Luke was giddy. He had killed the titan and passed his threshold. Time for new skills! He just needed to get his sacrifice together. Cormac and Specialist White had told him that to get the best results he needed to sacrifice a tier three monster core, an enchanted object, and a skill.

  He had a tier three core tucked into his storage, waiting for just this moment. He had made himself a small enchanted object too, but now he felt like it wasn’t enough. His inertia club had won the day, he would use that. He cut it off his gauntlet so he wouldn’t accidentally sacrifice his whole mech. He held one in each hand and mentally selected yes to the ascension pop up.

  The core broke into sparkles and sucked itself into his core. The huge club broke up into sparkles as well, but the little motes of light drifted upwards instead of into Luke. Seems like the System was taking the Inertia Club for itself. Once the sparkles disappeared fully, another screen popped up in his vision.

  Luke’s face fell and he sat down heavily. Two skills? He had only been planning on giving one up. It must be an idiosyncrasy about how platinum classes worked. He got to have more simultaneous skills than the other classes, but also had to sacrifice more at thresholds.

  He knew he couldn’t give up Repair Craft. He used it almost every day, and he didn’t want it to ever change.

  He wouldn’t mind sacrificing Machine Bond and getting a more combat oriented skill. But he wasn’t sure if he could do that and still use his other skills. They all relied on a bond. Reluctantly, he decided to keep it.

  That meant he had to give up Frictionless Slide and Overcharge. He had already been planning on giving up Overcharge, but it hurt to give up his only movement skill. Nothing for it though. He would just have to hope there was a movement skill in his new choices. He selected those two skills and the screen faded away.

  A small emptiness grew in his mana core, slowly eating away at the two skills. The feeling grew, until it started to hurt. It kept growing, feeling like acid was eating away at his soul. He groaned in pain and held his stomach.

  Mercifully, the pain ended shortly afterwards. Then his core started expanding. Luke felt fuller and fuller, like he was going to pop. It stopped and Luke felt like his personal core was tier three now.

  A feeling of peace washed through him. All was right with the world. With the universe. He felt a floating feeling before he was suddenly brought down to earth. A quiet chime rang, echoing through his soul.

  That could get addictive. He felt so good right now. No new screen popped up and he took a moment to breathe. When he felt recovered enough, he opened up his stat screen.

  Fourteen!? He started this day at level ten. Apparently killing titans was good for leveling up. His class buff had increased as well. It wasn’t just two points per stat either. Strength, Dexterity, and Acuity had all gone up by three points instead of two. That was a good clue that those were the stats his class favored. Either way, with his buff had increased by an equivalent of seven and a half levels. War Machine fourteen meant that he still had eight points to assign. Nice. He decided to check out his skill choices before he assigned them though.

  Hell, yeah. Those names sounded awesome, and he had five choices this time. The previous two choices had only been between four skills. He mentally clicked on them one at a time and read the descriptions.

  Stand Tall - The foundational skill for pilots of large machines. Helps ignore square cube law and distorts physics around bonded war machines.

  He had seen this skill before, and he was glad to see it again. He would have to have this skill if he ever wanted to build a gundam. If he wanted to regularly take on titans, that would be the way to go. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be picking this skill yet though. Most of his fighting was at a much smaller scale. He sighed to himself and read on.

  Phantom Shot - Creates and throws ethereal artillery projectiles that can harm physical and ghostly targets. Ignores armor. Higher skill levels increase speed and power of projectiles.

  Now that was interesting. A shot that specifically targeted insubstantial targets. It would have been perfect against those Spectral Spiders. Those type of monsters didn’t come up often, but it would be nice to have something in his arsenal for those situations. But what really made him want the skill was the part about ignoring armor. A skill that would basically let him harm any enemy, no matter what.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Armor Adjunct - Augments machine armor with magical protection. Reduces effect of spell attacks from all magic types including white and black. Uses one point of mana a minute, lasts until dispelled. Protection scales with skill level.

  Luke wanted to pick this one right away without even reading the others. This was a perfect skill for defense. It would save his life hundreds of times over. The part about protection from any magic type was particularly tempting. It would protect him against those damn Spore Raptors next time. He forced himself to read on.

  Pest Control - Poison Cloud that eliminates low level swarms. Strength of poison grows with skill level, up to half your class level. Allies can be excluded from effect at level six.

  This would have been the perfect skill to deal with the Hive Wolves. They could attack him in waves, but all would die as they got close. But it was a very situational skill. The titan he had just killed probably had a version of this skill, but Luke had been able to ignore it because his power armor was airtight. The part about Allies not being excluded until level six was a turn off.

  Summon Vehicle- After absorbing a vehicle template with offensive capabilities, create a temporary copy of that vehicle, complete with ammunition. Upkeep is one mana a minute. May summon up to 0.4x simultaneous copies where x is the skill level.

  That’s kind of neat. He could load up his mech and be able to summon it anywhere he wanted at a moment’s notice. Or, even better, he could summon tanks and helicopters. That would be badass. He could just see himself going up against a dragon in an apache helicopter. Or he could level up the skill and produce a dozen Abrams tanks to go up against a titan.

  The summoned vehicles wouldn’t last that long though, about fifteen minutes with his current mana pool. It would be incredibly useful in some situations, but not in others. The fact that he could literally build his own mechs had him leaning away from picking the skill.

  Now that he had read all the choices, he had to pick two of them. And he couldn’t put off the choice because the system didn’t like waiting. He tapped his chin and thought about all of the skills.

  With a heavy heart, he eliminated Stand Tall. He wouldn’t be building gundams any time soon and he couldn’t afford to take a skill now for something that might happen a decade from now. Still, he wished he could save a skill slot for the day when he would recreate Gipsy Danger.

  Pest Control was next on the chopping block. As useful as the skill would be in some situations, it wasn’t something that a few fireballs couldn’t do as well.

  That left Phantom Shot, Armor Adjunct, and Summon Vehicle. He could pick two of the three. Since Phantom Shot was the only attack skill of the bunch, he decided that would be a lock. It might not be powerful, but it would be useful against all enemies and amazing against insubstantial ones.

  Armor Adjunct seemed like a good choice for his second skill until he remembered that he still had Repair Craft. One focused on mitigating damage, and the other repaired it entirely. They had very similar functions. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to focus three of his four skills on defense and healing.

  If he went with Summon Vehicle instead, he would have a lot more options. He had access to vehicles that would give him offensive, utility, and defensive options that he didn’t have now.

  He thought about it for a few more minutes, then he decided to go with Summon Vehicle and Phantom Shot. If either of them ended up being terrible, he could just sacrifice them when he hit his next threshold at level eighteen.

  He felt excited and happy with the new choices. Suddenly all new options for killing monsters were on the table. It was going to be so fun to experiment with his new skills.

  But first he had to pick where his eight free stat points were going. He could spread them out, or push all of them into a single stat. Specialist White had encouraged him to focus on Acuity with Dexterity and Perception as second priority.

  He could get his Acuity to eighteen with just six points. That was basically the next stat threshold because the system loved multiples of six. He went ahead and did that, and put a point each into perception and dexterity. His stat screen was looking pretty good now.

  His enhanced perception caught the sound of something scraping against the titan scales behind him. He spun around, time slowing as he aimed his arm cannons at the monster trying to sneak up on him. Apparently Acuity 18 was enough to give him much longer bullet time. He felt the world crawl by as he turned. Time sped up to regular as he locked onto his target. He groaned in pain as he realized the sudden movement had jostled his cracked ribs.

  Sandwich held up his hands and jokingly said, “Don’t shoot!”

  Luke replied with another groan and flopped down on a mostly dry spot of the titan’s head.

  “You doing alright there? I was worried that the poison cloud got you when you didn’t come down.”

  Luke stayed prone on his back and said, “I was leveling up, had to make some important choices.”

  “You’ll have to tell me all about it later. Are you doing alright though? Your breastplate is gone, helmet cracked, and you are covered head to toe in monster blood.”

  “I’ll be fine. I just need to wait a minute for my mana pool to refill.” He checked his pool and found it was already back up to fifteen. Hooray for higher Acuity. “Actually, I should have enough now. One sec.”

  He pushed all his mana into Repair Craft, fixing cracks and restoring his breastplate. His mech was good as new and sparkly clean thirty seconds later. Sadly it only worked on his machine. His chest was still covered in blood and his ribs cracked.

  He slowly stood up and said, “Everyone else ok?”

  “Yeah, none of the others were even touched. Bumblebee is watching them. Well, he’s supposed to. He’s excited about his new skill, running around like an idiot.”

  “What did he get?”

  “He said it’s called Slipstream. It’s like Evade, but it only works while he’s moving. It’s also a movement boost, so he’s happy.”

  “Nice. Does it synergize with Rush?”

  “Dunno, didn’t ask.”

  Luke nodded. “I’ll ask myself. Let’s head down. I need to assign someone to dig out the mana core. I’d get it myself but my ribs are cracked and breathing is hard, let alone digging around in blood and guts.”

  Sandwich helped him down off the titan, which was difficult to do with Luke’s broken ribs. Even dead, the top of the monster was a fair distance off the ground.

  “Alright. Dom, Ivan, and Angela. Any of you want to get a class related to harvesting monster parts?”

  Dom and Ivan frowned, but Angela quickly raised her hand.

  Luke pointed at her and said, “You’re it then. Take the fire and ice swords and climb on up there. I don’t exactly know where the core is going to be, but try behind the brain first. Your visor helps you see mana, so track it down that way. Bumblebee, Sandwich, you two help her out.”

  The men complained and said the newbies should do it, but Luke had a different job for the Croatian brothers. There were still unexploded bombs along the beach and they needed to clear them out.

  Luke walked with them and had them fire their spell slingers from the edge of their range to blow them up. It took several tries to get a hit, but it was safer that way. It also might help with their class choices later. The explosions and subsequent spray of sand were fun to watch.

  By the time they were done, Angela was done with her work. She was covered in blood everywhere but her helmet, but she had the core. She held it up triumphantly. Sandwich and Bumblebee were also splattered with blood, but not to the same degree.

  Luke happily accepted the core, the biggest one he had ever held. It was as big as his mech’s fist. It had to be tier eight because it was bigger than the tier seven they had gotten from the hydra. And unlike that one, this core was all his because Luke had leverage on Lord Edobar.

  The core fit into Luke’s waist storage, but only barely. When everyone was ready to go, Luke turned around and tried to walk away. His mech groaned and refused to cooperate. Off balance, he tipped over and faceplanted in the sand.

  He groaned in agony and turned over onto his back.

  “Skywalker! Skywalker! Are you ok?” Bumblebee said as he slid to a stop near him.

  “Yes. Well, no, my ribs are broken, but nothing bad happened.”

  “That’s cap. You just shut down, hard. Listen. I know it’s hard to accept but sometimes you have to ask for help,” Bumblebee said seriously.

  Luke had a guess that was verified with Machine Bond. “I don’t need help, I need a new mana core. Sandwich, give me one of the ones you used today.”

  Bumblebee grumbled about him making them worry about nothing. Then he said, “Wait a second. I thought the cores we use are supposed to last years.”

  “Typical power loaders use a mana core every eighteen months. Our mechs use about double the mana they do. Plus, I used a huge chunk of the power to survive that hit from the titan. Magic inertial dampeners are power hungry.”

  “Well, I guess that’s good that you had one. I thought you were dead for sure when you got hit. Straight bussin' that you got back up and killed it.”

  Luke nodded in thanks. He climbed out of his mech and swapped out the mana core in the power armor’s spine. He climbed back in and stood up, fully powered and ready for almost anything.

  They followed the path from the beach towards the estate village before turning aside and walking around the city walls. Before they left the area around the village, a blur appeared in the distance. Luke’s acuity kicked in and slowed down time enough to see Lord Edobar’s page running towards them at insane speeds.

  The young elf stopped in front of them and said, “Luke of Machines. Our Lord Edobar Falodun requests you visit him immediately.”

  The page blurred away before Luke had time to respond.

  “Well, I guess I’ve been summoned. Go ahead and head back. Take a long lunch break and then join the afternoon training. Even you, Bumblebee. You have a new skill to level up,” Luke said.

  Bumblebee saluted and said, “You got it, bossman.” He took a few steps and waved for the others to follow. “Come on, people. We’ve got places to be.”

  Luke chuckled at his enthusiasm and instantly regretted it. His ribs weren’t healed yet. He turned and walked to the village center where the skyscraper tree stood. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to use the elevator, he wasn’t yet part of the aristocracy. He went ahead and did it anyway to save time.

  Lord Edobar was almost alone in the court standing on his dais near the back. The only other person in the room was Cormac. He was laying on the ground in the center of the room, bleeding and bruised.

  “Oh good, you are finally here. We need to have a discussion,” Lord Edobar said, his voice dropping at the end.

  He threw his hands up and his silvery privacy wall sprung up, surrounding the three of them.

  Today’s chapter title comes from Prometheus (2012)

  Luke made his skill choice, of those five what skills would you have chosen?