The Path of Ascension

Grady Briggs sat in front of his team of lawyers along with the rest of his C-suite and Board of Directors, not wanting to believe that there was nothing they could do to stop the dissolution of Briggs Inc.

In the first weeks of the integration, he and his family had, like everyone else, feared for their lives, afraid they would be crushed by their nigh omnipotent gods that could fly around and do actual magic.

Once that initial fear had worn off, Noricum, and to a lesser extent, Soerilia, had taken to the new technologies with gusto. Or at least her companies had. Briggs Inc. had used the publicly available patents to update or outright replace several of their products and expand their market share.

The company and Grady himself had been worried about being bullied by planet-spanning companies run by immortals, which could simply undercut them until they were bankrupt. But just as it became clear this new Empire wouldn’t allow that and they started to settle down, they got bad news.

Baron Hastra, in his role as local lord, was breaking up several of the largest corporations on Soerilia that had ‘spread too far from their roots’.

That term had thrown them all for a loop, but apparently the Empire and its feudal governments didn’t like overly powerful conglomerates, and it limited companies to a single line of business. A food chain could only sell food, a media company could only make and sell media, and a tech company could only design and produce tech.

Grady could understand the logic, but from what the company lawyers had told them in the first weeks, such laws were rarely implemented on low-Tier worlds like theirs because they simply didn’t matter on a grand scale. That had hurt to hear, and had resulted in some bruised egos, but the company had no choice but to accept that they were ultimately very small cogs in an incomprehensibly large machine.

The problem was that Baron Hastra was breaking precedent and enforcing those laws, and Briggs Inc. had long since strayed from their roots as a simple textile manufacturer to a multinational conglomerate that had its fingers in every pie. Before the unveiling, they had operated in nearly every sector because that meant, unless a global recession happened, they could survive any swings in local economies or trends that would have shuttered smaller businesses.

Now they were being told that the company needed to pick a lane and split the rest of their branches off, or have the baron do it for them.

One of the board members asked if there was anything they could do to stop him, but Grady knew how foolish of a question that was.

Baron Hastra was an immortal who could fly and shoot fire out of his hand. Even if he was weaker than the god of death that had floated in the sky, he wasn’t someone they could fight against.

Using money to drag an issue out in the courts just wasn’t a viable tactic versus someone who had the physical ability and legal right to simply arrest them all.

Or just kill them.

Grady knew some monarchies allowed such things, and while it seemed the Empire allowed its nobles a great deal of freedom, it didn’t allow them to wantonly slaughter people. But not being allowed to and not being able to were two very different things.

At least, that’s what the information they were given said. As they had seen in the initial weeks, the Empire kept a tight grip on news outlets. Briggs Inc.’s news arm hadn’t been caught up in the arrests, but they were still close enough to the fires to feel the heat.

Officially, the Empire allowed the publication of any verifiable truth no matter what it was, but when there were people who could bend reality to their whims, did truth have a fixed definition?

Grady wasn’t sure it did.

Which brought him to the current meeting.

They had no recourse except to comply.

As the founding lineage of the company and the shareholder with the largest interest, he was to be given first dibs for what portion of the company he wanted, but after that, he would be forced to watch as the company he, and his forefathers before him, had built up through decades of hard work be torn apart.

He would get non-voting, non-transferable shares in all of those companies, which would pay hefty dividends until they expired, but that was all.

Or rather, his daughter would be given the shares. He had already confirmed that was a possibility, but the normal inheritance loopholes he was used to either no longer applied or were closed.

An Empire full of immortals cared far less about the accumulation of wealth by families than Soerilia had, and there weren’t even the typical taxes on such transfers of funds. Technically there was a tax, but it was more of a filing fee in practice rather than a proper percentage-based tax.

That very idea was still new and unnerving, but Grady was doing his best to wrap his head around it.

Thankfully, Baron Hastra was giving them six months to figure out how they wanted to divide the company, but Grady didn’t know which way he wanted to jump. His gut said he should take the media or the textile branches, but he worried that either of them would flop when put against similar companies that had existed for thousands of years.

That was why he wholesale wrote the tech branch off. They might survive for a decade or two off the publicly available patents, but once the restrictions on outside business were lifted, he was sure they would be either driven under by other companies or simply bought out and turned into a local subsidiary.

That might ensure prosperity for a generation or two, but Grady was forced to think long term. What would best serve his grandchildren, or their grandchildren in turn?

He wasn’t entirely sure how he got home, but his daughter was there to meet him in the foyer which pulled him out of his musings.

Hannah thought she was fifteen going on thirty, which led to a rebellious nature, but he was just glad that she wasn’t going through the hate-her-parents phase that so many teens seemed to go through.

His wife, Sharon, gave him a questioning look, but he simply shook his head, letting her know things hadn’t gone well.

He saw her tighten up, but she forced out a smile when Hannah looked between them trying to catch their subtle communication.

She quickly lost her patience however and exclaimed. “Dad, our first Empire class was today and it talked about cultivation. You need to hear about this stuff! It's so cool.”

Grady winced internally. He had completely forgotten about that with everything that had gone on today, but he knew that his daughter, like most of her friends, was excited to get magical powers and possibly live forever.

He wasn’t happy about the much younger age of majority and reduction of schooling, but Baron Hastra had mandated that for the next three generations they would continue with schooling until 16. That was two years fewer than most countries had done before, but it was better than the typical Empire eight years of education for Empire citizens that ended at 14.

He still thought 14 was too young to get access to something as dangerous as magic, but he had no say in that. Besides, it was just a matter of time before her Awakening was due. Grady and Sharon were both over the age of mandatory Awakening, and so he hadn’t been thinking about it as often as he should.

Reminded of that, once his daughter went to bed he looked into the documents that had been sent over and found the one that talked about ambient cultivation.

He didn’t want his daughter going into one of those rifts.

That kind of foolishness was for the poor and the desperate. Or the crazy. In this new world, money could very much be turned into literal power if given enough time and resources.

Grady didn’t have any illusion that his considerable wealth would be enough to allow his daughter to cultivate to immortality. That hurdle was shrouded in mystery, but it didn’t take a genius to understand it wasn’t something most people reached.

There was information about cultivation in general, though.

The method itself seemed simple, too simple if Grady said so himself. But from the report, there genuinely didn’t seem to be anything beyond putting the essence where you wanted it and then ensuring you compressed it properly.

Rather, the difficulty apparently came from the gathering of the essence.

Grady got distracted by the note in the report that said the world's scientists were still trying to figure out exactly what mana and essence were, but that they were struggling.

Mana was seemingly simple, if extraordinary. The example he liked most compared it to an Awakened person generating an appreciable amount of electricity and having the ability to store or use that power to fuel their stove. It wasn’t a perfectly clean energy and had its byproducts, but they weren't harmful for living beings and were easy to dispose of.

Essence, on the other hand, seemed to break the laws of conservation of energy in a big, big way. It not only created itself out of seemingly nothing, but while other energy was converted when it was used, essence seemed to remain itself. It was like a wet sponge being drained of water, but the sponge in question made water from nothing and multiplied it on its own. It also had grades or Tiers, which seemed to correspond with the 50 Tiers of power that existed. And while using a grade of essence that was higher than your current Tier was neutral or possibly beneficial, using essence that was lower than your power level was allegedly bad. Crippling even, if the Empire reports were to be believed.

One of the two main ways to gain essence was going into the monster holes in reality and killing the creatures inside, which was considered the premier way to gather it in the Empire. Grady was skeptical of that, but he had noticed that this Empire seemed to greatly value martial prowess, which would make sense if that was true. He just didn’t understand how any of them were left alive if one mistake meant death.

The other way was to meditate and absorb the essence from the air around oneself and then compact it into a better form. Then one could allocate it just as those who gathered it from combat did.

That was where money came into play.

Despite being protected from the rest of the Empire and its various businesses, there were exceptions that were able to be imported. At least for those with the wealth to do so.

Mainly cultivation supplements.

Grady was aghast at the prices he was seeing for some of the items.

A bracelet that would automatically pull essence in cost fifty million credits, and lasted for six months of constant usage before the unit would need to be replaced. That was either planned obsolescence taken to the extreme, or the item was truly used up and it was just that expensive to create.

That, or the level of the item mattered. The Tier, he corrected himself. There had been comments about the economy past Tier 5 being based on crystalized mana instead of credits like the lower Tiers, and their conversion seemed to greatly favor the higher Tiers in the exchanges.

What was expensive in credits might be downright cheap for someone stronger who had higher earning potential thanks to their higher Tier.

That idea was given merit as he found a few other versions of that bracelet meant for higher Tiers which skyrocketed in price with each step up.

Grady’s business mind went to that, and he couldn’t help but scan the rest of the list of things that could be used to increase one's ambient essence cultivation.

The bracelet wasn’t exactly an outlier, but it did seem like a product for the wealthy. And while Grady could afford to buy a few of them, he couldn’t sustain any sort of rapid consumption. There were other, more permanent items on the lists and his eyes were drawn to them.

A powder that increased the speed at which one compressed the essence was fairly cheap for the dosage, only around ten thousand credits per, but it was clearly stated that resistance to the drug would build up, and recommended usage was for no longer than for one year out of ten.

A meditation mat looking thing sold for a whopping eighty million credits and had a similar effect to the bracelet in that it increased the effect of absorbing ambient essence, but wasn’t automatic or portable. However, instead of only lasting six months of constant use, it was said to last ten years.

That… wasn’t so bad. Eight million a year for an item was expensive, but it was far more palatable.

Two hundred million credits for a mead that automatically compressed Tier 1 essence for a year seemed absurd, but combined with the bracelet, the results spoke for themselves. It was, however, alcoholic, which is another thing to consider when talking about a teenage daughter.

There was a powder that did the same, but unlike the mead, it built resistance in the body, or rather spirit, that needed time to clear. It only cost fifty million, but the dose only lasted for three months instead of the full year.

Checking further, there seemed to be dozens of variations available for all but the most effective items. Knockoffs with lesser effects but still effective.

As he reviewed all of the products which could assist his daughter’s cultivation, Grady couldn’t help but go back to the saying that it wasn’t the gold miners that made money in a gold rush, but those who were selling the shovels.

These rifts were clearly the gold mines and the delvers were the miners. He wanted to be selling them their shovels.

Except, it seemed that the normal weapons the Empire pushed were melee items. Maybe he should take the manufacturing arm of Briggs Inc. and start mass-producing weapons and armor. No, that would only work in the lowest levels, as Grady noted that the magical constructs called formations couldn’t be made by such processes, resulting in most higher-Tier equipment being handcrafted by what he could only call artisans.

No, that didn’t seem to be a valid method for his position.

Grady would rather find a way to sell these cultivation devices to the masses. No average worker could afford multi-million dollar expenses unless inflation was far worse than had been implied. But ultimately, price was simply a question of what was the cost of manufacture, overhead, and shipping.

A few quick searches showed Grady that there was some wiggle room.

Things like the bracelet were controlled by corporations, but the other items seemed to have expired patents, and he was able to see the manufacturing process on the designs.

Most took formations, making them impossible to mass produce, but a few of the items were said to be easy to create, and from what he was reading, Grady agreed.

There was a set of plates that when connected together through simple copper wire and powered by mana, could slowly draw in ambient essence. Someone with an awakened spirit would need to do the final bit of activating the formation, but that didn’t seem particularly onerous.

The operating costs seemed high, but Grady might just not understand costs in mana. The price for half an hour of run time seemed like a lot, but he could see a path forward where he created something like a country club where people could, for a nominal fee, get access to such formations, which would speed up their advancement.

Despite being a businessman at heart, he had an undergrad degree in engineering and he didn’t see anything wrong with the plans. Although, he also knew that anything publicly available probably had a better version hidden behind a patent or the like.

Still, while that was good, it wasn't enough.

Grady wanted to create something that would last. That could propel his family up to immortality, even if it took time.

That meant he needed to think bigger than country clubs, though he intended to do that after having the idea. Places for the wealthy to gather would be valuable for their connections, more so than any monetary value they could generate.

No, what he was looking for was a way to break into the largest markets, the average salaried worker. There were items that seemed targeted to them. Formations that seemed crude in comparison to the ones that cost millions. It was like comparing a modern car to a horse and buggy. They might both work, but there was a noticeable difference in comfort and performance.

He spent another few hours working on further refining his plans, and by the time he stopped, it was deep into the night and both his daughter and wife were asleep.

The next day, he did something he hadn’t wanted to do originally.

He went and got Awakened.

A bribe got him in front of the line first thing in the morning, and he went through the process.

Like the reports said, it was painless and quick. Similar to the reports, his Talent was also seemingly useless.

Tier 1 Talent determined: Air spells you cast are 10% cheaper. Earth spells you cast have their cooldowns increased by 10%.

From what he understood, most people couldn’t even get actual magic spells until they were Tier 7 or 8, and the items that mages used to let them cast spells before that frequently didn’t interact with Talents. He would probably never see his Talent affect anything, for good or ill, but that didn’t matter to his overall ambitions.

Instead, he used his company's resources to start testing the formation plates he had ordered. They weren’t great; the formation's efficiency was far below the reported numbers, but he proved that it worked and costs weren’t that high.

Between carving the plates with a CNC machine and inlaying the copper, the costs for a set had only barely crossed the fifty thousand credit mark at worst.

With a reasonable margin, that was no more expensive than a new higher-end car.

Most people wouldn’t be able to afford it, but it was within grasp for the average upper middle class family.

With further refinements of both the process and the materials, it was probably possible to reduce the cost by half.

Further testing would be required to check for things like longevity, but Grady thought he had a viable product.

The issue would be in ensuring he was able to capture the market before it was flooded with imitations and competitors.

If he had figured this all out in a matter of days, others surely would do the same before too long.

The formation part would be a stumbling block for some, but the Tier 1 formations were simple enough he suspected most engineer types could figure it out before too long. If his attempt at Tier 2 formations was anything to go by, it wouldn’t be as simple as having machines create the base formation plate and filling the copper in by hand. The book he bought recommended hand carving, and he suspected that was to better activate the magical aspect of the formation, but he needed more testing before confirming these results.

He also needed to talk to Baron Hastra and see if he could negotiate some kind of state sponsorship.

Grady took most of the six months he was allocated for his company's dissolution to settle his plans, but the time only confirmed his ideas.

Catering to delvers was a losing proposition for a company like his.

Instead, he bent his vast resources to creating cultivation parlors.

He wasn’t able to secure a partnership with Baron Hastra, but he did get a reduction of his company’s taxes so long as they met certain criteria. Mainly, it was keeping prices down and keeping production local, but Grady had no issues with those restrictions.

Even if he were to sell off-world, which seemed like it would be difficult at best in such a saturated market, he didn’t think the business would ever outgrow Soerilia. For all its flaws, Soerilia had a massive population when compared to their neighboring planets.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Just nine months after integration, Briggs Cultivation Inc. opened its first location.

The initial reaction was large, with many people coming to use their facilities, but cultivation wasn’t an ingrained habit for most Soerilians and most people never bothered to come back. Grady feared he might have misstepped but he persisted. It wouldn’t be his first failed venture, but it would be a painful one.

He pushed through, funding the company though his own accumulated wealth, and slowly but surely they started getting more repeat customers.

In the end it wasn’t the more affluent persons nearby, but delvers who kept his business afloat in the initial months.

Delving, for all its advantages, was dangerous, and no one knew that better than those who went into rifts. Rift slots also seemed to be as frequent as one a week or as infrequent as once a month, which meant the dedicated were either delving two rifts at a time which doubled the danger or they came to his cultivation parlor for a risk-free way to advance in their down time.

Pulling on that thread, Grady had his people start creating better but more expensive formations, which encouraged the stronger delvers to continue to come to his place.

Grady even partnered with an old college buddy who had Awakened a construction Talent and created similar cultivation-enhancing formations in the estates he was building. Grady didn’t want them spreading too far too soon, but he knew it was inevitable for upper class housing to come with such formations innately as formation experts started to become more commonplace.

Currently, they were the only ones able to create and repair such plates, but his eyes and ears were already tracking a half dozen competitors.

It took another two years to become solvent, but once they did, things seemed to rapidly turn around. They went from one location in Noricum to half a dozen in the next three years, and by the end of the decade, they had over a hundred locations scattered in most major population centers.

And of course because it would be terrible optics for his business if he didn’t, he also used his products and cultivated. It still took nearly a decade but he reached T3 well ahead of most people which made for fantastic advertising. Privately he had to admit that he quite enjoyed the increased vitality it gave him. Even pushing sixty he felt better than he had in his forties.

When he failed to notice anything that could be his Tier 3 Talent in his daily life, he decided to forgo getting it checked out. A decision he rapidly came to regret as his daughter started incessantly questioning him about it. After several months of her pestering he finally gave in and booked an appointment.

T3: Gain a supplemental mana pool that can only be used to cast air spells. This mana pool is based on your mana cultivation, but only fills while airborne, and rapidly depletes while in contact with the ground.

As he expected, and to daughter’s dismay, it was just as irrelevant as his Tier 1 Talent.

Instead of bemoaning the theoretical loss he focused on his business. A large part of their success came from wanting to round his business out. He got permission for the creation of an alchemy sub-branch that could grow magical herbs and turn them into cultivation aids. If they started making other products, they risked being broken up as his original business was, but so long as they kept to their lane, they would be fine according to his lawyers.

Those products were incredibly popular despite their higher costs, even surpassing the income from the rented rooms. Something about the ease of simply taking a pill to see improvements was inherently addictive, and many people who didn’t use their rooms bought their pills, powders, and potions instead.

Their largest issue and hamperment for growth was their limited Tier. Tier 1 materials were easy enough to create and work with, Tier 2 was harder but still possible, while Tier 3 materials were basically impossible for anyone not at Tier 3 to manufacture.

Some processes could and were automated, but they still needed higher-Tier people to do parts and there just weren't enough to fill the roles. As the younger generation was reaching the new age of majority, they were seeing an uptick in people interested in the magical professions like formations and alchemy which he took advantage of and started recruiting with incentives for people to Tier up via their products.

Grady wasn’t sentimental, but it was almost hard to believe that the Soerilia from just a decade ago had been what it was compared to its current form.

Things were hardly perfect. There were issues, but they seemed manageable enough.

Best of all, he and his family were doing better than he would have expected after getting the news that his company was being broken apart.

***

Alessia cursed as she rolled out of bed at the sound of her alarm, but struggled from her dreams knowing today was a big day.

It wasn’t any earlier than she had been waking up for school before Soerilia had been taken over by magic people from other worlds, but when the world ended she hadn’t expected to be back in school in just a week.

Just going back to school would have been annoying enough, but at the end of every school day they were forced to work out. It wasn’t like gym class, where anyone who didn’t want to participate was able to just sit off to the side. No, the exercise time was mandatory and strictly enforced by their trainers, Mr. Alto and Ms. Bakerswatch. They were off worlders who had magic at their fingertips, but instead of doing magic, or literally anything better with their time, they spent their evenings harassing a bunch of kids into working out.

A few kids had tried to fake injuries, but they were ignored and forced to keep up, Ms. Bakerswatch saying she would know if they were injured.

None of them had believed her until Alana took a slip trying to swing from one monkey bar to the next. In a case of bad luck, she had landed on her ankle wrong and it had snapped with an audible sound.

Everyone stopped except Mr. Alto, who pulled out a piece of paper which he stuck onto her floppy foot like a bandaid.

Alessia had inwardly sneered that a bandaid would do nothing, but Alana’s foot glowed and straightened out before bands of blue light held everything in place. She had heard rumors of such items before, flexi-casts used by first responders in bad cases. They had come out shortly after the nano-bot healing… Which Alessia just realized was probably actually magic instead of super advanced tech.

Mr. Alto then took out a bottle of something that looked an awful lot like a video game healing potion and sprayed the ankle. It must have had some numbing agent, as Alana even stopped crying long enough to proclaim her foot no longer hurt.

Mr. Alto stood up and looked at everyone who had gathered around. “First things first. Gawking doesn't help anyone. Next time an accident happens, continue doing what you were doing if you can’t directly help. Second, since you are all here and watching, let me turn this into a teaching opportunity. Ms. Hren here suffered a closed fracture of her ankle with three breaks. The talisman I used to stabilize her ankle has a slow healing effect that would have, on its own, seen her recovered and able to walk in just two to three weeks.” Ignoring the murmurs of disbelief he raised his voice and continued. “In addition, I used part of a simple healing potion and sprayed the affected area with that additional healing. Ms. Hren will be fully healed in approximately a week. Good thing for her, as we are going to split into two groups with half of you starting to work on your hand eye coordination. It can be done sitting down, so in deference to Ms. Hern, we will all sit. Move! Move! Move!”

No one had dared complain or slack off after Alana was forced to go through the rest of the exercise period after breaking her foot.

Some other kids had speculated that he would be fired for not sending her to the hospital, but Alessia doubted it, and Mr. Alto was there the next day. He had even been correct about Alana being fully healed in just a little over a week.

Really, the physical exercise classes wouldn't have been that bad if they didn’t push her to the point of literal physical collapse… and weren’t right next to where the younger kids were just being guided in playing games.

Even nine hours of sleep didn’t seem like enough when she considered that school had been extended by two hours to account for the exercise time.

Teeth brushed and bags packed, she waited for her bus to pick her up. Rumor had it there would be new buses coming in a few years, but Alessia would graduate before she saw them and had to deal with the unflattering orange blobs they had always used.

Entering the school, she went to her homeroom class where, unlike before the integration, Mr. Ingad actually took attendance and asked if they needed any help with their homework or class work as they ate breakfast.

That had been a major change, but a welcome one. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner for those who wanted it were provided by local chefs, who had replaced their crappy school food with actual good food.

Rumor had it there had been an actual fight for the spots because of some kind of reward, but the result was that all the schools had actually good food. Gone were the rubbery eggs and pale mystery meat that they tried to pass off as sausage or cardboard pizza, reheated endlessly until it was hard enough to cause injury. It was a good thing too, because teenagers being expected to complete serious workouts for two hours every weekday, after an entire school day, were eating way more than normal. Her parents were already complaining at just how much she ate over the weekends compared to before, and she couldn’t imagine what they would do if she was this hungry and skipping the gross food they had served before.

As for the homework, no one really needed help. While there had been changes in classes, they had been fairly minor this first year, all except that homework was to be the exception instead of the rule. Well, that and the magic lessons.

Alessia actually really liked the magic stuff. Magic itself was just so cool, and even though their lessons were more like college lectures, with them practicing it in the assembly hall, they were the highlight of her day.

From what she had seen of the new curriculum that the younger kids would be going through, things were that different.

While they would only go through eight years of standardized schooling, it was a fairly aggressive course load comprising most of what she had learned. Math was nearly identical, simply compressed.

Science was very different. While the younger kids would be learning subjects like organic chemistry, chemical bonding and reactions, and things like weather cycles, the classes were more focused on how cultivation interacted with those systems, rather than the intricacies of the systems themselves beyond the basics like she had learned.

History was more focused on the Empire’s history, and while there seemed to be some time dedicated to Soerilian history, it was clearly a secondary priority, which is what everyone had feared and her parents lamented when they thought she couldn't hear them.

Writing and language arts were similar or identical to what she was used to, except done in Empire standard. Or it would be; the new government seemed to realize, or maybe just their new noble realized, the futility of having existing teachers trying to teach a language they didn’t speak themselves.

Word had it that during summer break, anyone who wanted to remain a teacher would be given a crash course in the Empire language, and they would be expected to teach in it as the younger generations started to learn it.

Today was, thankfully, an extra special day, with magical professions being introduced to the tenth graders like her who had just been Awakened and were looking for professions in this new world.

Tier 1 Primary Effect: Innate [Reinforce Metal].

Fortunately, the Talent reader let her get more information as to what that meant, because she barely understood half of it. Skills were… good, she was pretty sure. At least, her Talent said it was rated ‘Good.’ That was probably because most people didn’t get a skill until Tier 5 at the earliest, and they didn’t become broadly available until Tier… 8.

But she had a skill at Tier 1! That was good. And it was an Innate skill, which meant it was fifty percent ‘better’ than a core skill, whatever that meant, and it would be really easy to improve and modify. That was… also good. Or she thought it was. They hadn’t gone over skills as anything more than a mention in the cultivation lessons yet.

According to what she did remember about it being an innate skill, there was a decently high chance that it was different from ‘normal’ in some way, wrapped up in its fifty percent ‘betterness’. But she’d need to figure out what that meant herself.

The skill itself seemed a bit less impressive? The skill description she could access was a bit less than helpful, as it simply said that it could ‘strengthen metals’ in a very roundabout way. It was a favorite of smiths, because the change was permanent.

Okay, she could learn how to be a smith. How to smithy things. She hadn’t really considered being a smith, but anyone capable of arming people as they went into rifts was making money hand over fist, according to the news.

Alessia and her family weren’t poor, but they were closer to poor than to rich, and from what she had been able to look up on what was left of the internet, it said crafting was expensive to get into beyond the most basic levels.

Thankfully, the baron guy was investing in local crafters and was giving anyone who showed proficiency in any crafting skill resources to pursue the craft.

The entire athletic field behind the school was converted into an almost fair like atmosphere, and Alessia could see some of the younger kids trying to peek out the windows to get a look.

Her attention was, however, drawn to the section off to the side where the smiths were.

As she neared the location, the first thing she noticed was how quiet it was. The thumps of metal on metal were muted, like all the hammers were wrapped with cloth. Eyes scanning the instructors, Alessia was relieved to notice there was a fairly even split between men and women.

As she inspected a very tall woman making an arm band looking thing, she was noticed and waved over.

“You seem interested, kid, want to give it a try? The name’s Maribel.”

Alessia backed up slightly. “I wouldn't know where to start.”

Maribel smiled. “That's the idea. No one understands anything day one, unless understanding was their Talent. We do, however, intend to let you all get your hands dirty and see what happens.”

Seeing she had Alessia's attention, Maribel handed her a hammer and instructed her how and where to hit the arm band.

As much as she hated to admit it, the months of physical exercise was the only reason Alessia was able to swing the hammer more than a few times before being spent.

It took a few minutes, but she thoroughly enjoyed the rhythm she got into. The reverberations of the hammer were soothing as they flowed through her arm while watching the bracer take shape. Even the mistakes she made weren’t that big of a deal, as Maribel simply put the bracelet into the fire and instructed her on how to fix the issue.

Alessia was covered in sweat, with her shirt sticking to her in a way she knew was unflattering, when she finally finished.

The arm band wasn’t pretty, a few spots were thinner or thicker than their surroundings, but it was functional. Or it would be, once it was finished.

Riveting it to leather was actually kind of fun, but she didn’t realize just how into it she was getting until a particularly vigorous hammer-blow resonated in a way she didn’t have words for, and left her immensely drained afterwards.

Alessia paused to catch her breath, and realized as she looked at the dark metal that she must have used her Talent! How, she didn’t know, but there was a kind of subtle glimmer to the metal she was certain hadn’t been there a minute ago.

Maribel raised an eyebrow at the display, which caused Alessia to start to get scared.

People had talked about why the magical Talents were hidden and all of the conclusions they came to were negative.

“Relax, kid. Yeah, it’s a good practice to keep your Talent hidden, and I’m not telling anyone. Part of my job. A crafting-type skill will be tricky to keep hidden if you want to use it at all until you’ve got it either modified to the Clans and back, or have other skills to cast a bit of doubt with. But you could do it by only using it on personal projects.” She stroked her chin thoughtfully as she finished, “You could also use whatever it is as a pretty sure-fire way to secure an apprenticeship, and then only your master would know for sure what you’ve got. Or you can just spread the information to try and draw in customers, but that's generally not recommended. No need to let the competition know what your advantage is. Really, there are so many skills and such that most of the time it’s just impossible to outright know what a Talent is doing. There are a dozen ways to get a similar result and it can be basically impossible to differentiate them.”

Alessia swallowed but just nodded in confirmation.

Maribel winked at her. “The real question is, did you like that? Did you enjoy it? If you didn’t, you don’t have to use your Talent. Go and try the other crafts. See if one of them jibes with you more. Plenty of people ignore theirs, and others beat them every which way until they work for them. There’s a pretty popular legend about a kid who awoke an innate [Cheery Visage] and turned it into a personal healing skill. But, being a metalcrafter with a Talent in it means you’ll always be one step ahead of the competition.”

Alessia wasn’t sure if she wanted to hit metal for the rest of her life, as it didn’t seem very lady-like, but she remembered the prices she had seen when looking up weapons and armor.

Making up her mind, Alessia reached out to shake Maribel’s hand. “I accept.”

The older woman just laughed. “It won’t be with me, kid. I'm only Tier 4 myself. I can, however, introduce you to my Master.”

Flushing, Alessia tried to retreat into herself and ended up holding the arm band to her chest, hoping it could distract Maribel.

It didn’t, but she didn’t mention it and instead introduced Alessia to a middle aged man who looked exactly like a movie blacksmith.

Wanting to put her best foot forward, the moment Maribel finished the introduction Alessia stuck out her hand.

The offer seemed generous, but Master Tabin suggested she and her parents look it over, but she didn’t see why she wouldn’t accept.

It was an apprenticeship that came with the corresponding training up to journeyman, where she would be equipped to open her own business. Before that, she would be expected to assist Master Tabin with his business and craft, to give her best effort without subterfuge.

In return, she would get a small wage and a percentage of the items she made and sold under his tutelage. Even the wage was decent. A little less than what her parents made individually.

The prospective apprenticeship was expected to last from ten to fifteen years, and after that time, she should be ready to be self-sufficient.

The only negative she saw in the contract was that Master Tabin as her master would have the right to claim up to five percent of her profits for the first ten years of her practice. Normally, there would also be the option of a payback period of the material she used to learn, but that was being covered by the noble guy, so it was voided out.

Alessia genuinely couldn't see any real reason to decline, and later that night after talking to her parents, she sighed and pressed her thumb to the contract.

For better or worse, she was going all in for this crazy new world.

***

Yosef Yililk spat off to the side as he panted over the prone form of Roderic.

His hands moved to reload his gun even as his eyes scanned the room in front of them, watching for their hidden stalker.

As a Tier 6, his reactions were far better than they had ever been, but that advantage was blunted by the panther’s magic.

Dropping the charging handle back into place, Yosef slapped the side of his weapon, energizing the formation, which started building pressure in the main chamber even as it drained the embedded mana stone.

Dominic shoved him forward and Yosef went from his crouch to an upright position, which gave him a better view of the jungle around them.

Roderic coughed as Dominic’s healing pulsed.

Fifteen seconds later, he was back on his feet, which was just in time for the man-sized panther to attack once more.

Feeling the lack of air movement, Yosef called out, “False!”

Roderic spun to the side just as Yosef felt the movement. Despite being a decade younger, the melee fighter was damn good at his job. Him getting his throat torn out had been the first time Yosef had seen the man get caught off guard like that in the year and a half they had been delving together.

Yosef raised his bulky rifle and caressed the trigger twice. Two chest-compressing thumps echoed through the opening as two energized streams of sand laced water arced out.

The first one missed and cut through three trees on its way deeper into the rift, but the second shot punched a hole right through the panther's chest. At the same time, Dominic reached out and clenched his fist, and Yosef felt his power over movement weaken as the healer's Domain tried to keep things still and preserved.

It felt wrong, like nails on a chalkboard to his own Concept, but the move was enough to let Roderic land a blow on the panther’s neck, nearly decapitating the beast.

Yosef shot the monster another time for good measure as it sprawled across the ground, but it was already dead, with essence flowing out of it and thanks to their bracelets, redirected between them.

Being the boss of the rift, it was a fair bit of essence and Yosef let himself languish in the feeling of additional power.

Even after two decades of advancing, he found the power exhilarating.

Tif and Pam were finally released as the creature's shadow capture ability faded and they stumbled to the ground, gasping for air.

Dominic rushed over and checked them while Roderic and Yosef kept watch for any stray monsters.

The five of them were a fairly new team in Gavle’s Good Guilders, each from other teams who just didn’t have their level of dedication, which had allowed them to push into peak Tier 6 rifts as fresh Tier 6s. Well they had, after each of them had been cooling their heels in non-combat roles. Gavle’s, like most guilds, rotated members in and out of rifts on cycles to avoid both burnout and alienation via spending all of one's time in a rift.

It meant hard fights, but it was that honing which had allowed them to survive a rare mutated boss that had additional powers beyond what was recorded.

Once they were all up and ready, they carefully found the rift exit and the reward distortion.

Yosef dispelled the rift with a wave of his hand, just to freeze as a single blue gem fell out of the distortion.

A skill shard.

Pan whooped while Dominic started making what could be best described as excited puppy noises.

Getting a skill out of a Tier 6 rift was rare. At worst, if the skill was non combat or not very valuable, the guild would exchange the skill with a common Tier 8 skill, but if the skill was worth more than that, they would get whatever additional value was in the skill.

Together, they rushed out of the rift and Yosef couldn’t help but feel like he was a decade younger as he waited for the machine to examine the skill.

What had they gotten?

[Parry].

A fairly rare combat skill was worth quite a lot, and the bursar happily gave them credit for two common skills, one and a half uncommon skills, or credit to their accounts for the same value.

They were still deciding how they wanted to split it when Yosef got a message from his AI.

The implant had been part of his welcoming package, and it was undoubtedly the one that he would never give up.

It was beyond convenient, but at times like this, Yosef liked being able to pretend he hadn’t seen a message. But when the head of recruitment, a vice guild leader, called for him, he couldn’t do so.

Excusing himself, Yosef jogged through the compound until he arrived at the administrative section of the guild.

Gavle’s had treated him well in the last decade and so, while he was sure some shit was about to fall onto his lap, he would put up with it so long as it wasn’t too onerous.

Waved through the seating room by the secretary, Yosef entered the office just to find Jerry talking to someone else on his AI animatedly about some sort of contract.

Yosef was waved to a seat and the moment he sat down, a folder of paper was tossed at him. He was a little confused as to why they were using paper files instead of AI, but he started reading anyway.

His question wasn’t answered and instead, a dozen new ones were raised as he read a document about how Ascender Titan had unveiled Soerilia just two weeks ago.

Having been in the Empire proper for over a decade, he had a better understanding of not only Tier, but what Ascenders were, which made his attempt at shooting Ascender Legion feel all the more laughable. It also let him understand that if Ascender Titan had made a move, things might have been bad.

Reading on, things weren’t nearly as bad as he feared. Some idiot tried to kill an Ascender with mundane weapons, but the parts about the world governments still having been dragging their feet wasn’t surprising.

What he didn’t quite understand was why he was being brought in for this.

Gavle’s wanting to set up an outpost on Soerilia wasn’t surprising, but Yosef didn’t know what he had to do with that. He was a combat fighter, not an admin guilder who could or would deal with such things.

That didn’t mean he didn’t want to help his home world, but he understood that while a Tier 6 might seem strong and wealthy to the unawakened, he was nothing when compared to the truly strong. A stray thought from Ascender Titan or Legion would be enough to flatten the guild and their pocket change was probably enough to buy the guild outright, but even they were small when compared to Tier 40s.

If Yosef wanted to help Soerilia, he needed to be at least Tier 15. At that point, he would be immortal, and even casual delving would earn him enough to make an appreciable difference to Soerilia. Whereas now, even if he threw every mana stone he earned at Soerilia, he wouldn't make a difference.

Thankfully, his question was answered as Jerry finished his call. “Sorry about that, Yosef. You caught up?”

“I read the file but I’m not sure what it has to do with me? Do you want me to run that branch or something? I don’t th—”

“Nothing like that Yosef. We do want you to spend a year or so, at most five, acting as something of a mascot for the guild as well as a bit of a culture exchange expert. Technically you would be third in command, as everyone understands you don’t want day to day responsibility, but they will defer to you on all things during the set-up and related to cultural norms and such.” Yosef was about to explain that he only really knew the culture of one country out of dozens, but Jerry cut him off. “I know you don’t know everything about an entire planet, but you know more than any of us would about the things that really matter. The subtle things you don't find in books or reports. You can refuse, but you have said you wanted to help your home world. We are a good guild and are willing to set up a base there, which even for the kids who don’t leave the world, they will be better trained and equipped than otherwise. Just two years and we will ensure your team has top priority on all rifts until Tier 8.”

Yosef nodded. He would have done it without the extra reward because Gavle’s was a good guild that didn’t take advantage of people. It was half clubhouse and half extended family and people generally looked out for each other.

If Gavle’s went to Soerilia, they could not only set a good example for other guilds but establish the acceptable standards as it were.

Yosef didn’t want to pause his delving, having only just gotten back into rifts to start advancing, but he also knew that sometimes the wants of the few were overruled by the needs of the many.

He had done a lot of things he didn’t want to do, and he was, if not better, a more experienced man for those times. It was also a good way to show that he was a team player in the guild. Even if he didn’t want responsibility so soon after escaping it when he joined the guild, he had ideas for how to change some things, and showing that he was competent beyond what his relatively young age would suggest would be a useful stepping stone for advocating for those changes.

That he was considered young at almost sixty year old was always amusing to him, but considering his lifespan was just under three hundred years, he was relatively young for a Tier 6.

And he just wanted to help his home world. It had raised him into the man he was today. It had given him opportunity and strife, challenge and pleasure. It was a good place that could really use some of the things the Empire took for granted. There was so much they didn’t understand that he had picked up after being in the Empire proper for a decade. So many unique things they could be leveraging as a planet that he wasn’t sure most people would pick up on for years.

“When do I leave?”