Foster bit his lip, staring again at the notes before him. The sign of hesitation looked almost comical on such a perfect face and did little to calm Kevin’s nerves. What could be so bad as to worry the man?

“Based on these rather… frank notes,” Foster began, clearly choosing each word with care. “I’m to give you a couple of classes related to our largest labor shortage, then load you down with combat subjects.”

“He’s pretty clear about that last part,” the man continued with a wince, “you don’t really want to know his exact wording, but it boils down to you being hopeless in a fight.”

“That’s a pretty fair accusation,” Kevin chuckled, tension flowing out of his body. That was all the man was worried about? He’d already agreed to the first part and couldn’t argue with the second.

The memories of the short combat test he’d taken still made him cringe. It had been meant to last longer; he’d just been knocked out almost immediately. Thank god they hadn’t been kicking people out at that point, or he’d have been screwed.

If it meant not picking any of his initial classes, then so be it. Just yesterday, he’d been thinking about how much help he’d need to decide on the right ones; this might simplify things drastically.

It wasn’t like this would lock him into a particular path forever. If he ended up with something less than ideal, he could tough it out to push his goals forward.

“What have you got for me then?” Kevin said, leveling a grin at the other man.

“Well,” Foster said, reaching a gold band-covered arm up to scratch his chin. Surprisingly, the jewelry was still and quiet as he moved, not even shifting an inch despite the vertical angle.

“I guess I’ll have to send another request to the work allocation office to figure out the first part. Let me get that done while we pick your combat classes. I can give you a little leeway with those, at least,” the adviser continued, smiling apologetically.

“Sounds good,” Kevin shrugged, keeping his voice unconcerned for Foster’s sake. With all the massive egos that must walk through the guy’s door, he was probably expecting an outburst at the forced choices.

Another message was swiftly penned and slid into a different out tray, once more vanishing to somewhere else. With a quick glance at the trays, Foster continued. “Right then, combat classes. How are your martial arts, and do you know any weapon styles?”

Kevin ruefully rubbed the back of his head, “awful, and none.”

“MAR-101 for your first class then,” Foster nodded firmly, seeming to get his stride now they were moving. “While it’s termed introduction to martial arts, it’s really about finding a style from our archive that suits you.

“After that, it’s mostly small group or one-on-one lessons for the rest of the class.”

“How long do they last for?” Kevin asked, tapping his fingers on the table. That sounded like the ideal next step from his very basic initial lessons. Many cultivators probably got to skip it, but it was perfect for him and anyone else without prior training.

“Three months at roughly five hours per week for each class. We suggest five classes for most students so you can fit in time for cultivation and private practice.”

“That’s smart,” Kevin responded with a nod. He could already see himself spending a few hours a day on just cultivation. Once he had to add extra practice for other subjects, any spare time would quickly vanish.

Twenty-five hours per week of just classes would push it when he added everything up, not to mention wanting a part-time job, too. Time management was about to become one of his biggest challenges.

“MAR-101 sounds good; let’s lock it in,” he continued, noticing Foster was waiting for him. “What do you suggest to go with it? I’m not sure learning a weapon style would be the most beneficial at this stage.”

“I’d agree there,” Foster laughed, “the usual wisdom is a progression from unarmed to armed forms. As long as you have related styles, you’ll learn many stances and movements from the martial arts that will apply to weapons.”

“What are you aiming for?” the man raised an eyebrow as he continued. “Tournament success? Combat skills for expeditions? Or just self-defense?”

“Definitely self-defense for now,” Kevin laughed weakly. Just what did these people expect him to get up to? Keeping himself alive would always be the number one priority. “Whatever helps with good defense, I guess, then.”

Foster hummed, scratching his chin again. “Defense, huh? In the end, defending without a good offensive option is a losing proposition, but you do have two class slots left. I would suggest TEC:109 - introduction to Qi shielding as a potential option.”

“Oh, I think I’ve seen that in action,” Kevin said, perking up at the suggestion. “I saw this fight where one of the cultivators was blocking hits with these flashes of grey light.”

“He still lost in the end,” he continued with less enthusiasm, “but he lasted much longer than he would have otherwise.

“And you see my problem,” Foster snorted. “You’ll find it’s not quite as effective in the body cleansing realm, but it’s a good match since you’re not using weapons. With a little skill, an unarmed individual can block an edged weapon with their bare hands. At a cost in Qi, of course.”

“So it gets better as you reach higher realms?” Kevin asked, intrigue growing with every word he heard. That sounded like a solid skill to work on early if it would keep paying dividends later.

“Sure,” Foster shrugged before his face shifted into a smirk. Without warning, energy exploded off his skin in a golden glow. “At the Energy Gathering realm, you have enough energy to block entire hits.”

“Then, at Core Formation, full shields like this become possible. It’s quite popular with those of us who are more support-focused.”

Kevin cringed back, shielding his eyes to block out the sudden radiance. Being spiritual-based, it did little to help, but he still forced himself to choke out a response. “Neat, sign me up.”

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A moment later, the glow vanished, and he could look at Foster as the man continued.

“Excellent, that’s two down already. To go with that, I think you need something with a bit more offensive power behind it. Slugging it out with martial arts is all well and good for most of a fight, but you need a finisher to really put someone down.”

“One of the combat-focused incantation classes might be…” Foster trailed off, his gaze flicking back over to the trays. “Looks like the work allocation department’s fast today,” he chuckled, shaking his head.

“Though I guess they don’t have much to do until all you new students start looking for work.”

Kevin leaned forward, fidgeting in his seat. “Don’t leave me hanging then; we can pick the last combat class afterward.” For all that he’d tried to convince himself that he didn’t care, now that the moment was here, he couldn’t wait any longer.

With everything else being combat-related, he just hoped it was something interesting.

“OK, we’ll have a look,” Foster smirked, looking rather amused at Kevin’s impatience. A hand flickered out to grab the page, and the man’s eyes darted over it with blazing speed. “I see,” he said after a moment.

“They’ve listed a few things here,” the adviser continued, pursing his lips as he looked the information over. “But the number one deficiency they’ve noted is in formation maintenance. There are way more outstanding jobs than they’ve been able to fill.”

“Huh, that’s rather important. Isn’t it?” Kevin asked, shuddering at the thought of those weird teleporting effects breaking down halfway through. Sure, it might just fail to take you anywhere, but it wasn’t hard to conjure up far worse outcomes.

“I’m sure they’ve got the important things covered,” Foster responded, looking a touch ill despite his words. “But I’ll admit I didn’t know the issue was so bad. Then again, they’re always after us in the arrays building to come over and do some work.”

“Does that ever happen?” Kevin asked, raising an eyebrow. He still wasn’t down on the exact specifics of the difference between arrays and formations. Still, the basics seemed similar enough that there might be some crossover.

“Hardly,” Foster laughed, shaking his head. “They can barely get us to do all the array maintenance work, let alone another department’s. Who wants to try figuring out a thirty-year-old artifact created by some dead cultivator?

“It’s hard work, and there’s no money in it. Innovation is the way to go; invent some fancy new gadget and get rich overnight.”

Kevin nodded, “Yeah, I can see that.” Things had worked the same way back on Earth. Working every day for a lifetime keeping things running would only get you by while the inventors of new tech got rich.

Well, the people employing the inventors often got most of the wealth, but it was pretty much the same thing.

Still, that didn’t resolve the issue of why the array department had enough people to manage and the formations department didn’t. “Why do you think so few people are learning formations, though? I was at the formations building yesterday, and it seemed pretty, ah… small.”

Foster blinked, looking pensive for a moment, then brightening. “Well, I can’t tell you for sure; I’m an arrays guy myself.” He tapped one of his golden armbands as he spoke, a proud look on his face.

“I have a guess based on how I picked my specialization, but it’ll require a little background information.”

“Go ahead,” Kevin grinned. This was veering into territory behind just selecting classes, but he didn’t have much selecting to do anyway. It would be all the better if he could get some useful knowledge.

“Think of Formations, arrays, and talismans as the three primary enchantment styles,” Foster began. “Each is based on the same source, and each is a reproducible framework you can teach.”

“If we put aside the other oddities and focus on those, then we can plot them on a spectrum between combat and artifact creation potential.” The adviser grew more animated as he continued speaking, punctuating his words with gestures.

Foster raised his open palms out, forming an imaginary line between them. “My left hand is the combat potential end, and my right is the artifact creation one.”

“Talisman crafting has the most combat potential,” Foster bounced his left hand up and down, “but has the least ability to create lasting, valuable artifacts. In fact, I’ve never heard of a talisman that can be used more than once, so they tend to be pretty unpopular among buyers.”

“Compare this to array crafting, which is the complete opposite.” Foster waved his right hand. “Most modern-day technology is powered by arrays, with some formations mixed in.

“But it has little combat potential beyond making weapons to use,” breaking from his open-armed gesture momentarily, Foster tapped one of his bands.

“At absolute best, you could try to mess with an opponent’s equipment on the fly, but that’s very risky.”

“Last, formations lie somewhere in the middle depending on what you learn,” the adviser finished, opening his arms again before drawing them together.

Kevin tilted his head, the conclusion quickly forming. “So people who want lots of combat power pick talismans, and people who want lots of money pick arrays.”

“If they’re focused on enchantments, then yes,” Foster nodded, looking proud of his description. “The exact reasons someone might focus on talismans over, say, hitting someone with a sword is more complicated, but I think you get the idea.”

Nodding, Kevin responded, “Yeah. With formations being a mix, you only get the people who want a balance between combat and support ability. Then you’re also splitting those with weapon users or martial artists who make their own equipment,” he gestured toward Foster as he finished.

He didn’t even need to mention how most of those who did learn wouldn’t then want to spend their time doing maintenance work. No wonder the sect needed more formation users.

Still, it worked for his uses. A mixture of a support skill that could make money or merit and a bit of combat potential sounded right up his alley. And even if the rewards weren’t great, there were usually ways to get bonuses from people desperate to get work done.

Either way, he’d already agreed during his initial interview, so he couldn’t change it now. “Thanks for the lesson,” he said, smiling at Foster. “Better sign me up for whichever two formation classes work then.”

Foster nodded, flicking through another set of pages for a moment. “Pretty easy there,” he snorted, shaking his head. “FORM-101: Formation Fundamentals and FORM-102: Introductory Maintenance are the only beginner-level classes on offer.”

“What about a combat formations class?” Kevin asked, casting his mind back to his college days. Sometimes, they’d let people take more advanced classes as long as they were also taking the pre-requisites.

Leaning back in his chair, Foster hummed, crossing his arms. “You’re suggesting we use combat formations as your hard-hitting finisher.” The words came out as a statement rather than a question, so Kevin left him to think.

“I could see that,” the adviser said a minute later as he straightened up. “You use your martial arts with Qi shielding as a stalling action while setting up a few traps for your opponent. You win if you maneuver them in before getting taken out.

“That’s the bare bones beginning of a fighting style, at least,” Foster continued, an approving grin on his face. “That’s about as good as we can hope for in a single set of classes.”

“It also has the benefit of limiting the number of new things you need to learn at once. The only question is if there’s anything suitable on offer.” Returning to the page he was referencing, Foster paused before continuing.

“FORM-115: Combat Formations is being run this season,” Foster clicked his tongue, “I would assume they intended it for people who already had a level of prior experience, but I see nothing preventing your signup.”

“Tell you what,” the advisor continued with a smile. “I’ll put it through and see what happens. If it works, great; if not, we’ll find something else. Either way, I’ll add a note to the schedule you’ll receive in the next few days.”

Glancing over at the still-empty merit tray, Foster sighed and continued, “The Merit Department is as slow as ever, I see. I’ll include their reply whenever they get back to me.”

Kevin nodded; that sounded good to him. He’d come here with little idea of the way forward and was leaving with a plan that sounded pretty decent. Given how much there was to learn already, he had no inclination to try for a sixth class.

“Thank you for all the help, Sir,” he said, rising and giving the other man a deep bow.

Foster only waved him off, and after an exchange of goodbye, Kevin wandered out of the building.

He had half a day to do some cultivation, then a gathering to attend.