The journey from Fool’s Hope to Iron Guard took more than two weeks, and they had arrived a few days before. Evan was bored nearly to tears several times along the way, and only his caution kept him from wandering into the forest while they were stopped. Only a single day had been needed for Master Isaac’s request to be approved!

He wasn’t sure what that said about the war. Was his master just that influential, or were the outposts severely undermanned? The request had even been quite specific but was still so quickly fulfilled!

Along the way they stopped at several other outposts, but never for long. Iron Guard was far less populous than Fool’s Hope, and much closer to the border than he was comfortable with. As they traveled, he noticed the outposts surely but slowly shrink in size and population, and by the time they reached their destination, he was surprised to find only some two hundred odd men were stationed here.

This was at least partially related to the location of Iron Guard – it wasn’t terribly close to the border, but still some distance from Starspire, in an out of the way location. There were some other problems as well.

He had thought this would greatly affect his ability to make and sell products, but while there were no shops he could sell to, the military would still gladly accept anything he came to them with, and would make timely deliveries of anything he requested – so long as he could pay for it. His profit margins were affected, but he was already close to having enough for his first Collapse.

Despite the low margins the military required him to work at, hard-working crafters could still make money hand over fist. He felt like he was burning the candle at both ends, but the result would be worth it. Iliana wasn’t far behind him, but Arnav was taking his sweet time – seemingly completely unconcerned about his rate of progress. He felt that would change once they reached their first Collapse and overtook him – currently, they were all at the same cultivation, but he was eager to pull ahead.

Once he hit his first Collapse, he would be able imbue at almost twice the strength he could now, and that was when he first reached it. That would translate into many more options when imbuing and let him take his profits to another level – even if the margins were small, when the goods were expensive enough, it added up into a terrifying sum.

Thankfully, the outpost had a cultivation chamber, even if it was far simpler and less luxurious than the one he had used back in Starspire, and the one he saw in Fool’s Hope. He had no concerns over any interruptions, even considering the more dangerous situation at Iron Guard.

It was something that Evan had learned about since joining the military but had not yet experienced – beast surges. Not only did wildlife passively create Substance, but they could also extract it from other creatures by eating them. Such an ability was not even exclusive to other wildlife – if a hunter lost their fight, all of their cultivation would be absorbed by the beast, and depending on the cultivation of the fallen hunter, the beast could become a monster.

That was the difference between a common beast, no matter how strong, and a monster. Monsters had devoured the mind and cultivation of a hunter, gaining massive benefits including the memories and experiences of the hunter.

Because humans tended to specialize, this would cause a massive development in the beast towards a specific area, even causing their physical forms to change and their Substance generation to differ to better suit their new cultivation.

These changes were undirected, and commonly lead to an unviable lifeform, but occasionally, they led to a far more dangerous, unique creature.

Monsters could form from a beast eating other beasts, but the requirement was a large influx of Substance that greatly differed from their own. Usually, only hunters were able to cause that, as beasts would never attack another that so greatly outclassed them, especially in any specific way like hunters would.

This was how beast surges happened – monsters would attack a human settlement or position, either because they hungered for what looked like easy prey, or because their new memories allowed them to understand that eating more humans was their best path for evolution. Other beasts would follow, either naturally subservient to the stronger monster or simply opportunists. The mixed Substance of beasts naturally included ones suited for the mind, even if it was in tiny amounts.

Monsters didn’t get smarter automatically from feasting on humans, but most hunters – or anyone, really – of a certain level would inevitably cultivate Substance related to the mind – even if it didn’t truly make one smarter, it was incredibly important in order to keep up as one progressed, no matter the specialization. It was needed to control one’s increasingly powerful body, deal with the sensory information of enhanced senses, think at the speed of high-level combat, and even as a crafter it was necessary for all sorts of reasons: larger imbuements needed a larger working memory, enhanced speed of thought for increasingly bigger plans, and an enhanced memory to remember all the intricacies were just some examples.

While the speed at which a crafter could imbue increased with their intent’s capacity, eventually a stronger, faster mind would be necessary to take advantage of it.

Every type of cultivation required a foundation of countless different Substances, and once a beast got their hands on those, they increasingly became capable of higher levels of thought and action.

Iron Guard was particularly susceptible to these attacks, as the outpost was built right on top of a massive mine – meaning that while only some two hundred men were present to defend the outpost, many times that number lived and worked at the outpost as miners.

This made the outpost a tempting target for the stronger beasts and monsters that lived in the forest nearby, and there was even a known monster that would periodically lead these attacks, retreating whenever it saw the surge collapsing. Said monster was thought to have eaten at least one hunter specializing in the senses, with the mental cultivation to go with it.

Despite the military having sent several stronger cultivators to hunt it down, it always managed to evade them, and the cultivators could never stay for long – they both didn’t want to, and had better things to spend their time on.

Master Isaac thought this was the perfect place for the three of them, as no powerful formation masters were stationed here, and the outpost was in dire need of reinforcements. There were even a few cheers when they arrived! Once they realized their master wasn’t going to be doing anything himself though they weren’t nearly as glad to see them, but still glad nonetheless.

Two buildings were quickly set aside for them – a workshop, and a communal house far more cramped than they were used too, Evan included. Neither were equipped to the same standard as the ones in Fool’s Hope, and there was nowhere to store any needed Substance ahead of time.

Whatever they needed, they would have to purchase from the military before they needed it. There wasn’t even much stock already present at the outpost, and what was kept in storage was mostly reserved for maintenance of the outpost.

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Days turned to weeks as Evan settled into his new normal, and he was swamped with work. Before, much of his work had been his own undertakings in order to earn money, but now he found himself exhausted even before he started on his own projects.

Said projects had also transitioned – instead of making weapons, mostly swords, he now found himself commonly imbuing more mundane objects – lamps, pickaxes, and even building material for the mineshafts such as beams. Curious about how the miners could afford this, he asked and learned that moving to Iron Guard was intrusive and dangerous, and that what drew them here was that after they met their quota for the day, any more iron they mined would be sold at market value to Starspire, a hefty sum – even if the mine was relatively shallow.

This was good news for Evan, as his pickaxes were flying off the shelves – figuratively, of course. Like in Fool’s Hope, Iron Guard had an office where requests could be made, and Evan was more than happy to fulfill them. It was also good practice – the pickaxes needed imbuements that let them more easily pierce the rock, and just making them heavier wouldn’t do it – the miners needed to conserve their stamina.

Instead, he was required to do a rather strenuous task in imbuing – shifting the effect through his intent into something less related to the Substance used. Up until now, he would take Substance that was already aspected for its intended purpose and draw it into his work before imbuing it to bring out that aspect, a rather simple affair.

This was necessary because while even dirt came with Substance to enhance itself, once it was drawn out and processed, it lost this inherent effect and needed an imbuement to function. For the sake of efficiency, virtually all raw resources would be stripped of their Substance and then sold and used as mundane materials, and any needed enhancement would come from added Substance that had already been processed.

It was limited of course – materials could only accept so much Substance before intent would be needed for more, but this practice of society acted as the bedrock upon which crafters rested. Unfortunately, Substance aspected properly to sharpness or piercing was extremely rare, since all Substance was derived from either wildlife or unprocessed raw resources.

Concepts like that just didn’t really happen naturally in appreciable amounts.

In order to do without, it was possible to use Substance to create less related effects, but it would quickly become prohibitive as it caused the effect to take up far more capacity than it would otherwise, bloating the entire imbuement and causing it to be much weaker. Still, it worked, and for their purposes it was easy enough to use the common weight increasing Substance – to pierce easier, it was enough to concentrate extra “weight” at the tip of the pickaxe, while trying to tone down on the actual increased weight.

This wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was close enough to the concept of piercing and using the weight-aspected Substance was far, far cheaper than buying actual piercing-aspected Substance.

Even more requested than the pickaxes were the beams he imbued – neither Iliana nor Arnav liked making them, saying they were too big, but Evan took great pleasure in working on such large imbuements, knowing they would be used to keep the lives of the miners secure.

For the beams, he used the same durability-aspected Substance he had used in the past but threw nearly all of his cultivation into efficiency rather than power, only leaving the beams slightly more durable but long lasting. As a challenge, he also tied in a small amount of light-aspected Substance that would cause a light glow on one side of the beam whenever it was close to running out of Substance.

He wanted for the beams to also glow when under great stress, or when the imbuement had decayed significantly, but couldn’t manage either. All his attempts took up too much of his intent and were a little too complex for him.

Despite his own labors, with a local source of imbued pickaxes, the mine was much more productive and eventually a lack of beams became a slight bottleneck in the mine – only Evan was interested in making them, and in their haste, they used normal wood until a small cave-in had happened after the first month, claiming the lives of several miners.

After that, his beams were even more sought after, and the mining stalled as they waited for more beams to keep them safe. Just unimbued beams weren’t safe enough.

Mundane wood was incredibly dangerous to build the shafts out of – while Substance couldn’t be found in the air or even most soil, proper underground rock and ore was a different story. Untouched by both humans and wildlife, it was rich in Substance that enhanced all of its properties, including its weight.

This was part of the reason why miners were rewarded so handsomely, and why their work required imbued tools as well as supports. It was also partially responsible for the price of most metals, as it took a rare breed of men and women who were willing to risk their lives in the depths despite the risks.

Because the Substance content tended to increase the deeper one went, it was incredibly costly to mine deeper into the ground and required that even the miners have substantial cultivation to rely on, in addition to powerful tools.

Thankfully, metal veins were quite plentiful even near the surface, so while metal was expensive, it wasn’t a luxury item. At least, not the mundane metal.

All of this was to say that after getting situated in Iron Guard, he was making more money than ever, despite having far more actual work to do.

Most of that work was maintenance – on the actual defensive formations, too, which was nice. The walls were nothing as sophisticated as he was sure the walls in Starspire or even Fool’s Hope were. With the beast surges coming so regularly, and strong formation masters in short supply, the best solution was a wall that simply kept the beasts and monsters out while not being too expensive.

To keep costs down, the wall was partitioned into several different sections, with each having their own controls to turn on or off the formations. Atop the wall were the same devices he was familiar with – a gong, for declaring attacks, and searchlights for keeping an eye on the woods.

He also discovered that the walls had another formation laid across the top – one that must have been made by someone far stronger and more skilled than himself. It was a reactive one-way barrier that was used to keep any enemies from bypassing the walls – it wouldn’t stop arrows and the like, but anything living that attempted to jump onto the wall would be repelled viciously. Evan wasn’t qualified to even inspect that one, so he was unaware of how it did these things or any of the specifics.

Still, it was impressive and made sense – even with walls as high as they were, it wasn’t nearly enough to actually stop opponents with sufficient cultivation. Just reaching the first Collapse would make a person several times more powerful in their specialization.

It was only three weeks into their stay that the first beast surge occurred, and Evan wished he knew more, but anyone not actively participating in the defense – as in, anyone not an actual soldier – was required to stay inside the buildings until the all-clear was given.

As part of the civilian division, he could fulfill an optional request and stay on the wall for any emergency repairs, but it wasn’t required and was far too dangerous for his blood, and he obediently stayed inside. Even Arnav had decided not to take part, at least for now. During his stay, he had learnt that the surges usually occurred every few months, varying depending on how much hunting was done and how garrisoned the outpost was.

Hunting was a popular activity for some of the garrison, which somewhat surprised him. Why be a soldier at all if they were willing to go hunting?

By the time the second month had passed, Evan officially put in a bulk order of Substance, mostly comprised of Substance that was imbuing-aspected, though he also included enough Substance of varying types to ensure his bodily needs wouldn’t increase. There were a few fees, as well as the cost of renting the cultivation chamber for his use, but after nearly emptying his bank account, he was sure he would have enough to bring him to his first Collapse, with perhaps a little left over.

It wasn’t an exact science on how much each person would need for each Collapse, with the mortal size of each person’s soul varying very slightly, but he could tell – vaguely – how close he was and could tell he was halfway there without even being told. Nor did it truly matter whether he reached it or not; while there was some status in having a higher Collapse, passing each one wasn’t that beneficial, at least not at his level. It would make him more resistant to change, even if those changes were through the body, increase his bodily needs, and very, very slightly extend his natural lifespan.

The increase in lifespan was virtually nothing for his first Collapse, and would only truly begin to show itself once he had Collapsed his soul around nine times – at that point, his natural lifespan would have been doubled, even without any Substance to slow down his aging.

Supposedly, it would only get better from there, but records of anything past ten collapses were difficult to find – it seemed that much like crafting, anything more than general knowledge on cultivation was hard to find.