Chapter 1673 (1/2)

After all of the human units had gone home from their allotted assortment of work time, BA-998 activated precisely at 8 P.M. and stood. It manipulated its limbs to proceed to the job start point, where it obtained a trash receptacle and a trolly. Then it began steadily moving through the designated locations, removing the plastic bags from waste bins and placing them into its own, larger, waste bin to be brought to the disposal area.

BA-998 did not tire or hurry as it worked. There was no point in these areas. The movements it had chosen were the optimal speed, balancing the need to accomplish the job quickly with the need to avoid wasting time or effort with hasty mistakes.

Floor by floor, BA-998 continued to gather waste. Occasionally, it would take its larger waste bin to the waste chute and throw the accumulated waste down to the waste room to be sorted between being recycled, composted, or compacted. Then it would unfold another waste bag into its bin and continue its mission.

Very soon, BA-998 reached the top floor. The top floor was Special. Some of the human units whose role brought them to the top floor possessed Authority, which meant their directives could override BA-998’s mission. This override was limited to six-hour increments, but it was still very important that BA-998 not distract the Special individuals who worked here.

On the top floor, BA-998 knocked on every door before entering. Only when five seconds passed without a response would the automaton proceed into the room and accomplish its business. And to further reduce the time BA-998 spent in these rooms, it had streamlined its movements to near-perfect efficiency.

Knock.

No answer. Enter, proceed to the wastebin, remove, turn-

BA-998 paused and recalculated. It had turned too quickly and torn the waste bag. Waste was now spread over on the floor of this Special Room. it quickly lowered its body and used its arm implements to gather the fallen waste, mostly paper products. Luckily, there was no organic matter, or BA-998 would be forced to report this unexpected deviation to a BA devoted to cleaning, thereby starting a chain reaction of inefficiency.

Such an occurrence was not ideal.

However, BA-998 still paused as it picked up the waste. One of the paper products emitted a faint glow that definitely possessed the energy of human unit Engraving.

BA-998 felt nothing as it looked at this glowing symbol. However, the BA’s had all been briefed on certain unlikely protocols that might arise in the course of their duties. One was the propensity of the human units to engage in random behaviors. Their biological mechanisms carried out natural experimental actions without conscious thought, leading to the rapid accumulation of valuable data for the human units. However, there was an obvious drawback to such behavior: near-constant deviations from baseline norms.

So BA-998 was aware that some of these behaviors might result in something of value being thrown away by chance. As such, BA-998 carefully set the glowing paper product to the side, to be taken before BA’s who were specially trained to recognize the value of human items.

BA-998 replaced the waste bag in the Special Room and then continued to proceed with its duties.

*****

“Crap, how are you so good at this?!?!” Todd looked against at Randidly as he finished copying the standard exercises that Todd had given him and began to experiment with the limits of this “Scrawl”.

At the moment, about thirty sticks whizzed through the air around him in a complex pattern. Randidly was currently adjusting the size of his Scrawl Mark, to see if battery power made much of a difference to the functions.

Congratulations! Your Skill Scrawl of the Ghosthound (L) has grown to Level 122!

Randidly tried to keep his expression normal, as a stream of Level up Notifications popped up in front of his face. The duo had retreated from Kharon Academy proper to a thick woods on one of the less affluent dormitory islands that circled around Kharon Academy. Randidly had learned that his teacher's name was Todd and he was an orphan rescued from a Bubble City before their lessons had begun.

To his credit, Todd took his role as ‘sensei’ very seriously.

The kid had ripped a thick branch from a tree and showed Randidly how to form the core of his Scrawl Mark, which essentially let one supersede the energy connections of more typical Engraving. But by just using Scrawl on an inanimate object, you could add supplementary runes to provide typical Engraving effects.

To his surprise, Randidly had actually learned a Skill when he followed Todd’s direction. Rather embarrassingly, it was a Legendary Skill that bore his name. But even so, he wasn’t going to sneeze at the Skill Levels he was accumulating. With his Willpower, his deep understanding of how to manipulate Nether, and his experience using typical Engravings, power Leveling through this Skill was almost cheating.

Todd looked up at the flying platoon of tree branches and rubbed his hand. Then he began muttering to himself. “Am I just… the greatest Sensei ever…?”

Congratulations! Your Skill Scrawl of the Ghosthound (L) has grown to Level 123!

Influence +19!