Evan stared at the man before him, both of their expressions dark and angry. A moment passed as he deliberated on his options. He had run into several issues trying to sell his newest work, even with a slip from Master Isaac.

The military just didn’t want to buy it from him – they said it was unnecessary, too expensive, and disruptive to normal work in the mine.

If not for the slip, they would also likely say it wouldn’t work, either. After all, Evan was not even nineteen years old yet, and only just barely had his first Collapse under his belt. What would he know of making his own designs?

Eventually, he had worked his way up the chain of clerks, managers, and administrators until he arrived at the nicely adorned office he was now inside. Across from him, on the other side of the desk, was the main overseer for the mine, and he wasn’t happy.

Hours had passed since he sat down in the office, and while the man no doubt desperately wanted to just scream at him to get out, he couldn’t.

If the man did that, Evan would go directly to the miners, explain his invention, and then tragically tell them their lives just weren’t valuable enough for Starspire to buy his device, even at the – in regard to his own profit – low price he was willing – forced – to sell it at.

Neither of them had any doubts about what would happen should that come to pass. They would first make demands that they cough it up and buy the device, and when that didn’t work, they would stop working.

The mine used imbuements to stay standing, so every moment that went by cost the military money to keep the mine open. This was a pittance compared to money it brought in every day, but if none of the miners were working…

Starspire was a long ways away, and who knew what they would find out once they arrived?

With this implicit threat, they had reached an impasse. They couldn’t even order him to do otherwise – his direct superior was Master Isacc, and the old man couldn’t be prouder of him for coming up with such a device. It was apparent from the slip he had brought with him that Evan had his master’s full support.

It reminded him of how lucky he was to have been assigned to Master Isaac.

All too easily he could have been assigned to someone with little interest in actually teaching him, instead intent on keeping him apprenticed for as long as possible.

Evan wanted to sigh – he was bored. The excitement that had previously infected him so thoroughly was nowhere to be found, and now he just wanted this ordeal to be finished. It reminded him of the one maintenance task he had completed at Fool’s Hope, and all the unnecessary back and forth he had done.

He wanted to blame Starspire for being so stingy but couldn’t truly fault them. His weight redistributor was expensive, as that had been part of the point of making it.

If he couldn’t skim much of a profit off his work, then the solution was to simply make every little bit he got to skim a large sum. Well, that and occasionally selling outside the military’s purview, but unfortunately there was no real market at Iron Guard, and the miners didn’t require much more than tools to work with – and that involved the mine, a military operation.

This wasn’t all for the sake of profit of course, the device was genuinely just on another level and had costs to match – he just hadn’t done anything to cut costs. As it was, he had needed to stay up late just so he could get some actual work in, just so he could afford to build the prototype in full.

Virtually all of his savings had been blown, minus enough to keep working, on his cultivation.

Eventually though, the man seemed to relent.

“Alright. We’ll buy just one for now, so we can see if it works at all. Since you have Formations Master Isaac’s approval, what about this: we’ll pay you half now, and if it works as intended in two weeks, we’ll pay you the other half then.”

Was that a slight against him or Master Isaac? He couldn’t truly find it in himself to care, and this seemed reasonable, with a few other terms added.

“That sounds fair to me, but this will of course include assurance that the device won’t needlessly be used or abused for purposes not in line with its main function, correct?”

The man ever so slightly grimaced. Ha! Evan was not as naïve and easy to take advantage of as he had been back in Starspire!

Unwilling to admit otherwise, the man agreed easily, and after getting it all in writing, including his payment, he left. The writing was a little more complex, to cover all angles, but they quickly figured it out.

His excitement was back in full force, now that he knew they were going to buy his product. Weight redistributor wasn’t a very good name, but he was proud of it. It would easily last the two weeks described, even if they were a little overeager with the device.

A big part of its design, after all, was making sure the device had to do as little as possible. This not only made the device more feasible, but also meant it would decay rather slowly.

Evan made his way to the orders office, where he picked up some more mundane weapons – including a mace, this time, in addition to some swords as per usual. He was tired of constantly making swords, but he was determined to get ahead as quickly as possible.

The stronger he was, the more money he would make, and the safer he would be. It was a harmonious cycle even if it was a bit of a boring one.

He wanted to immediately start work on another beam but couldn’t afford it with only half of his payment. They would be the real money makers, but he expected demand to be somewhat low. There were plenty of mines that could use them, but despite his careful planning, the device couldn’t do much the deeper the mine was located.

It only worked as well as it did, or at least would, because the mine at Iron Guard was relatively close to the surface.

A smile couldn’t help but cross his face at the thought. Reaching his first Collapse had really opened up his options, even if he wasn’t strong enough to do anything crazy yet. He yearned to work on larger formations, and now that he had his first collapse under his belt, maybe he could look into that.

One of the types of requests he could fulfill were ones relating to building formations for various buildings. It was even possible to assist in the actual construction, either through imbuing various tools or even arrays to do the work by themselves.

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That was what arrays were good for, after all. Similar to formations, they could be large in scope and accomplish all sorts of things but were considered less permanent than formations, constructed using a set of imbued tools known as nodes, typically in the form of small flags.

Evan didn’t know much more about how they were made or worked, but knew that somehow the nodes could communicate with each other, and once the master node was activated, they would form a cohesive whole that could affect the area that the nodes delineated.

Typically, they were relegated to utility roles, as it took some time for the array to sort itself out and activate, as well as being incredibly vulnerable to disruption should any of the nodes be damaged or removed.

As for their advantage over formations, it was simple but highlighted their utility – at any time, the array could be deactivated and removed, and easily set up elsewhere. The only drawback was that there could be limitations to the placement of the nodes – some requiring symmetry or specific shapes – but overall, they could be used by anyone with a little knowhow.

This made them incredibly convenient and useful for all sorts of utility roles, from trapping, concealment, comfort, defense, and construction. A formation could do any of those jobs better but lacked the mobility and convenience of an array.

It was why they weren’t seen as very useful to Starspire, and why the contract for them wasn’t as good as the others. Starspire mostly dealt with static locations, and using an array was always more expensive than simple manpower – something Starspire had in spades.

For smaller purposes, they were incredibly helpful, such as for hunter teams or construction that needed to be done quickly or in a place without much manpower.

A place like Iron Guard, for example.

Evan couldn’t build arrays, of course, but any imbuement required a crafter – arrays couldn’t change the fundamental rules of Substance imbuement. Once the mundane construction was completed, if it would need formations added, they would need a formations master.

He would be more than happy to fulfill that role – it was his original desire, and only now was he approaching the skill and power necessary to contribute to that.

That wouldn’t really happen in Iron Guard, though. It was too dangerous for anyone to truly want to build a life here, and while the mining represented a lot of jobs, the cultivation requirement for them would only increase as time went on, at a pace that the current miners wouldn’t be able to keep up with. They would leave, finding work they could do elsewhere eventually, and had no real interest in staying at Iron Guard.

While the beast surges rarely claimed the lives of anyone, especially the civilians, they were still present and weren’t going away.

Evan decided to mention this to Master Isaac, to see if he would let them transfer again to somewhere a little more populated, where he could start working on larger scale formations. Hopefully, he could convince his master.

***

The two weeks he had agreed to with the overseer passed quietly, and the other half of his payment was delivered without fanfare. No incidents had happened in that time, though many of the miners expressed their gratitude to him for creating the device – accidents were part of the job, but the previous cave in still had them spooked.

Iliana and Arnav were both disgruntled at his quick advancement, though Iliana wasn’t far behind him – perhaps a another month or two, he guessed. Arnav was further behind, having spent so much time on growing in skill rather than power.

Now that he had advanced, a fire seemed to have been lit under them, and Arnav was now bulldozing his way forward, perhaps realizing that what Evan had been doing worked after all, and well at that.

That should teach him.

It wasn’t that easy, of course, but at least Arnav gotten his priorities straight. Evan was worried about him, he seemed too content with the status quo when he wasn’t racing forward in competition.

As for Iliana… they had drifted apart and were more strangers than not these days. Evan wasn’t particularly interested in trying to mend things, and Iliana seemed to bear a grudge about their magical abilities that wouldn’t go away. He avoided her when he could.

Him and Arnav were still good friends, though they were a little more distant than most would call their friends. They were both busy people, even if Arnav had different priorities than himself most of the time. Evan liked it that way – he was used to keeping people at arm’s length, and he wasn’t sure what would happen when they graduated from Master Isaac’s care.

That didn’t stop him from relentlessly pursuing it, of course. Until he graduated, his twelve years of service wouldn’t start, and even if he intended to buy his way out of it, he wanted that timer to start ticking.

Over time he had thought about his contract, and realized that in all honesty, it wasn’t as bad as he had thought. Paying them the amount he would have loaned was a lot, but it was unchanging – there was no interest, and if he was happy with serving, then he could ignore it altogether.

He had also been treated quite well by the military, even if that treatment had been up in the air in the beginning. There were plenty of opportunities, the danger hadn’t been that high so far, and he had an easy way of obtaining everything he needed. It went without saying his education was also coming along quite nicely.

Should he have stayed in Starspire, he doubted he would be where he was today, knowing what he knew and having a cultivation base at the first Collapse, and having an original design to his name.

Life was good, but it didn’t change the fact that he felt stifled underneath the boot of Starspire. He wanted his freedom, and who knew when things could change for the worse?

Thankfully, even that was shaping up well. He had dutifully worked at fulfilling the requirements for passing his certification with the guild and was getting closer by the day.

With his cultivation as it was, he already felt it would be enough to pass the tests, even if only barely. His knowledge was also coming along nicely, and his skill grew naturally through his work.

Completing his certification within two years was an accomplishment, and he wanted to earn it.

He actually felt he might be able to manage it even earlier than that – perhaps a year and a half, and he would feel confident in passing. It was more than his own ability and hard work, though.

It was also his master. Master Isaac was truly a great teacher and did everything he could to help them excel. Being assigned to him was a stroke of good fortune, and he wouldn’t forget that.

Regardless, he had to keep pushing forward, and part of him wondered how things would change once he graduated. Evan didn’t think of himself a braggart, but already assumed that he would the first to graduate – already he was pulling ahead, and his lead would only grow.

Now that he had reached his first Collapse, his imbuements were more complicated and powerful than ever before, and that translated into more money. Eventually, the market would narrow, but for now it was easy to sign away everything he made to the military and have the money in hand almost then and there.

This was another reason he wanted to start working on formations larger in scope, as once he graduated, that was his overall goal – he still remembered that it was the formation masters who were the most carefree in the city, and they all specialized in larger formations such as buildings.

It was also the best way to defend himself. By getting experience in working on large formations, he hoped to reach a level where he could construct defenses that would hold up against the enemy soldiers.

After explaining himself to his master, he had been told that he would consider getting them transferred somewhere where he could work on some buildings, somewhere prosperous but not as established as Fool’s Hope.

Two weeks hadn’t been long enough for a decision to be reached, or at least for the request to be approved, but for the moment that was alright.

His weight redistributor had been a huge success, and now instead of the military fighting tooth and nail to keep from buying his products, the overseer had sent him a message asking for a couple more to be used here in Iron Guard.

The miners were operating back at full force, just as they had before the cave-in, and productivity had once more reached astonishing levels. As the miners gained more confidence in his work, they made liberal use of the device, becoming unafraid of most accidents, protected as they were by his device.

Unfortunately, there was only one, and the miners in other sections of the mine had to be more careful. This difference had them – overseer included – chomping at the bit to get a hold of some more.

I wonder if they tried to analyze it.

If they had, they’d failed, or they wouldn’t have come to him for more.

What this meant, though, was that Evan no longer wanted to leave immediately, as suddenly he was sitting on a goldmine.

If I had more cultivation, I wonder how much more impressive I could make it?

The following days were sure to be busy. Evan found he liked it that way.