After the, quickly becoming familiar, teleport I found myself in the training room. Mord Jr was in his customary place in the middle of the room. He had his favorite fuck-me-up stick at the ready. I sent my bag of coins down and grabbed the hafts of my blades, only for him to gesture for me to stop.

  Hand outstretched, he snapped his staff into a comfortable carry pose. What should have been an instant action was long enough for me to see his muscles working. He nonchalantly walked up to me and looked me dead in the eyes. His gaze grew tighter as he squinted just a little. His hand shot up and grabbed my chin, and I felt the time stop trigger, but his hand was faster still. This shocked me a lot, and I’m pretty sure it registered on my face as he dropped my chin and took a step back.

  “Speed is good. Good for a first. Try to keep up.”

  I did not keep up. Any success I had before was quickly shown as him having pity on me. Even the stab, I’m sure he could have dodged as quickly as he was moving. I tried dozens of different attacks, some guided by the knowledge stuck in my head and others out of desperation. I’m pretty sure that I tried an illegal crane kick at some point that ended up with Mord laughing down at me after unceremoniously dumping me on my ass.

  “Is good. Need to focus more on Way. Need to know it here but feel it here.” He punctuated his ‘here’s with taps to my head and chest.

  “It's so much different talking to you here than in the other room, " I said. His laughter was quite loud.

  “Is because is not the same. We have ability. Allows for two people of one. One scholar. One warrior,” he thumped his chest, obviously referring to himself as the latter.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to tell people about your abilities?”

  “Is different here. We..we trust. You no able harm me.” He gestured around the room.

  “And who I tell? No one ever come. If so I keep secret. But you still no tell. Is good practice. And I…I no tell what I learn from making you nap. Now you go. Come back when you no gain more. I think you might Ascend. If so….maybe you beat me…..no even then you nap” He gestured to the door.

  It may have been a short sparring session, but I felt so confident grabbing the handle to teleport that I was ready to sprint the stairs. Alas, there were no stairs.

  I was back in the vending room, which, after the post-combat high and wanting to sprint the stairs, was almost a letdown. After a second, the relief kicked in. Maybe I could get something new from studying the machines and their contents even if I didn't have money. Or did I?

  The Vending room remained unchanged. After I took additional time to examine everything, the numbers started to make more sense, and I got more distinct feelings about the meanings of the words on the other items.

  I took a good bit of time in front of some of the potions. One of the machines had a variety of different colors and bottle shapes. The labels still didn’t make too much sense to me. The prices, if my grasp of numbers was accurate, were astronomical. My RPG brain kicked in, and I instantly thought of single-use power-up potions. This kinda made sense, given that the other machine had potions of an expected color variety—the typical red, blue, and green. The ones in this machine were all in fancier bottles and had a variety of symbols on their fronts. There were no twisty tops here; they were all corks with fancy wax and impressed seals. Given that the numbers under these bottles, still unintelligible, were in the three and four digits, they were out of my price range. I had precisely zero digits.

  I was walking past the last vending machine when a small rock caught my eye. It had a symbol of the front. It was glowing.

  This was new. Not in it was a new item but the glowing symbol. I remember seeing the rock before and thought it was some sort of crafting resource, but now the symbol on the front was glowing in my sight. The longer I looked, the less it was glowing and the more it looked like it was highlighted. The front glass still made it a little fuzzy, but I could tell this was something important.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  I was surprised at how long it took me to realize what the symbol was. I had just gained a power called Runic Magic, and now a symbol I had never seen before or even noticed was glowing. Yeah, I could do that math. This was a rune. I had to have it.

  Breaking in was out of the question, mostly because I’d tried that already. I looked at the price, and surprisingly, it was a single digit. The digit was simple, too—just a lineup and down with another across the top like an inverted L. I stared at it for a good while, trying to will the number to pop into my head. I wasn't going to give up easily. After failing on the number, I decided on the ‘let's try something crazy’ method.

  I put my coin bag on the ground and started to fish out coins. I was surprised when the first one I tried slipped gently into the slot on the machine. Still, nothing happened. I tried tapping on the mechanism but heard nothing. I tried pulling the handle under the stone, and it was still locked in place. I would have tried shaking the machine, but previous experience had already taught me that it didn't budge.

  I was left with one recourse: I pushed the button near the coin slot. Finally, something happened. It was my fear, though. A coin rattled through the machine, making a dull thud in the tray near the bottom. I had found the coin return. I tried all the others with the same result. Then I remembered the sneaky coins. It took a good half-minute to find one of the bastards hanging out in a stack of gold coins.

  I wasn’t going to try the rock coins because they were the wrong size for the slots. Of course, that means it went into the machine perfectly. Unlike the previous nine coins I had tried that sounded like they went in and just stuck in place, the rock coin was like dropping in a battery. The machine came alive and lit up. A little light projected on each of the items like a fancy fashion store window display. More than this, the handles also lit up. All of them were red, except one, the one I wanted.

  I figured out that the little rock coins were the Obols Mord was talking about and that the L symbol was a ‘one’. I grabbed the now-green handle and pulled it out. Just like the old-time vending machines, these looked like the pull of the handle bumped the rock off the shelf and into the tray below.

  I greedily grabbed my new rock and held it close to my chest like it was my precious. I could feel it in my hand more than just the rough stone. I could feel the power contained in it. I also felt as if I knew exactly how to use it. If I squeezed it hard, pushed on it with my thoughts, and threw it, wherever it landed would be engulfed in flames. It was like I could see the purpose and design behind it. It was an incendiary grenade, but magic style.

  I was exceptionally happy with my purchase and was tempted to buy more. Oh, so very tempted. I even chased down the eight remaining coins and started to look at prices. Looking over the prices I started to notice some differences in the ones with multiple digits. The digits were different colors. Some of the digits were very simple; I even saw a few more ones, and some were very complex. I knew I had seen it before. We had it back on earth. Some monks had created a notation of up to ten thousand with a single character. The numbers didn’t make sense anymore now that I guessed that, but the concept did. They required multiple types of currencies for what might have been the best items. I didn't know what those currencies were or exactly what numbers were represented, but I wasn’t going to find out sitting here. I wanted to experiment with other coins on the machines that had them when I returned to the machine that gave me the grenade rock. It place was still empty. What made matters worse was that the number underneath it was gone, also. I didn't have a frame of reference, except that maybe I could use the shift coins for the last digit and only if that digit was the now unknown color. The majority of the items in the rock’s case had either a single purple digit or a purple digit to the right. Looking across the other machines, I noticed that it was common for a purple digit to appear in that last place. So it looked like I needed a lot more shifty coins.

  I had eight left, and I found several items that I could probably get with just those coins. I held off on buying them, though. Mord had said I could aspect Loci with EXP, and I could still feel the hot tub had water in it, so I didn't want to try and spend my coins until I was out of other things to do. I was hoping that I would get at least one new power that could be the key. The rune stuck out after I got my runic magic skill, so who knew what was next? I could still feel that pathway, and I just knew I could cycle all that potential through my Speed Loci and probably fill it halfway if I tried.

  I added my rock to my bag of coins and headed to the door. The cool wash of teleportation was a welcome familiar sensation. After that, I was greeted by the cave. I was hoping my shorts were at the top.

  They were not.