Emmet made sure to sit in on Tauruk’s two remaining classes that week. He was never late again - he made sure of it. The day before each class, he would intensely study a map and then make the walk ahead of time several times to make sure he had the route memorized. Further, the morning of, he would wake up excessively early, arriving at 6:00, a full hour before class started. Both times, he was the first one there, and had to be the one to flip on the light formations on the ceiling before sitting in the back of the room previewing the material.

Although he still didn’t really understand any of the terms, he made a bigger effort, and some of the words were becoming familiar. He had checked out all three of the corresponding textbooks for Tauruk’s classes from the library (spending a precious three points each) and during class would try to follow along. Luckily, all three books had detailed diagrams, so he was able to gain some kind of base intuition further than just sitting there sifting through all the terminology. Further, unlike the first professor who barely touched the chalk at all, the two other professors would actually draw out what they were talking about on the board, allowing Emmet some room to at least look at something familiar.

At some times, the diagrams would be similar to the puzzles in Emmet’s picture book, which made him feel a brief excitement. There would be moments where Emmet felt he understood the concepts!

A week passed without incident. Just after the second class of Introduction to Formations rolled around again, however, Emmet ran into a bigger problem. He checked his balance on his card at a kiosk in the admissions office and realized that he had already spent 25 points!

Heavens, this was only the second week! At this rate, his points would only last two months! Although, it was true that he had spent a large chunk of it to borrow textbooks for the semester.

Thus, he decided that it was time to find a job. He didn’t have much hope on the bounty tasks offered to students - they were probably for more advanced students who actually had practical experience. He just hoped he could find a menial work position that he could do, considering his limited skills and knowledge.

His mind set, he trotted over to a bulletin with a large listing of tasks and jobs. However, with one look, he could only shake his head. Although he could pick out a few words, he couldn’t read any of them. After spending a few minutes deciphering, managing to vaguely make out the gist of one of the tasks through the diagram included, he crept up to the front desk, where an older male student, likely a third-year or beyond, was reading through a textbook. It seemed that operating the front desk was his job. Clearly, this job had some downtime.

“Um… hi…” Emmet raised a little hand.

“Hello,” the student looked up and glanced toward the little shy boy. “Can I help you?”

“Um… yeah…” Emmet gestured to the bulletin. “Um, the tasks and jobs…”

“Didn’t see what you want?” the student asked, nodding as if he knew Emmet’s problem. “As you’ve probably guessed, not everything’s listed there. The rest are spread out all throughout the other offices, but I can give you a full listing, it’s somewhere down here...” He reached down under his desk and began to shuffle through some items.

“N-no… that’s not it,” Emmet shook his head. “Actually… the problem is... I… I... never learned how to read… can… can you read them out to me?” His face turned red as he said it. Wasn’t that something a little child would say?

Sure enough, the student was thrown for a loop, pausing his movement and staring out toward Emmet with a blank expression. This boy didn’t know how to read? Was he hearing him correctly? If that was the case, how was he at this school?

Glancing down at the plain clothes Emmet had on and seeing the naive expression of his face, he came to an understanding. This boy was probably a simple squire, and just wanted a menial labor job to sustain enough points.

“Alright,” the student said kindly, stepping out from behind his desk and walking toward the bulletin.

Emmet was overjoyed and closely followed behind him.

“First item here -” the student put his finger to the first item on the tasks list traced across it.

“Design me a four-wheeled locomotive car with over 50 horsepower - 2700 points.”

Emmet nodded his head, a bit taken aback by the advanced nature of the request. He closely followed along with the student’s finger, trying to learn the words. At this point, he felt he had a pretty good understanding of the number system. He had spent a long time looking at his textbooks and differentiating the different numerals and their meanings. However, the words were an even greater challenge.

“Looking to buy a large-sized luggage transporter - 500 points.”

“Looking for a tutor in linear algebraic abstractions - 50 points per session.”

“Construct a level 4 defensive formation around a 200 meter wide compound, will provide materials, deadline one month - 6500 points.”

At this moment, the student paused to glance toward Emmet’s face, and saw his face tight in focus. “You know what? This stuff is probably way out of your level. Why don’t we move on to the jobs?”

Emmet nodded in acquiescence. All of that sounded amazing, but it was completely out of reach for him. It would probably take years of extensive training to be able to complete tasks like those, especially the last one, so it was useless to read over it.

“Alright, onto the jobs board…” The student moved his finger over to the board on the right, starting at the first item.

“Building Fortification - the formations placed on many buildings on campus are ancient, and need replacement - must have taken at least Intermediate Warding and have a year’s worth of experience in the field - 15 points per hour.”

“Teacher’s Assistant - looking for a knowledgeable student who has taken and received an A in Basics of Parallel Threading Design. Will test all applicants and choose the most appropriate, about six hours of work per week - 1500 points for the whole semester.”

“Lawn Maintenance - manage and run the lawn-cutting formations on some select lots. Requires some knowledge about basic formations. Will take up about ten hours a week - 8 points per hour.”

“Library Desk Clerk - manage the help desk in Toussan West library. Will need extensive training to familiarize with the content and some control over mana for controlling the book-checking formation - 13 points per hour.”

The student wrinkled his nose. “It still looks like all of these jobs are above your level…” He skipped over some of the pages and scanned down the list, until he found something and paused. “Oh, this is interesting!”

“Maisy’s Debugging Depot - #1 Student-Run Debugging Service - looking for employees. Any skill level is welcome, as long as you’re willing to learn! However, it’s preferable for applicants to have either taken Essentials of Debugging, or be currently taking it - 5-10 points per hour, plus extra commissions.”

He turned toward Emmet. “I’ve actually used Maisy’s Debugging Depot before! It’s run by an amazing sixth-year… ah, seventh-year now, student Maisy Harbinger. At a base level, debugging is something a first-year can even do, although it’s tedious.” He glanced at Emmet’s simple-looking demeanor. “...although I guess that it still might be above your level.”

Maisy! Emmet’s ears perked up. Could that be the same Maisy he had met the previous week? She ran a debugging service?

A debugging service was an organization where students could turn in their malfunctioning formations, pay a fee, and then get them promptly fixed. Depending on the scale of the formation and the degree of bugginess, the price would fluctuate. Emmet only knew about it because he had overheard some of the boys in his dorm room consider using one. In one of their classes, their homework was to build a basic formation, and one of their constructions was malfunctioning. It was tedious to go one by one down all of the circuits of the formation to try to identify the problem, so he was considering going to go pay a fee to go to a debugging service and get it sorted out.

Hearing about debugging, Emmet couldn’t help but grow excited. Debugging - that was such an interesting field! Among Tauruk’s three classes, Emmet liked Essentials of Debugging the best. This was because class was made up of mostly just inspecting various comprehensive diagrams, identifying the problems with them, and then creating a method of action to solving them. Although there was still a lot of wordy lecturing about theory, to Emmet, it was much more familiar. Wasn’t this just a puzzle? Find the problem with the diagram and fix it - that was the definition of a puzzle!

The history of the word ‘debugging’ was interesting. According to legend, thousands of years ago, when formations were much more primitive, one famous figure was having a problem with his construction. He was sure that he had built it right, but it wasn’t working as expected. When he opened it up to take a look, he discovered a physical bug had gotten in and chewed through one of the flimsy circuits, causing it to short. After writing about it in a journal, saying he had to ‘debug’ the formation, the term caught on, and now the term encompassed any unforseen error in a formation that caused it to malfunction.

The front desk upperclassman recognized the light in Emmet’s eyes but still turned back to the bulletin and continued to scan down the list, looking for something more menial. Eventually, he found three simpler jobs, clearly meant for squires - janitor, babysitter, and groundskeeper. None of them required any skill in formations. However, they each only paid a pitiful 2 points an hour.

In the end, Emmet made sure to profusely thank the student. Thankfully he had been here to help, or there would have been no way for him to select a job! Emmet had originally thought the school was cold and unforgiving, but it seemed that some people were nice.

The student kindly accepted his thanks and they exchanged names. He was known as Borokov, and as suspected, he was a third-year student. According to him, it had been a stroke of luck that he made the cut from second to third year.

As Borokov sat back down at his position at the desk, Emmet ripped off one of the tabs on the bottom of the flyer for Maisy’s Debugging Depot. The flyer had said that all skills were welcome, so he hoped he would qualify - it seemed right up his alley! On the tab was a day, time, and address. Although Emmet failed to fully decipher it, he once again showed it to Borokov, and he informed him that it was for the very next day, at 7 PM. After giving a final thanks to Borokov, he left in a giddy mood.