Chapter 1

Matt looked at the result. It was unbelievable, unacceptable.

Unchangeable.

When his group of orphans turned nine, and the physical conditioning and rift training tests began, he had practiced more than everyone else.

The 187 children of Warrington’s Upper East Side Orphanage #3 had trained for their awakening. Every profession was covered, and every combat role was touched upon. Even more obscure variations were at least covered if not directly trained for.

Matt could answer any question about any role or their sub-variations. He had studied every extra book that his instructors thought might be the slightest bit useful. He practiced with every weapon the training armory had.

He preferred a longsword, but was familiar with one-handed and shield combinations, dual-wielding daggers, weighted gloves, staffs, and even wands. He was ready no matter what his Tier 1 Talent revealed.

However, Matt hadn't prepared for his Tier 1 Talent to be useless.

Matt sat in the testing chair, wires still connected to his arm. Staring at the display that had doomed him.

Tier 1 Talent determined.

Primary effect: Diminishing returns on Mana Regeneration.

Secondary effect: Essence Cultivation cannot be applied to mana.

Anomaly detected…

…

…

…

Anomaly processed.

Maximum Mana has been determined to be below detectable levels.

Please wait until a higher Authority can be contacted.

Matt felt the blood drain from him. He was lightheaded, he couldn’t breathe. The screen blurred, words merging, sealing his fate with their little white proclamations.

The primary effect of his Talent wasn’t ideal, but it wasn't enough to stop him from delving into the rifts.

His focus on the primary effect, Matt peered at the complicated math formula and graph that popped up showing his projected Mana Regeneration. It wouldn't be great at the lower Tiers, but at the higher Tiers, he could become an absolute mana generating machine.

Unlike most, his Mana Regeneration wasn’t a flat rate determined by his allocation of Essence ratio when cultivating. Regenerating based on a percentage would be amazing. Mages usually had to allocate quite a large percentage of their cultivation to Maximum Mana and Mana Regeneration, just so they could cast at a reasonable rate during a delve.

This made them physically weaker and more vulnerable to close-in attacks. Percentage based Mana Regeneration would give Matt the incredible advantage of not having to allocate Essence to Mana Regeneration. He could dump what most would need to have allocated to that stat into Maximum Mana and double the effectiveness.

Secondary effect: Essence Cultivation cannot be applied to mana.

Matt stared at that one line of text with contempt. He was ruined.

Tier 1 cultivators usually started with around 100 mana, unless their Tier 1 Talent applied some boost to it. Even if Matt only started with 10 mana, by focusing a slightly heavier ratio into Maximum Mana he could just stay at relatively low mana permanently, but still cast endless spells.

Matt looked at the projected regeneration graph. If the AI’s calculations were correct, he'd be regenerating his Maximum Mana per second when it was below 1.0%. That was absurd, but that rate didn't last. After the 1% mark the regeneration rate dropped down drastically. It would take an estimated ten minutes to reach 10% mana, and two weeks to reach 25%. He scoffed at the projections of a year to reach 50%, and 50 years to reach 75%.

While these rates were ludicrous they were also irrelevant. With normal mages, getting to full capacity was important because it meant more spell casts. In Matt’s case, if he could get to 1000 Maximum Mana, he would regenerate 10 mana a second. That was enough to endlessly cast a basic [Fireball] spell. No mage could endlessly cast any spell. Even if they had 100,000 mana, it would eventually be exhausted since normal Mana Regeneration was calculated in Mana per hour.

Secondary effect: Essence Cultivation cannot be applied to mana.

Those damning words destroyed any shred of hope Matt had still carried. Even Melee fighters dedicated at least 30% of their Essence to their mana, just so they could use skills in battle. The most aggressive ratio he had heard of, from an actually successful rift delver, was 80% Essence cultivation to physical and 20% to mana. And that was only possible because this particular delver had a Tier 3 Talent that let him negate the cost of used skills based on his physical abilities.

Tier 3 Talent. That was his ticket out. Matt never heard of an Talent being purely detrimental. The ones that seemed useless at Tier 1 usually had synergy with Tier 3 or Tier 25 Talents.

Matt could do thi…

Higher Authority reached.

…

Mana Levels determined to be 1.

Matt felt as if he'd been punched in the gut yet again. A starting Max Mana amount of less than it took to cast a fireball. His stomach roiled with renewed vigor once the reality of the secondary effect of his Tier 1 Talent set in.

He stood up out of the chair once the wires disconnected from his arm and the screen flashed and said, “please have a nice day” as if it was mocking him.

Matt looked around at the seemingly unfamiliar world. Everyone in here was an acquaintance. He had been with them since the rift breakout that destroyed half the city and orphaned so many kids like himself five years ago. As his gaze wandered, the people he had spent so much time with appeared alien to him.

They all looked so... happy.

He saw Roxanne at a recruiter’s desk over at Victor’s Elementals, a mage focused guild that was the husband guild to Estors Escalators, a physically oriented guild that acted to round out delve compositions so that the parties were balanced.

Roxanne was smiling at every word that came out of the recruiter’s mouth and was quick to sign the paperwork placed in front of her. She had wanted to be a mage since their introduction to Magic class.

He wanted to feel happy for her, but all he felt was nausea clawing at his stomach. He looked over to Gavle’s Good Guilders, a respectable Tier 10 guild based on the neighboring planet Ilstor, a Tier 12 planet. The head recruiter, Miles, looked at him with alarm as Matt approached.

“Matt what in the hells is going on? I got the notification that your Talent isn’t up to recruitment standards.” Miles looked around and finished with a, “get in here,” as he pulled Matt into a conference room behind the recruiting stand.

“What the hell happened Matt? I can't see exactly what you got but the application came back with...” Miles held up the pad that was currently showing Matt's conditional contract into GGG. He scrolled down to show a box highlighted red and flashing ‘does not meet minimum requirements’.

“Is it really that bad?”

Matt debated what to tell Miles. He was a good guy who tried to get as many of the orphans as he could into the fairly prestigious guild. With Matt's knowledge and skill with a blade, Miles was able to get him a conditional contract with extremely good terms that only lasted ten years.

“Completely unable to cultivate mana,” Matt whispered, glancing over at Miles, who had stopped pacing on the other side of the table.

“Fuck”

“Fuck”

“Fuck”

Miles pressed his hands together in front of his face and started pacing. Clearly deep in thought as he said, “There's not much I can do without getting both of us into trouble. If I show too much favoritism, other guilds might think I'm trying to create a spy to infiltrate another guild for us.”

Matt sat and silently hoped Miles could think of any way for this not to be the end of his career as a delver. Was he finished before he even started? The nausea came back even stronger than before, gnawing at him as the contents of his stomach tried to escape by any means necessary.

“It’s happened before. I would get you blacklisted from any guild on this planet. Even some of the city-states wouldn't want you anywhere near them.”

The next pause seemed like an eternity. “All right. You have two options. Really only one viable option, the other is a long shot at best.”

“Best-case scenario, you go and apply for the PlayPen. It's an Empire run training facility that only the best of the best get into. Most city adjuncts get a couple of slots per year to send promising youths. Getting one of those slots is even harder than usual in this city, because the adjunct has been using them as political favors for the last ten years or so.”

“That’s the ideal case, but ninety-nine percent of people never even sniff a PlayPen, so you need to buy a slot in a public Tier 1 rift. It’s what freelance delvers do if there’s a lot of competition for rifts of their Tier.”

He pulled his pad out and started tapping at it. “Ah. Here, in Glesie, two cities up the coast. They have a kobold Tier 1 rift, going price is…” Miles’ eyes flicked around, scanning as he sucked in a breath “10K credits. That’s more than they usually cost, but the price seems to have increased even more so in the last few years.”

Welp, I’m fucked. It will take years to get that many credits. I’d be so far behind everyone else, it would be terrible.

Matt forced himself to lose the self-pity and think.

No, I don’t care if I’m older than everyone at my Tier. I’ll still become a delver and stop the rifts from overflowing.

Earning 10,000 credits wouldn't be easy. It would be at least three years of work at any job that would hire a thirteen-year-old. Let alone one with no useful Tier 1 ability and no skills besides those of a beginner delver.

“Is there anything I can do to join a lesser guild? Not that I don’t want to join Gavles, but it has to be easier to join a guild and get access to their rift than to get 10k credits right?” Matt pleaded with Miles for it to be true.

Miles' face hardened with a serious look when he heard Matt’s question. He looked Matt right in the eyes and forcefully said, “Matt with a rating as bad as the one you got it doesn’t matter if your Tier 3 fixes your problem. No one here is going to willingly risk the resources to train you without a lifelong contract you’ll never get out of, one where they take all your earnings, or some other nefarious deal to suck you dry.”

Matt opened his mouth, but Miles held up his hand and continued. “This planet is just too poor, and teleportation to the neighboring planets is too expensive for wasteful transits. Every inch of space is worth its weight in mana stones. Eighty percent of the recruits we pick up today are never going to leave this planet. If they don't have the potential the Guild isn't going to shoulder the cost.”

“Go try, but don’t sign anything without reading the contract. All recruitment contracts have to be in plain text that is easy to understand.”

Miles reached into a cabinet along the wall and grabbed some cards. He held his hand out for Matt to shake and handed the cards over as well. “These are PlanetNet voucher cards. Each is good for an hour of uptime, and these five should get you through the next few years. The CityNet will have most info, but the PlanetNet will let you check Glesie’s rift status from time to time.”

Miles looked tired all the sudden “Good luck kid. And when you solo delve, play it safe and don’t get injured. That will put you in debt faster than anything else.”

With that Miles turned and walked out of the room. Matt took that as the dismissal it was.

He tried to help me, and his advice about the contracts is good to know. I might have taken the first offer without looking into it without that warning.

Matt spent the next hour going from stall to stall seeing if any guilds, corporations, or crafters were willing to take a chance. But Miles had been right, few were willing to even talk to him after seeing his Tier 1 Talent rating of detrimental. Those that were presented contracts with clauses where 50% of all earnings for the rest of his life would go to the guild, even if he left at some later point.

One particularly heinous contract had a line in it that stated he would no longer own his own body. Matt shuttered at what people who accepted that contract ended up doing. Prostitution would be the best outcome, if the look the recruiter had given him was any indication.

Matt picked up his bag with what little belongings he had and headed for the door before he lost his breakfast all over the polished floor. The moment he got outside he emptied his guts into the shrubs next to the front entrance.

After rinsing his mouth out Matt stood up and started walking away from the Awakening Center. He didn't know where he was going, but there was no point in standing around.

This being only a Tier 4 planet meant the resources needed to advance to Tier 3 weren't readily available for the larger population. The only reliable way to accumulate essence was to delve into the rifts and slay whatever monsters you found.

Some of the books Matt had read referenced the air on the Empire's Tier 47 capital planet. The atmosphere had so much ambient essence that one could cultivate without delving into rifts. Here on this backwater, the ambient essence was near zero.

Transportation off the planet is too expensive, no guild will accept me unless my Tier 3 Talent is synergistic with my Tier 1 and lets me accumulate more mana so I’m not crippled. Or I sign my life away.

Matt pondered his next steps.

I need a job.

Thirteen years old wasn’t technically considered an adult,at least not by the Empire’s standard. There was just no more room in the orphanage for older children when most were able to find employment or an apprenticeship after receiving their Tier 1 Talents.

To relieve some of the stress on the orphanage, emancipation and Awakening were done early, at the ages of 13, instead of the usual 14 or 15.

Matt headed south, the further he walked the more damage he saw from the rift break five years ago.

The debris was mostly cleaned up and repaired on the northern side of the city. The occasional burned-out building yet to be demolished and rebuilt served as battle scars for the southern section.

As Matt walked he passed a crater showing where some great spell had ripped into the horde of monsters. Rain now filled in the bottom of the crater turning it into a stagnant pool thick with algae growing on top.

Just another sign of what happened when rifts weren’t regularly delved. Another reminder of the loss of his parents and the destruction of this city.

***

When searching the CityNet he had found an inn called Benny’s advertising a position of ‘General staff. No skills needed, Room and Board provided. 400 credits a month.’

The description was worryingly lacking in detail, but with that kind of pay Matt at least had to try.

Matt followed the road for several more miles until he came upon Benny’s Inn. It was right near the edge of the 5-mile coastline that served as a safe zone.

Benny's Inn was situated near three known Tier 3 rifts and on the trail to the nearest Tier 4 rift, the highest rift this planet offered. It made Benny’s the best place for parties and groups to relax and recuperate between delves.

Delvers are said to spend more credits than normal cultivators, so I need to be near delving if I want to reach Tier 3 anytime soon. If I want to get to a city with a public Tier 1 rift I need to make money.

What Matt found at the end of the road was a six-story building with a large sign proclaiming the owner's name.

When Matt opened the front door, he found a large common area filled with tables, and a bar in the center of the large room. Behind the counter, there was a large man in a greasy apron who only bothered to glance Matt’s way once when the door opened, immediately returning to whatever he was doing behind the bar.

As Matt approached the man barked out a gruff “Unless you are a paying customer fuck off kid, no charity, no donations.” without even looking back up.

Matt braced himself and gathered all the cheer he could muster despite the man’s tone. “No, sir. I’m here to talk to Benny about the position that was posted. And I assume that’s you, sir?”

That got the fat man to look back up. He scanned Matt with squinted eyes before asking “Shitty Tier 1 kid?”.

Matt swallowed hard before answering with as much dignity as he could, “Yes sir”.

“Got any idea what this job entails?”

“No sir, but I'm willing to work hard.”

Before Matt could continue Benny cut him off. “Yeah, I already expect that an I won't tolerate anything less. What I need is a floater. Someone who can do any job, an jump between em as necessary”.

Benny glanced around and then back at Matt “That might mean you scrub toilets. Might mean you help the girls carry out food when it's busy at night. Hours are from 5 in the morning to Midnight with a two-hour break around noon. 400 hundred credits a month, no tips.”

Matt ground his teeth as much as he could without letting it show. This old bastard had him good. That kind of pay was excellent, even if it sounded like he’d be hard pressed to earn every credit.

The delve slot in Glesie was 10000 credits and that was his only lifeline. There were simply too many people that needed the low-tier rifts and not enough of them to go around. Slots had to be bought then resold when the delvers team outgrew that Tier, so credits wouldn't be wasted, but the barrier to entry would be high.

Matt made his decision.

“Where do you want me to start sir?”