World Seed: Game Start (37 page)

Although
from the back she looked like a professional weightlifter, when she
turned around there were clear traces to her gender. Almost not
enough to make me believe it, but they were there. Most notably,
though, was her distinct lack of a companion AI bracelet, even though
both wrists were fully revealed. “Yes, what do you want?”

My
mind had blanked for a moment after she spoke, before I managed to
recover. “Ah, yes, sorry. I heard that you were hiring, so I
wanted to apply for a position.”

She
looked me over for a moment and sighed in resignation. “Show me
your ID, then.” When she saw it, she scoffed lightly at my
level. “Just 12? Well, not like it matters much for this
anyways. Do you have any skills that would help out around here?”

“
I
am a decent programmer, and am practicing Technomancy, if that
counts.” She seemed a bit surprised by this, as it quite
clearly breaks the ‘druid equals nature’ mold, but nodded
her head. “Yeah, it counts. You able to use fire or metal
affinities?”

To
her question, I nodded slightly. “I can use fire, but I haven’t
cultivated metal yet.” To be honest, I hadn’t even
considered that metal would be its own affinity, more a subset of
earth. However, Celeste showed me in my eye that I did have a 1%
Metal Affinity. Maybe I should cultivate that at some point?

“
Well,
that’ll at least save on welding torches. Your job will be
diagnostics and repair. If you display some skill, I’ll move
you to a tougher job. The pay will be based on the amount of work you
accomplish, so no slacking off. You’re probably here to earn
passage on a ship, right?”

When
she asked that, I nodded my head again, making her sigh. “Few
people actually stick around for a full time position, but it’s
understandable. You want to get out and see the universe and all
that. See that scrawny guy over there?” She pointed to someone
sitting at a desk amidst a mountain of metal parts. “You’ll
be working with him while you’re here. He’s the only
other Technomancer we have, so he’ll be glad for the help. How
long are you staying on for?”

“
Thank
you very much, ma’am. And until I can get the funds, or a job
on a ship.” I spoke and went off to my designated partner. He
was pretty helpful, though asked me to do most of the heavier
lifting, as he was not very well built. I quickly found out that he
was not a player, but a native to the world. Through him, I learned a
few interesting facts about the game itself.

First
of all, the current date in the game was Month Twelve, Day
Twenty-Three of the year 3015 A.G. When I asked what A.G. stood for,
he replied that he wasn’t really sure, and it was an ancient
measurement that has existed since the races began their interstellar
journeys. Since he liked to talk, I wasn’t going to stop him. I
might be able to learn something interesting from the lore of the
game.

Over
the next few days, the process repeated like this. In the morning,
I’d wake up and cultivate Lightning Affinity for two hours,
then go to the starport and work with my partner, who turned out to
be called Joseph. We’d talk as we work, sometimes about the
history of the world, and other times about the work itself. When I
got back to the hotel, I would cultivate Lightning Affinity for
another two hours before going to sleep.

As
for the things I had learned from the ‘history lessons’,
there was actually a bit of controversy. Many races claimed to be the
first that developed interstellar travel, though they all agreed on
when it happened. The first interstellar journey was launched from a
planet that has varying names depending on who you ask, so must
simply call it the Cradle of Life, and it was launched in the first
year of the current method of tracking time, so 0 A.G.

This
first voyage went out and contacted many new races, sharing their
technology in order to allow all races to share their journeys.
Though, at first it was said that the ‘first race’ did
not share their technology, but did so over time after being the sole
power in control of it. Several people have gone looking for the
Cradle of Life, calling it the center of the known universe, but
nobody has ever succeeded. Or, to be more accurate, nobody has ever
succeeded and been able to report back. The closest report was
someone claiming to have found a Dungeon Planet.

Naturally,
I asked what he meant by that, and he told me that many worlds had
dungeons, places of extremely high density magic where monsters and
items would randomly spawn. In the first days of A.G. this was where
people learned the runic language. And very rarely, these dungeons
would become larger than the norm. Sometimes, there would be planets
with a Dungeon City, Dungeon Continent, or even a Dungeon Moon.
However, there was only the one report of a Dungeon Planet, so many
people debated over the validity.

Now,
about the work itself. Even though I had almost no experience being a
mechanic, I found the task surprisingly easy with Joseph’s
help. When scanning an object with Technomancy, it was easy to find
the broken pieces of the aura to identify the fault in the device.
After that, I used a spell he showed me to dismantle the device,
passed him the broken piece for repair, then reassembled it with
another spell. The reassembly was actually quite easy, since I had
Celeste’s help memorizing the original condition of the aura,
and merely had to fit the pieces in place to replicate it.

Doing
this work gave me a number of bonuses, with the most obvious being
two new skills, called Engineering and Maintenance. The former was a
skill which showed my understanding of machines, while the latter was
a sub-skill to repair them. Surprisingly, my Sketching sub-skill also
applied for Engineering, likely for drawing schematics. I also
received other bonuses, such as my Technomancy advancing by a few
levels, and my intelligence increasing. For some reason, I even
gained a total of two levels, even though I had not killed a single
monster. When I asked, I was simply given the explanation of it being
‘work experience’. Though, I didn’t get stat points
when I leveled up, so it was likely a reflection of the bonus points
I received.

On
the last day of work, I managed to finish getting my Lightning
Affinity to 5%, granting me the Lightning Manipulation skill. I had a
feeling that if I continued developing Lightning, Wind, and Water
Affinities, I would eventually get an ability to control the weather.
Though, I wasn’t too worried about that for now, and went ahead
to condense a Seed of Lightning. With that, I was able to add a
weather system to my grove, and it expanded even further.

Rather
than getting paid a large sum and being able to buy my way onto a
ship, the boss(I found out her name was Sam), paid me a decent amount
and put in a recommendation for me to get a mechanic job on a ship
from X-23. So, although I only made twenty silver from my five days
of work, I wasn’t dissatisfied. Especially since it meant I
could ride the shuttle up for free.

With
that taken care of, I went to the hotel for one last night, making my
plans for tomorrow. Pet shop, and then the shuttle. Can pick up the
Technomancy later, or try to figure it out myself. Either way, not
really skilled enough to do it yet.

Chapter 34:
Operation Dragonfly

The
next day, I didn’t spend any time cultivating in the morning
like I had been. I had a schedule to follow, and I planned to stick
to it. “Celeste, pet store?” I smirked down to her. Now I
had a bit of coin, so maybe I could at least get in to look at the
pets. All I needed was something with batlike wings and a serpent’s
tail. Then I could have my nerd moment and turn into a tiny dragon.

Celeste
appeared at my wrist, giggling slightly. “Yes sir.” She
smirked, and the directions appeared in my Cybernetic eye, like a
path of blue light. After having my quick breakfast, I went down the
path she laid out for me.

“
Don’t
suppose you know the prices of some of these pets we’ll be
looking at?”

“
Nope.
Novelty pets aren’t considered a big business, so there wasn’t
much information in the guide program aside from where to find them.
If it was a combat pet, I could tell you the price for a wind wolf
pup or a harpy eagle chick. They even sell Great Boa eggs.” The
AI answered from my wrist. I really needed to hurry up and upgrade my
hearing so that I could add that connection to her program. That way,
at least I wouldn’t feel like I was talking to a midget all the
time.

“
If
they only sell local animals, we might not be able to find what we
need. Hopefully, they have a few exotic pets. I’d settle for
just the wings at this point, we can get a snake tail pretty much
anywhere.”

Soon
enough, I arrived at the pet store that Celeste identified from the
program. Inside, was an alien I had only seen a couple times before.
I did not know the name of the race, but it appeared to be a four
armed purple toothpick with a giant head. Well, the head looked more
like a big balloon with two large black eyes and an oval mouth, but
the body was definitely scrawny enough to qualify as a toothpick.
Since there were no distinct gender characteristics, I had to use
Aura Sight to look into the person’s mana and find out if they
were male or female.