“And he is awake, only a little over 6 hours too, not bad for your first time.” He heard chucking coming from close to him, he could feel that he was somewhere much more comfortable than the ground of the training area, opening his eyes he found himself back in his room.

“How did I get back here? What happened?” He was careful of how he moved, expecting his body to be beyond sore considering what he had been put through on his first day, to his surprise through, rather than overwhelming agony that he had expected, he was just a little stiff, like he was in need off a good stretch.

“To answer your first question, I carried you here. To answer the second, you were knocked unconscious.” Jack didn’t seem at all annoyed at the fact he had to carry him to his room, if his tone and joyful expression was anything to go by, he seemed to be rather happy at everything that had occurred.

He made his way to sit up and get out of bed but Jack quickly got up from his desk chair and pushed him back down. “You’re on bed rest until tomorrow, no physical activity, no using Spirit. Yasgard’s orders.”

He decided not to push it, if the Headmaster gave the order he didn’t want to go against them, especially as he knew that regardless of him opening up a Gate it didn’t guarantee him a spot in The Academy. He still put himself into a sitting position on his bed so it would be easier to look at Jack when he spoke.

“Why was I knocked unconscious? I remember opening my first Spirit Gate, which was much more painful than Wraith said it would be. I was forced to drink something and then I remember starting to feel a bit better. We spoke a bit and then I woke up here?” Things got a little hazy at the end, but he didn’t remember doing anything that would have caused him to lose consciousness.

“I can answer that too. When I got a message to come to the training are you were already knocked out, but I was told you opened a Gate, well done by the way, not even a full day in and already you pass the hardest of the three classes. The reason you passed out though was because you activated your skill, and with no control over your Spirit, you drained yourself dry in a split second and that caused you to pass out.”

Mike thought over the last thing he could remember, he was thinking about the fact he now had access to his skill, but he didn’t try to activate it. Sonar asked him what his skill was and when he said the name. It all fell into place then, Sonar knew exactly what his skill was, especially with the grin that was on his face when he asked him the question. Groaning, he put his had back against the wall behind him and closed his eyes. “Sonar.”

“Sonar.” Jack said the name with a chuckle. “If it makes you feel any better he was in a great mood the entire time I was there, he was practically giddy.”

“It doesn’t. He did it on purpose. He knew what was going to happen and got joy out of it.” The fact he was going to be spending even more time with him now didn’t fill him with any hope for the rest of the week.

“The first time you activate your skill is always the worst, so at least you also got that out of the way. Being a Physical Cultivator though, damn that’s rare. Usually there is one or two in each year, they are always near the top of the rankings purely based off of their performance in combat classes. That plus they are able to earn AP easier which helps then get better gear, access to the specialised classes and they have an easier time in the Dungeons for the most part. But the training they have to do to open more Gates, yikes! I barely passed by 1st year conditioning and combat classes, the idea of doing multiple of them every semester, each year. Nope. I do not envy you.”

“I…..um…..What?” Jack has gotten way more talkative, which at any other time he would have liked, right now though he didn’t really understand anything he had said. AP? Rankings? Specialised Classes?

“Forget I said any of that for now. Sorry, it only really matters if you make it into The Academy, which I was told to tell you, is not guaranteed. Still have two more classes to pass and have to impress all of your instructors enough to warrant the Headmaster to make you in as a first year. Still a lot to do with only 6 more days remaining. My might want to use your time wisely, considering your stuck in bed till the morning you should get some sleep, or study. No Spirit though and no getting out of bed. I will bring you dinner when its time.”

Jack left his room, closing the door behind him, without giving him the opportunity to ask any questions. Now that he was alone he felt a little lost. He wasn’t allowed to get out of bed, even though his body was telling him to at the very least get up and stretch. He didn’t feel at all tired now that he was fully conscious, so sleep was not really option. That left studying.

Before he picked up his tablet he brought back up his Overview, no changes since the last time he looked but he didn’t expect there to be. What he did do was go into the tracker and check to make sure his family was still all on there and alive. He hadn’t checked since the first time, as every time he thought about it his anxiety built up at the thought that he would see one of their names gone, or rather, instead of seeing alive next to their name he would see dead.

He needed to limit how much he looked at it, if he checked it every hour or every day he would become a neurotic mess, so he made a deal with himself, he could check once a day, preferably at the end of every day before he went to bed. He made an exception to that new rule now though as he wanted to make sure that they were okay before he lost himself in studying the book. He let out a relieved breath that he had been holding in when he saw all four members of his family still on the same planet and still all very much alive.

He let himself sit there for a while and just let the relief of seeing them all okay sink in. He knew he couldn’t dwell on things he couldn’t control for long though, but it was still something that he needed to do for his own mental stability. When he was ready, he grabbed his tablet, which he still hadn’t remembered to ask anyone about how he charged it, he opened the book and did another full review of all the sections he had already read, making sure to focus on the skill categorisation one, as it was the one he had yet to pass of the three.

When he was finished with his review he moved onto the next section titled Material and Crafting. This was a section he was rather interested in, on a completely different world he was curious to know what materials they made the most use of when they only had access to a small portion of their world and how exactly crafting came into play.

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Since the Demon Plague, the type of materials that are of the most value within Elisbara has dramatically changed. Previously, our materials came from mining and gathering the natural resources of our planet and using these as the basis for many of the items that were needed in our day to day lives.

This has shifted dramatically over the centuries as now, rather than taking from our planet we have the ability to repurpose what has already been used by gathering materials from red zones and refining it down for use in the green zones. The role of the reclaimers is to venture out into cleared red zones and bring back any useful materials which are then turned in and repurposed to expand the green zones. This, however, is only one small aspect of what materials are now used in Elisbara as these materials gathered are generally unranked or Copper rank at best. Rather, the main avenue of gathering materials is through Dungeons and Portals.

It was discovered early on that Dungeons and Portals did not just produce Demons but are also a good source of material. Depending on the Dungeon there are different types ore that can be gathered, along with plants and other Spirit rich material. Unlike materials gathered from red zones, materials gathered in Dungeons are usually higher ranked and hold more Spirit which increases its value and usability within society.

The materials gathered within Dungeons and Portals form much of the base material used in the crafting of weaponry, armour and shields, along with the making of our devices and other higher ranked items. The gathering of these materials in Dungeons and Portals is a source of wealth for many and it is common for those fighting Demons to bring in gatherers to clear out the Dungeon of materials once all Demons have been defeated.

There are those with skills who focus on this and are able to find these materials like a treasure hunter, greatly reducing the time to search a Dungeon or Portal for higher ranked materials.

Another source of materials, which has changed how Elisbara functions, is the Demons themselves. Although at the start of the Demon Plague it was frowned upon to use Demons as a material within our society, that view has long perished and it is now common practice, and encouraged, to gather the bodies of killed Demons so they can be harvested for their parts. Depending on the Demon and its rank, the useful materials gathered from its body will vary.

There are two parts to a Demon when thinking about useful materials, these are the actual body and the Demons Core. Depending on the Demon, its skin, teeth, claws or some of its organs are very valuable and make for very valuable materials which can be used in the making of everyday items like clothing, equipment, elixirs and devices. Not every part of every demon is useable however and without the proper training on how to harvest a Demons body and the knowledge of what to save, many leave the Demons they kill behind, not bothering with the cost it takes to take it to a professional harvester.

An exception to this is the rank of the Demon. The higher the rank the more valuable its body. This is due to higher ranked Demons having more Spirit infused into their bodies, making the materials that can be gathered more valuable and can be sold for a higher profit.

Demon Cores however are different. Not ever Demon has a Core, but the Core is by far the most valuable thing that can be harvested from a Demon. The Demon Core is similar to the Spirit Gates of a human, however while Spirit Gates are not a physical thing and are spread throughout one’s body, the Demon Core is a physical orb where its Spirit is stored. Not every Demon has a Core though, we are yet to confidently conclude why this is the case.

Demon Core’s are widely used throughout Elisbara as they can store Spirit and power machines, be used in crafting and even supplement a persons own Spirit reserves. Ruen Crafters have also found the ability to carve certain ranked Cores so that they are able to passively refill their reserves through the ambient Spirit in the air.

Although Cores are the most valuable material from a Demon, not every Demon will have a Core. At Bonze only 1% of Demons have a Core, with the chance of a Demon having a Core this going up until Gold where there is approximately a 10% chance of a Core. The 10% chance seems to flow across to the Platinum and Diamond rank however not enough data has been collected to confidently say that this is the case. Like everything else within Elisbara, every material has a rank, the higher the rank the more valuable and rarer the material.

Crafter make great use of a wide variety of materials that are gathered, either from Demons, Dungeon, Portals or through reclaiming red zones. Although anyone can learn to craft, those with a crafting skill are usually able to make better use of higher ranked materials, although there are exceptions to this. A crafter is usually able to work with material one rank higher than themselves, there has been some cases where those with a skill in crafting can work with materials two ranks higher than them with some success.

The profession of crafting is varied and through the centuries many new avenues of crafting has become available to us. Crafters generally focus in one field, like those who fight Demons.

Some of the most common crafters are: physical crafters, who usually focus on creating physical objects, which include but is not limited to weaponry, infostructure, armour and machinery. Runic crafters, whose focus is on the engraving and research into runes that add additional powers or skills to items. Research and Development, who focus on the invention of new items, machines. etc. Restoration Crafting, which is a category of crafting where one focuses on not only bringing something back to its former state but can also, on occasion, increase the rank of an item, and general crafting, which many fall into and encompasses those that identify, rank and value items among many other things. There are more rare types of crafters, and each individual varies in what they can or cannot do.

Crafting is an essential part of society, as without it we would have long ago been lost to the Demon Plague. In recent decades it has been argued that crafters should be split from those wanting to fight back directly against the Demons so that they are able to focus more on crafting without a comparison needing to be made to those training for Dungeons. Some schools have tested this and found both positive and negative results.

There was so much information to take in that Mike gave himself a breather before he continued. There was more to being a fighter than just killing demons, just as there was more to crafting than making a sword. The society of this planet was so much more complex than Earths in his mind, so many different layers to who the world functioned where they all relied on each other to be able to operate as they did.

He knew that it would have taken decades at a minimum to be able to put something like this in place, and even then, he could only imagine the issues that came with having separate entities that had their own purposes yet depended on each other to operate. This section as more than just materials and crafting, it built upon the previous sections and gave him a better understanding of how Elisbara actually worked.

He started taking more notes as he let his mind dissect every little bit of information he read, even going so far as to start a whole new part of his notes where he incorporated what he had learnt in previous sections into this one to give him a wholistic view of this world. He had made a good start so far, but he still had a lot more to learn if he was ever going to not only understand where he now lived, but also thrive in this new world.