NOW SERVING 47.
James walked up to counter six. A middle-aged woman in a TRB uniform sat behind bulletproof glass and typed without looking up.
"Name and date of birth."
"James Ganner. March 15th, 2112."
"Tutorial completion date?"
"Yesterday. March 18th, 2130."
"Class?"
"Necromancer."
Her fingers stopped completely. She stared at her screen, then looked up at James through the bulletproof glass. It was the first time she had looked directly at any Challenger since he'd been watching the counters. The bored expression was gone. She held his gaze for a moment, then cleared her throat and raised her voice enough that it carried across the room.
"Open your System window. Full display."
James paused for a second, then brought it up. The interface appeared in front of him.
[NAME: JAMES GANNER]
[CLASS: NECROMANCER (LEGENDARY)]
[LEVEL: 3]
[EXP: 32/400]
[HP: 69/198]
[MANA: 90/210]
[STRENGTH: 9]
[AGILITY: 13]
[INTELLIGENCE: 16]
[ENDURANCE: 11]
[LUCK: 8]
She read it without speaking. Her eyes stopped on the class line for a fraction longer than the rest. Then her expression reset, and her posture straightened behind the glass.
She cleared her throat and raised her voice enough that it carried across the room.
"Class registered as Legendary tier. Please sign the form."
The waiting room went quiet in a way it hadn't even when Marcus Hale walked in.
Chairs scraped against the floor behind him as people turned around. Whispers started up, low and urgent, spreading row to row. James didn't turn around. He pulled the tablet toward him and read the form carefully. Standard government contract. Obeying Tower regulations, reporting illegal activity, not using Challenger abilities to commit crimes on Earth. He signed and slid it back.
The woman scanned something on her computer and a printer ran behind her.
"Hold still for photo."
James looked at the camera. The light burst without warning and he blinked hard, his vision gone white for a moment before the room came back into focus.
She pulled a plastic card from the printer and slid it through the slot. "Your official Challenger ID. You'll need it for loot sales at any government buyback or private auction house. Replacement is two hundred dollars, so don't lose it."
James picked up the card.
It was about the size of a credit card with his photo, name, class, and a barcode printed on it. JAMES GANNER - NECROMANCER (LEGENDARY) - ID# 4729381-IE.
The woman was already calling the next number before he could walk away. "FORTY-EIGHT."
James turned from the counter.
Every person in the waiting room was looking at him. Daniel was staring with his mouth slightly open. The girl in the ripped jeans and band shirt had her eyes fixed on him. Most of the others had the same look on their faces — eyes sharp, heads slightly forward, the way people sit when they've just heard something they want to remember.
He walked straight toward the currency exchange signs without slowing down.
James followed the signs to CURRENCY EXCHANGE.
The counter was mostly empty. An older man in a TRB uniform sat behind glass with a stack of forms in front of him. He looked up when James approached and slid a laminated card through the slot without being asked.
"Current exchange rates. Tower Credits are the only currency we handle here."
James looked at the card. One Tower Credit to twelve dollars. He opened his System interface and checked his balance.
[TOWER CREDITS: 300]
He did the math. One hundred Tower Credits was $1,200. That was more than his mother made in two months working seventy hours a week across three jobs.
"I want to exchange one hundred Tower Credits."
The man nodded and pulled a form from the stack. "ID card first." James slid his Challenger ID through the slot and the man scanned it, then typed something into his computer. "I'll need you to fill out a withdrawal declaration. Amount, purpose, and a signature at the bottom. Standard anti-laundering requirement for any exchange over fifty credits."
James took the form and filled it in. Amount: 100 TC. Purpose: personal use. He signed the bottom and slid it back.
The man checked it, stamped it, and filed it in a tray beside him. "Receiving account or cash?"
"Cash."
"Right." He pulled out a second form. "Cash declaration then. Sign here confirming you're aware that amounts over five hundred dollars in Tower-derived currency are subject to government reporting." He slid it through the slot. James signed it and pushed it back.
The man typed something else into his computer. "System transfer authorization. Think confirm when you see the prompt in your interface."
A System notification appeared in James's vision.
[TRANSFER 100 TOWER CREDITS TO TRB ACCOUNT? Y/N]
James thought YES.
[TRANSFER COMPLETE. REMAINING BALANCE: 200 TC]
The man opened a drawer and counted out bills onto the counter in front of him, checking each one before sliding the stack through the slot. Purple notes with the Tower symbol watermarked into the paper. Twelve one-hundred-dollar bills.
"Count it before you leave the counter."
James counted it. Twelve bills. $1,200. He counted it again anyway.
He had never held this much money at once in his life. His mother's rent was four hundred a month. This was three months of rent sitting in his hands from a single exchange. He still had two hundred Tower Credits left in his inventory.
He folded the bills carefully and put them in his wallet.
"Have a good day," the man said, already looking back at his computer.
James walked away from the counter without saying anything.
Three men were waiting just outside the TRB building entrance. They weren't standing together, but they were all doing the same thing — pretending to check their phones while watching the front doors. Guild scouts. James recognized the type because he'd grown up near the Tower and knew what people who hunted new Challengers looked like.
The first one moved toward him before he'd taken ten steps out the door.
"Hey, congratulations on the registration." He was maybe thirty, with a neat jacket and a lanyard carrying a guild ID badge. Copper Shield Guild. Mid-tier outfit based in South Dublin. "Legendary class is rare. We'd love to talk to you about what that could look like with some solid backing behind it."
James kept walking. "Not interested."
The man fell into step beside him. "I get it, everyone says that at first. But hear me out — we're offering a full gear package for Floor 1 and 2 entry. Armor, weapons, consumables. You won't have to spend a single credit from your own pocket. We also have veterans who can walk you through the early floors."
James stopped walking.
The scout's expression shifted, thinking he'd made progress. James looked at him directly.
"No."
He started walking again.
The second scout intercepted him from the left, younger and more aggressive. He had a flyer extended before he even opened his mouth. "Ironwall Guild. We don't take cuts above twelve percent on loot sales — lower than the standard rate. We also provide monthly material stipends regardless of your floor progress. For a Legendary class, we'd negotiate something more substantial."
James took the flyer, folded it without reading it, and put it in his pocket. "I'll think about it."
He wouldn't. But saying so was faster than arguing.
The third scout didn't bother approaching. He just watched James walk past and typed something into his phone, which was worse in a different way.
James turned the corner and put distance between himself and the TRB building.
He didn't slow down until he was two streets away and sure nobody was following him. Then he stopped in a doorway and unfolded the Ironwall flyer.
Monthly material stipends. Gear packages. Floor intelligence reports. Veteran guides. A guaranteed party slot for group-clear floors.
All of it was useful. That was the problem with guild offers — the benefits were real. If he walked into Floor 1 right now with no gear and no money, a guild stipend could mean the difference between surviving the first week and dying in the second. He wasn't going to pretend otherwise.
But he knew what the other side of those benefits looked like.
Twenty percent of all loot sales redirected to guild accounts. Mandatory participation in guild-organized raids, which meant climbing on their schedule instead of his own. Standard contracts required members to hand over their full skill list to guild leadership, which meant strangers would know exactly what he could do before he'd figured it out himself. And leaving later came with a six-month notice period and a buyout clause priced high enough to make it functionally impossible.
Gear could be earned back. Signing over his autonomy before he even started was a different kind of problem.
James folded the flyer and dropped it in a bin at the end of the street.
He kept walking.
He looked down at his Challenger ID card. Official now. Registered. Tracked. Taxed. Legal. He slid the card into his wallet next to the $1,200 in bills. It was more money than he had ever held at once in his entire life.
Other new Challengers streamed out around him. Some were laughing and taking selfies with their ID cards. Some walked without seeming to see where they were going. Some were already on their phones, calling family, guilds, or friends.
James stood there and looked up at Dublin Tower