Kim watched Rain pass her, thinking to herself all the while. He had power boiling inside of him, and from a few feet away, she could feel it. He felt like he was approaching the edge of Iron, that he was already well on his way to advancing to Bronze. She could sense it.

But how? He should have been detected by the system. There were no anomalies, no mistakes. And he didn’t seem too surprised by being unranked. Just irritated.

She kept thinking about it, even as she left the gate and headed to the debriefing room. He had to have some way to fight them— but he didn’t have equipment. For gods sake, he wasn’t even wearing the cheap kevlar armor and layered leather clothing that their company gave out for free.

She drummed her fingers on the desk, the apathetic man— her bosses bosses boss, or something— sat across from her. Another man sat at his left, all smiles, but she couldn’t even bother to scan him up and down.

She had been stuck at the pinnacle of Iron for years now. This guide job paid more than anything else she could get— she couldn’t afford college or work her way into a trade. She could fare okay in a group, maybe even as much as taking on three Kobolds by herself. But the marks on Rain— on his clothes, on the blood on his hands, the way he was completely calm— how many did he kill, as an unranked?

He had a way to get more powerful. Something the system couldn’t detect.

She dismissed the thought. That was ridiculous— if there was another way to get power, the kind of monstrous power the High Ranks used to cut their own swathes out of countries, to decimate armies and decapitate monsters the size of skyscrapers, then people would know about. Wouldn’t they?”

“Kim?” The man spoke again. She had ignored him, diving into her thoughts.

“Sorry, say again?” She asked, finally looking up and blinking. “Can we wait until Monday for a full debrief? This is an overtime day for me.” The day was tiring enough— the caverns were freezing cold even without the hole Willow blasted into the roof, and she had been waiting around there for the search team to assemble. Willow arrived and dragged Rain back before they even got to search. It had been a total waste of a day.

The man on the right, with the too bright and insincere smile, locked eyes with the— what was he? A regional manager?

“That won’t be necessary.” He said. “We’d like you to tender your resignation.”

“What?” Kim asked, startled by the sudden change. She slid back in her chair.

He steepled his fingers. “We appreciate the work you’ve done for the company. But this blunder today could be a major blow to our public opinion. What if he had died?”

“Died? He walked away on his own...” She trailed off as the man’s eyes narrowed, and Kim paled. “It— it won’t happen again.”

Shit, if she got fired from this job, then what? She wouldn’t be rehired as a guide anywhere— not as someone in Iron, for sure. What would she do— go back to working in retail? God no. She was Awoken! A weak Awoken, but still.

“We’re willing to offer you a significant severance…” The man trailed off, looking to his still smiling partner, who pulled a folder from beside him and passed a paper across the table.

Kim read it.

It was an NDA, detailing what she could and couldn’t disclose, concise and only a few pages. She stopped when she hit the bottom of the first page, which disclosed the amount. “Is that the right amount of zeros?”

She flipped through the agreement, then bit her lip.

“A year of pay?” She looked up.

“We won’t offer you more than this. Resign with grace, Kim.”

She signed.

She could find a new job within a year, after all, and so she left the office without being in distress.

She was upset, no doubt, but life was full of changes. She had worked here for years already anyway— maybe as she progressed, she would be able to finally move passed iron.

Or not. She tapped her steering wheel on the drive home. She lived almost within walking distance— but well, it was the city, and she often worked at night. If she could find a way to get just a little bit stronger, she could change her life. Her income could increase by as much as 30 percent by Bronze.

She climbed the stairs to her apartment, fumbling her keys, and opened the fridge for a beer and a snack, collapsing on an old, well loved couch in her living room.

Rain had some way to progress quickly. Some way that wasn’t recognized by the system. No. That was just a hunch.

Then again, her gut feeling had never betrayed her before. Call it an Awoken’s intuition.

She drank another beer.

Then she grabbed her phone, flipping open the app used to track the teams and deployments. They hadn’t terminated her access yet. She scrolled through her team.

“No.” She said out loud. “This is stupid, Kim. There is no way that he has some secret magic powers. Stupid.” She berated herself. She continued anyway. What could asking hurt? She pressed a button, activating an emergency feature. This would make a report to her bosses— but what the hell did she care? She was already fired. What could they do?

The app revealed Rain’s phone number, his contact info and mailing address. She copied down the number, sending a text.

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Silver light pooled around me. I sat facing the window again, staring out at the moon. Hooty burrowed against me, a wall of heat and flesh and fur, inside of the circle of healing potions, but they basically only offered a trickle at this point. It was a constant uphill battle to fill my Dantian as it expanded to hold more and more power.

I focused intensely internally, drawing the Qi in.

It was still too early to refine the Qi— I would need a much greater source before I would dare do that. Refining it would lower the quantity to a tenth of what it was now, though it would increase the quality by as much— a necessity for progressing forward through the next realms.

It took a dragon’s hoard to raise a cultivator. Or the power and wealth of Patriarchs. I had neither.

Willow had headed back to her Cabin— without a car, too. She just leapt across the city on golden shields, which was a hell of a way to skip traffic.

And that local guild had banned me from using their gates. I should see if Willow has access to some.

My phone vibrated. With one long drag, I pulled Qi in from the air around me before grabbing it.