Evan held his head in his hands, uncaring of how it made him look. It had been several days since he had accepted the first request from the older man – who he now knew as James – and put in his search request.

The man had been very kind and accommodating, which he hoped was only partially related to how much he’d gotten done in the past couple days.

Arnav was still missing.

It was assumed at this point that he had died during the raid at some point. Illiana had, despite leaving the restaurant just before the attack, managed to keep herself safe.

Too many were missing, and the outpost was stretched too thin to do any true search for him – he was lost in a sea of further tragedy, despite the large bounty he had put out for him. Nobody wanted to ‘waste’ their time looking for someone they couldn’t find, and he wasn’t the only one promising large sums of wealth in return for finding a friend or family member.

That was what stung the most – that to Starspire, he was just a number, if one higher than most. Even the influence of Master Isaac was useless. His death held little meaning when the outpost had already suffered so much.

He’d dealt with death before – a few times in the past, some child at the orphanage would go missing and never be heard from again, but never before had Evan lost someone important to him.

And Arnav had been important to him – the wound of his death left an indelible mark on him he would carry forever, just like the nightmares of the night itself where he had almost died.

Illiana sat next to him, sobbing. He wiped his own tears from his eyes before they could spill down his face.

Evan swore that he would make them pay. That Antagas would burn.

That wasn’t enough; he still felt empty. His anger didn’t fill the void of emotion he felt – it just made it even clearer.

Neither of them spoke, Illiana sobbing, himself brooding.

“I’m sorry, Evan.”

“I’m sorry too, Illiana.”

***

Two more weeks passed, and while the pain he felt grew a little more distant, it never went away. At night, he would alternate between nightmares of what could have occurred at the restaurant and grisly scenes of Arnav’s death.

Just as he had before, he threw himself into his work in an effort to distance himself, and at their new home, he found himself growing closer to Illiana – they shared their pain and grew closer for it.

Master Isaac had escaped the ordeal unscathed, but he soon found himself growing more distant from the man, for his master did not seem to be exceptionally affected by Arnav’s death. At some point he confronted him, and the answer was chilling. He remembered the conversation with clarity.

“Master Isaac, how can you bee so calm about Arnav’s death? Did he mean nothing to you? You’re so… unaffected, and it’s not right.” At the time, his voice had been tinged with the raw emotion he felt, even as he tried to keep his tone even.

“Do not accuse me of things when you know nothing, Evan.” His tone had held a rare warning before becoming gentler. “His death hurts me too, but I’m older than I look, and he is not the first apprentice I’ve lost, nor will he be the last. You yourself almost perished in the raid, and at some point, distancing yourself from your emotions becomes necessary.”

That seemed to have been all he had to say on the subject, but after a moment he had continued, as he often did.

“If you live long enough, you’ll understand what I mean. It won’t ever not hurt, though. Not naturally.”

Evan had done some research on the topic since then and had discovered what his master had meant in the end. Substance could manipulate the mind, so of course there were ways of dulling or removing certain emotions or proclivities.

In Starspire, though, they were illegal. He agreed with Starspire in this – his pain was not something that should be cut away because it was inconvenient. It was the first time he had discovered that some types of cultivation were outlawed altogether, though in this case the history of the decision was interesting.

It was also something he could distract himself with.

The books he had read said that in times past, cultivating the removal or extreme nulling of negative emotions like guilt, remorse, and sadness was incredibly popular. It was almost a rite of passage for becoming a cultivator – cutting away everything that could hold one back.

It disgusted him, and had held back civilization for a long, long time. Even now it was present in some parts of the world, and it led to an inhuman lack of regard for anything but oneself. The cultivators of today may not be perfect, and selfishness was almost a necessity, but most were not unfeeling – like himself, they just looked after themselves first and foremost.

The road to power got narrower the further you traveled upon it, and to succeed likely meant someone else failed.

He would personally teach that to Antagas. While he might not have much personal battle strength, eventually – and one day soon – he would grow capable of making weapons of war far beyond any single cultivator of similar strength.

Several weeks ago now, before he even knew of Arnav’s death, he had spent his entire remaining fortune on cultivation resources. Having just suffered the tragedy, and finding his defenses so lacking, he – somewhat recklessly – threw everything into his cultivation but what he left aside for the bounty.

At the time, he had thought what he paid out for the bounty would be enough to be near the top of the list – he still wasn’t thinking clearly and had thought too much of himself. The listing was high, but compared to the life savings of devasted families of cultivators, and those of higher cultivation than himself, even his entire savings wouldn’t have been enough.

He desperately hoped it hadn’t made the difference between finding Arnav and not, and if it had been… he didn’t want to know. Part of him wanted to throw away the coming Substance, but in the end, he didn’t.

Instead he focused on the significance of it to his overall cultivation.

When it arrived and he finished cultivating, he will have brought himself from the start of the first Collapse to just over halfway through it in a single bound, elevating his strength by just slightly more than half.

It was much more than he had thought, but once he had done the math behind the first Collapse to the second one, he realized that it was that easy.

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Each Collapse could be thought of as around three times stronger than the one before it and requiring that much more Substance. Math was one of the many things he had to improve at to be good at crafting, and it allowed him to sketch a much clearer path of the relative strengths of each Collapse, at least when it came to the raw numbers.

If a mortal could be considered a one, and the first Collapse a three, then the second was a nine. When he had reached the first Collapse, he had cultivated from 1.5 to 3 – doubling his strength, as he had realized before.

This, of course, meant that when the military brought him halfway to the first Collapse, it was far less generous than he had realized. A mere change of 0.5 – practically nothing, and he had felt so special!

Back then, the true change had been the reformation of his soul – going from the blobby mess he was as a mortal to the perfectly smooth, rotating sphere of perfection his soul was now. This change had also exhausted his soul, making his cultivation far slower than it might have been otherwise.

He remembered how whatever was in his soul had seemed to nearly escape, and the pain he had gone through back then. It made him wonder if he had almost died right then and there, with whatever was inside him taking advantage of his temporary weakness to make a break for it.

Myth. Even now, when he thought of the word, it reminded him of the visions he had seen. The value was still nothing, the last he had checked, but he had considered some ways of trying to increase it.

All of that would have to wait for his graduation, though.

Back on track, his current cultivation could be considered a three in numerical terms. With the entirety of his wealth, he could bring his strength forward a little more than he had last time, by perhaps two.

To his mind, this increase didn’t feel that large, but he knew that the mind was easily confused when trying to compare the magnitude of numbers, especially when things got more abstract.

Numbers did not lie, though, and that would bring him to a five altogether, which was 60% stronger than before. And five was more than 50% of the way to nine, the second Collapse.

Of course, all of these numbers were representations he had made, but he felt fairly confident he was right. It was a little scary, though, as it made the strength of just the fourth Collapse quite real and concrete.

There was a difference between knowing that each Collapse is far stronger than the one that came before it and knowing by just how much.

He shook his head. There was more to do. Standing, he left the newly assigned building where the three of them now lived. It was smaller than before, considering the size of their group had shrunk.

Still hurts. Every time he tried to sit down and come to terms with his thoughts, he got distracted – or more honestly, he avoided it.

He headed towards the newly rebuilt requests office.

***

The cultivation resources arrived, and the cultivation chambers were one of the few pieces of infrastructure mostly left alone – they were fairly simple and built with the explicit purpose of defense in mind. There were few things that could boast a defense superior to them – no one wanted part of their cultivation ruined, no matter how small. Every Collapse represented the majority of a persons present or potential strength, and at some point, everyone realized they could not or would not push past the barrier.

As far as infrastructure goes, they were also rather low in importance – their destruction would, at most, delay the advancements of people until more could be constructed, and only slightly affect the people cultivating inside, and that was if they weren’t killed.

This could be important, of course, but they were not as critical as almost any other piece of infrastructure.

Evan’s cultivation went as expected, and only required a few days of intense effort. Being left alone with his thoughts was hard, but he was able to grit his teeth and get through it.

It made him feel a little guilty, but the sensation of his growing soul was like a balm to his mind – it was incredible. Never before had he cultivated so much Substance, and never before had his soul absorbed it so quickly. Every moment was better than the last, and the trance cleared his mind once he got settled.

When he left the chamber, his mind tinged with disappointment, he threw himself right back into his work, but this time not of the sort that paid – he needed to remake his shield and portable thermostat.

He had also learnt from his mistakes and intended to craft himself a dagger packed full of as much sharpness as possible. If things ever came down the wire, it could save his life.

By now, the outpost was in much better shape, but the trauma still lingered in the residents – the outpost was not as prosperous as before, but the raid could not entirely stifle the hustle and bustle the ever-increasing traffic brought.

In fact, in response to the raid, Starspire had begun sending even more soldiers and supplies through Mountain Acropolis in a show of retribution – Evan was not the only person who held no small amount of rage that the raid had been as successful as it had been.

This allowed the outpost to still remain prosperous, enough that the previous problem of sourcing the Substance he needed went away.

Hunters had suffered the lightest blow, for they were often outside of the outpost, and the traffic brought even more of them looking to make their fortune – just last week a team had brought back a monster of particular importance, for it was not unique – the team had brought back several, which meant that monster had managed to mutate in a way that remained biologically viable and found a mate.

Evan had not seen the creature himself, but since it was not unique, a team of mages had set off to find the population and protect it while assisting in its growth. They were sponsored by Starspire, a point they had made clear before setting out – the new beast was too valuable to allow it to be hunted to extinction.

Supposedly, the monster bore resemblance to a boar, but instead of the typical growth that focused on increasing their physical characteristics, the mutation had changed the color of its skin to a pale white, discarded its tusks, and granted it a natural force-aspected magic that it used to fight from a distance and protect itself.

For a boar, it looked strange, but the creature had been given a name – a Pale Forcebore, named after its apparent favoring of force attacks that resembled a drill.

All of this was excellent news for Evan, as it would allow the price of force-aspected Substance to go down in the coming months and years, depending on how large their population already was.

As he worked on his new shield, he changed the design after thinking of how it saved him last time. Instead of simply forcing away any object that came too close too fast, it would instead try to redirect it around him instead of simply stopping it.

This change should greatly increase its defensive power for kinetic projectiles such as arrows, and even against mundane weapons, forcing the objects to resist the change in velocity and helping against the direct clashes of force he would always lose against a superior enemy.

He was lucky before – the arrow had struck his shield in such a way that it was redirected, but it was not part of the way his shield had worked before. It had been mere luck.

When he made this change, he was worried it would take too much intent, but his fears were unfounded. Leaving the shield as the same bulky object as before, the increase in his strength allowed him to make this alteration while at the same increasing the raw amount of force it could handle.

His other protections, such a slight resistance to temperature, he left to his thermostat. Resistance to heat had never really been needed, so he only increased the insulation ability of the device to better handle his movements with it before doing everything he could to slim it down.

The results were incredible – it was much easier to wield than before, even if it was still the size of a somewhat small brick.

With the device having shrunk so much, he even had an idea for his clothes. He had a new set made but instructed the tailor to add a small compartment in the back matching the size of his new thermostat, and then to add some slight flaps in such a way that he could secure the thermostat inside, while still being easily removable.

He loved the result, and slimmed the thickness of the device while increasing the width so it was less noticeable as he moved about – this required a redesign, but it wasn’t too difficult, and he thought it was worth it.

For the dagger, he commissioned a well-known smith to forge him one out of unprocessed steel, having the natural Substance from its makeup left alone so it would still function naturally.

The steel was made from iron deeper into the earth than the mine in Iron Guard, and was much more effective than his own imbuements could manage at comprehensively fortifying the dagger.

When he finally got his hands on the dagger, most of the natural Substance was still intact, and he replaced what was missing with a formation that decreased the weight of the dagger – it was heavy – and increased its sharpness.

All of this had cost him a pretty penny, but his stronger cultivation allowed him to make more than before working as a composition architect, something that he had gotten fairly adept at in the past few weeks, working on easier projects from the military that allowed for more division of labor.

Everything seemed to happen in a rush over the past few weeks, but it seemed the entire outpost had a score to settle, and the rebuilding efforts had allowed him to make money hand over fist.