“Lemegeton, do you know what this is?” Rick voiced. He had the grimoire on his lap and the Communication Stone in his hands inspecting it under the sunlight. The flowing lines were chiselled cleanly from the surface with no chip marks anywhere. If not for the fact that he had found them on the trolls, he would have mistaken them for art. He put the Stone away and checked the Lemegeton.

[Communication Stone]

The rune-inscribed stones are common artefacts used for communication over long distances. First discovered by renowned inventor Bellaxander Grahem by studying the primitive stones found on low intelligence creatures such as Trolls, Ogres and Goblins. Grahem incorporated his findings from the low-level Communication Rune Stones of these beasts to create high-tier Communication Stones. Many successive inventors have since modified the rune carved into the Stones to increase its functionality.

The Communication Stones draw mana from the surrounding to function and do not require the host to infuse mana into it. As such, lower-tier Communication Stones do not require much mana but are effective only in a short-range. On the contrary, Paragon-tier Communication Stones can transmit over universes away and can even project images. But they draw a huge amount of mana to activate that could disrupt the surrounding.

Low-ranked Communication Stones work in sets of two and sync with each other within its range. The hosts possessing the Stones can communicate with each other by possessing them in their person…

Rick’s stomach lurched. There was already no cell reception on his phone and probably anywhere else. It meant people would be afraid to move around freely and get stuck to the one place they were familiar with. What if he could make more of the communication stones or the high-tier ones? He could make a living for himself with it, probably.

He had to move fast. If he found the stones in a level 1 dungeon, others were bound to find them sooner or later as well. He closed the Lemegeton and fished the Communication Stone out of his pocket.

“I’ll have to try at least,” he resolved. Even if mass-production was only a distant dream, if he could make even one more of them, he would be able to make a killing.

Rick took out the kitchen knife from his backpack and checked its edge along the lines drawn. The intricate rune-lines were almost as thin as the knife’s edge, he would need something with a finer edge. Would he need to learn stone-carving to make the communication-stones? The thought gave Rick a pause. He knew nothing about any handicraft. His dad’s tools were in the garage gathering dust for ages now. After a moment’s thought, he rummaged through his backpack and pulled out the pen and a piece of paper. If he could not practice on stones, it only made sense to try on paper first.

With the paper to the truck’s door, he copied the squiggly rune-lines. But the more attention he tried concentrating on the lines, they got more intricate. It felt like the Koch snowflake and stopped trying after an hour. He had a headache from staring at the narrow lines for so long.

“Rick!” he was startled by a knock from inside the car. Samira’s face was peering out from the back window of the car. “what are you even doing?” she asked.

Rick only then realised that he was sitting in a pile of paper strewn all around him, with incoherent lines drawn on them.

“Look who is awake. Good morning sis,” he said

“It’s noon already. What have you been doing all this while? Did you not sleep at all? You look terrible,” she started a barrage of questions at him.

“It’s noon already?” Rick said looking at his watch. He hurriedly stuffed the sheets back into his backpack and continued, “I am fine sis, just had some work to finish. Besides, you are the one hurt. How is your ankle?”

He jumped out from the back of the pickup. Walking up to the front of the car he opened the door to see Samira stretching and flexing her injured leg.

"What are you doing?” Rick rushed and swat her hand away from the ankle, “You are a nurse Sammy. Stop it, you will make it worse.”

“Oh, look who is here to the rescue. I am the nurse little brother. Do you think I am dumb?” Samira replied sarcastically and swat at his head lightly. “I don’t know how, but it’s better now. See, there is no swelling even. Now give me some room. I need to try walking.”

Rick looked down and noticed that the ankle didn’t have the purple and red swelling anymore. He silently moved aside letting Samira slide out of the seat and onto her legs. She gently placed her weight on her ankle but soon jumping and squatting.

“How is it possible? It doesn’t make any sense,” Samira asked her hand on her knee, panting after the impromptu exercise routine.

"Yes, push-ups and squats at noon are senseless,” Rick said adding, “What’s your Vitality stat at?".

"Vitality, is that new?” she asked before spacing out which now becoming more common as people checked their stats on the Lesser God’s system. When she looked back, she had a frown on her face again.

"It's so low,” Samira complained, “My Vitality is just at 6."

“No, it’s not! ” Rick shot back. If six was low, what was his 2-point Vitality supposed to be? It did not feel like two was bad before he heard Samira’s number.

“You should take care of yourself more. Don’t keep your nose buried in books all the time, even now. You have to work on your physique more.”

Rick felt guilty hearing Samira talk about the Lemegeton.

“Sam, I am sorry about getting you hurt. I didn’t think things through.”

“What are you talking about? Stop beating yourself up. If you did not come up with the Serpent poison, I would not have come off with just a bruised ankle,” she said. Samira reached into the car and pulled out a tiffin. He had no idea when Sam had found the time to even make the sandwiches.

“Sam, I wasn’t completely honest with you,” Rick started. He knew he should have come clean about the grimoire from the start, “The book you saw with me, it’s a special book – kind of magical.”

He showed her the book and told her about how he came up with the plan to use the singed serpent’s blood. He omitted the part about the Hell’s Kings and his one-year deadline and just passed it off as something he had come across in the Library.

“Get rid of it, Rick. It must be cursed. Haven’t you heard not to trust books that can think for themselves,” Samira said in an alarm and immediately switched back to the caring sister, “Don’t listen to it! You know you can tell me. We have always shared everything. We talked things out about Julia and we can talk out anything else as well. You don’t need that book for it.”

“It’s not cursed Sammy, relax,” he consoled her. “It doesn’t have a brain. It's more like an encyclopaedia, don’t worry.”

It took him a long while before she finally agreed to let him keep the grimoire under the condition that he let him know if it does anything stupid, like ask about his feelings – to which Rick immediately agreed.

"No half-baked plans anymore and don't tell anyone else about your spell-book," she made him promise.

Rick sighed in relief. He knew he could trust his sister with this information. It felt clichéd, but he felt as if a weight was removed from his chest. "So what do we do now?"

"Didn’t your book tell that dungeons were the best way to become stronger?” he nodded at her question. “Then I guess the only thing to do is to find a higher level dungeons and become stronger."

"I will make you a list of the dungeons nearby," Rick voiced. If Sam wanted to become stronger, he would only be dead weight slowing her down. He didn’t want to burden her with protecting him. Besides, he did not need to become stronger, he needed to figure out how to become a summoner.

"Why? You come with me toom" Samira said munching on her sandwich.

"You know I am not a good fighter," Rick smiled dejectedly, “But you know what, you do need a teammate to have your back. Going into a dungeon alone is too dangerous.”

“I have been thinking about that too,” she agreed, “I have a skill that I don’t think is very common. It’s called the…”

Rick and Samira chalked up a plan for the immediate future, about things they would need to do to increase their chances of survival. It was only when the sun started dipping, they realise how the had been at it.

“Let’s go, we should meet up with Jay,” he said between yawns. It had been so long since he had his last sleep, he felt tired to the bone.

"Listen, Rick, don’t go and ask Jay to hand over everything, okay. You are not as good a sweet talker as you think you are. Be courteous and don’t snap, he saved my life,” Samira whispered to him as they neared Jay’s butcher shop.

“Look who is talking. I am always cool as a cucumber,” Rick shot back.

The shops were to the right of the parking spot and took up most of the open space in the empty lot that was a paid-parking spot before. The two worked their way through the hysterical crowd of buyers that wanted to stock-up on supplies to ready themselves and reached Jay’s shop. When Jay saw them arrive, he nudged at them to wait while he quickly sold the waiting customers.

“No one here even knows that the Troll is dead, can you believe it? Linda was telling me how some idiots got killed in the supermarket today morning,” Jay smirked at them as he put his bloody apron away.

“Did you tell them?”

“Of course not. It’s good for business if people think they have to stick around here to get a crack at the monster,” he said and flashed a cheeky smile. “That reminds me, I did promise you the shop in exchange for information on killing the Troll. The shop is yours if you want it.”

“I don’t think I can run a meat shop. Besides you saved Sammy back there, that’s payment enough for as far as I am concerned,” Rick shook his head no.

“What was I s’posed to do? I just did what any of you would do for me. It’s a shame you don’t want the shop man With the Troll dead, I’m leaving this place – need to get stronger and I only got a year. I hear the Library is a good dungeon.”

“Take my word for it, the Library is not worth the risk. But, are you planning on clearing dungeons as well?” Rick asked.

“Yeah, dungeons or generally hunt these weird animal mutants, anything. I think everyone is gonna do that.”

“I don’t think I will,” Rick shrugged. “But listen, I do want a favour from you. I want to set up an information trading shop. Can you help me with that? Where did you find the wood and stuff?”

If he could set up a network where people would share their information voluntarily, it would probably make it easier for him to find out more about summoning.

“Yeah, if you don’t sell meat you have to get a shop of your own and don’t worry about the materials to build the shop. That’s easy to get now. The only bother is that you have to get approved by the high-scorers,” Jay said with disdain. “It’s a pain, but don’t worry, it’s just some nonsense muscle-flexing, Everyone gets in.”

“Are you sure? I am not a fighter if you remember. More importantly, what are high-scorers?”

“Must be the top guys on the list, right?” Samira voiced.

“Yeah. It’s the top five people on the list. Whoever makes it to the top five are supposed to be responsible for the place, whether they want it or not,” Jay explained before adding, “Lucky for you, I am one of the unlucky bastards that made it to the top five. So, you only need to be approved by the other four.”

Rick was surprised by this. Yesterday, the guy selling guns had told him about the list, but he did not expect Jay to be so high up in the list as well. But it was no wonder people did not know the leader’s everywhere after all the board only had initials on it and not the full name.

“So you are the J on the board. That should help,” Samira said. Unlike Rick, she did not sound very impressed. She continued, “We met the 5th ranked guy, he’s quite a character. Who are the other three?”

“They are good. They were stronger than me before. Don’t know ‘bout it now though,” Jay said. “Don’t worry about it, I will tell them that someone is looking to set shop. Just make sure you are here at noon and you will need to barter something of value for them to accept. Maybe you can tell them the thing is dead, I won’t mind.”

“Do I need to know anything else?” Rick asked anxiously. He had jitters already about the meet – flashbacks of externals and admission interviews flashed as he planned for another sleepless preparation.

“Don’t worry mate. Just be yourself. With me there, they will surely not say no,” Jay said giving him a heavy pat on the back. He put on his apron and walked back to the shop, waving behind his back, “See you, tomorrow guys. And listen, try to stay away from Hands, the fifth-ranked guy- the one selling guns and stuff. He can be an asshole at times.”

“I told you that guy was weird. Hands?” Rick whispered to Samira as they waved Jay goodnight.

“And I agreed. I just said, it’s rude to call someone weird,” Samira replied as the two walked back to their pickup.

---

Rick woke up to the sound of the loud knocks. Pulling the jacket out of his face he looked out the car window.

“Rick, who is it?” Samira let out a groan of discontent from the backseat.

He yawned and looked out the window. A man standing outside, blocking the morning sun behind. Rick rolled down the window and said, “Yeah? Who is it this early in the morning?”

The man bent down and looked in. He looked at Rick’s face and spat out, “I knew it! It had to be you busy-nobodies. Listen, kid, I don’t like when people don’t know their place and try telling me things. I will give you one chance, withdraw your Shop Permit and no one has to get beaten up.”

Only then did Rick finally wake up, the morning fog cleared. He knew the man standing outside, it was Hands. Jay must have sent word to the other high-scorers that he was looking to get a shop. Hands was the last among all the five high-scorers and would have to fight every time someone wanted to get a shop in exchange for a shop – it was understandable for the guy to not want people to keep challenging him.

“I can choose not to fight and instead barter something important right?” Rick asked, “I have something that the high-scorers will want.”

“Coward. Do you know why I got the name Hands? If someone wants a shop and doesn’t impress me, the first thing I do is shoot at their palms – no way you can kick your way out after that. That’s what’s going to happen to you as well.” Hands guffawed. “My ass a weak nobody like you could have something I would want.

"Yes, I know how to kill the trolls," Rick said with a grin, “You think the others would want like that information?”