasingly.

  “What tales she must have,” Frank added.

  Seras rolled her eyes at the two. “Har, har, pack up your game, I’ve got something way more entertaining to show you all.”

  “Aw no way, I’ve got a winning hand right here.” Chased complained.

  “No he doesn’t, he’s a shit player.” Garret said.

  “Oh yeah, well put your money where your mouth is, cuz I’m all in now,” Chase shot back as he pushed his whole pile in.

  Garret met his gaze levelly and pushed his own pile in. Rohan and Frank both tossed down their cards and stood up.

  Chase laid down a trio of gold rankers and began to move for the pot. Only to pause when Garret laid down a pair of diamond rankers.

  Chase leaned back, “bullshit, there’s only two diamond cards in a deck, the odds-,”

  “-Were on my side,” Garret interrupted. “I’m glad you fell for my bait.”

  Seras chuckled, “nicely done,” She complimented.

  Garret shoveled the coins into his cheap storage bag, he stared at the haul with excitement. Likely trying to figure out what kind of essence he could buy with this.

  Flint looked up from his book, “you're back, what have you done this time?” his voice was bland despite expecting trouble on her end.

  Seras smirked, “I have devised a way to finally show you people my home.”

  Dustin jerked, “you found a way back home?” he asked incredulously.

  Seras frowned, “no, not that. Remember those movies I was telling you about?”

  “Oh I see now, you got it to work then” Athena said from beside her.

  “Yup, took the work of a crazy gold ranker to finally get it right.”

  Dustin nodded his head, glancing between the two of them, “you found a way to show us those plays of yours,” he surmised.

  Seras frowned, “yes, but again they’re not plays. Cinema’s got a whole different narrative structure to it. And the one I’m going to show you isn’t like a play at all.”

  “What are you showing us?” Flint asked.

  “Its called a documentary. It’s a series of recordings following the rise of the greatest Merc Ruin has ever seen, besides myself of course.”

  Athena looked interested, while everyone else was weary, “who is it.”

  “A Merc named Nightmare, he’s a legend back home and inspired me a lot. I figure this is the best way to give you guys a look into what my home is like.”

  Flint and Dustin exchanged looks with one another, Flint sighed, “fine, how long is this thing, do we need snacks?”

  “About an hour, and hell ya, no movie’s complete without snacks.” Seras frowned and looked around, “I don’t suppose you know where we could get fried pig skins or some salted crickets, those are the traditional foods.”

  They all gave her a look of pure disgust.