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A knock on the door draws Emily out of her meditation. Her eyes snap open, flicking past the system window in front of her before she dismisses it.

ˉˉˉˉˉ

[Status]

[Name:] Emily Coldstone

[Race:] Human

[Age:] 17

[Magic Circle:] Third Circle

[Machina Cortex:] Third Stage

[Attributes:] Strength 20 (26), Dexterity 65 66 (69), Agility 52 54 (59), Vitality 17 (22), Intelligence 131 137

[Health:] 270/270

[Stamina:] 527/540

[Mana:] 17434/18495

[Machina:] 17748/18495

_____

“Yes?” she calls out, using a burst of mana to disable the array disc sitting in the centre of her small cabin.

“We’re almost there,” Ice Petal calls on the other side. “Crackshot called us all to gather at the exit so we can disembark quickly.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Emily replies dismissively, sinking back into her mind and reactivating the array disc.

She leaves her cabin a few minutes later, right before the ship touches down, and makes her way to the exit. She passes a few mercenaries in the hallways, some of them she recognises from the other companies’ squads who were stationed with her for the last few months, but all of them give her a respectful berth, watching her cautiously as she passes.

Emily ignores them, entering the crowded room connected to the ship’s main exit. Once again everyone parts to let her through, creating a clear channel to her crew. She doesn’t blink at the treatment and ignores the muttered conversations that break out as she passes.

“Someone’s popular!” Crackshot says with a smug grin, as if he were the one garnering attention.

“It would appear so,” Emily says calmly, glancing at the man distastefully before turning towards the door and waiting for it to open.

She knows that most of the rumours spreading among the mercenary companies have been started by Crackshot himself, who started kissing her ass the moment he realised the sandworm kill helped boost his company contribution, but she can’t blame them all on him. The rest of them started after she decided to offer an open, unarmed combat challenge to everyone at the outpost a month into their deployment. A few people took her up and tested themselves against her, but it ended after she shattered a Black Fang mercenary’s arm with a kick, before repairing it with a mixture of potions and bandage, scaring off anyone else who wanted to try themselves.

The ship shudders as it touches down, and the door finally opens, letting Emily and her quietly chatting squad out. They walk through Liberte’s large Eastern Dock, entering the connected train station and heading straight towards Merc Street to report to the company about their contract completion.

Ice Petal again takes the seat next to Emily on the train, but she doesn’t start a conversation, leaving her to her meditation and chatting with Demo instead.

When they reach the Silver Moon headquarters and walk in, they draw a few glances but otherwise go unnoticed. They approach the receptionists, joining the shortest queue and waiting for a few minutes before being served.

“Hello, how can I help you?” asks the lady behind the counter, flashing them a welcoming smile.

“We’re here to report contract completion,” Crackshot says, taking the lead.

“Of course, one moment please,” she pulls a tool from behind the desk and gets Crackshot to inject mana into it, checking the contract before handing him a form to fill in.

Emily looks over his shoulder and sees it’s asking for a simple report of all major contact with any beasts or people, so she reaches over and takes it from his hand before he can lead them off to complete it.

He looks at her with mild confusion but doesn’t resist, shifting to a look of disbelief when Emily pulls her quill from her belt and fills out the form within a few seconds, filling the paper with small, neatly printed words.

“There you go,” Emily says, handing the form back to the equally stunned receptionist. “Everything should be there.”

“O- Of course,” the woman stutters, quickly shaking off her surprise and returning to a professional expression as she processes the report.

A sheet of paper teleports into place over the counter after she messes with her magical tool for a few moments, and she reads over it before looking up with wide eyes.

“Um, you would be Emily, correct?” she asks, looking up with a mixture of nerves and excitement. “The Company Leader would like to meet you personally to grant your new rank.”

“Oh?” Emily raises a brow, focusing on her magical perception for a moment to see if she can feel a fourth circle mage nearby.

“He will be in the capital in a week and has asked that you remain here till he arrives,” she explains, quickly clearing up Emily’s confusion at the lack of a powerful presence. “If you need accommodation, I can let one of our partner inns know and they will provide you with free lodging and food. You will be able to claim this service in any partner inn around the country once your B rank is confirmed.”

“I’ll be alright, thanks. I have somewhere I can stay already.”

“Okay, your contract has been closed and your rewards should be available on your Signature if you update it then,” the receptionist beams, bowing her head before turning her focus to the rest of the squad. “Ice Petal’s rank has been elevated to E, just update your Signature yourself. Can the rest of you hand them over for me to update them now please?”

Emily tunes out the rest of her squad dealing with their rewards and pulls out her own Signature to check on her rewards.

One F rank contract completed, fifteen contribution points, and four gold. What a waste of three months.

The receptionist finishes serving them, and after confirming she won’t be needed till the Company Leader arrives, Emily waves goodbye to her squad and leaves without another word. She hops on a train and heads towards Chop Shop.

A week should be enough to finish the new Steam Source. I wonder if Earnie has been working on anything fun lately.

***

When she arrives at his workshop, Earnie is nowhere to be found. The sparse guards outside let her know he’s out of the city for a few days to check on some of his other production facilities, so she lets herself in and takes over his space.

A couple of days later when Earnie returns, he walks into his workshop to find his working platform in the centre modified, with a load of shiny new machines in place of several of his old ones.

“Who on Ulea decided they had the right to mess with my workshop!” the old man barks angrily the moment he spots the changes, rushing along a walkway to reach the platform and check on the damage.

“I can change them back if you want,” Emily calls back to him from where she’s pressed underneath one of the large machines linking it to the pipes in the platform.

“Emily? Is that you lass?” Earnie asks, slowing his steps as he finally reaches the platform and looks over the new machines, his eyes widening slightly. “What are these?”

“A little project I’ve been working on,” Emily replies, not moving out to greet him. “They’ll all perform the same functions as the machines I replaced, but they should be a little more accurate without as much oversight, and a few of them have added features.”

“They’re beautiful,” the old weaponsmith mutters in awe, running his hand over one of the machines.

“Thanks,” Emily says with a small, proud smile. “That lathe will even cut predetermined shapes without your interference.”

“Really?!”

“Yep. Check the slot on the right,” Emily replies, tightening the last bolt to secure the wastewater line into place before pushing herself out and finally looking at Earnie. “Those metal cards are three-dimensional blueprints for cuts.”

He removes one of the cards and turns it over in his hands, running his fingers over the various dots and dashes embossed on the surface.

“Ingenious,” he mutters before finally looking up and smiling at her. “So, how was the war?”

“Dull,” she shrugs, pulling several more unassembled pieces for a machine from her bag and setting them down next to Earnie’s oversized drill press to get to work on a new one.

Earnie slings the bag off his back and throws it to the corner of the platform before walking around and inspecting the rest of the new tools she has installed.

“Not as much action as you were hoping for?”

“Not even close. I killed a sandworm in the first week, then other than a few small groups of beasts and a roaming scout unit from our own side, we saw nothing.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. I can’t believe they sent you on border patrol,” Earnie says with a disproving shake of his head. “It’s a waste of your skills! I had a word with old man Silver about that and gave him a piece of my mind, don’t you worry.”

“Old man Silver?” Emily asks, glancing over at him with a raised brow.

“The old fogie who runs the Silver Moon Mercenaries. He goes by Silver Moon. Damn egomaniac. Not even I named my company after me!”

“You’re that close with him? I thought you said you had a working relationship.”

“We do! Doesn’t stop me giving the old fool a piece of my mind. If he didn’t want to hear it, he shouldn’t have tried to keep me alive this long! It’s his fault I have to deal with those annoying Defence Force mages,” Earnie grumbles, but Emily can tell there’s a complicated mix of emotions covered by his bitterness.

“That explains why he wants to meet me now at least,” Emily muses, choosing to ignore Earnie’s relationship with the man for now.

“He does? Good!” Earnie nods, turning away from the new machinery and looking over at Emily. “You plan on staying long?”

“No, I’m just waiting for the meeting, then I’ll probably look for a more active job.”

“Getting quite comfortable for a short stay.”

“I’ll leave these here for you.” Emily shrugs. “I can make most things with my magic and hand tools if I need to, but I wanted to set up properly to do the final assembly of my project. These machines will become half obsolete to me when I’m done.”

“Oh?” Earnie blinks in surprise at her confident statement. “What are you working on?”

“A new generator,” Emily says, falling silent and leaving him to ponder the nature of her project as she continues refitting his workshop.

***

Three days later, after sleeplessly working away in the remodelled workshop, Emily finally sets down the last piece of the puzzle on the workbench.

“So, how does all this work?” Earnie asks beside her, taking in the strange collection of items she has made with deep bags under his eyes from insisting on watching the whole time.

“It’s quite simple really,” Emily replies, reaching out and lifting up a sealed jar filled with a glistening, pale blue powder with a slight red tint. “I call this Steam Powder. It’s a blend of fire crystals, water crystals, fog cat fangs and claws, and a touch of their stomach acid. It reacts violently to external mana and releases vast quantities of steam very quickly.”

She pops open the lid of the jar and reaches over to open the ignition chamber of her newest Steam Source generation. It’s a sleek torso-sized construct with a dark black chamber at the bottom, connected to several pipes curving up around a polished silver rotor mounted openly in the centre of the machine’s body. The pipes end in a dozen nozzles pointed at the rotor.

Emily slides open a panel on the side of the bottom chamber and pours in a small stream of the powder. A flick of her finger sends a magical flame into the chamber as she seals it shut again, and a moment later, a flood of steam hisses from the nozzles, pushing the rotor into motion.

“I use the steam to turn this rotor, which connects to a set of rotating coils inside the Source,” she explains, tapping the side of the body between the rotor and the ignition chamber with her knuckle. “There’s also a set of powerful magnets that I made by treating a metal blend containing mithril with a mixture of space and earth crystal powder inside. When you turn the coil inside that magnetic field, it generates electricity, a type of energy similar to lightning. I can give you some notes on the process if you want to read more, but that electricity can then be contained with these.”

Emily points to a set of cylindrical canisters, fastened together and mounted in a small frame beside the Steam Source, connected to it by a thick black cable.

“This is called a battery, again I have notes I can give you explaining the science behind it, but it’s made from another alchemical blend, and it should be storing charge right now.”

“How can you tell it’s working?” Earnie asks.

“I can feel it,” Emily replies, setting her hand against the side of the Source and feeling the thrum of energy inside without even having to use her machina.

A satisfied smile curls her lips, but she removes her hand and picks up a small device set beside the battery. It looks like a leather-wrapped knife handle with two metal prongs extending from one end instead of a blade, and a short cable on the other.

“But if you want to see,” she says, grabbing the two-pronged plug at the end of the cable and sliding it into a port on the side of the battery casing. “I’ll have to use the electricity!”

Emily squeezes the button sitting against her pointer finger, and a crackling buzz fills the workshop as electricity tears between the two prongs, rising up it to flick out into the open air like the tongue of a snake.

“Incredible,” Earnie mutters, reaching out and taking the lightning fork when Emily offers it to him, testing it with an excited grin.

“And it didn’t need magic at any stage,” Emily says with a grin, watching Earnie’s eyes almost pop out of his head as his shock only grows.

He doesn’t manage any words for a few moments, staring down and squeezing the button in bursts, watching the buzzing charge dance along the prongs.

“Can I see those notes?”