“Come on, you know what I mean. I want you to be my energy source,” Mecha said, crossing her arms.

“You mean-” Heilong started.

“Yes, mana stones are soooo expensive. I want you to power a machine I’ve made. I can modify it so energy can be added directly, like the arrows I made for you.”

The young wizard turned and looked at the other three, “You all have the same skill, right? And you want that screenshot translated. I’ll translate it if you work for me for an hour.”

“Well, an hour between all of us is not so bad,” Infamous Biscuit said.

“Each. And for Heilong three hours.” Mecha looked up at all of them defiantly. 

“That’s a long time,” Heilong complained. She scowled down at the child, “I can pay you back, but we can definitely find someone else to translate the screenshot.”

“I doubt it. Those are complex runes. You’re not gonna find many other level 40 wizards.”

Heilong pursed her lips. Until now, the highest level of any class Freya had seen was a level 38 warrior at the Green Box market. Freya wondered how this young child had leveled up so far. Despite only reaching waist height, the child wizard looked down at them with a sense of superiority. 

I thought player wizards might be different, but I guess all wizards are arrogant, Freya thought. Mecha wore simple trousers and a loose shirt, but Freya could easily picture her in the fancy blue robes wizards liked to show off.

The four of them huddled together for a moment.

“It’s not that bad,” Infamous Biscuit said. “At least it’s time and not coins or items.”

“But time is money,” Heilong muttered.

Freya bit her lip and tried to calm her irritation, “We can be done in just four hours. It’s going to take a while to find anyone else to translate the runes.”

 

“Hey, it might be a good way to grind and level up our Meridian Manipulation,” Infamous Biscuit said before Heilong could say anything back. “Plus, we don’t have to all be there at the same time. There’s probably a practice field nearby, so while one person is working, everyone else can gain some experience.”

“There is a practice field not far from my machine,” Mecha broke in–not being subtle about listening in on them. “It’s a pretty low-level one, so I don’t use it anymore, but it’s probably fine for your guys’ levels.”

Heilong sighed heavily. 

“For asking a wizard for something, it’s not really that bad of a deal,” Freya said. She turned to Mecha, “I just want to check out the machine before we agree to anything. Is that alright?”

The young wizard stared back at her apathetically, “Sure, I don’t care.”

...

After a short 10-minute walk from Chikelu’s town square, they came across large piles of earth. Cart tracks and small footprints ran everywhere. Finally, after weaving through the mounds, they came up to a small hole in the side of the mountain. 

Wood boards reinforced the entrance. Mecha brought out an enchanted light from her inventory, “The machine is at the bottom. I’ve finally reached where the good ore is. My Geologist’s Eye skill told me a good vein should be around here, but I had to dig deeper than I thought. And now the earth’s getting all hard.”

“You excavated all this dirt?” Freya asked in awe, looking around at all the mounds of earth.

“Yeah. It’s been a lot of work.”

Mecha started walking down the mine shaft. Infamous Biscuit had to hunch over to avoid hitting his head. Freya also brought out her enchanted light. Small tunnels reminded her of dungeons, so she wanted as much light as possible.

“Are you mining for mana stones?” Heilong asked.

“No, not really. I’m looking for something else.”

Mecha picked up the pace. Freya was surprised the girl wasn’t the least bit out of breath by the time they reach the end of the tunnel. But then she remembered Mecha’s level. 

“Here it is, sorry the cart is in the way.”

She scooted around the large mining cart and pointed to a lump of metal.

Freya couldn’t really tell what she was looking at. The wrought iron machine sat on four wheels, with the front stuck into the earth. The back half was flat on top and curved in the back. Currently, a large mana stone sat on the side of the machine.

“This stone is almost out of power, but you can see how it works.”

Mecha flipped a switch near the mana stone. The runes written all over the machine glittered.

The front of the machine started to move. The iron part that was half stuck into the earth moved in a circular motion, like a barrel spinning in place. Dirt dug by the spinning iron part fell onto the machine’s flat top, which also moved. It carried the dirt to the back of the device and dumped it into the cart Mecha pushed closer.

“Wow… this is amazing!” Freya exclaimed, staring at the moving dirt. She moved closer to the machine and examined the different structures. She’d seen lots of wizard-made devices, but nothing as complex as this! All the metal pieces moved in tandem, from the spinning piece that dug into the earth to the gears that moved the metal belt carrying the dirt to the cart below. 

She expected the others to also be impressed, but only Heilong showed some mild interest. 

“How long did it take you to make?” Heilong asked.

“Not that long,” Mecha said in a forced offhand fashion. “The blueprint was easy to copy, but the metal in this world is terrible. I had to put a bunch of reinforcement spells to make everything not fall apart.”

Now that Freya looked closer, she could see two different-sized runic writings. One was very tiny and covered almost all the metal pieces. The other was scrawled in a much bigger font across multiple pieces of metal.

“Well, let’s see if this works,” Mecha grabbed the large mana stone attached to the machine and yanked it out.

The machine shuttered. The runes dimmed. All the spinning metal gears came to a standstill.

Next, Mecha tore out another part of her machine and tossed it to the side. 

“There. Now it’s modified.”

“...Um, are you sure it’s safe?” Infamous Biscuit asked. He looked at the thrown out part at his feet.

“It should be okay,” Freya answered, examining the remaining runes near the part Mecha ripped out. “She got rid of the mana stone energy converter and all the runes that could uncontrollably suck energy out of you.”

She couldn’t read ancient runes fluently, but her shaman master showed her ones to avoid. The piece on the floor was full of them, but nothing left on the machine looked terrible. Of course, Freya couldn’t examine every single rune on the device, but she felt better seeing the machine work beforehand. Making something that complex with runes probably didn’t leave much surface area left to write something sinister. Or so she hoped.

“I’ll try it first,” Freya said.

---

~Info Corner~

Character Card:

*Mecha Terminator 3000*

Class: Wizard

Age: 9

Nationality: American

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Lives In: San Jose, California

In-Game Skills: Rune Decipher (innate), Runic Writing (innate), Energy Bolt (innate), Metalsmithing, Geologist’s Eye, Object Enchantment, Spontaneous Combustion, Frost Freeze, Wall of Air, Woodworking, Energy Boost, Warp 

Likes: Mecha anime series, caramel

Dislikes: School, kids bop