Evan sulked as he made his way away from the shop, swords still bundled in his arms defensively. When he had entered the shop, he was greeted by a clerk who quickly took him to see the owner, who was a crafter herself, in order to have the swords properly appraised.
She had taken one quick glance at them before quoting a ridiculously low sum. He had responded that he knew the worth of the swords, and she had simply told him that if he did, he knew the price was more than reasonable. Still, he had refused to budge, and was promptly told to leave – that her store didn’t sell trash like what he had in his hands, its only worth to be dismantled and the Substance stripped from it – a reply that he knew to be an insult, as without an overwhelming difference in strength, the intent would resist any extraction to the point of burning out all the Substance.
In other words, she had said his swords were worth less than nothing.
That was how he found himself sullenly traveling back most of the way he came, but he was less effected by the shop owner and more from the fact that Arnav had been right – that trying to sell to anyone but the military with their skills was a fool’s errand, and he wouldn’t be able to make a little extra coin.
He would have tried again at a different store but didn’t think he’d get any better an offer than what the military should give him. They would be able to easily find a use for cheap, second-hand weapons, but the stores at Fool’s Hope were different. He had known that, but still wanted to try regardless.
The stores here would cater to hunters or the more wealthy, higher ranked military figures. Fresh off a hunt, it wasn’t difficult to convince a hunter that if they had a stronger weapon or more durable armor, they could bring in more dangerous, valuable beasts or hunt more safely.
After all, beasts were quite valuable for the Substance within, and after selling them a hunter would suddenly be flush with cash while at the same time, the memory of their life-or-death battle would be vivid within their minds, the wounds still stinging, their muscles still tired.
They would want something better than what they had, and unless it was their very first hunt and they had no support going in – much like he would have been, should he have become a hunter – then what they already had likely would have been better than the second-hand, mass-produced swords he was trying to pawn off. Even then, why settle for what he had when it could mean the difference between success and failure?
No, there was no use trying to sell the swords to anyone but the military, at least not until he was crafting his own weapons wholesale. At least this way the military couldn’t find any fault with him.
Rather than try his luck with any fresh hunters he saw, such as the team with the small wildlife, he could instead save his time for more crafting and accept a slightly lower price than he might have gotten elsewhere.
It took some time for him to find the right directions, but he eventually found his way to the orders office, which he now knew was where he could sell his swords. He didn’t find Iliana or Arnav inside, likely having already passed by, and found the building to be very orderly; exactly what he expected from the military.
The room was nicely decorated, and most of the room was taken up by a series of clerks in the back, thin separators ordering them into individual lines where people stood, waiting their turn.
Evan quickly joined the shortest, and after a short wait he was able to speak with the clerk. Not giving them time to speak or make pleasantries, he sat the bundle containing his swords on the desk. He had paid attention while waiting and had little time or patience to chitchat.
“I’m Evan, an apprentice under Master Isaac and managed to repair these swords today. He told me what I should do with them, so I came here to sell them.” He felt it was important to mention his teacher – supposedly, he had some manner of reputation, and he hoped to leverage that to be treated fairly. Maybe even better.
He was also particular to mention he had been schooled on what to expect, so that the clerk wouldn’t attempt to shortchange him.
The clerk paused, whatever he had been preparing to say forgotten as he oriented himself for a moment before responding. “Of course, sir. Please allow me to check something before we continue.” Having said so, the clerk began to shuffle through some documents under his side of the desk, and a minute later, he looked back at Evan.
He had politely smiled before, but now it seemed more genuine. A few minutes later, Evan was leaving the building, mostly satisfied. The clerk had told him the price would vary depending on the condition of the swords but had given him a range that included Master Isaacs estimation.
Evan felt secure in that the military wouldn’t try and cheat him, but the price he expected was already on the lower end of the range given, so he felt confident in leaving them with the swords for appraisal, being told he could come back tomorrow to collect the money.
It rubbed him the wrong way, trusting anyone – even the military – so easily, but with a receipt in hand he felt better. There was no reason for them to cheat a small fry like himself. The money might be a big deal to him, but to the military, it was less than chump change.
Making his way back to their building was uneventful, but he felt an undercurrent of excitement knowing that his future was finally taking off. Substance was expensive, and he had always known that crafters made good money, but experiencing it was different from hearing about it.
Those two swords had taken hours, but he was only bound to get faster as he practiced and got stronger. For now, he couldn’t even make proper use of his talent, inefficiently imbuing, but soon that would change. Already he was turning over quantities of wealth he could only dream of before, and while he would only see a small portion of that as profit, it would already add up to more than he could have hoped to make working more mundane jobs.
Soon enough, he would be crafting things from scratch, and that was where the real money was at. He hadn’t forgotten what he signed up for – formations, but more specifically, larger scale formations for buildings or vehicles. Master Isaac had to even mention them, but after seeing the complexity of even simple inscriptions, he knew it would take a while before he was qualified to try his hand at them.
Once he was back, he went up to the third floor and found Iliana and Arnav waiting for him at the table, eating dinner. It was getting late in the day now, but there was still one more thing to settle; the wager. He fixed himself a plate and sat down himself, thanking Iliana who had made it.
“Where is Master Isaac?” He asked, as the man would usually eat with them.
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Iliana responded, “He ate earlier, said he had paperwork to do.” Silence reigned as the other two finished eating and waited a few minutes for Evan.
Arnav sounded more than a little smug as he asked, “What were your thoughts on the wager? Me and Iliana have been discussing it and thought it would be best if we decided the winner based on our technique.”
Once he had finished, Iliana spoke up, sounding a little guilty and… ashamed? “That’s the only way that’s fair. You have better talent than either of us, and it wouldn’t be fair if you – or me – won simply because we were born with better talent.”
Evan couldn’t really find any ground to stand on and argue with them. He thought the same, even if it would make Arnav the winner, and his heart wasn’t in it to argue either. The future was too bright for him to squabble over the winner, and he still beat Iliana – she would be the one buying dinner.
Why did she sound guilty? Even if he didn’t win, he didn’t lose, either. He looked askance at Iliana.
“That works for me. So… Arnav wins, and you’ll be buying us dinner?” He smiled, trying to soften his words, but Iliana seemed to take it the wrong way and sat a little straighter.
“Yeah, I’ll buy us all a meal. What do you want, Arnav?” She seemed to rebuke him, as if to say it was Arnav’s choice since he won. Evan knew that; he was just making a suggestion.
Sore loser much?
Thankfully, he had more tact than that, and kept the words to himself. He pushed his annoyance down as Arnav began to answer.
“…I don’t know. Master Isaac rarely doesn’t eat with us; it’ll just have to be when the opportunity presents itself, I guess.” It was left unsaid they would leave Master Isaac out of this.
All of them agreed with that, and Iliana left for her rooms. Arnav lingered, scraping at his nearly clean plate. After a minute had passed and Iliana showed no signs of returning, he spoke up.
“What was that about?” Arnav seemed genuinely confused.
“I think my smile just rubbed her the wrong way, and that she’s frustrated at having lost.” He ate for a few more moments before continuing. “You seem to be the one who cares the most about our little contests, but I guess being the worst of us today really got to her.” Once more he grinned, but Arnav seemed to type to enjoy the slight ribbing.
He was proved right as Arnav let a smug grin grow on his own face. “Ha! Yeah, I’m competitive. Crafting… I enjoy it, but all the learning we have to do? Just not so crazy about it – I mean, the language for inscriptions is crazy, and that’s the simplest, most common form of it. I can’t imagine keeping track of several, for different sizes, in different dimensions. Just for part of the process!” He huffed, dissatisfied.
“If it wasn’t for having you guys to compete over with it, I don’t know how much I could push myself. I don’t know how the two of you manage to pour over the books for hours and hours every day like you do. It made me feel just a little lesser, you know? Winning today has really made me feel better.”
Evan felt a little awkward that Arnav had opened up to him like that, but he tried to keep it from showing. “Well, don’t get used to it! I’m right behind you!”
“You wish! Don’t let Iliana’s bad mood make you think lesser of her, it’s not fun to lose.” He got up, taking his dishes to the sink before making for the stairs.
“I’m sure you would know!” Evan called to him just as he vanished down the stairs.
***
In this manner, two months passed as they practiced their imbuing repairing things. The money they made was less than Evan had expected, but still notable – they eventually grew away from the bets and simply rotated paying for their meals, all of them happy with their progress and eager to share, even Evan.
During this time, he learned many things about crafting, moving through several textbooks and making great headway towards being ready for his certification. It was still a long ways yet, but he could see the finish line now. They frequently pestered Master Isaac to allow them to try their hand at actual crafting, but he insisted they needed to learn more.
What they were missing was magic. Imbuing and casting initially felt like completely unrelated fields, but the further he delved into his books, the more he realized he would need to learn at least a little magic in order to excel, especially if he wanted to genuinely craft from the ground up.
That came in the form of forging and shaping magics, mostly. A proper crafter would need to inscribe countless inscriptions of dazzling complexity into their work, with the complexity only growing as the crafter became more knowledgeable and experienced. While it was always possible to order the inscriptions to be done by someone else, such as a magic blacksmith or such, it would be faster and better to simply do it oneself with the proper spells.
Depending on others for the inscriptions would also make crafting both more expensive and time consuming. Perfect communication was needed for good inscriptions, and if an inscription didn’t work as expected or needed to be changed, it would necessitate even more downtime as it was fixed or changed by someone else with their own projects and orders. Not to mention the security risk of a crafter spreading their work around.
As the needed inscriptions got more complex and intricate, eventually a crafter would move towards fourth dimensional inscriptions – or at the very least use techniques in order to imitate such. Rather than continue to inscribe these physically onto objects, creating weaknesses and complications, the superior method was to first create a spirit for the object and carve the inscriptions into that.
Spirits were a pale imitation of souls, and through a mix of Substance and spells, were craftable much like imbuements – only significantly more flexible in their use, and a great way to inscribe without physically marring the object. Much like anything else they had their drawbacks, but became more lucrative the stronger the crafter was.
Evan was leagues away from any of that, but the importance of magic in crafting demanded he learning sooner rather than later. Once he realized it would let him become more independent in his crafting, saving money and time, he decided it was a necessity, and that like with everything he had been taught thus far, he would give it his all. He valued his independence and didn’t want to need others to do his work properly.
…And, if he was being honest with himself, was simply awesome, even if it couldn’t compare to the wonders he would accomplish with Substance and imbuement. If becoming a crafter hadn’t turned out, he likely would have looked into becoming a mage, even if most mages were far too close to combat for him to be comfortable.
When the day came for them to be introduced to the basics of magecraft, Master Isaac further spurred them on by a small demonstration – utility spells that instantly converted even Arnav, who had been rather lacking in enthusiasm to add even more learning to his plate.
These utility spells were simple things but could make life so much easier it was unimaginable.
Cleaning spells, of which a variety was displayed – a godsend, allowing easy washing of clothes, dishes, and even people. Since arriving at the outpost Evan had been required to do more hygienic upkeep than ever before and had since found himself becoming slightly obsessed with it – keeping himself and his things clean had even begun to eat quite a portion of his free time and was always laborious.
Just this alone had him far more motivated than before, suddenly seeming far more appealing than some fireball like he had previously expected to be shown.
Next in Master Isaac’s short lineup were temperature regulation spells, mimicking the air conditioner he had not enjoyed since arriving. For crafters like themselves, who placed little importance on cultivation relating to mana, such spells would likely forever remain quite exhausting – something that instantly made him envious of mages. He had never questioned it in the past, but whenever he spotted a mage moving along the streets of Fool’s Hope, they rarely seemed anything but perfectly collected, prim and proper, and thoroughly comfortable.
His envy was linked to the recent change in seasons. As the months went by it got hotter, and he frequently found himself sweating and miserable as he moved about the outpost.
Lastly, Master Isaac demonstrated a spell that provided some protection from wind and rain – not as big a deal, and something he already frequently saw, but still convenient.
All of them found themselves impressed and eager to learn if for nothing than the spells already shown, and Master Isaac escorted them to an office they had never entered – one that had the devices and instructors necessary for testing their magical talent. They were nervous – just like with imbuement, it was possible to have talent so poor so as to not be capable of magic at all, and Master Isaac had warned them of this before demonstrating the spells.
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