Chương 38: Apparently, Twenty Copies Unlocks B-Rank

Iron Junction had taught Matt several things. Cards were loot. Cards were not free money. And gambling because he wanted "one clean data point" was still gambling even if the loss went into a spreadsheet afterward. This morning, he was trying not to think about Five Fortunes. It was going poorly. Matt sat outside his trailer with a mug of coffee while Iron Junction's market woke up around him.

Freight-themed equipment shops were opening for the day, Delvers crossed Camp with weapons and physical loot containers, and somewhere beyond the buildings the Dungeon Gate glowed inside the old rail complex. His phone was safely face down. No Card market. No exchange calculator. No temptation. Instead, Matt had COPY open. Not because anything was wrong with it. He had simply realized that he hadn't added anything new to the Archive since Sweeping Tempo. Seventeen stored Unique Skills.

That number was not inherently important. At least, Matt had no reason to think it was. Level Ten had increased his active COPY slots from two to three. Nothing similar had happened at Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, or Seventeen. COPY clearly had development rules; Matt simply did not know all of them. He took another sip of coffee.

"Seventeen." Perfect Temperature had already been swapped back out after doing its morning job. His normal Iron Junction combat loadout remained Sweeping Tempo, Quick Frame, and Overmuscle. Seventeen stored. Three active. Maximum copyable Rank: C. Matt closed the interface. There was no reason to stare at it. Then a delivery worker at the edge of the market did something interesting. Matt stopped drinking. ◆ The woman was unloading equipment shipments from a cargo van. Nothing unusual there.

Iron Junction received enormous amounts of Gear, Crafting Currency, Dungeon materials, Skill Gems, and ordinary supplies every day. Matt had spent enough time around Dungeon markets that shipping crates barely registered anymore. This one did. The woman pulled a small reinforced package from the van. Thick plastic shipping bands wrapped around it twice, with tamper strips across the lid. She didn't reach for a knife. Instead, she touched one finger to the first seal. Something activated. COPY reacted.

The plastic separated in a perfectly straight line. Not cut. Not torn. Opened. The second band did the same thing, and the tamper strips peeled away cleanly without damaging the cardboard underneath. UNIQUE SKILL OBSERVED CLEAN BREAK — F Active Effect Allows the user to cleanly open ordinary manufactured packaging, wrapping, tape, seals, and similar non-secured closures without damaging the contents.

Does not bypass locks, security mechanisms, magical seals, or containers whose primary function is preventing unauthorized access. Flavor Text Some battles were never meant to involve scissors. Matt looked at the woman. Then at the opened box. Then at the Skill again.

"…That's stupidly useful." He thought about shipping tape, food packaging, plastic clamshells, boxes, and tool packages. Everything manufacturers seemed to believe needed to survive atmospheric reentry before reaching the customer. There was absolutely no combat application. Probably. Matt had learned not to say that too confidently anymore. More importantly, there was no downside to storing it.

"Copy." COPY COMPLETE Clean Break — F Stored Unique Skills: 18 Matt froze. Not because of the Skill. Because of the number. Eighteen. He stared for another second, then closed the interface.

"Two more." He stopped.

"…Why did I say that?" Nothing had happened at eighteen. Nothing suggested twenty mattered. This was exactly how people invented superstitions. Matt looked toward the trailer. Fortune's Harness was inside.

"Absolutely not." He finished his coffee. Still, he had learned something important back in Ironvale. Unique Skills didn't need to shoot lightning or guarantee Crafting modifiers to be worth collecting. COPY's Archive was unlimited. Walking through a Camp and actually paying attention had produced Sound Sleep, Closed Loop, Second Wind, Steady Hand, and magical ice cream in a single day. Matt had mostly returned to watching combat Delvers and Crafters after that. Habit. Maybe that was inefficient.

"… I should probably do this more often." He stood. Iron Junction had thousands of Delvers, workers, Crafters, drivers, mechanics, merchants, and support staff passing through. Somewhere among them were almost certainly useful Skills Matt had never seen. That didn't mean he needed to turn every morning into a dedicated Unique hunt. But actually looking around once in a while seemed reasonable. He was going for breakfast anyway. ◆ The second Skill found him before breakfast did.

Matt had stopped near a trailer-service yard on the edge of Camp. Not because he needed repairs. His rig was fine. He had simply noticed a mechanic guiding a customer's long fifth-wheel trailer through a service entrance that looked far too narrow. The mechanic stood outside giving hand signals to the driver.

"Six inches left." The trailer moved.

"Four." The driver corrected. The rear corner passed a steel post with barely any visible clearance.

"Two and a half. Straight now." Matt stopped completely. There was no tape measure. No laser. No second spotter on the opposite side. The mechanic glanced along the trailer, activated something, then pointed again. COPY reacted.

"Stop." The driver braked. The rear bumper ended less than an inch from a workbench. UNIQUE SKILL OBSERVED TRUE MEASURE — C Active Effect While active, allows the user to make highly accurate visual estimates of visible distance, length, width, height, angle, and clearance. Accuracy decreases with extreme distance, obstruction, poor visibility, or incomplete line of sight. Does not reveal hidden dimensions, mass, composition, or information the user cannot visually reference.

Flavor Text Close enough is a measurement. This is better. Matt stared. Then looked toward his own truck and trailer several rows away. Backing into Camps, judging hitch alignment, checking clearance, moving bulky loot, Dungeon spaces, Crafting, construction—the uses stacked up quickly. Mostly, though— The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. parking. Matt's expression became serious.

"That would have saved me so much embarrassment." COPY didn't care. Matt did.

"Copy." COPY COMPLETE True Measure — C Stored Unique Skills: 19 Matt stared at the number. Nineteen. His breakfast plan was now in danger. He knew it. Recognized the symptoms. This was his brain seeing nineteen and becoming offended that it wasn't twenty. Matt closed COPY.

"No." He walked toward the food trucks. Twenty was just a number. He was not going to spend the morning stalking strangers because a counter was one short of round. That would be insane. Five minutes later, Matt was eating breakfast while paying considerably more attention to the people around him than usual.

"Completely normal." Nothing interesting happened. That was probably healthy. A group of Delvers argued over yesterday's Dungeon route. A merchant moved boxes. A Crafter inspected an axe. Two children chased each other between picnic tables until someone yelled at them to slow down. Matt finished breakfast, threw away the wrapper, and headed toward the market. By late morning, he had almost stopped thinking about nineteen. Almost. Then something heavy crashed near the freight-loading area.

◆ Iron Junction's Camp market handled more physical cargo than any other place Matt had stayed. That made sense. The Dungeon itself produced metal equipment, Construct components, freight-themed Cards, industrial Bases, and enough Crafting material to support a large secondary economy. Which meant pallets, carts, forklifts, loaders—and occasionally people discovering that gravity remained operational despite the existence of magic. Matt heard the shout before he saw the problem.

"Watch it!" A loaded handcart had broken free near a ramp. Not a shopping cart. Industrial, steel-framed, with several hundred pounds of boxed material stacked on top. It rolled downhill. A worker stood directly in its path. He had enough time to turn. Not enough time to leave. The man planted one foot, crossed both forearms in front of his body, and activated a Unique Skill. COPY reacted. The cart hit him. Hard. Matt winced. The worker slid backward several feet but stayed upright.

The front edge of the cart slammed into his braced arms, lost most of its momentum, and twisted sideways into a barrier. Boxes fell. Nobody died. Several people rushed over.

"You good?" The worker shook out his arms.

"Yeah." Matt was already reading. UNIQUE SKILL OBSERVED IMPACT BRACE — C Active Effect When consciously bracing for an imminent physical impact, temporarily improves the user's ability to resist and endure that single impact. Most effective against short-duration blunt force. Does not prevent all damage, does not provide continuous protection, and offers limited benefit against cutting, piercing, elemental, or sustained forces. Flavor Text You cannot always move. Sometimes you become the wall.

Matt looked from the Skill to the worker. Useful. Very useful. Different from Anchored Step. Anchored Step resisted involuntary movement while Matt maintained contact with stable footing. Impact Brace cared about the incoming hit itself: short duration, one impact, primarily blunt force. A different answer. Exactly the kind of thing the Archive was built for. Matt selected COPY.

"Copy." COPY COMPLETE Impact Brace — C Stored Unique Skills: 20 The ordinary confirmation vanished. Matt smiled faintly.

"Twenty." Then another sound played. Not the ordinary COPY confirmation. Not a Level Up. Matt stopped moving. A golden edge appeared around the interface. His smile disappeared.

"Oh." UNIQUE SKILL DEVELOPMENT CONDITION MET COPY — SSS Stored Copy Threshold Reached: 20 FUNCTION ENHANCED Maximum Copyable Rank C → B Matt stared. For several seconds, the freight yard disappeared from his attention. People were still checking the worker. Someone had begun restacking boxes. A forklift alarm beeped nearby. Matt saw none of it. One letter occupied his entire brain. B.

"…Oh." Not active slots. Those remained three. Not storage. Storage was already unlimited. The restriction that had rejected him repeatedly had moved. Matt's first thought was immediate.

"Tempered Edge." ◆ He stepped away from the loading lane before somebody else hit him with industrial equipment. Then he opened COPY again. Twenty stored Skills. Maximum copyable Rank: B. Three active slots. Matt didn't need to inspect anything else. B. He opened the failed observation history. Two names stood out immediately. Blink Step — B. Tempered Edge — B. Both had produced the same answer when Matt tried to copy them. COPY FAILED. Target Rank exceeds current limit. That answer no longer applied.

Matt selected the old Tempered Edge record. Nothing happened. Of course. The historical observation was only a record of failure. COPY required Matt to directly observe the actual Unique Skill activation and consciously choose to copy it at that moment. Unlocking B-rank did not retroactively turn every failed observation into a stored Skill. Matt nodded.

"That would've been too easy." Still, the next time he watched Tempered Edge activate, there was no longer a Rank barrier between him and the Skill. At least according to the System. Matt wanted confirmation. There was one other thing he needed to do first. He closed COPY and pulled out his phone. Scrolled past Ryan. Past Ethan. Past Chloe. Then found a contact he had not needed for anything interesting in a while. Laura Bennett. Matt looked at the name.

"Right." He called. ◆ Laura answered on the fourth ring.

"Bennett." No greeting. Same voice. Matt smiled slightly.

"Hi." A pause.

"Matt?"

"Yeah."

"That generally means one of two things."

"What?"

"You either have a problem, or your Unique did something." Matt considered.

"Second one." The tone on the other end changed. Not dramatically. Laura simply became more focused.

"What changed?"

"My Copy Rank ceiling." Silence. Matt continued.

"C to B." The silence lasted a little longer.

"You're certain?"

"The System notification was pretty specific."

"What triggered it?"

"Stored copies reached twenty." Laura did not answer immediately. Matt heard faint keyboard noise.

"You had seventeen at the last substantive update."

"Yeah."

"You copied three today?"

"Over the last couple hours."

"What were they?" Matt leaned against the side of a building.

"Clean Break. F-rank packaging Skill. True Measure, C. Impact Brace, C." Another pause.

"I'm going to need descriptions."

"I assumed." Matt summarized them. Laura asked two questions about Impact Brace, one about True Measure, and none about magical package opening beyond confirming that Clean Break could not bypass locks or actual security systems. Then the keyboard stopped.

"Any other changes?"

"No."

"Active slots?"

"Still three."

"Storage?"

"Still unlimited."

"Any change to copied Skills already stored?"

"Not that I can see."

"And you haven't successfully copied a B-rank Skill yet."

"Not yet." Laura exhaled quietly.

"All right. I'm logging this as a self-reported development event tied to a System notification, not a confirmed B-rank copy."

"That sounds government."

"It is government."

"Fair."

"I want another report after you successfully copy one." Matt looked toward Iron Junction's market buildings.

"I was planning to test Tempered Edge."

"Of course you were." Matt frowned.

"What does that mean?"

"It means you have attempted to copy Tempered Edge before."

"Right."

"And it is a commercially available Crafting specialization with public observation opportunities."

"Right."

"And you're Matt." He considered objecting. Couldn't find a strong basis.

"Fair." Laura continued.

"Do not interpret this as permission to start hunting dangerous B-rank combat abilities just because the ceiling moved."

"That sounds targeted."

"You called me from a Dungeon Camp to report that you deliberately collected twenty Unique Skills."

"I did not deliberately collect all twenty."

"The distinction is not helping." Matt smiled.

"No dangerous testing. Public Crafter first."

"Good." He heard typing again. Then Laura said, "Level Ten gave you another active slot."

"Yeah."

"Twenty stored copies increased the Rank ceiling." Matt straightened slightly. There it was. He had been thinking the same thing.

"Separate progression tracks."

"Apparently."

"So Level isn't the only thing developing COPY."

"No." Laura's voice remained careful.

"And before you ask, we do not know what the next condition is."

"I wasn't going to ask."

"You were."

"I was."

"I know." Matt looked across Camp.

"So this is new information for you too."

"Yes." That answer mattered. The government had studied abilities for fifteen years. It had classified COPY as SSS and tested what Matt was willing and able to demonstrate when the Skill first appeared. And it still did not possess an instruction manual for it. Matt found that strangely reassuring. Or terrifying. Possibly both. Laura continued.

"Do not assume twenty is part of a simple sequence."

"Ten Levels. Twenty stored."

"I said do not assume."

"I'm not."

"You sound like you're making a spreadsheet." Matt looked at the spreadsheet app already open on his phone.

"…No."

"Matt."

"Fine." Laura sighed.

"Record the condition. Record the result. Do not invent the next threshold from two observations." That was irritatingly reasonable. Matt closed the spreadsheet.

"Okay."

"And call after the first successful B-rank copy."

"I will." A pause. Then Laura added, "Congratulations." Matt blinked. That had not sounded governmental.

"Thanks."

"Try not to make me regret saying it."

"No promises."

"That was the wrong answer." The call ended. Matt stared at the phone. Then laughed. ◆ He did, in fact, make a note. Not a prediction. A note. COPY DEVELOPMENT OBSERVED Level 10 → Active Slots 2 → 3 20 Stored Copies → Maximum Copy Rank C → B NEXT CONDITION: UNKNOWN DO NOT INVENT PATTERN FROM TWO DATA POINTS Laura would approve. Probably. Matt closed the note and opened Iron Junction's public Crafter directory.

He searched for Physical Weapon Crafting, then narrowed the results to guaranteed Increased Physical Damage and B-rank specialists. Several providers appeared. One result stopped him. TEMPERED EDGE — B Public Service / Observation Permitted Iron Junction Crafter Hall Next Available Session Tomorrow — 9: 40 AM Matt stared at it. That was almost offensively convenient. He opened the listing. Same Skill. Same B-rank. Same ten-use daily structure he had observed before. The Skill that had rejected COPY in Ashfield.

The Skill that had rejected COPY again in Ironvale. Now the obstacle wasn't Rank. It was waiting until 9: 40 tomorrow morning. Matt booked an observation slot. No need to pay for a Craft. He didn't currently need another weapon. He only needed to watch Tempered Edge activate. Directly. Once. Matt leaned back. Then remembered the other failed B-rank observation. Blink Step. He searched for public B-rank movement instructors. Much less convenient.

There were plenty of Movement Skill Gems, plenty of Blink-like effects, and not many people advertising public demonstrations of a personal B-rank teleportation Unique. Matt closed that search.

"Temper first." One problem at a time. That habit had kept him alive so far. Mostly. ◆ The rest of the afternoon became surprisingly ordinary. Matt did not run back into Iron Junction looking for more Unique Skills. Twenty had already done enough damage to his schedule. He handled Marketplace messages, checked Card prices without buying anything, ate lunch, and reviewed his Iron Junction farming notes. Then he tried True Measure. That turned into forty minutes of walking around Camp measuring things with his eyes.

Trailer clearance. Truck width. Distance between bollards. Loading-dock height. Ramp angles. Matt compared several estimates against actual marked measurements wherever he could. The Skill was disturbingly accurate. Not perfect. Not omniscient. Exactly what the card promised. Matt stood behind his pickup and looked toward the hitch. True Measure. Distance. Angle. Alignment. He stared.

"…You have got to be kidding me." Months ago, backing the trailer had required repeated corrections and occasional public humiliation. Now his brain supplied precise spatial relationships almost immediately.

"This would have been useful before I learned how to do it manually." A pause.

"Still useful." Very useful. Matt mentally added True Measure to the growing category of Skills that would probably never occupy a default combat slot and would still save him enormous amounts of irritation over time. Clean Break received a test next. Matt opened a new pack of replacement razor cartridges. Perfect line. No torn cardboard. No bent plastic. No fighting with the package. Matt stared at the opened container.

"This might be the best F-rank Skill in existence." The System declined to comment. Impact Brace received no live test. Matt had boundaries. Some. He was not going to ask someone to hit him with industrial equipment just to validate the Skill card. The opportunity would arrive eventually. Probably in a Dungeon. Almost certainly at the worst possible moment. Archive. That was enough. ◆ By evening, the significance of B-rank had become more obvious.

It wasn't simply that B-rank abilities were stronger than C-rank abilities. That was too crude. Some F-rank Skills were life-changing in exactly one narrow context. Some C-rank abilities were powerful economic tools. Some B-rank abilities were valuable because their scale, restrictions, or precision reached beyond what lower-rank versions could offer. Tempered Edge mattered because it could remove one of the last modifier-family failures from Matt's Physical weapon production.

Blink Step mattered because it was a personal B-rank teleportation ability rather than a Skill Gem. And there were undoubtedly thousands of other B-rank Unique Skills Matt had never seen. Combat. Crafting. Utility. Movement. Defense. Information. Probably something incredibly stupid that would become essential three months after he copied it. Matt opened the Archive. Twenty stored. That number suddenly felt small. Which was ridiculous. At seventeen that morning, twenty had looked like a destination.

Now it was simply the number that had opened the next door. He scrolled through the collection. Perfect Temperature. Anchored Step. Sure Grip. Overmuscle. Quick Frame. Light Load. Vital Imprint. Elemental Ward. Weighted Edge. Quickened Temper. Arcane Economy. Sound Sleep. Closed Loop. A Spoonful of Happiness. Second Wind. Steady Hand. Sweeping Tempo. Clean Break. True Measure. Impact Brace. A strange collection. Almost none of it looked like a coherent SSS ability when viewed one piece at a time.

That was the trick. COPY itself was the coherent part. Matt closed the Archive before he started rereading twenty Skill cards for no reason. Three active slots. Twenty stored answers. B-rank now available. Tomorrow, potentially twenty-one. Matt smiled. Then stopped.

"No." Do not become superstitious about numbers. He had just been warned about this. Matt opened his planner. TOMORROW 9: 40 AM — Observe Tempered Edge Confirm B-rank COPY Report successful B-rank copy to Laura Do not immediately copy every B-rank Skill in America Matt stared at the final line. Then added: Reasonable exceptions permitted. He considered it. Deleted the line.

"Growth." ◆ Night settled over Iron Junction. The Camp never became truly quiet, but compared with Ironvale it almost felt restrained. Trucks moved through the freight lanes, Delvers returned from the Gate, and somebody outside the market argued loudly about Card prices. Matt sat at the trailer table with COPY open one final time. He did not need the whole interface. Only one line mattered. Maximum Copyable Rank: B Matt stared at the letter. For most of his Delving career, C had been the wall. Blink Step. No.

Tempered Edge. No. Anything above C. No. Now the wall had moved. Not disappeared. B-rank was nowhere near the top. But it was farther. Matt opened tomorrow's Crafter appointment one more time. Tempered Edge — B. Tomorrow. 9: 40 AM. He smiled. Yesterday, B had meant no. Today, it meant available. Matt closed the screen.

"Let's try that again."