Life was going good. Not perfect, but good. Despite their previous issues, the company went hunting. And Corn benefitted by hanging around the mage. The time was coming when he would be a Mage of The Mage Council. Soon.

Time Remaining: 29 days 23 hours

Stats: 7/20

Corn experienced more elements of mana: light mana, water mana and even tree mana. His horizons were broadened. His Stat points would grow.

It’s just a number.

Time Remaining: 27 days 1 hour

Stats: 7/20

Is it just a number? Come on, grow faster.

Time Remaining: 25 days 16 hours

Stats: 8/20

Whew! One whole Stat point. Finally!

Corn expanded his circuits all over his body. Those thin lines passed through his fingers, his toes, his digestive system and everywhere he could think of. Even though pushing mana out was most useful from his hands, what else could he do?

He managed to learn one more spell circle (obviously the stream of flames), but none of the spell circles were of any use. Other than drawing them every once in a while, looking at his amazing penmanship and blithely experimenting. They yielded no results.

Stealing the wand or any other magical equipment looked more and more an impossible task, given that even the mage thought they were priceless.

Finding solid information was a dream.

Still, growth is growth. The Stat points would grow with time. Just twelve more points to go.

Time Remaining: 22 days 5 hours

Stats: 8/20

It’s just twelve more points. I’m not going to be a slave again.

Time Remaining: 19 days 2 hours

Stats: 8/20

Ahhhhhhh! Fuck! This is useless. I’m screwed!

Maybe, just maybe sticking around with the Border Reserves might have helped him if he had more time. But if he didn’t get those 20 stats, it was back to being a slave. There was no way in Abyss that was going to happen!

He needed more information. So he took a break and went looking for Line. He wasn’t at the old company. He had been fired. And Corn had no way to contact him.

It might have seemed strange that Corn kept looking for Line whenever he wanted information, but Line was a very suspicious person.

In the slave camps, the slaves had no Stats and the wardens weren’t very forthcoming with information. But in his two and half months of living in an actual city, he had learnt that not everyone treated Stats the same way.

For the majority of them it was a tool. Useful when needed but otherwise best ignored. There was so many more important things in life: earning a living, family, friends and entertainment. The clan of dwarves he stayed with would approve with this sentiment.

To others it was a career: a means of living. They used it faithfully but also blindly. Practice, practice, practice and more practice. And that was enough.

Line was the only one who seemed to know more.

Time Remaining: 15 days 1 hour

Stats: 8/20

He discovered the solution to his problem accidently.

After netting a huge haul of Life shards, Corn and a few others had enough to recovers their lost lives. After a short ritual (that Corn could not observe enough of) his saggy skin and wrinkles had receded and his body stopped aching. He had gone back to being Middle aged. He had gotten back ten years of his life.

After the ritual, two orbs brought a chest to him. Like before, he had to scan his bracelet to reveal a chest of five purple glowing counters. He instantly flashed a purple badge to all those watching.

“Relax, we’re not going to grab anything.”

Corn snorted. He could see it in their eyes that it wasn’t true.

Wilt hugged him from the back and whispered, “You can gain your Race counters in this office itself. Come on.”

The ritual circle was a spell circle engraved on the ground. Complex geometric shapes entwined each other in circles and glowed purple, instead of the red for the life ritual circle. An attendant stood in front of a mounted Screen and asked Corn to scan his bracelet.

“Two Race counters,” he demanded. So Corn reluctantly handed over the price of that purple badge and stepped in to the ritual circle with three Race counters.

Corn could feel his circuits flare with residual mana, as the purple glow lit up the room. The nearby harvesters (who really were jobless) covered their eyes.

The Screen flashed.

Race counter input. Position established: Race 3 Assigned Race Assigning Race….. System has chosen Dwarf.

“What! No! Change that!”

System recalibrating elemental choice ….. System has chosen Dark Dwarf.

“What does that even mean?”

In answer to his question, he felt the ground rush up to him. His body shrank, his limbs contracted into a more muscular frame and he saw parts of his skin turn into a greyish black. His clothes flopped over him and left him fumbling in the blind. There was no pain but the change in height entangled his clothes and he tripped and fell on the floor.

He started removing his oversized clothes. The change in height reminded him nostalgically of his childhood. Wait a minute, what childhood?

He had no memories of that time. He probed his mind, only to realise the nostalgia was conceptual, just like every other person he must have been a child, he must have been tiny and immortal. And so he felt reminded of that. There was no memory of a vague silhouette of his parents or a childhood hang out. No, he just got worked up for nothing.

Besides there was only solid memory before sixteen. Just that dream.

He grumbled. Pulling the clothes out was annoying. Wilt came forward and smiled at him. The smile became a grimace as she inspected him.

“We’re breaking up,” she announced.

Corn tilted his head. “Wait, why?”

“Humans are hot, but dwarves are not,” she shrugged, her face contorted with disgust.

“And nymphs are looser than sand,” retorted someone from the harvesters. It was the elf.

But seeing as it was the elf, the nymph ignored him and walked away.

So that’s how they do things here, huh?

The rest of the harvesters left with her. The elf swore at him in the presence of others but as soon as they left his attitude took an entire 180 degree shift. He helped with the clothes and attended to Corn patiently.

Hold on, aren’t dwarves and elves mortal enemies? He voiced his concerns.

The elf sighed, “We have to follow the script.”

“Wait, what?”

“Historically, elves and dwarves have been pretty close. Great ties for centuries. It’s just that the script says that elves are supposed to despise dwarves. Otherwise our businesses lose permits and we have to pay fines. To outsiders elves hate your kind, but amongst ourselves we are pretty chill. It’s an open secret, really.”

“There’s a script now?”

“Rules for behaviours. We’re Indentured Servants so we have to model ourselves according to the city’s will. Iridicrodium’s rules. Didn’t you complete your Fish badge? Everyone has to.”

“Oh, so that’s what that was.”

His new elvish friend, PromFile, helped him find a dwarfish uniform and even invited Corn to his community. Corn declined. His shitty hand in life had left him all the more determined to find a way out of his situation. He was getting desperate.

There were many mages amongst the Academies, but only one that Corn knew enough about to viscerally hate. A few weeks back, when the strategy had been to find a master, she had been the only one Corn avoided. The slave master. And she was the one that he was going to meet now.

Gone were the human slaves pulling her carriage, they were replaced by two crawling giants. It was quite a spectacle. But Corn held in the burning rage, grit his teeth and tried to get an audience. Most mages had retainers who waited outside the Academy to whom Corn could furnish tall tales. It seemed that their purpose was to deal with lower ranks who mages could not bother dealing with.

So Corn had no choice but to knock on the carriage door.

It swung open to reveal a human. She wore a brocaded robe of blue and red.

“All participants must kneel,” she announced.

So Corn kneeled.

“Woah! Where did he go? Can you see him Gig?” she asked a pale man in ostentatious red robes.

Corn waited for them to stop the pranks; but when it was clear they would close the door, he stood up.

“I said kneel, not disappear. Come on in,” she said with a sincere smile.

The inside of the carriage was larger than the outside. The mage sat behind a glass desk while the pale man reclined on a sofa.

Corn began, “Your maj-”

But he was immediately cut off by the mage, “Kneel.”

He grit his teeth and complied.

“Whatever it is you want you have two words.”

“Teach. Magic?” said Corn, his anger bubbling up.

“Your kind doesn’t deserve to be taught Magic. If that’s all you can leave, unless you want to feed on his blood Pearl?”

“No way, I’d die of indigestion. Would any Chaotic Race feed on a dwarf?” replied the vampire.

His anger was replaced by curiosity. “What’s a Chaotic Race?”

“Mother Below! You dimwitted dwarf, have you never seen anyone that feeds on Stats? Now get lost,” answered the mage and Corn found himself kneeling outside.

The club was just the right amount of seedy. Most of the crowd were too inebriated to stand let alone dance to the blaring bass. And the coloured stains on the tables and tiled floor told many a tale of patrons abusing this club.

In a corner of this club sat a dark dwarf, chugging a mug of pinkish blue froth. He sported a white mohawk and thick beard but his clothes were poor and a stained mess. The dwarf muttered to himself as he drank the brew and cast glances at the throng of people. Desperation was written all over his face. Any women he approached either rejected him outright or puked their way out of consciousness.

A woman sat on the bench next to him. She wore a tight fitting purple dress with a slit that trailed from her hips all the way to her long exquisite legs. Matching jewellery and pumps went with her dress. Her skin was a hue of cream and purple and sensuously slithered all over her like bubbles from a lava lamp.

She smiled at the dwarf.

He gulped.

She slid her soft long fingers over the thick squat hand of the dwarf. She trailed her fingers through his arm and chest and into the rock hardness in his groin.

The dwarf’s eyes closed in ecstasy.

She smiled and edged closer to him, her arms wrapped around him.

The dwarf grabbed her hand.

He lifted it from his groin.

“It’ll feel so good,” she murmured. Softly. Seductively.

Corn could feel pleasure light up his nerves into unimaginable ecstasy, but he held her hand. If he could withstand pain, he could do the same for pleasure.

“You have no idea how difficult it is to find a succubus,” he said.

The succubus turned pale, grabbed her purse and turned to leave.

“I know hunger when I see it,” continued Corn.

The succubus winced.

“You want to feed on my sexual vitality, right? I’ll give it to you, if you answer my questions.”

This caught the succubus by surprise. “What questions?” she asked.

“What is a Chaotic Race? How do I become one?”

The succubus sat down on the bar stool and looked longingly at Corn, or was that his dick? “You are a dwarf which means you are categorically an Assigned Race and have three Race counters. When you have two Race counters you become a Chaotic Race.”

“Wait a minute, you lose Life counters by dying or running out of time. How do you lose Race counters?”

The succubus looked at Corn without a word.

“Ok, what is a Chaotic Race then?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t have found me, if you didn’t know. Most people require meat and veggies, but we feed on Stats. Depending on the Stats you have different species. Succubae, vampires and werewolves feed on Vitality; hobgoblins and orcs feed on Core; floams feed on Charisma; and there are subspecies that feed on other Stats.”

“How do I become one?”

The succubus stared at Corn’s groin and bit her lip, “Go to this address.”

“I need to be sure.”

She protested loudly.

“You wouldn’t be in this low a joint, if you could feed anywhere else. Come with me to this one place and you can have me for dinner.”

Time Remaining: 11 days 5 hours

Stats: 8/20