For the first time in his life Vonn stood up from his seasonal offering without receiving new gifts and recognition. The monks stared at him as he went.

One of them stopped him at the door. "Don't be upset, young man."

Vonn had been staring at the ground, with his fists in his pockets and the engineering treatise under one arm. "It's not good enough, somehow."

"Be patient. You're young, and gods know you've advanced faster than normal."

"You don't understand," he said, his ears flicking backward. "What I'm doing hinges on being amazingly good at this. On getting more powers, more tricks to make everything work better."

The monk directed him to a side room, to not disturb the other petitioners. "The gods don't give us powers because they're urgently needed, but as a reward."

"Don't they have an agenda?"

"Yes; the growth of good people serving Labor, Lore, and Love. I know well that your path has been focused on Lore and that you've striven to keep learning. So don't fear that you've somehow let the gods down."

Vonn looked aside, sighing. "There are people counting on me. If I can get a little more skill, I can do some amazing new thing that fills the sky with airships or puts better tools in everyone's hands." He waved the sheaf of papers. "This is part of that goal. Going beyond my tiny, insignificant impact on the world."

"Was your contribution to the dungeon's destruction insignificant?"

"No, but it's still only one place, one barony. An invention can spread farther."

The monk said, "Not everyone can hope to influence the whole kingdom. If the gods deny you the level, will you be unable to publish that essay?"

He looked at it, surprised. "Of course I can still print it."

"Then you're acting as though your importance comes from the gods' blessings and not from your own labors. If you were to lose all your formal Engineer levels, you'd still have your hands and your mind, wouldn't you?"

Vonn had come to take for granted that he could mentally zoom in on anything he was building, slowing his perception of time and motion to make precise adjustments and spot flaws. He was beyond the Human he'd been in another world. It wasn't just that he'd been given powers, either; he'd been chosen for an important role that very few people understood. "I have so many things to do," he said.

"Making machines?"

"More than that. I... My friends and I are driven to repay what we've been given. We didn't earn all the talent and vision we've been handed, and this chance to build something new. Will I ever be able to build enough that it makes the whole kingdom and beyond a better place?"

"You? No. You and the friends you've been making, maybe."

Vonn nodded. It took an ever-expanding group to keep stretching the limits of what he could build. "Where does that leave me, with being unable to earn that next level? Just trusting that someone else will have the right powers?"

The monk asked if he could see the book. Vonn handed it over and the man flipped through it on a desk. "I don't understand half of this, I'm afraid, and I've read much more than most."

"That's why people need it."

"What's the title of this text? And your name's not on it."

"I didn't have a good one."

"Well then, maybe there's your problem. You haven't fully claimed this or decided how it'll impact the world. Naming things correctly is important, especially if you hope this one will last a long time."

Vonn thanked him and left for now. Instead of going straight back to the Company or home, he went looking for Kotta. The Kobold was shivering as he helped haul logs around at a house construction site.

"You went first thing in the morning, on the first day," said Kotta. "I was going to wait a bit. What did you get?"

"That's the problem." Vonn picked up one end of a log and made a feeble attempt to help Kotta with it, until the other workers shooed him off.

Kotta listened to the advice Vonn had been given. He said, "Well, are you Vonn of Shieldpoint? Just Vonn? Vonn the Sky-Walker?"

Vonn snorted. "I figured that anything cool would sound arrogant, but I don't want to be called after my hometown like Da Vinci."

"Vonn Firetail?"

"That only happened once! Once that anyone here saw."

"As for the book's name, base it on the famous ones you've mentioned. 'Principles of Engineering'? It's plain, but some humility seems to be what's needed in this world." Kotta scooped up a bit of leftover snow and flung it at Vonn. "Now get out of here and earn that next level. I may be writing legends about you someday and the least you can do is figure out your own name!"

Vonn let him get back to work, and returned to the temple. The book name was good, honoring a title by Newton. He had plenty of highfalutin ideas, but --

He paused in the temple entryway, and laughed. There was a tradition among elite pilots, for taking names that reminded them to stay humble. Vonn couldn't honestly fault himself for how he'd crashed his first plane, but he'd been given a suitable idea anyway. So Kotta was right. Vonn borrowed a pen from the monks and wrote on the textbook's cover, Principles of Engineering, by Vonn Firetail.

When he sat again and contemplated what he'd done, the System now paid attention.

Congratulations on your sixth level of Engineer! Do you wish to specialize as a certain type?

He startled. Not now, he thought, though it was tempting to get some bonus specific to mechanical work or another field. He was starting to get new options. Another prompt appeared...