As I walk out of the small mud-brick building that serves as a shop for Edrius and Merria, my head feels like it’s swelled at least a couple sizes than it was previously. Not because of a larger ego mind you, that had been thoroughly humbled by the demonstration and subsequent remediation of a clear knowledge gap. At least in the eyes of Edrius. No, the reason for the peculiar feeling was most definitely witnessing the demonstration that came afterwards.

  Who would have thought of that? Twisting fire mana like that is insane. And with something as violent as compressors?! I’d hate to have to be the one to learn that particular skill. I’d definitely blow up my arm before doing it right.

  With that in mind, what happened next was most definitely not my fault. No siree, not at all.

  With my head spinning even with my increase in dexterity and intelligence, I went off to find the line for the market with a slightly to-glowy strata tattoo. Completely uncovered. In the middle of a busy street. At the busiest time of day.

  Definitely not my smartest move I’ve ever made.

  Technically it wasn’t legal to cover your strata tattoo, but generally if you just uncovered it when someone of higher strata asked you to, you were fine. For that reason, most people of the Operarius strata kept theirs covered to avoid becoming a mark for a potential mugging.

  Actually, this seems the perfect time to go over the strata and rungs for context. Each strata has an overarching name for everyone in it, and also six more names for the “rungs”, or sub-strata within.

  The internal rungs go as follows from highest to lowest: human man, human woman, chimeric man, chimeric woman (Hey thats me!), non-human man, and non-human woman.

  At the very bottom of the strata, there are the Externus, or the foreigners. They basically have no rights at all. Mostly they’re kicked out or killed if one of them shows up on Rai empire lands, but I have heard tell of some just disappearing off the face of the continent.

  Next up is my strata, the Operarius, or workers. We at least get the right to food sold by the crown if we work hard enough, and a roof over our heads. We’re also the most numerous of the strata, but that just tends to happen in general, as the higher the strata the less people are in it. Unfortunately we also can’t own anything. Most of us sleep in communal bunkhouses built by the crown, and our clothes are also technically on loan. The one thing we can technically own at all are marks, our currency. However, we know that's a double edged sword. If we can own marks we can also own debt marks, so they are entirely our own responsibility. Debt marks show up differently to other marks, as regular marks are just magic tattoos generated by the strata tattoo to store distinct aspects of mana. For instance if I were to say ‘one small fire mark’ I others would know that meant ‘about 1000 points of fire aspected mana’ marks go up by factors of ten, so a normal mark is 10000, a large is 100000, and so on. Debt marks on the other hand are much larger, and they hurt. Mostly just when you get them, but also a little all the time. We’re also limited by law to stay at or below level 15 under penalty of death.

  Next are the Artifex, or the artisans and sailors. I don’t really get what sailors do; they mostly sound like workers that operate large ships that float over water for some reason. I know that piloting the big warships the Crown like to float over the city during parades and festivals isn’t one of their jobs, so I’m just confused about them in general. Artisans are simple though, they make specialty goods, like paintings, plans for houses and city plumbing, catalysts, bridges, that kind of thing. They can rent out property in cities for workshops if they’re successful enough, like Edrius and his Catalyst shop. They also have the special privilege of selling directly to their buyer instead of to the crown like everyone else. Their level cap is 30.

  Next are the Agricola, or the farmers. They’re allowed to rent farmland around cities from the lords that own that land and from there hire Operarius to work the land under their direction. They pay a portion of that back to the lord that owns the land, and the rest gets bought by the crown, no exceptions. Their level cap is 45.

  Next up are the big boys, and the ones I happen to despise the most. The Bellicus are the warriors, the defenders of the land, organized into large families that raise their children from birth to fight battles for the crown. Generally there are only two or three such families that exist in a given decently sized city, all the time vying for land and ‘cultivation materials’ whatever those are. The families in the city I live in, Aurus, are called the Plinius, the Harcova, and the Gnaeus. They are, as you might have guessed, the first strata to be allowed family names. They also have a terrible penchant for wreaking havoc in large city spanning duels over petty issues like land or honor. One such dispute between the Plinius and the Harcova is why I was orphaned at ten years of age. Their level cap is 75.

  After that are the Sacralis, or the priests. They mostly hang out in the communal worship areas and talk of scripture, but you also see them at the head of the market lines handing out food rations to the workers and artisans. Mostly they worship Unir, god of life and nature. Supposedly it is because of his scriptures that the strata exist as they do. They’re level cap is at 90, but according to Edrius they almost never reach it.

  Last but not least, there’s the royal family themselves. Overall, there’s only about a dozen true members of this strata right now, as they only count the direct line of succession. They generally take consorts from the Bellinus families, but those families are never put into the line of succession as a result. It's also the only officially sanctioned instance of a romantic relationship outside of across strata. It’s widely believed that there is no level cap for the royal family but Edrius says that they do have a cap of 150 because of some agreement with other kingdoms. I believe him, Edrius tends to know stuff.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Whew, that was longer than I thought. It makes so much sense in your head intuitively, but as soon as you have to spell it out there’s so much context that give the strata meaning I just can’t get everything out concisely.

  Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah my decision to walk around with four wind marks, each glowing green, on my way to pick up more food for Edrius.

  And also getting followed by about half a dozen thugs who wanted to take them from me, all about my age.

  By the time I noticed what I had done wrong, it was too late. As soon as I moved to cover up the back of my right hand, two burly chimera boys stepped out from an alley into my path, with the other seven trailing behind me at various distances. I started as I recognized one of them. Hanstus, one of the kids I used to run with more than two years ago. We never had a name for our group, it was just a few kids that helped each other out.

  “Transfer the marks! Do it!” One of the big chimera boys said, this one with an elongated snout that garbled the words a little.

  I know what he’s doing, of course. I would have done the same thing. He’s trying to limit my options, rush me into messing up or giving up easily. Unfortunately, it's working. I look at the other chimera. Tall, lanky, fur all over and freakishly long arms. Probably not getting past him when I have to deal with other crap.

  Long Nose is getting closer too fast, I need to do something now. Thinking fast, I drop low and activate my one self made catalyst I imprinted with Edrius’s help, \Weighted Cross/.

  With how the catalyst works, my arm will only move one kind of way when I use it, and I need to aim low for my plan to work. I know that defending against a weapon while I’m weaponless is a fool’s plan, so I don’t even try.

  My strike flies true, and my left hand smashes into Long Nose’s exposed right side right as he gets in range. With a sound like breaking glass, I know I’ve slammed right through his health points and into his liver. Knife forgotten, he goes down in a heap, and I use his back as a springboard to leap nearly twice my height into the air and kick off the nearby wall into the next alley to take off running, despite Long Arms desperately trying to grab my ankles as I sail over him.

  My pursuers aren’t giving up that easy, and it's a depressingly long way to safety.

  Wait, where is safety?! I suddenly think. There’s no way the guards will care about a minor squabble like this. They’d just as likely throw me to the wolves to get a laugh. No, my best chance is to lose them. Got to find a crowd, or something!

  Unfortunately, at this time of day, I know I’ll likely only find a crowd in one place; the markets. Fortunately, I know exactly where they were and the quickest way to get there. Double unfortunately, so do my pursuers.

  I know I’m faster than any of them in an all out sprint, but the way there was anything but straight. As if on queue, a small round pebble wizzes by my head, and another strikes the plates on the back of my neck I have instead of hair.

  I glance at the message in shock as I bob and weave to dodge any follow up shots.

  One of them definitely has a catalyst for a sling throw or something, I decide. I don’t know any catalyst merchant in town who sells something like that. Which means he definitely has an ability node. Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.

  Manmade catalysts for ranged attacks in the price range these chuckleheads probably had were almost always useless. Limitations in scope like the one my \Weighted Cross/ has are the norm, and the downsides of everything only behaving one way with no variation are much more pronounced in a ranged weapon.

  This kid however, can clearly aim and they’re doing it well.

  I’d love to get a good look at it… for research purposes only, of course.

  The other kids are getting the memo as well and are starting to throw anything they can find to slow me down or chip my HP. Bricks, wood scraps, cobble stones, all are thrown with reckless abandon as I had to either dodge or tank objects thrown from double human baseline at minimum.

  I realize a bit too late that I’m going to have to thin them out if I want to get anywhere, so I look back and start forming a plan.

  It looks like the fastest ones have separated from the pack, with most trailing behind the leaders by a significant margin. Among them I spot Long Arms, a stocky teen I don’t recognize, and the lone girl of the group who’s… carrying a sling!

  I memorize her face for later while planning out my next move. Long arms is in the lead by a bit because he’s able to use said arms to navigate the urban terrain better than the others.

  As I turn the corner, I slide to a stop and listened for the odd gait I knew would be right behind me, and next to my left shoulder, I notice a loose brick in the wall.

  That’ll do. I think.

  Heartbeats later, right as Long Arms rounds the corner, I swing the brick with all my strength, straight at his right knee.

  CRACK

  The sound is loud, and Long Arms stumbles back with a cry, more surprised than hurt. I knew then that I haven’t gotten through to his HP and I swung again, breaking the brick over his right shoulder. This time I hear the tell tale sound of glass breaking, accompanied by a real scream of pain this time. I don’t stick around to see what happened next, I turn and run. Behind me, I hear a shocked series of voices, then arguing that quickly faded into the distance.

  I can’t help but breath a sigh of relief. Any hesitation on their part is enough for me to get away at this point.

  That was until another boy suddenly jumps onto me and sends me sprawling to the ground. With incredible finesse, he starts to maneuver me into a grapple, but there’s not much power to his grip when he starts yelling excitedly.

  “I got her guys, come over here I-”

  In a panic, I try to throw him off. To my surprise, it works too easily as I send him flying… into another brick wall. I hear the third sound of glass breaking today as he hits the wall with his back. For a moment, his eyes open wide in surprise, but then they glass over as his body falls limp like a puppet with its strings cut.

  “Oh gods,” I say rushing over to him. He can’t die, he can’t. I shouldn’t die for a stupid mistake like this. I check him all over, but when I get to his right hand I see that his strata tattoo is still giving off a faint glow, which means he’s still alive to feed it mana.

  Good enough for me. I quickly stand up and start running in the direction of the markets.