Looking back to the time that Kom, Jarem and Sorp began watching the sparring match. To the point where they attracted the attention of commander Phallen. This can be considered a type of hidden contract.

Challenging someone on the training stage to join a faction directly is public information but it can be considered hidden and would require a person like Dart to dig up. Another part one must think about, why did someone so high in the faction hierarchy lounge around the training arena?

These things are not necessarily that coincidental. If you walk back to the public facing sparring arena, which is close enough for bystanders to stumble on, you’ll find a Two-step faction instructor who has taken over Phallen’s position to watch over the faction members training.

Another tidbit is that these training members are all relatively low on the seniority list can be considered apprentices rather than members. Weak enough that their abilities can’t be considered much and still within the range that a person like Sorp has the ability to match them.

But in truth, Sorp wasn’t a match for Oftert. Had Sorp lost completely, he’d have to train and return to take the stage. Assuming his goal was to enter the faction in this way.

Incidentally, the information about entering a faction in this way can be considered a valuable information and will return a sizeable sum over time, once enough people enter First wave city. Understanding that information like this can be found and be gathered in this way can also be instrumental to future success.

Having explained all this, it should make some sense why someone like Phallen is taking them towards the Two-step faction. As to why the guys easily followed him, Sorp did it because he understood that Phallen was a strong person. Kom and Jarem just followed Sorp.

There has been some shift in Sorp’s thinking since he entered Perpetuity. Mainly that he’s finding people that can challenge him in a fight. And in the Reinforcement camps, Sorp suspected some of the instructors were strong.

Speaking of the Reinforcement camp. They also had quite a bit of opportunities like the one Sorp has stumbled into now. The issue is, these things aren’t publicly known. From a certain perspective, these opportunities can be seen as a type of catch-up mechanic.

Where those that enter the world later can utilize the information their predecessors have dug up, and take some shortcuts. Or make sure they don't meet any sort of brick walls on the way. There are plenty of time consuming endeavours that can be reduced by preparing in advance.

Hard time gates like waiting for tests to begin can’t be avoided, but plenty of other things are not so restrictive and just require some training or preparation. Considering the lengthy travel times, targeted training during that dead time can be significant.

Getting back to Sorp, Kom and Jarem. Phallen has brought them into the Two-step faction headquarters. Due to the limited space in the cavern, buildings cannot be too large, yet the most faction headquarters are impressive in size in comparison to other housing.

The houses the guys stay at are rather cramped and most facilities like showers are all communal. It also a shallow building. This Two-step faction headquarters however is deep and has considerable interior space that is far more impressive than the exterior of the building.

In addition to the deep interior of the carved out building, with technology from Perpetuity, the city, walls and ceilings can be made to look like skies and fields of grass. This is all explained in Perpetuity lore.

“Eh. The air in here is kinda heavy.”

“Do they ventilate the caverns?”

Completely ignored by Sorp and Phallen, Kom and jarem can only chat amongst themselves. But they bring up interesting points. The ventilation in the cavern is an issue, an issue that may even see improvements as time passes and more people enter the caverns.

“You over there. Come here.”

“Sir, Phallen!”

Unlike the common rabble outside, the staff inside headquarters have far more understanding of who is important within the faction and can even recognize neighbouring, allied or enemy factions upper members.

“Register this boy.”

“Of course, sir.”

While many rules are rigid and impossible to bend or break, any single faction is fully autonomous. They create their own rules and can do as they will. As a commander, Phallen only as two or three people he has to listen to, and even then they have to somewhat polite.

“What about us?”

“What about you?”

“Sorp! Are you going to let him just ignore us?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Sorp was mostly thinking about the ideas Phallen was talking about but he always had a shred of his attention on Kom and Jarem, just in case anything happened in this strange environment.

“They can’t join?”

“They can. They just have to take some tests, go through a trial period and if they aren’t too useless they’ll become junior members.”

“Am I a junior member?”

“No, of course not. You’re my protege. Your status is somewhere around that of senior instructors.”

At this point Sorp lost interest. This conversation was leading into some social related nonsense that Sorp couldn’t take seriously. Seeing this was all just wordplay he decided it would be fine if Kom and Jarem took a test to join.

“I’ll make it easier for them, with me signing them up they can get passed some red tape and directly take the test and even get access to some training facilities if they like.”

Phallen went onto talking to the man that registered Sorp, having him mark Kom and Jarem as his guests and to tell him to give them any relevant information to the test. This piece of information can also be considered valuable as it saves people quite a bit of time, if they want to join a faction.

“Alright. There isn’t much I can do to help you right now. Once you’ve tempered your body to resist your own energy to the novice level, we can move onto something more complicated.”

Sorp nodded. Phallen felt a bit strange talking to such a built man. Sorp was just as tall if not taller than him and obviously far more muscular. Remembering Sorp was now his personal student he felt a bit better and a little proud.

“Of course if you have any questions, you can come to me at any time. You can also request living quarters here. Most resources need to be bought or earned, but you can make use of some members only knowledge in the study hall.”

Sorp nodded and Phallen swished his sleeve lightly and began walking away with unusual swagger. Sorp turned to Kom and Jarem.

“What do you two want to do?”

Jarem had wanted to go play a bit, but now he felt they were being given some special status. For a hoodrat like him, it was tempting to take it, even if he had found some success in the past year, it was hard to shake that feeling of insecurities growing up poor.

Kom was more than happy to explore this Two-step faction and was excited to sink his teeth into the information. And when he thought about how jealous Dart would be that they had access to members only information he felt even more enthusiastic about the whole thing.

Sorp wanted to begin tempering his body, the pain and loss of control he is experiencing right now is unacceptable. Just like when he felt the fatigue of low levels of B.F.M. energy, he would focus on reclaiming control.

“I’m going to look into this test we have to take.”

“I’m with Kom on this one. What about you, Sorp?”

“I’ll join you.”

Seeing as he didn’t need to actually do anything but temper his body for now, it didn’t really matter where he was. Except when tempering his lower body, at which point, walking could be compromised.

It was not unexpected what the test involved was also related to tempering the body, except it was about having the ability to temper the body. This is tested through what they should be familiar with, crafting.

To prepare people for B.F.M. body tempering, special tools are made, these tools are a grade more complicated than what they are used to. Tempering the body is a delicate affair and mistakes can be costly. Missing out on some materials is painful, but causing temporary damage by mistake can be devastating.

This is easy to understand when you take them out of the camp and put them into the wilderness, where they’ll have to continue to temper their bodies, except injuries in the wild won’t be as forgiving.

Essentially, people can be considered being in a safe environment on the island Pebble in the river. Once they step outside it, they are stepping outside of traditional civilization. Assuming the person or their companions have not trained in medicinal professions or are lacking in materials, it might spell the end of a journey.

The first things the guys did was to find a place to sit down. Kom and Jarem began reading about the Two-step faction and their facilities. From their reading they discovered it was a lot like a small reinforcement camp with all the same commodities except social ones. Meaning no entertainment venues, they were all above ground, due to a lack of space.

They also found unique things like contract boards. Places where the Two-step faction issued contracts to its members, and also public boards where Two-step issued contracts that both members and freelancers could take.

The main difference between contracts is that there is no limit to who can take what contract. This means that two different people can complete the same contract but only one individual will be rewarded.

In truth, most contracts have innate benefits to the contractee, even without the reward. So if they lose out on the contract payment, they can usually sell their gains in some other manner or to the Two-step faction at a lesser rate.

The members only board does not follow this convention. They allow certain number people to take the contract and honor the payment. This means the contract on the board will be removed when, say, five people take it. All those five people have a chance to redeem payment for the contract, even if four people have turned it in.

The most common contracts are in some form of material gathering. Material that is almost exclusive to two areas. One the caverns and second the artificial forest regions surrounding the First wave city. This is another maintained forest region, this all explained in the lore. Including how they lost control of it to a degree some time ago. The main reason being that the area is too large to monitor.

Sitting in a quiet area the guys are looking into space at their devices, even Sorp is browsing through something. He is reading through a B.F.M. body tempering method. The body tempering method is actually a part of accumulated knowledge that you can interface with in the study rooms.

Miscellaneous information like faction hierarchies, social things and other articles of information that are considered trivial are usually not accessible through the study room devices. Sorp could go interface with the body tempering method but he prefers staying with Kom and Jarem for the moment.

While the three sat in a study hall quietly reading comprehensive information, a small section of the Two-step faction was abuzz. The moment Sorp entered the faction he dinged quite a few alerts. The most basic being an alert that told everyone that Two-step just got a new member.

Factions are not too big so even just a single addition can be a notable event. Majority of the faction would maybe glance at it, the lowest tier members would be interested while for others it is a passing event and nothing worth paying attention to.

Sorp ticked every alert all the way to a senior instructor. Meaning he suddenly passed through multiple layers in one go. This means that every member of Two-steps got as many alerts as there were layers to a senior instructor.

These alerts are not intrusive and some might not even bother with checking them, but anyone active within the two-step faction will at least give a second to check their alerts. And especially alerts that tell you that they just got someone equivalent to a new senior instructor.

A senior instructor might not be a too powerful figure but like any hierarchy, most of the members in any organization are in the bottom tiers of the hierarchy. They have many role models to look up to. And suddenly someone just shot up in front, and a new member at that. To say it created curiosity is an understatement.

While the guys continued to study, the study hall kept getting more and more Two-step members. They weren’t too conspicuous. But as their group grew, Sorp couldn’t help but be put on edge. Kom and Jarem were already very suspicious of these people.

“What’s going on?”

“I have no idea, why are there so many people here?”

“Sorp, what do you think?”

Seeing the nervous expression on Jarem and Kom’s faces, Sorp felt the need to address the issue. The way Sorp dealt with things was rather brutal so any misstep on the part of this mob would end in some type of tragedy.

“I’ll deal with it.”

Kom felt a rush of indignation. The feeling of uncertainty isn’t far from fear. This type of feeling can evoke a sense humiliation in people, humiliation that leads to anger. Jarem was not far from feeling the same way.