Another week passed before Evan brought up his next query – where was the Substance ‘processed’, and how could he get a look at it? Before they had never gotten around to it – it wasn’t that he had forgotten, though after he hurt himself in the beginning it no longer seemed quite so exciting, but that he could tell as the day went on that Theo was losing interest in showing him around.

So, he tactfully refrained from bringing it up. Instead, he inquired with the military about when, if, and how he could start doing some ‘official’ learning on the subject.

Alison was helpful for this – she took her job seriously, even if she was a little too chatty for his liking and made filling out the requisite forms a breeze – most of the time, clerks would just hand him the forms and tell him to come back once he’d filled them out.

Some of it might have had to do with how quiet things were down here – he wasn’t privy to the sorts of things a clerk needed to do each day, but he didn’t imagine it was much considering the small size of the community.

It was a very presumptuous thought, but he didn’t mean ill will by it – just the opposite; he wished every clerk was so helpful.

Unfortunately, the military replied as expected – if he wanted to learn anything from here on out, especially about something as critical as the Substance processing formations, he’d have to earn some merits first.

Even worse news was that Theo didn’t seem nearly as receptive to the idea of showing him around as he had before, even after that lovely meal he had bought the man!

Rory was no better, always begging him off, so for the moment he decided to shelve the idea. He wanted to know, but it wasn’t worth poking around at a formation that might very well have countermeasures both strong enough and merciless enough to kill him outright if he dared to forge a connection with it without the proper badge.

As for asking after the badge, he didn’t even consider it. That was a measure of trust that he didn’t have with Theo or Rory, and if they had asked the same of him, he’d have to refuse. It was one thing to show someone around while they were somewhat under supervision, but another entirely to just let them walk off with it.

Instead, he just continued to move with the flow, quickly putting together some simple designs for equipment and selling everything to the military.

His overall profits didn’t increase much – the military was already buying everything he had to sell – but the change of pace was nice, even if he soon returned to his beams.

As days turned to weeks and then to months, he started experimenting with his Myth. Small things. The first thing he tried was something he needed to do anyway – he needed a logo, a brand.

Something that he could engrave onto his products, to show that he had made them and that they met his own standards – something he hoped to make a staple of his brand. Part of him hoped that this link between himself and his products was all that was required, but another hoped not – he could have done this far sooner if he had so desired.

It took him a while to decide on something, but he eventually settled on something that would reflect his attitude towards crafting – that of being a generalist. Even if it might take a while for him to manage the opportunity to learn any other trade, he still wanted to investigate arrays as an alternative to his inscribing device, as well as alchemy in order to make his own concoctions.

What he ended up with was a small quill and paper, set inside a circle, that was in the process of finishing the image of a small flag and potion. At the top of this page rested a stylized ‘E’ – the initial to his name. He didn’t have a last name, at least not yet.

At least, that was his present desire. In reality, all the details were a little too fine for him to manage with his spells, and even then, they took too long to engrave onto everything he made.

For now, he settled with just the quill and paper, along with the initial at the top. It was also a little bigger than he’d like, around two centimeters, but when he was able, he’d shrink it.

It was a simple engraving and lacked any color or depth – he could even describe it as somewhat crude – but it was his. He felt pride upon completing it for the first time – it was the start of his legacy.

His story, legend, or perhaps even his myth.

The quill was meant to allude to his skill in formations – like writing words upon a page, he bound new purpose to mundane objects. As he was able, or even better, once he had learnt another trade, he would add an appropriate symbol to the page.

By the time he had decided on his mark, which took most of a month thanks to his indecision, he had also decided to change up his plans on the control method for his inscription device.

It was already the most complex, sophisticated thing he had ever crafted, and it would also be one he would be using for almost all his projects going forward.

Since that was the case, he decided to go for broke and spent a large sum of money on some mental-aspected Substance, so that he could implement something he had little experience with:

Controls that were operated by thought alone. Up until now, all his controls had been somewhat physical, at least in the respect that they operated through touch.

None had mechanical controls, as that would be more of a novelty than anything else, but everything included controls that responded to touch or holding a certain part of his devices.

This had never been a problem before, as the controls were always quite simple – turn on while being held, toggle between on and off, stuff like that – nothing complex.

His inscribing device would be different, though. With his current implantation, that of a brick like his shield, he attempted to replicate the spell that inspired it as closely as possible – and while that spell was great, it wasn’t perfect.

Of course, there were better versions of the spell available, but they came with their own requirements to his magical talent and/or cultivation path – requirements that as he was now, he wouldn’t be able to meet, nor would he be able to in the near future.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It was here that his device came through, allowing him to emulate a superior version of the spell. This upgrade was focused on adaptability, as well as some rudimentary automation – he wanted to have the inscription device add his mark all on its own, without any additional hand holding.

Adaptability was why he wanted to make the leap to mental controls, as well as just the experience he would gain from designing it.

Mental controls were considered by many to be the peak controlling method, even if they suffered from their own issues. Properly done, they were simply superior in every way to other methods, and allowed countless controls be to be effortlessly utilized.

He didn’t have any examples this time, nor did he have the luxury of advice from his master. All on his own, he could only experiment time and time again. This meant that as far as mental controls went, they wouldn’t be stellar, and that he would have to spend countless hours figuring them out.

It was brutal, going through failure after failure. Several times, he debated giving up on the idea, but he persisted. Even if he was moving at a snail’s pace, he could distinctly feel the progress he made with each attempt – each one was just a little more refined and got a little bit further to activation before failing.

The device he was using to test his ideas was a small board – made of wood, easily carved and replaced, and featuring a simple function; allowing the operator to control five small lights, arranged in each of the cardinal directions with another in the middle.

For each test he would attempt to mentally ‘grasp’, for lack of a better word, the controls by focusing on the board intently while remaining very close.

At the same time, he would be connected through his will, so that he could watch as the intent and inscriptions began to cascade with purpose, like a ripple on the surface of a pond.

It was a month into his work that he succeeded, and as he watched the formation activate, he analyzed what was different. Each test was iterative, where he tweaked things in the direction he thought was best.

Just as previously, the formation took some of the mental Substance, bound it into the control construct, then launched it out at him with a thin tether. What was different, this time, was the construct was a little more developed, and the launching force a little higher.

He lost sense of it after it left the device, but it wasn’t long later that he felt it impact his mind in a very distinct way.

It seemed to slam into his mind, and only its weak speed and small size prevented it from hurting him. That was definitely something to fix – the present construct was far simpler than the one that would hold the controls for his inscribing device.

The speed would also need to be addressed – he was essentially breathing on the board, and even still it seemed to barely carry the force necessary to reach him. His previous adjustments weren’t enough, but he didn’t want to hurt himself – playing around with mind-aspected Substance could be incredibly dangerous.

He pushed all of that to the back of his mind and engaged with the construct that seemed to stick to his mind like mud on a wall – it was unpleasant, but not painful.

Slowly, he went through a previously created set of tests, activating each of the lights alone and then in pairs. Part of him was amazed that it worked at all – he was controlling the device through thought alone! – but the rational crafter he had become only saw it for what it was – a shoddy prototype.

Once the battery of tests was complete, he had a whole list of complaints. There was a noticeable delay on what he conveyed, and there were occasional errors as what he sent was garbled, lost, or misinterpreted by the receiver. Security-wise, it was especially lacking, but that wasn’t a huge concern for his current project.

It was also more cumbersome to relay what he wanted than it should be – rather than have controls for each grouping he wanted, he had to mentally ‘press’ all the buttons individually – something that would get out of hand quickly with anything more complicated than a couple lights.

There was also no way for him to give standing orders – it was only on while he sent his desire, and then off. It flickered, too.

None of that was important, though – what mattered was that it worked!

He had underestimated how much mental Substance he would need by a longshot, but it worked! It wasn’t tenable for anything but his personal devices, and even then, only on ones he considered critical, but it was a massive step forward in his abilities.

Evan hadn’t become much more skilled than before – progress like that couldn’t be made so quickly anymore – but with this, he had another tool in his repertoire, without needing to be taught by the military with their damned merits.

Another two months passed as he refined the prototype and purchased more aspected Substance for the 1.0 version. During this time, not much changed, though he was inching ever closer towards having enough money to reach the peak of the first Collapse.

He got more comfortable with Theo and Rory during this time, often running into them as he was entering or leaving his workshop. Alison, too, became more familiar with him as he often sent in new orders for Substance – while he could reuse Substance as he had in the past, some of it was still consumed through each test, and over such a long period of experimenting that added up.

As for his experiments with his Myth, he started small – from those visions, he knew that it had something to do with grand feats or fame, so in the hopes it would be so easy he offered a discount on his products to the miners living in his level, so long as they gave his name when they bought them.

Getting this organized presented some trouble, as apparently it made some of the logistics quite complicated, but Alison knew what she was doing and helped him basically tell the military it was their problem – after all, they were the ones who were obligated to sell his products, and if he wanted to offer selective discounts, why couldn’t he?

Alison confided in him that while the military wasn’t under any obligation to oblige him, part of the training a clerk received about dealing with crafters was that they could be a little eccentric, especially as they got older and stronger, and that it was often easier to just let them have their way, within limits. A discount for the level was well within those limits.

By the time he was happy with his mental control construct, his efforts had borne fruit, but not the kind he was looking for. Several miners had moved into their level from other, likely similar depth caverns, and the place was looking a little livelier than it used to.

Myth – 0.00%

Nothing had changed regarding his Myth, which was a shame, but he hadn’t expected that to actually work – it would have been too easy, and had he not done similar things in the past?

Well, actually… I haven’t.

It didn’t bother him much, either. Growing up, he had seen precious little true charity, and he didn’t feel any obligation to give back what hadn’t been given to him. Images of the luxury the lower levels lived in sprang forth from his mind. He hadn’t seen any of that for himself, but Theo painted a vivid picture.

Still, he decided to leave the discount in place. He preferred the cavern looking livelier, and enough people in the same place might cause a restaurant or store to pop up. Taking down the discount now, after so many people had disrupted their lives to move here and take advantage of it, would be disingenuous and might hurt his reputation.

The increased population might also help him with figuring out his Myth, but that felt more like a consolation prize than anything else.

From there, it only took another couple of weeks before he finished the improved design for his inscribing device. Most of that time was spent on adapting the mental controls; adding all the different mental ‘buttons’ and ‘levers’ and so on that would make using the device a breeze.

He needed a lot of Substance for this, and his overall ability was still limited – he still had to operate the spell like before but could manipulate the fineness of his work at will through several different settings, as well as freezing things like the depth he was working at, to help stop him from making mistakes.

After all, his dexterity was limited.

It could also automatically inscribe his mark, and was able to do a much better job at it than he could himself. That took up a lot of intent, but it was worth it.

So far, the mark hadn’t done him any visible good, but he figured it was only a matter of time, even if it didn’t help with his Myth.