Aether Engineering

Chapter 27

Maston Academy

The Town of Maston in the Candis East District

Finding students who were willing to help with the hunt was going to be harder than he had made it sound. While it was true that the other students would value a fire construct, helping with the hunt would require them to risk their lives. That was asking a lot.

Silas had been investigating the three curriculums the academy used. One of them was comprised of nobles. Unlike the other two groups, their courses focused entirely on command and combat. The second group was made up of commoners. Each of them took the same courses as Silas and his dormmates did, but the difference seemed to be in the focus of combat training. Rather than the training being on making each individual more capable in combat, that curriculum focused on heavily on group tactics.

That left their curriculum. It was by far the smallest with only half as many students as the other curriculums.

The other two curriculums seemed to represent the two major factions in the province, the nobles of Rord and Candis, and the conglomerate of faces, Verith’s ruling assembly made up of the most prominent wealthy merchants in the city.

If that was the case, Silas had no idea what their curriculum signified. As far as he could tell, the students were mostly commoners, but a few nobles had been mixed into the group. Silas was reminded of what Myles had told him at the start of the previous month. He had been approached by the son of the Maston noble family.

Silas had done some digging and found out the young man was highly regarded. He was oftentimes out of town conducting business, but it was this business that had begun to bring wealth to the people of Maston. He was apparently a large reason as to why the academy had been able to acquire all the resources it had.

Silas had tried to pay the man a visit earlier that week. His mention of a third faction in the Rork province bothered Silas. Whatever faction this was, Silas had a feeling that their curriculum was tied as closely to it as the other curriculums were tied to the other two factions. Unfortunately, Silas hadn’t been able to see the noble. True to the rumors Silas had heard, he seemed to be out of town on a business trip.

The difference in the three curriculums was an important consideration for Silas while finding people who might want to join their hunt. The groups that had access to their own aether engineers would want to entrust them with building a construct rather than allowing Myles and Jane to do their thing. That might not be a terrible deal. It would decrease the number of constructs they would have to make. That said, they would need to gather more cores if they did that. If the others all demanded the same amount that Myles and Jane seemed to need just to test the construct, they would likely need to hunt down more than one group of monsters.

Silas kept that in mind when looking for a group to approach. The ideal group would be from the noble curriculum. Kate had determined that they would need at least three or four additional students to make the hunt a success.

The problem was that Silas only knew a handful of the noble students. He would need to make a well-educated guess.

That was why Silas had started walking around the cafeteria. One group of nobles sitting together caught Silas’ attention the most. The group was having a lively conversation. An argument had broken about between the five of them.

“I told you we needed more firepower. Your pride got in the way again, Alfred. If we had just done what I suggested and hired those shikari, it would be us who raked in the high scores, not those pompous capital dwellers.”

One of the other students, probably Alfred, pounded the table. “We had no reason to trust those shikari. Besides, they may have earned the high scores, but they didn’t bring honor to their family name.”

A third student glared at Alfred and the first student. “Alfred! Jerald’s right, you are acting like a fool. When it comes time for us to join the army, who do you think they’re more likely to give a command to? The ones who fail with honor, or the ones who succeed without it.”

Alfred cursed. “What do you want to do about it, Vance? Even if we did try to outbid them, we couldn’t get enough money. You know as well as I do that they come from noble families in Rord. Our families just can’t compete with those kinds of finances.”

Silas wandered up. This might just be the right group for his proposal. Everyone else he had seen had been content. Sure, they were all jealous of the top-ranking squads, but for the most part, Silas hadn’t heard any groups sound as dissatisfied as these three. They just might be willing to put themselves in danger for a leg up.

Putting his hand on their table, Silas made to introduce himself. “Hello everyone, my name is Silas.”

The first noble who had spoken, Jerald, shook his head. “Sorry Silas. I mean no offense, but we’re kind of in the middle of an argument here. Perhaps we could introduce ourselves another day?”

Silas gave them a smile, not so big as to be alarming, but not so small as to be missable. “I happened to overhear part of your argument, and I may have a proposal for you.”

Vance seemed to consider him for a second. “What did you have in mind?”

Silas pulled up a chair. Standing over others was never a great idea, but these nobles seemed to have a chip on their shoulder when it came to status. The last thing Silas wanted to do was to appear to be talking down to them. They might just reject his deal out of principle if he came off as too arrogant, but he also wanted to project a sense of self-confidence. “My dormmates and I are preparing to go on something of a hunt.”

Silas held up two fingers. He had no idea if the three nobles were aware of the differences in the other curriculums. “We have two aether engineers in our group, and they believe that they can construct fire constructs provided they have access to monster cores of the right type. We tracked a pack of cinderwolves in the area around town, but we’re hesitant to attack them with our current numbers.”

Vance and Jerald looked interested, but Alfred looked like he had some reservations. “I’m assuming you want us to help you kill these cinderwolves, but what do you plan on offering us?”

Silas grinned. They weren’t rejecting the plan offhandedly. That meant that they were willing to help if the price was right. “The pack has more fire cores than we need for the constructs, but it happens to be too large for us to take alone. We’re willing to create an additional construct for your use.”

Alfred shook his head. “That’s not a bad offer, but we just met you. How do we know that we can trust you?”

Proving trust would be difficult. The usual way that nobles handled a situation like this was to offer collateral in case they failed to meet their obligations to the other party. They used this to ensure that they wouldn’t lose money on a risky trade deal. If a delivery wasn’t successfully made, the buyer would use the collateral to make up for what they had lost. Unfortunately, Silas wasn’t carrying around anything that he could use as collateral for an aether construct.

Aether constructs were rather valuable devices. They required aether engineers, a limited commodity, to create and there was an extremely high demand for them, especially for the more effective constructs. That meant that they didn’t have collateral that could match up to the value of the construct. On the other hand, Silas knew that this group would be eager to get their hands on an aether construct.

Silas nodded calmly. “We can’t offer collateral if that is what you are asking, but I will give you my word that we will get the construct to you. If you would like, I can make that promise in front of the faculty.”

Alfred looked like he was about to laugh. “Even if we did make the agreement with faculty as witness, I’m not sure they would enforce it. Our instructors in particular seem to be very focused on results.”

Jerald stuck out his hand. “You’re looking at the deal with a short-term view, Alfred. If this deal were to work out, we would have a partnership that we could trust. I say we take it.”

Alfred grumbled but admitted the point.

Silas stuck his hand out. “I think we have a deal. I hope this will be the start of a long partnership.”

After they all shook hands, they talked about the operation plan. Silas was surprised to find that the nobles each had some worthwhile contributions to the plan the dormmates had crafted during lunch. Silas had only gone along with the idea of an extended relationship to appease the nobles, but a partnership with these three might be a beneficial arrangement after all.