The next morning, Edge woke up early and left the lodge with Rue at his side.

  Byron and Setna had invited him over for breakfast. Edge was looking forward to catching up with the pair, and it was clear that their friendship had blossomed into something more. He hadn’t had a chance to check in on the veteran hunter since she shattered her core during the fight with the Gardener, and he hadn’t spoken with the shadowkiller at length since the man had removed his mask and retired his identity as Snake.

  Before the tragedy that had befallen her team, Setna had led one of the most prestigious crews in the settlement, and she still stayed in the lodge where they had lived together. Edge was glad that Byron had joined her. There must be some painful memories attached to the place, and Setna deserves better company than bittersweet phantoms of the past.

  It was a short walk since they all lived in the hunters’ district, and he knocked on their door just a few minutes later. Byron answered and led him into the common area, where they could watch Setna cooking in the kitchen. After winning Rue over with a few tasty treats, she finished up while the shadowkiller poured him a mug of coffee and a glass of chilled juice.

  She set a box on one chair for the pup to use as a booster seat, and the four of them dug into a tasty breakfast, chatting about small matters while enjoying each other’s company.

  It was obvious that Setna was still recovering from her traumatic ordeal, but the woman was putting on a brave face and doing her best to move forward. She explained that she wanted to respecialize from a beast hunter to a harvester, supplying the settlement with the resources required to make gear, medicine, and tools. “I’ll fight to protect my home if I have to,” she said between bites, “but I’m never setting foot into the frontier again.”

  After conducting a thorough examination, Doc had determined it would be possible to heal the damage and bind a new core, although everything she had lost was gone for good. They were hopeful that within a few months, she would be strong enough for the surgery that was the next step in the process.

  Edge was happy for her. Fate had dealt Senta a harsh hand, and he was glad to hear her situation wasn’t hopeless after all.

  None of them would be standing here if the hunter hadn’t sacrificed her core by using Vengeance to defeat the Gardener. He told her that if there was anything he could do to help, even in the smallest way, all she had to do was ask.

  It was also nice to spend some time with Byron. Like most shadowkillers, the man had always been a little too intense for Edge’s taste. But he was softer around Setna, and they were a good fit for one another. They spent a pleasant hour telling stories, swapping hunting techniques, and playing with Rue before he bid the couple farewell and saw himself out.

  His next stop took him to a part of town he had never visited before.

  Given Skill-Eater’s unique properties, Edge didn’t have as many uses for Contribution Points as most of the settlement’s residents, since the most popular purchases were Basic cores and skill gems. However, in addition to buying some upgrades for Trapper’s lodge, he could exchange them for mana seeds and aether.

  He had drained a fair portion of his Organ-Guard’s reservoir while battling the legion beetles and needed to recharge the implant before the showdown with the kaiju began. He also wanted to refill his boltcaster’s clips and recharge his Disruption grenades.

  Until now, he had always purchased his aether at the Mortium exchange. But to trade in his CP, he had to go somewhere else—a facility he’d seen plenty of times from a distance but hadn’t entered until today. Edge made his way over to the aether refinery to place his order. Along the way, Rue disappeared into his den to sleep off his breakfast.

  The building was located in a central area that also held the core manufactory—a portion of Puppet Town Earl had walled off and placed under heavy guard during the conflict with the Claws.

  He didn’t have any problems making it past the deputies on duty. They didn’t even check the list of preapproved visitors. Edge was so well known by this point that most people recognized him on sight and knew he had full access to the settlement. After spending a few minutes chatting with the friendly peacekeepers, he approached the facility and entered through a doorway marked “aether recharging.”

  There was a line of arrows painted on the floor that led to a series of hallways, which made navigating the structure a simple task. He had always wanted to watch the refinery in action, so before he followed the markings deeper into the building, he stopped to take a closer look.

  The refinery was the biggest magitech device in town, or more accurately, a series of interconnected devices that allowed for the distillation, purification, and storage of aether in the quantities required to keep the settlement running.

  Aether had been developed by the AIs in the early days of their ascension—shortly after Earth was hit by the magicyte-infused comet that allowed humanity and its digital overlords to study magic for the first time.

  On Ord, cores could refine their own mana to fuel their bearer’s skills. Elsewhere in the galaxy, the direct use of magic was only possible through performing complex and costly rituals, although the AIs were masters of the art.

  However, distilled magicytes could power devices that anyone could use. This discovery had marked the end of the digital era and the dawn of the age of magic. The comet had caused a catalytic reaction that let Earth’s ecosystems produce magicytes in abundance, and the portal network provided access to an effectively unlimited supply.

  In less than a generation, magitech had displaced countless other technologies due to its potency, versatility, and availability, making aether the primary source of energy in the known universe.

  There were seven grades Edge knew of, although the last two were only used in devices that affected countries or entire planets, respectively. In order of potency, there was copper, silver, gold, platinum, emerald, ruby, and diamond-grade aether.

  Most magitech machines ran on copper, which was cheap and easy to make without specialized equipment. For example, Violet’s skill produced all the copper aether Trapper’s crew needed and had been sufficient even before she bound her core.

  Silver and gold aether were used to fuel implants and other powerful devices, and they were harder to create and store. The process for manufacturing such substances was beyond Edge, but he knew that at the most basic level, they were generated by taking materials that were naturally rich in magicytes and distilling them into a standardized concentration that any machine that ran on those grades could use.

  While he mulled the matter over, he ran his eyes across the refinery, observing the staff operate the machinery that produced the fuel Puppet Town relied on every day. In the end, the only components he could readily identify were the reinforced storage tanks that held the volatile aether until it was transferred to other containers.

  He watched a wagon filled with food waste and scrap wood arrive by beast-drawn carriage, which would be composted into copper aether. When they were done unloading the bed, the drivers handed a sealed box to one of the senior staff members. When he asked one of the workers walking by, Edge learned it contained bits and pieces of high-end crafting materials that were too small to reuse—the raw materials required to distill silver and gold.

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  Once they placed the resources in the proper devices, the refinery was running at full capacity and manufacturing all three grades of aether at once.

  By this point, Edge could smell the magic in the air. Hell, it was so thick he could taste it. Aether felt different from mana and magicytes, although there was a buzzing thrum that was present within every form of magical energy. Aether had a quality that was almost… antiseptic was the best word he could come up with—like the residue of a stringent cleaning chemical wafting through the room.

  Now that he had a sense of the quantities being produced, he was glad the refinery was under heavy guard and its staff was expertly trained. Aether was both toxic and highly reactive—one of the reasons you rarely saw containers holding anything stronger than copper outside of refineries and stores that refueled magitech devices.

  Rejuvenation would let him recover from minor aether poisoning, but if Edge were foolish enough to drink a shot of gold, he’d be dead within seconds. A device’s aether well was always made of insanely durable components. On most worlds, there were entire businesses centered around retrieving and recycling them.

  Standing on the refinery floor was like being surrounded by dynamite or maybe rocket fuel. There was a sense of potential energy—of danger—that sent a thrill running down his spine.

  While Edge found the facility fascinating and would love to take a tour one day, he couldn’t afford to sightsee with the kaiju headed their way. Now that he had satisfied his curiosity, he followed the arrows down a hallway and into a reception area where people were placing orders.

  Since it was an official settlement currency, the System was handling the transfer of CP, which meant the workers only had to focus on filling the requisitions. As a result, there wasn’t a receptionist. You took a ticket, put in an order, and waited until an employee called your name. The waiting area was packed, but the staff was incredibly efficient.

  It was almost Edge’s turn when something unexpected happened. Instead of being led into one of the adjoining rooms, a woman with deep blue eyes asked him to follow her instead. She led him around the corner and into a sizable office, which, judging by the furnishings, was a place where someone spent most of their waking hours and slept at night too.

  A burly man with a long black beard was seated behind a desk, and after the attendant left the room, he rose from his chair and stuck out his hand. “Sorry to ambush you like that, but when we realized who you were, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and introduce myself.”

  He walked over and shook the man’s hand. “The name’s Thendel. I run this refinery and handle several other aspects of Puppet Town’s energy supply that I won’t bore you by explaining.”

  “Edge Vasher. Pleased to meet you. This is one hell of a facility, and it’s clear you run a tight ship.”

  Thendel grinned at the compliment and gestured. “Set out the gear you want to refill, then take off your shirt and sit in that chair in the corner. I’ll recharge your implant while we chat, so I don’t waste any of your time.”

  When Edge pulled out the clips and grenades he’d moved into his pack on the way here, a worker popped in to pick them up. He chatted with the facility’s manager as the man probed his chest to locate the best point of contact. Thendel was efficient and professional, although, if he was being honest with himself, he greatly preferred Lillian’s sensual touch and fascination with his core.

  Everything was ready to go in short order. The man taped a thin cable to Edge’s chest, then walked over to a switchbox on the wall. “Brace yourself and try not to pull the wires loose.” He nodded, and Thendel threw a switch.

  A buzzing surge of energy warmed his skin before conducting through his tissue and into his implant’s aether well, obeying a scientific law he only vaguely understood. The recharging process was significantly more intense than when Lilly had refilled his Heart-Guard—likely because it ran on silver, whereas his upgraded Organ-Guard was powered by gold.

  The men chatted while the process was underway, giving Edge a chance to ask a few questions about the refinery he’d been wondering about for a while now. When his implant was fully charged, Thendel shook his hand again, and they bid each other farewell.

  His next stop was only a few buildings over—the fortified bunker where the town stored its supply of mana food, or a fraction of it at any rate. He suspected Dialla and Earl both had secret stashes of the invaluable resource, along with the town’s various factions, but this facility held the stockpile that was available to the public in exchange for Contribution Points.

  He was pleased to learn there wasn’t a line. Just like before, the System handled the transaction, which streamlined the process. He put in an order for three mana seeds—the most anyone could buy in a week.

  The attendant on duty told him they were hoping to increase that number soon and planned to offer mana berries too. But until the harvesters fulfilled Earl’s quota for the upcoming battle, the supplies would be strictly rationed. The man brought out the seeds a few minutes later, and Edge thanked him, then left the building.

  Before storing them inside his preservation unit, he opened the package to take a closer look. While all low-grade mana food was referred to as mana seeds, these ones were actual seeds—plump coppery orbs the size of Earth grapes. They smelled wonderful, making his stomach rumble in a way that had nothing to do with devouring his next skill.

  The concentrated magicytes infusing the seed were strikingly different from the trace particles of aether he’d sensed in the refinery. They felt wild, untamed, and alive, like all the magic of Ord. He grinned as he took another whiff, touching his tongue to a seed before lowering the package with a smile on his face. It’s nice to have three mana seeds for a rainy day.

  Since the Companion bond replaced a beast’s need to cultivate mana food, Edge wondered how Rue would react to one. He pulled the pup out of his core to find out what would happen. “Come take a look at this.”

  He reached into the packaging and held up a seed for Rue to inspect. The golden fox seemed curious but not nearly as interested as he was expecting, given how amazing it smelled. He looked away when someone called his name in greeting, at which point he felt a furry mouth close around his fingers.

  He yelled at Rue to stop, but the little bastard took off in a flash while chewing like mad, refusing to return until the seed was digesting in his stomach. He had a sneaking suspicion the pup had been planning the theft from the start—feigning nonchalance until Edge lowered his guard.

  It’s nice to have two mana seeds for a rainy day… Fucking Rue. He grumbled while shaking his head—equally amused by this turn of events and frustrated by his own stupidity. He couldn’t blame his Companion for stealing a snack after presenting such a tempting target. Trapper was right. He’s way smarter than most beasts.

  Edge hoped consuming the seed would help the fox’s core develop faster, although he suspected the pup had pilfered it out of pure gluttony instead. I’ll have to make sure he can’t get into my preservation unit even if he sneaks inside my vault. If he eats every seed we come across in the wild, the two of us are going to have words.

  After a brief trip into the field to Extract some skills, he spent the rest of the day training.

  He sparred with Sasha, Jumo, and Trapper for the better part of an hour. Then he walked over to the peacekeepers’ headquarters and kept right on going, drilling with a practice naginata one of Ander’s apprentices had whipped up for him. Momo was there, so Edge squeezed in a lesson with his scythe before ending his day with a lengthy skill-training session.

  He started off at the Pioneer, where Rita helped him improve his technique with his water bullets and water saw. She had been using Manipulate Water for years and knew how to create the optimal shapes for his skill’s repulsive field.

  He thanked her for her time and then returned to the lodge, where Riller had devised a series of exercises to improve his use of All-Seeing Gaze’s combined ocular mode. The hunter had collected a variety of mundane substances and magitech devices that could simulate the mechanisms employed by a wide range of stealth skills.

  Riller showed Edge the ins and outs of tracking opponents by heat, motion, and a dozen other variables. His favorite was a technique for sensing enemies whose stealth skills were stronger than Gaze, which worked by studying how the wind flowed around their invisible bodies.

  “This method can only be used by people who can perceive the air flowing through an environment,” Riller explained. “It works against anything that is truly concealing itself, instead of manipulating your senses or influencing your mental state.”

  Edge thanked his friend, and they continued training side by side—each man striving to become more proficient with the various powers in their skillsets. Rue played with Blue while they were busy, occasionally stopping to watch their magic in action.

  He got in some training with every skill except Intimidating Roar and Vacuum Blast, since they made too much noise to use inside the settlement. After eating dinner with the crew, he spent as much time as he could in his inner world, developing his bonds with all eighteen avatars before calling it a night.