In the end, Evan didn’t get the chance to leave Iron Guard for yet another few months – it was only a couple weeks after his birthday that Master Isaac announced they were leaving.

Turning nineteen had been uneventful – unlike last year, there was no unlocking of his soul, and no opportunities appeared because of his new age. It was much like many of the years before, only acknowledged by Evan and perhaps a few who knew him – it wasn’t even truly his birthday, but the day he entered the orphanage.

He knew that some families celebrated it, but Evan had never seen the point. What was there to celebrate about getting older? Turning eighteen and unlocking the soul was one thing, but there was nothing else that was special about getting a little closer to the grave.

Arnav and Iliana also had their birthdays pass. Iliana wanted to celebrate with a gathering, but Arnav thought a simple affair was better. Evan shared his own thoughts, and eventually they settled on a nice meal in their communal home.

It wasn’t like Iron Guard had many restaurants, especially not any truly lavish ones.

The thought surprised Evan – when had he become so… different? Over the course of the year he had truly changed, becoming demonstratively wealthy by the standards of the fourth section of Starspire. He was nineteen and had already reached his first Collapse by his own efforts, and frequently dealt in sums unimaginable to his previous self.

Just thinking back on his old standards of living caused him to wonder how he ever managed.

Now, after his first Collapse, even the new hunters from the orphanage couldn’t compare. It was a strange reality, but it was simply the nature of crafters. Ever since he changed his methods, imbuing swords with sharpness instead of simply weight, the money he made had increased even further.

His newest swords were grade one, class one. Because of the increased sharpness of the swords, he decided on adding a condition to the sword’s imbuement being activated, lest the user destroy their sheathe or injure themselves – sharpness was incredibly potent at increasing the lethality of the blade.

This condition was that the sharpness imbuement was only active while the hilt of the blade was gripped for more than a second, something that was far simpler to accomplish than his previous project, but that he enjoyed working on nonetheless.

Unfortunately, while he had managed to pick up the spell for carving, it wasn’t something he could use on metal, and due to his small mana pool and regeneration, wasn’t generally worth casting anyway.

At least, not for such a simple alteration on the sword’s imbuement – the inscriptions were taken right out of a book, and there was no real value in his change but for the convenience it would give his customers, even if he never saw them after giving the swords to the military.

It was about his principles, his reputation, and eventually, maybe even his brand.

Because of this, he had to custom order the swords so that the inscription was included – there were no blacksmiths in Iron Guard capable of laying inscriptions inside the metal. To do so required a much more powerful spell, as well as precision – something that took cultivation invested into magic, or a strong talent in it, as well as mastery of the necessary spell.

Neither was common, so he had to order the swords from elsewhere – in some outpost, maybe even Fool’s Hope, there was a request in the orders office for making his swords.

Metal was also a different ballgame when it came to inscribing inside the metal. Generally, it needed to be done during the forging process, as the metal didn’t take well afterwards, compromising the sword.

Even then, it had to be done frugally – generally, having gaps in the interior of a weapon isn’t good for it, even if those gaps were compensated for with reinforcement. Imbuements followed the same principle as cultivation – when it came to existing properties, it could only enhance, meaning that a compromised sword with an imbuement for durability would always be weaker than a sword with the same imbuement but uncompromised.

It was one of the primary reasons swords were usually quite simple – there just wasn’t much space for inscriptions, and the more inscribed the sword, the less durable it would be – especially for anything needing to occupy the actual blade.

Of course, a crafter capable of creating a spirit for the blade would be able to do much more, but that was far beyond Evan at the moment.

All of this was to say that even though getting the raw swords was more difficult and expensive, they sold well enough that he was making more money than ever, and with that money his standards had greatly risen.

It was something of a cruel joke back at the orphanage, that kids that left to become successful hunters would almost always turn their backs at the way they lived after getting a taste of a better life.

He had thought himself above that, that he wouldn’t change the same way, but he had. Even more than most of the hunters, even.

Once he was back in Starspire he would still donate some money to the orphanage, but he could never go back, even as he was. Who knew what he would be like by the time he actually returned?

Just like that, the end of his first year as a crafter ended.

In this time, even more had happened: Iliana had completed her first Collapse and joined him as a true cultivator, and Arnav was getting close to it himself. He himself had felt threatened by their progress and was nearing the decision of purchasing even more Substance for cultivation.

With his newfound income, he was already nearing the same sum as when he purchased Substance before, and he was excited to advance his strength even further. The improvement wouldn’t be a doubling of his strength this time, though.

Instead, it would only increase it by half of what he had now. This was the unfortunate reality of cultivation – Substance was a linear improvement, always. It would take more and more cultivation to make substantial differences in his strength, even if it was increasing by large amounts in concrete numbers.

When you had the strength of a hundred men, adding one more wasn’t very noticeable, but it was still the strength of an entire man. A mortal, though, going from the strength of one to the strength of two, would find their abilities doubled – that was where he had been when he advanced to his first Collapse, doubling his cultivation.

The same amount now would increase his ability by 50% but would leave him three times as powerful as before advancing. It would only bring him a fraction of the way to his second Collapse, though.

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Despite Substance remaining linear, this was why each Collapse was considered invincible to all those below them – the total cultivation required to reach each one was many times that of the previous, and it quickly got out of hand.

It was also why he might be growing quickly now, but it wouldn’t last. He had asked his master why everyone was so weak, or at least crafters, when he seemed to be climbing the scales of power at a rapid pace.

The answer was simple: his current needs for Substance were quite low compared to his income, and the market for his products was very large – reaching the first Collapse wasn’t difficult for anyone with backing, talent, or any real measure of success.

As he got stronger, though, the market for his work would drastically shrink even as his prices rose, and his need for Substance would reach a level that took an entire economy to provide. There were actually regulations for this very thing, as else all the Substance would be bought up at ridiculous prices by those at the top, leaving none for people like Evan.

The world was just too small to accommodate the truly powerful, especially with the world as divided as it was. It was one of the primary reasons why peace could never last – only with more territory and a larger population could more Substance be brought in.

So, while at the moment he was growing at a rapid pace, he couldn’t expect that to last. At least, not according to his master.

What was left unsaid – Evan was always careful to remember that his master served Starspire, and the military in particular, so everything he said couldn’t be completely trusted – was how the spaceports played into all of this. Did this mean that the main import from the stars was more Substance?

Another thought was if this was why there was so little information on cultivation past the tenth Collapse – did everyone who reached that level leave their planet, Piter, for greener pastures?

Maybe even before reaching that level? Was that the purpose of Voidships – the far more prestigious version of a spacecraft?

Evan’s understanding of the Void, space, and generally anything beyond Starspire was incredibly lacking, even now. He understood the bare basics, as they related to cultivation: the soul rested in the Void, and Substance was also partially anchored there.

That was all he knew, other than that the Void was a very, very dangerous place. It was iconic for its danger, even if he didn’t know why.

Well, he also knew that everyone wanted to travel through the Void, despite the danger, but was unaware of what was so tempting so as to travel through it.

All of that was a problem for another time, though. For now, Evan was just enjoying the benefits of his increased cultivation, making money at a rapid pace and deciding he was okay with how he had changed so far. In this time, he decided to splurge a little, and bought some basic designs from the military on some utility devices he could make for himself, maybe even improve.

He could have just outright bought the device but had long decided that it would be best if he always made his own things himself, so that he could always be learning new things and broadening his horizons.

These utility devices were mostly things that could replace the spells he had learnt – as he continued learning more and more spells, especially the costly crafting related ones, he had less and less mana to spend on the earlier spells.

It was also just easier – casting and maintaining spells wasn’t easy, and his ability to cast them was limited. He figured he might as well splurge a little on himself and learn while he was at it, even if he felt he was quickly approaching the point where any random device couldn’t teach him much.

By the time they left Iron Guard, he was equipped with two small devices – each one about the size of a brick, attached to his sides like holsters.

One of them, the one on his left, acted as a barrier against rain. He could turn it on and off, and while on it would project an invisible barrier just above him in order to keep out rain, though this version could do little if the rain was being flung into him from the sides.

It wasn’t perfect, and was bulky and awkward to carry, but it served its purpose without any attention from him. The other would, like the spell, attempt to maintain a temperature around his person, acting as a mobile air conditioner.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t very good at it – a strong enough breeze would leave him right where he started, and even walking too quickly would break the very weak insulation being maintained. Whereas the rain shield was bulky, it wasn’t truly that similar to a brick – not so for the air conditioner, being much bulkier in order to accommodate the large amount of inscriptions required for all of its intricacies.

He knew there were far better versions, both in being much easier to carry and not so easily disrupted, but the version the military had given him was truly lacking, and he lacked the sheer strength that would be required to slim down the devices.

As it was, a lot of his strength went to simply creating the controlled effects of the device, with little left over for empowering the device, especially not if he wanted to keep it cheap enough. While he was splurging on comfort, he wouldn’t tolerate a large, constant drain on his funds.

The mix of both a heater and a cooler, as well as the insulation required to make it effective, was difficult to fit into such a small package, even with as many inscriptions as it had. Even the brick version required large amounts of the inscriptions be taken up by the crafter themselves while imbuing, as the other was large enough a backpack would be required.

Still, as he entered the familiar model of jeep to travel elsewhere, he was happy with it. Once he increased his cultivation, he could further slim it down.

***

Their latest assignment was – at least to Evan – a stone’s throw away from the front lines. Master Isaac said only two outposts stood between their current location and the enemy – it had taken more than a month to reach it from Iron Guard.

He had long ago learnt that their new posting was known as the Mountain Acropolis outpost, for it sat at the top of a rather large hill, and its location near the border and so far from Starspire meant that not only was it heavily defense-minded, but it was a prospering location that saw thousands of soldiers moving to and from it, either back from the front or headed too it.

Evan felt it was slightly ironic that such a place was considered quite prosperous – while it was technically a military outpost, there was a huge civilian population looking to take advantage of the traffic, as well as countless others drawn here by the large markets, such as various hunters.

Being so far from any large population center also meant the nearby beasts were plentiful and filled with Substance, not having seen many hunters, and were drawn out by the disruption of the moving soldiers.

There was no concern for beast surges, either. The large amount of military personnel discouraged any attacks, and patrols were plentiful, both by the military and powerful hunters.

Even with the front lines so close, everyone felt relatively safe – Mountain Acropolis was already large enough that the enemy would simply occupy it, not mindlessly slaughter the civilians. Almost everyone here was also strong in their own right – not just anyone had the confidence or funds to travel so far from Starspire, and only with a strong cultivation base could one find opportunity at such a place.

Master Isaac told them on the way that he hadn’t explicitly picked Mountain Acropolis as he had Iron Guard – when he put his request in, the military made him choose between a few different options, and he liked this one the best.

The traveling soldiers would create plenty of opportunity for Arnav to earn some money and reach their first Collapse, while the growing nature of the place created plenty of work for a formations master like Evan who wanted to get his feet wet laying down building sized formations. Iliana too would benefit from the transient population, though he did not know what her current focus was.

It truly was perfect – the streets were bustling, almost overflowing with people, and there were multiple offices to accommodate the sheer demand for everything in the city. At the same time, Evan was positioned in a good place to contribute, just strong enough not to be overlooked amidst the countless requests for formation masters.

War, in a wicked sense, created prosperity and opportunity for those properly positioned to take advantage, and Evan had no qualms doing so – he was even excited, but for one thing.

Being this close to the border, while bringing countless benefits, meant that there was an ever-present danger of being attacked by the enemy, Antagas. A crippling sense of dread filled Evan every moment.

Unlike many of the civilians, he was demonstrably part of the military, and his earlier naïve thoughts of being spared started to sound like what they always were – hollow.