I was soon home, and was awake only long enough to brush my teeth before going to bed, meditating myself to sleep.

Waking up in the morning, bleary eyed, was a trial. Dragging myself from my oh so comfortable bed, I was soon in the restroom taking care of all my morning business. Clean, and with minty breath, I walked out to check on my brand new plants.

When I saw them, I had to do a double take, the leaves I had plucked from them had already regrown, even though the dandelions had been practically massacred. I’d wondered why the herbs in game never seemed to get over harvested, and apparently it was because the plants would regenerate in a short period of time.

Smiling at the stroke of good luck, I went through my exercise routine, pushups, pullups, situps, curls, squats, you get the idea. I was soon outside, going on my morning run. Unfortunately, I ran into a few orbs, but they were easily dispatched with a few force bolts.

Once I got home, I did something that I had been considering, I went onto Gregslist and posted an ad about inscribing weaponry, mentioning that a sheath was required to prevent any accidents.

Once that was done, I started to make some more inscription ink, slicing up another moki claw and drying out some of the tulips to make it. It wasn’t even twenty minutes when I got my first call about inscribing a weapon, which was surprising, I’d set the price relatively high, enough to eat for a few weeks, but it seemed the high price hadn’t deterred customers.

I soon set up a meeting at my place, and finished making the inscription ink I would need.

When the customer arrived, he was extremely skinny, almost frail looking, and brought what was likely an imitation katana. I greeted him, and took the katana, looking it over. It was made from real steel, but likely wasn’t actually designed for combat, something I suspected the customer wanted to rectify with the inscription.

I soon had my cup of ink, and took a brush, carefully inscribing the runes along the katana, their interlinking nature looking quite beautiful. Luckily, I didn’t fail, and I tested it on one of the moki claws I still had, watching it slice just a bit ahead of where the blade was.

Satisfied that the inscription had worked properly, I handed it over to him before taking the sheath, carefully inscribing it. Unfortunately, I failed once, but the second time I got it correct, watching the glowing ink slowly fade to be practically invisible once the inscription took.

Smiling at my success, I handed it over, and soon my finances were looking oh so slightly better as he handed over the money.

The rest of the day passed with quite a few people purchasing inscriptions, which caused my funds to swell, easily making up for what I’d spent on my own gear. At this point, I decided I had enough that I should get some sort of armor, but I wasn’t sure how exactly to get it.

After some short research online, I discovered full plate armor for sale. It was made of steel, so hopefully with runes of toughness it could work well enough, and instantly pressed the purchase button, sending my bank balance to almost zero. Considering how much money I had in cash at this point though, I wasn’t going to have any troubles monetarily.

I kept looking around online after ordering my armor, and soon found something relatively disturbing. Apparently in some parts of africa and the middle east, local warlords had taken over, taking advantage of the leveling system to train superhuman soldiers. When soldiers can react and move twice as fast as the average human, how are people supposed to stop them?

I shook my head to clear the thoughts from my mind, It wouldn’t help thinking about some chaos somewhere I’m not, and there wouldn’t be anything like that here, with the army and police keeping order.

Once I’d finished, yet another customer arrived, and I enchanted their hatchet for them. Oddly enough, most of the customers I’d had were like the first guy, having a katana. I wasn’t sure if they were just the type to think that katanas were the best weapon in existence, or if they were just one of the easier to acquire swords, but I’d enchanted quite a few.

Once I’d satisfied my final customer for the day, I went back to bed, the enchanting had taken quite a toll with how much concentration had been required, and I was tired mentally, if not physically. I set my phone on silent first though, I wasn’t going to count on people not calling about my inscribing services just because it was past a reasonable hour.

I woke up from my meditative sleep early in the morning, far earlier than normal, but I didn’t seem to be particularly tired. Shrugging my shoulders at the oddity, I got up and went to the door to find a pleasant surprise, the spear I’d ordered had arrived!

I quickly unpacked it, and admired it for a second before getting back to inscribing. A while later, I had a proper spear, enchanted with runes of sharpness. I was still admiring my brand new spear when I got a call.

“Hello, this is Roland,” I said by rote.

“Hello, this is Cathy, I’m calling on behalf of the army, we’re interested in your enchanting services, and would like to meet you.”

My head snapped back in surprise, but I wasn’t sure if this was a prank call or not, so I replied with more calmness than I would if I was sure it wasn’t just a joke from someone who had seen my ad.

“Well I can give you my address, when do you think you could get here?”

“Someone should be arriving in about thirty minutes, they’ll pick you up and take you to the base.”

I was slightly disturbed by that, I hadn’t given them my address, and I hadn’t posted it in my ad. I just replied with an “Okay,” and then she hung up on me. I spent the next thirty minutes pacing back and forth in my living room.

I hadn’t expected anyone from the military to contact me, all I had wanted to do was make some money to make up for all the purchases I had made, and maybe a bit to spare for anything I felt like buying.

Almost exactly thirty minutes later, I heard a firm three knocks at my door, and with some trepidation I went to answer it. I answered it to see a man in uniform, who had a lot of stuff on it. I wasn’t sure what any of it meant, but I was certain it meant he was important.

“Hello Roland, I’d like to speak with you about your enchanting. I’ll bring you to the base, and we can talk there.”

I only replied with a nod, grabbing my enchanting stuff. We soon arrived at a car with another person in the driver’s seat, who didn’t have much of anything on his uniform. The important military man opened the door for me, and gestured for me to get in, so I did after a slight moment of hesitation.

I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, and it seemed I wasn’t going to be getting any answers anytime soon. The entire car ride, neither of the other people in the car said a word. I considered making small talk, but quickly decided against it, I was a bit too scared to try and chat up military people.

Once we’d arrived, I was guided to a stocky building, which we entered and were soon in a meeting room, with many people who looked important sitting around a table. I shifted from foot to foot, even more nervous than before.

Soon, the woman at the head of the table greeted me. “Hello Roland, we’re quite interested in this enchanting of yours. We’d like to see some examples of it, and would be willing to reward you quite handsomely if it turns out to have military use.”

I kept shifting foot to foot as I replied. “Well I’m not really sure if it would have much use, I’ve only enchanted some bladed weapons, and you guys are mainly using guns.”

“That we will have to see. We’re quite interested in the possibility of enchanting bullets as well, and we’re also interested in enchanting body and tank armor with toughness runes.”

Wondering why she had so much information about the game stuff, I replied. “Well I don’t really know if you can enchant bullets, I’ve never tried. As for body armor and tank armor, I don’t think I could do too much, that’s a lot to be inscribing.”

“Of course we don’t expect you to do all of it. We simply need you to show some of our people how to do it. You will be compensated well.” Her short clipped sentences were not helping my nervousness, so I simply nodded in acquiescence.

“Is there anything you’ll need to perform your inscriptions?”

“No, I brought everything I will need.”

She then took some different bullets and placed them on the table.

“I don’t think I can make the runes small enough for the smaller bullets, but I’ll try for the higher caliber ones,” I said.

The woman nodded, and I grabbed the cup I’d covered in saran wrap before leaving, and was soon attempting to enchant bullets. It was a challenge for me, as I hadn’t enchanted anything that small before, but the stares of everyone in the room gave me an unprecedented focus.

I was soon finished with the first bullet, a round front, and the runes faded in. Curious, I asked for something to test it on. One of the people without fancy stuff on their uniform at the door left, and was soon back with a block of wood.

Wondering if the rune of sharpness would do anything for a round bullet, I pressed it up against the wood, and nothing. Not even a slight scratch on it. I sighed, before moving on to the next, the constant stares getting to me.

The next bullet had a pointed tip and was much larger, so I was hoping it would be more successful. I was soon painting it with the inscription ink, and due to its still small size, I was soon done.

I then took it and pressed it against the wood block, and then smiled. It seemed I had some results after all. The bullet had relatively easily poked through the wood, though it wouldn’t cut either way.

“Well it seems you can enchant bullets, but I think they need a pointy tip to work.”

“Excellent. Now if you could head off and show our people how to do the enchanting?”

“Of course,” I said with attempted confidence, but I didn’t think I had been too successful.

I was soon heading off to another part of the military base, where I met with a bunch of people in uniform.

“You’re going to be in charge of training these people in inscription. Tell us if there’s anything you’ll need.”

“I could use a set of beakers and something to hold the ink in, along with dried tulip leaves and some moki claws.”

The man nodded before heading off, likely to have someone fetch what I was going to need. I went back to shifting from foot to foot as the people in the room stared at me. Attempting to break the tense silence I decided to ask a few questions.

“So how many of you have played Sanity Online?”

“All of us, that’s why we’re here,” One of the people replied, his tone clearly condescending.

“Well how many of you have done any alchemy?”

They looked around for a bit, before two people raised their hands.

“Well you’re going to need to learn, or at least some of you do, you need inscription ink to be able to make inscriptions, how much experience do you have with alchemy?”

“I’ve only made the basic health potions,” a man who looked to be twice my size, in width as well as height, replied.

“Rob and I have gotten pretty good at health and mana potions,” a man who was shorter than me but still much more muscular than me replied.

“Well so long as you’re decent at making health potions you’ll probably be okay. Just remember to sense the mana in the potion, you want it to be as full as you can feel it when you make it.”

“Sense the mana?” The man replied.

“Just put your mana in and try to sense it. It gives off a feeling depending on what you’re putting the mana into.”

The people who had done alchemy nodded, while the others seemed to be a bit confused, likely not used to using mana so much. It took a while, but soon a woman arrived.

“Here’s your dried tulip leaves and moki claws, along with a basic chemistry set.”

I thanked her, and she left, seemingly annoyed she had to fetch the items. I was soon showing everyone how to sense the mana, the moki claw gave off a feeling of static electricity when sensed with mana, so it was perfect as an example. After everyone had gotten used to sensing with mana, I made sure to have the guy who had condescendingly replied to me at the beginning be the first one to sense the tulip leaves, and smiled as he started from the habanero in your blood like sensation.

We were soon making potions, I first showed everyone how to do it, then watched them as they attempted to make them. The people who had done alchemy before picked it up the quickest, though a few of the others got the hang of it relatively quickly as well.

Some of the people though, just couldn’t seem to make the ink without it turning black and rancid on them. I eventually gave up, and went on to inscribing things. There was a table filled with knives for me to inscribe, so I went up and grabbed one, but not before drawing out the basic rune patterns with pen and paper for everyone to study.

I was soon giving an example, and luckily succeeded, it would have been mighty embarrassing if I had failed when I was trying to teach them. I then went over the toughness runes, and warned them to always enchant the sheath with toughness so as to not have the knife cut through it.

Once I was done, I had everyone attempt to inscribe more of the knives. To my annoyance, the condescending guy seemed to pick it up the fastest, only failing twice before successfully enchanting a knife.

Once everyone had attempted a few times, we were totally out of ink, so I stood around for a bit, feeling awkward, until the man who had picked me up came to the room and had me follow him to yet another building.

Once we arrived, I was handed an amount of money I had never expected to see. Mouth hanging open, I thanked him, stammering my words out of sheer shock. On the drive back, I spent the entire time staring at the briefcase full of money I now had, and once I got back, I immediately went to the bank, depositing it as fast as I could.

After depositing my money, I headed back home, my brain still fried over what had happened. Even though I wasn’t tired, I lay down, simply to process the shock. Maybe an hour later, I was mostly back to normal, and got up, I still planned on inscribing stuff for people, but now it wasn’t just for money, as I wasn’t going to be wanting for a while.