Evan stood just outside the testing building, finally next in line. He had arrived more than an hour early yet had still found a line. That had been three hours ago – he was not the only hopeful searching for a better life. Many of them had already had that hope shattered, leaving with frowns and even the occasional tears. They were all aware of how rare the talent for Substance imbuement was, but still hoped they would be one of those lucky few.
The metropolis known as Starspire, the largest trading hub of their world and his birthplace, was a competitive place. No matter the profession, mediocrity meant stagnation, and stagnation often meant death. For many of those who had been rejected today, that death would likely happen outside Starspire – either at the hands of a beast or their fellow man, easy pickings outside the protection Starspires walls provided.
He did not want that to be him.
As he avoided thinking about his own future, should he fail here, the door opened, and he was called inside by a rather more animated young man much like himself. He must have been successful.
Lucky bastard, he thought as he entered, the door closing behind him. The building was divided into two sections – what must have been a waiting room for those who passed, along with a series of smaller rooms that would be used for the actual testing. He was waved into one of the testing rooms by a bored looking female attendant, shutting the door behind herself as she entered. She looked him over – from his dirty brown hair and gray eyes to his slim and tall but fit figure, and while there was no obvious reaction, he was given the impression that she wasn’t impressed. Was it his clothes that gave away his origin?
Glancing around the room he realized it was almost entirely empty, furnished with only a small table with a chair on either side of it, and only two obviously magical features – a large, bulky-looking plate bolted onto the floor, covered in dizzyingly complex inscriptions, and a somewhat disassembled lantern, the cage around the light missing and the inscriptions purposely highlighted in bright colors. The plate looked expensive, and given the bolts, he imagined it was also removable. The lantern sat on the table, off to the side as the rest of it was covered in stacks of paper, along with a small, palm-sized cube with no obvious inscriptions or other purpose. A paperweight?
“Are you aware of how the test is administered?” Her voice was curt, bored, and condescending all in one.
He was tempted to say that all he knew was that he was being tested for his talent in Substance imbuement, if he had any. As if he would come here and chance squandering the opportunity by not understanding what he had to do. While the talent to imbue was mandatory, you also had to know what you were doing, at least a little, even here. The way she spoke to him was already getting on his nerves.
“Of course. I wouldn’t risk otherwise, that would be ridiculous.” His own tone made it apparent he was a little annoyed, but he tried to be polite. It would not be the first time his own tongue had cost him. He spoke clearly, and with some confidence. Not only did he truly work hard for this moment, but he had picked up over the years that the way you spoke was important if you wanted to be treated like someone who was worth speaking with, someone who had a future worth investing in, even if that investment was just friendly advice.
She didn’t argue. “Good. Sit,” She waved towards one of the chairs and took her own as he did the same. “First you will need fill out the form on top with your basic information. Can you read and write?” This time he didn’t blame her – this was one of the only testing sites that didn’t require a special pass to enter; Starspire needed crafters, but it couldn’t very well have orphans like him rubbing shoulders with anyone of higher standing.
He told her that he could, in fact, read and write, and so set to reading and filling in the forms. The top form was as she said, and required things such as his name, his orphanage, his ID, that sort of thing. Thankfully, he had all of that on him. After that was a lengthy legal document that he only somewhat understood that went over what was happening during the test, acquired his consent, and required he sign a binding agreement that should Starspire find him eligible for its crafter program, he would sign with them and get a loan. That last part made him a little nervous and set off alarm bells in his mind, but when he asked the attendant, she reassured him with a smile on her face that looked a little stiff.
She must get the question often.
“They won’t be trying to enslave you; they just don’t want you walking away after taking advantage of the test – the equipment in here isn’t cheap. Besides that, the loan is for your own sake; Starspire would never loan what you need otherwise. There aren’t many restrictions, either. You will just be required to remain inside the city, so that Starspire can benefit from helping you today, tomorrow.” She paused and seemed to deliberate for a moment before continuing. “To tell you the truth, they don’t want to burn any bridges; in fact, by making you stay they ensure you’ll develop connections in the city. That’s how they really keep you here – I mean, Starspire isn’t known for its spaceports for nothing.” That made some sense to Evan, and he understood that it was left unsaid that it reassured Starspire he wouldn’t run away with their money if he was stuck in the city. Still, he remained wary.
It wasn’t that they were helping him out of the goodness of their hearts, but that they simply needed more crafters, and giving him a leg to stand on now would contribute to Starspires prosperity later. That was something he could understand, and he felt better knowing their motives.
“Now hurry up, I don’t have all day.” Ah, right. He finished up the forms, and the test finally began. For something so important to his future it was incredibly simple. It was quickly explained to him, but he had made a point to chat up any crafters he had come across over the years and knew what to do. It was no big secret – the simpler the test was, the better. All he had to do was imbue intent into the base of the lantern, using the inscriptions to do all the hard work, and create a small light above the base.
The brightness would be indicative of his talent, and any light at all would demonstrate he had at least some. More talent was better, but the right Substance could shore up anything – that was why the plate was present. If you failed but made the lantern react at all, they would allow you to use the plate to cultivate a little Substance for imbuing and try again.
Needing the Substance meant failure, but such a small amount of talent was still valuable – while becoming a crafter was out, the labor of someone who could imbue was valuable regardless.
Evan shook his head and placed a hand on the lantern’s base, making sure he could still see all the inscriptions. Touch wasn’t required or even necessary, but he figured it couldn’t hurt his chances. Settling himself, he closed his eyes as he reached inside his soul, feeling as though he was falling inwards in a strange sensation that hadn’t faded since he was first able to do this a few weeks ago.
This took some time, until suddenly he could see his soul, the sight vivid in his mind. It was lumpy and emitted a pale white light, a blobby looking mass that was him. It quivered slightly.
He opened his eyes, and the Substance of the lantern was revealed to him.
Inspecting it, he could easily tell that this Substance represented light or brightness. It didn’t hurt to look at, but he felt like it should for some reason. Around him there was a circle of about a meter in radius wherein he could see Substance. For the moment he used his eyes for this, but it wasn’t necessary – more of a crutch to make it easier, or an instinctive method for those inexperienced like himself.
The Substance looked white to him, and it filled the base of the lantern. It had the appearance of a velvety dough-like mass that sat within the lantern, inert. Nothing else he could see had any Substance at all, though the plate was too far – he was sure it was full of the stuff.
Evan felt the moment of truth approaching. Imbuing intent was the bedrock of all crafters, and how well you could do it was important. Of course, having gained access to his soul weeks before, he had tried imbuing small things at the orphanage much like the lamp, and had felt a reaction, but had no way to test if what he had done did anything or was any different, nor did he know how he stood up talent-wise to the standards of Starspire.
He didn’t dare to actually go through with the imbuement before – even a lantern such as this wasn’t cheap, and if he broke one, the caretakers would have his hide.
As he focused on the Substance within the lantern he felt a connection snap into place, just as it had in the past. This time, though, he was imbuing something that was meant to be imbued, that had been specifically prepared for imbuement. Looking at the inscriptions – a strange sight, as the Substance was beneath the inscriptions, but he looked clearly at both – he began to craft his intent.
First, he imparted the instructions, mercifully simple thanks to the inscriptions, as that was always to be done first. Acting as a sort of latent instruction, all he had to do was command the Substance into the clearly delineated “start” of the simple inscription, using his intent to essentially bridge the gap between the inert Substance and primed inscription. Nothing happened – his intent would not take effect until he wanted it too.
The sensation was strange. He compared it to the act of breathing – it was almost automatic, despite being something he could accurately control, and turned his thoughts – his will – into instructions and parameters as needed. It was quite clear he had little idea of what he was doing, and he could feel that in the way his thoughts were translated. However automatic it was, nothing it did was beyond him.
Just like breathing, it was nothing he couldn’t do himself, and its skill and understanding seemed to reflect his own – nonexistent. What was important though, was that it allowed him to work far faster than if he took the reigns into his own, deliberate hands.
Even as simple as this imbuement was, it required a countless number of instructions, parameters, and adjustments to work as a whole. It was mind-boggling that he could do all of that himself, even in this almost reflex-like manner.
Dispelling his distracting thoughts, he followed the inscription with his eyes toward the end of the inscription, also clearly marked, and made it so that the Substance would flow through the marked patterns. Evan had no clue how the inscription did what it did, but he had been told that the lanterns inscription would guide the eventual effect, containing the location of where it should manifest and in what way, a simple sphere above the base in this case.
Staring at the output for the inscription, where he would create the effect, he began to shape the eventual light. First, of course, he imbued the idea that he wanted a light. This light would be white, since he felt that was what the Substance was most agreeable with.
Just this – the instruction, the light, and the color – already took up a sizeable portion of his intent. The Substance he was imbuing would only hold so much and was where talent came into play. The more talented one was at imbuing, the more each unit of intent could do. Because Substance – that is, cultivated Substance – acted on what was already there, it meant that talent was effectively a multiplier on how powerful a crafter could make anything with a given amount of cultivated Substance for imbuing.
With what now remained of his capacity, he pushed the Substance into creating a brighter light, giving no regard for anything else. Then, he felt his intent, understanding what it was going to do, making sure he hadn’t made any mistakes. Finding nothing – it truly was a simple test – he relaxed his will and the connection snapped like a rubber band.
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Instantly the inert Substance within the lanterns base roiled into motion, the entirety of it moving at once, slow and inelegant. There was a great deal of finesse involved with imbuement, and as the inscription began to light up itself, he winced. Even to his untrained eyes, he could tell this was a terrible imbuement. Everything had felt perfect!
In wonder at his newfound ability to see Substance, Evan had spent hours just watching the Substance of an imbued item move and transform. All of them had looked much better than his own, and he knew inscriptions should look inert unless the intent was starting to fail, or a mistake had been made in some way by the crafter. Nor should all of the Substance move at once – that was probably why the inscription was lighting up, now that he thought about it.
As several moments passed, he realized another flaw of his first creation. It was slow. Only now was the light reaching the effect when it should have been nearly instant. Still though, when the Substance reached the effect at the end of the inscription, a sphere of light appeared about three centimeters above the base.
The light… wasn’t dim, but it was dimmer than the inscription, which was quite bright. Looking up at the attendant across the table from him, the lantern between them, he saw an amused smirk on her face. He scowled, the Substance winking out around him as he dropped his focus.
“Well? It lit up, did it not?” The confidence from before was noticeably absent, and in its place was bluster; he felt a tad flustered.
It’s my first time, okay! He tried not to worry, surely they didn’t expect anything better? It had lit up, after all! Even with most of the power wasted… that had to count for something.
“It did,” her smirk became a grin, and the amusement was a stark difference from the boredom she had held before. She picked up the lantern and the conspicuous cube and looked it over herself before sitting it back down and taking a deep breath, placing the cube against the lantern. Her grin grew even wider as she stared expectantly at the lantern, seeing something he didn’t. Perhaps a minute later the inscriptions died down before the light followed shortly after.
She could also imbue, he realized. Why did it take so long for the light to go out? What was she doing? He voiced his thoughts.
“You let the Substance pool at the end and allowed too much through the inscription. Everyone who takes the test in here uses this lantern, so after each test I have to reset it back to how it was before.” Having said so, she hefted the cube before him, as if to demonstrate before sitting it back down on the table.
He wished he hadn’t allowed his Substance-sight – his own tentative name for it – to wink out. He might have been able to learn something. Still, another question of his was answered – it was no wonder the city was so touchy about the test – it wasn’t cheap to hire someone who could imbue, even if it was just resetting the testing apparatus. Not to mention the Substance itself, which wasn’t cheap either.
“Congratulations. The work was shoddy, but you have better talent than most I’ve seen today. You have a real future in crafting, and the contract will reflect that.” Her tone implied she was being genuine and overall seemed much more engaged and friendly than before. The transformation in attitude was unsettling.
Shuffling through the stapled papers on the table, she found one near the bottom and pulled it out, passing it over to him to read. Instead of going straight to reading, as it was quite long, he started asking questions, and within fifteen minutes she had gone over the gist of it with him, pointing out places in the contract as she did so, having picked up on his suspicion from before. It felt too easy.
He took some time to think, idly tapping his fingers against the table, rereading portions of the contract. Starspire didn’t make this easy.
No, they actually made this incredibly easy – that was the whole point. They just didn’t make it cheap or even remotely affordable. Not that he had expected them too, but even with his more ‘generous’ contract… the debts were incredible. He knew little of contracts, but was aware of the phrase ‘always read the fine print’, so he made his best effort.
Their estimates on training were actually about what he had gathered himself, but the others… also made sense, even if he hadn’t worked the numbers out himself. Seeing the total they expected to loan him though made his eyes bulge in shock – especially when he saw the other conditions.
Expecting him to start making payments in just a couple of years… how would he manage that? None of that even included any Substance for cultivation, something he would desperately need in order to make sales, even with his newfound talent. Things would have to go very, very right for him to succeed, and he would spend decades paying off the debt to get there, hindering his progress and stalling him from leaving Starspire.
All the while, he would be working himself to the bone.
Looking everything over once more, he let out a deep, resentful sigh of exasperation before continuing on. The only way forward was through.
There were several choices to make, starting with what type of crafting he wanted to pursue. Alchemy, formations, arrays, talismans. Those were what was listed, and what Starspire was willing to help him with. They weren’t equal, though. The contracts would be better for him if he picked something Starspire needed more than the others. For example, alchemy was always in high demand, while arrays were virtually useless to the city other than for selling to adventurers or for simple utility.
He decided to go with formations. It was something he was already mostly convinced of before even showing up. The formation crafters he had met were always the ones who seemed the freest, and more than once he had gotten advice that in Starspire it would serve him well.
Part of him admitted that he might have been biased by his ultimate dream – to fly off to places unknown in a Voidship of his own. Learning formations might mean that one day, he could build his own Voidship. How cool was that?! Everything else was just icing on the cake.
Formations fell between alchemy and arrays in how generous it would make his contract, which he was satisfied with – he wasn’t willing to give up on everything just to save a little more. Better to be happy but broke than miserable and… still quite broke.
Next came deciding on what kind of formations he wanted to work with – depending on his choice, Starspire would arrange for him to work under someone who primarily dealt with those types, so he could gain experience and build connections.
This one was tough – he was actually quite fascinated with all manner of formations, from household objects such as the lantern, to construction projects both inside and around the metropolis. Even weapons – he didn’t like being part of the violence but had no qualms making the tools for it. There was just something fascinating about taking a mundane structure or object and making it magical.
Growing up in the streets, estranged even to his fellow orphans, he had spent a lot of time preparing for his future. He didn’t want to be a nobody, a no-name adventurer or soldier that got murdered one day beyond the relative safety of the city. No – what he wanted was to be safe and secure with the wealth to live a long, happy life. He wasn’t a fool, though. Simply being a decent crafter wouldn’t guarantee that, it would take everything he had and then some.
He almost chose construction out of hand – he was too weak to be of use making vehicles, and while the Voidship was his dream, he could work his way up; it was likely that imbuing structures would be good practice for that, and a decent way to earn a living. The problem was that while formations were in high demand, it was a demand created by people who could afford to pay the ridiculous sums that came with the maintenance of the imbuement – in other words, people who could hire someone with several Collapses under their belt. That wasn’t him, and it wouldn’t be for some time.
This was Evan’s future, and whatever he decided now would determine the general trajectory of his life, at least for the next several years. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t make every effort to make the best choice and ended up relegated as some assistant for potentially decades. He wanted independence on top of everything else.
“What do you suggest?” He was willing to hear her out, even if whatever she told him was influenced by Starspire. Instantly he saw her eyes light up, and she smiled again – this one seemed even more genuine than before.
The attendant then proceeded to talk his ear off. She even gave him her name, which he realized she hadn’t done previously. Chana espoused to him the supposedly lucrative option of joining the war – something that he had not even considered. Almost immediately he began to refuse, but she assured him that as a crafter, a formations master in fact, he would always be very safe. She also let drop that should he agree to sign a contract serving in the war as a crafter, not only would he be paid for his efforts quite generously, but Starspire would even waive all of the debts he would have been saddled with for training and designs, and would give him “the opportunity to improve at his own pace”.
Despite his desire to immediately shut her down completely, he forced himself to think it over. The military would surely provide better opportunities than he would get inside the city with his situation, and everyone knew the military tended to have the best stuff available. Not to mention the waiving of any potential debts – that was incredible.
When it was obvious that he was reconsidering, she kept at it, talking about the different sorts of work that might interest him as a formation builder in the military. Somehow, she managed to pick up on his unmentioned interest in laying down building-sized formations and narrowed down her efforts, speaking of the practice and experience he would get, and that the military would always have a use for someone capable of laying down their military-grade formations, no matter their cultivation.
For a time he resisted, having dealt with his fair share of violence and fighting, and had long decided he wanted no part in it – he just didn’t see a future in it, even if it could be lucrative. Eventually, though, she whittled down his arguments with assurances of safety and he began to come around – as someone that would be laying down formations, he would never be expected to actually participate in the fighting, and the natural expense of formations ensured wherever he was posted, it would be somewhere Starspire wanted to keep away from the enemy.
It certainly helped that he was none too keen on entering the profession with a debt attached to him, forbidden by his loan to try leaving and seeking greener pastures elsewhere. Starspire was the place for buying, selling, and exchanging just about anything. That also meant it was a great place to find some of the most skilled crafters on the planet, and the enormous market dealt not only with those on-planet but also off it – the city got its name from all the trading it did with the wider inter-planetary market.
In the end, despite his long-held refusal, he decided that sometimes you had to take risks – measured ones – if you wanted to get ahead of the curve and that the deal was too good to pass up.
He knew he’d be in at least some danger – it was war – but felt it was unlikely that he would encounter any truly life-threatening situations. If the worst came to pass, he would most likely be taken as a prisoner of war, too valuable to simply kill out of hand. He would show his loyalty to Starspire was rather tenuous at best, and maybe he could simply change sides.
That was perhaps a little idealistic, and he could be killed in the fighting or indentured, but that was just a risk he would have to take joining the military. It would secure his future and save him loads of effort and time. Decades, perhaps.
If everything went according to plan, then once his service was fulfilled, he could come back to the city; free of any debts or obligations, a competitive cultivation, and everything he learned in the military. With a foundation like that he could go places.
After making his decision, despite his reluctance to violence, things proceeded rapidly. With Chana’s extra-helpful attitude, they hashed out his contract and formalized his service there and then.
The term was twelve years after he graduated from his training, which would take place outside the city, but he would still be paid as he learned. In order to facilitate his training, he would be provided with an instructor – essentially, another craftsman he would shadow at the base, who would also be his direct superior. They would also give him some basic textbooks that would help cover anything his instructor might miss.
Evan was incredibly wary of signing away such a long period of his life, even if he could get a hold of some Substance to extend it. Thankfully, there were some outs he managed to get included after some intense negotiation: he could pay the previous estimate in full and walk away with some oaths or spend at least half his remaining service on high-risk assignments. As a future formations master, that essentially boiled down into staying on the front lines, which he absolutely would not do, but that was the point – maybe this would work to keep him away from that danger.
The method of graduation from his training was to become certified – not with the military, thankfully, but with the Guild of Crafting. They enforced a certification system that was, supposedly, valued even deeper into the Void and while stringent, fair. Any increases in pay or rank would also come from further accreditation with the guild.
Finally, before even leaving for his post, they would provide him a cultivation chamber and enough imbuing-aspected Substance to reach half of the way to his first Collapse, with the other half waiting for him if he could obtain certification within two years and had yet to reach it himself. This felt ridiculously generous and it made him wonder how much of this sudden generosity was from joining the military versus his apparently decently good talent. Why didn’t everyone just join the military?
Ha!
He signed, collected his copy, and left the room, barely containing his exuberance as he entered the waiting room from before and took a seat, waiting for someone else to collect him and take him to his temporary housing, also generously provided – he’d never live in an orphanage again! It had only taken a little over an hour!
When Evan was finally guided away not long after, a smile was still beaming on his face.