While he was walking, Christopher went over what he had seen at the Arena. Especially the use of Soul Force had been interesting to watch, a normal warrior would have a hard time matching the strength of such combatants. He now made it a goal to one day replicate those techniques. Christopher slowly made his way back to the Butterbash Inn. The sun had already crept low on the horizon and he was feeling famished.

He realized that his Soul Force had been full for a while in the Arena. He took out one of his newly acquired Metal spheres from his pouch, clutching it in his hand.

There was no reason that he could not infuse while he was on the move. In fact, it would be great practice for a potential fight. He was sure that creatures of the Blight would not just let him channel his techniques while waiting patiently. He got a quick confirmation that going through all the steps while walking was a lot more difficult.

He had achieved some progress with infusing the target percentage of Soul Heat, but now it once again was all over the place. At least he had the interface to show exactly how much each attempt drained his Soul Force.

With each infusion, he aimed for ten percent, but now that he was on the move, he went from failed attempts to overshooting to almost thirty percent. Luckily, the Manual was correct that he could not hurt himself with his own Soul effect, sparing his hand from any burns. Apparently, it had something to do with achieving a certain resonance with the material for the duration of the effect.

He was not completely safe though. Only the directly imbued surface area would not be able to hurt him. If he however wore a ring that was to touch the glowing hot metal sphere, then the ball would naturally heat up the ring, which in turn would surely burn his finger. He needed to stay focused to prevent such mistakes in the future.

With almost half of his Soul Force expended, he decided to finally brave the walkways connecting the multi-story buildings. He was not exactly afraid of heights, but if he were to slip it would be a dangerous fall. He wobbled over the planks and probably looked ridiculous as he tried to keep his balance, but he slowly gained some confidence in the make of the bridge, and his own gait got more confident in the process. The city looked slightly different from the top, he could see much further than before. It would indeed be a great spot to snipe any enemies that made it into the city.

Christopher felt a steadily increasing pressure to find a way to earn some money. The pouch of coins that he had received from Tinos only two days earlier was getting thinner at an alarming rate. He had spent five silver on the broken Soul Alarm, three silver on the Soul Force training set, and his wealth was decreasing with twelve bronze coins every day from living expenditure. In return there was no money coming in. He also wanted to have something to do besides training in the morning. There was plenty of time for him to work during the day and the evening.

Once he arrived back at the Butterbash Inn he got himself a hearty meal from the dining hall and then went through his regular routine. The Tinos family ate with him, having completed another hard day of work. Christopher hesitantly shared his plans with Tamas.

“I was planning to search for a job tomorrow, and I was wondering whether you thought that it would be possible for me to find a job working with Soul Heat. What level of proficiency would be expected from me to be considered for such a job?”

Tamas answered him. “Well, I would say that your Soul Heat ability is plenty for most employers to want to hire you. But at the moment you don’t have the right documentation for your ability.”

“Documentation? I’m not allowed to use my Soul Force?”

She looked at him apologetically. “Ah, right, maybe I should have mentioned this sooner. Officially you are required to have an Academy license to practice high-level Soul Force effects in public. It's fine for citizens to use some simple effects at home, but to find a job you really need to first get that license.”

He groaned, rubbing his temples. It made plenty of sense, but it was not something he had contemplated as being necessary.

“How do I go about obtaining one of these licenses. I don’t suppose it’s easy and free is it?”

She looked at him with a pained expression. “Well, if you want to go outside of enrolling for the Academy then you will have to pay for the Exam. For non-students, I believe it costs five silver coins to take it for a single effect.”

Christopher had to stop himself from cursing. He wanted to do this to earn money, not to lose it. How much did he even have left? He mentally calculated his current balance, knowing that he was cutting it awfully close.

He had received fourteen silver and twenty-four bronze Venarian coins from the goods. Of all that money he had already wasted five silver on the Soul Alarm, two silver on the training set, and one silver and sixteen bronze Venarian coins to pay three days upfront for his current living arrangement. That left only six silver and eight bronze coins in his pouch, only barely enough to attempt the exam. He could feel a ball of stress forming in his stomach.

“So, do you think that I would pass this exam with my current level?”

“Well, it is not really a question of passing the exam. They will carefully calculate all aspects of your Soul Heat ability. Judging by the result they will assign you a proficiency level in the tested effect. The levels go from Fledgling, Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Master, Soul Mage, and Soul Champion. Each of those categories is once again divided from one at the lowest to five at the highest. That makes thirty-five different levels that a person can reach in an effect. I currently have a ranking of Advanced two in Soul Heat.”

That was a lot of different levels for one Soul effect.

“What level would I need to achieve for a chance of finding work with Soul Heat, and what level do you think I would currently test at?”

She looked pensive for a moment, and Christopher nervously awaited her response. “I would say that if you wanted a good chance of finding some work, you would need to show a license of high intermediate, to early advanced. And I would say you are somewhere around...” She proceeded to think for another minute, sending his nerves into overdrive. “I think you are at least late intermediary, and you might even test early advanced. It also depends on the people testing you, and the methods they choose in the testing. You have to understand that there is more to it than just brute-forcing your Soul Force.”

Great, at least Tamas seemed to believe that he did have the ability to get a high enough grade to find a job, but could he really risk spending the last of his fortune to pay for taking this exam? He could just simply live off his current balance for a while, but that would take away the option of taking the exam after three more days. He wished he could just place his [Bookmark] right here. Then he could simply try the exam as many times as he liked, but it interfered with his plans, and he refused to entertain that possibility. Also, if he could use [Bookmark] right now he would not even really need to work to make money. He would not remove his [Bookmark] from when he placed it in the forest, it would only fill him with regrets.

“Tell me more about this Academy, this is the first time I’m hearing about it.”

“Well, the Academy in Lumen is pretty impressive for a town of this size, it’s basically just a school that you can enroll in to further improve your Soul Force abilities. There will be lessons from high leveled instructors, and access to a full library with books on a variety of topics, including all the aspects of Soul Force. Enrolling is pretty expensive though, and not something you would be able to afford right now, otherwise, I would have mentioned it earlier. When I went you had to pay 25 silver Venarian coins upfront to enroll for a single semester. And at the end of the semester, you would be able to take an exam for up to five Soul Effects of your choice.”

Damn, clearly not an option for him with his pouch. He really wanted to enroll though, his eagerness to learn more Soul Force techniques trumped anything else. He would have to control himself until after he had used [Bookmark].

“And you went to this academy? What is it like there? “

“Oh, of course, it’s amazing. It was worth it just for all those books on Soul Force, and everyone there loves learning and improving almost as much as I do. I only was there for two Semesters, but I learned a lot during that time, achieving a lot of growth in the process.”

He was amused by her admission of almost as much. “Do they also teach Soul Force techniques for fighting?”

“Uhm, yes, I suppose that there is such a class, but the class was not very popular. From what I hear the teacher is outright strange, and the techniques that are taught are baffling. Regardless, I was not there to learn how to fight so I did not take that class, and very few did.”

An eccentric teacher? He honestly did not really care; He was happy with anyone that would help him to use Soul Force during combat. His desire to enroll at the academy was rising to an incredible level. Still, it was not in sight at the moment. He needed to either make enough money with a job or wait and strike it rich at the Lucky Goddess. [Bookmark] would come through for him in the end.

His task now was to find a job to get him through this current turn. Who knew how much longer he would be here? He intended to stay here for as long as he could, improving his fighting ability during his training. He also needed to know when the Blight would start to rear their ugly heads. It could be today, it could be months, he just did not know. Something told him that it would not take all that long.

Since he still had enough money for around five more days, he could afford to train his Soul Heat a little longer. Hopefully, it would increase the odds of a satisfactory result on the exam. Ideally, he would be able to schedule the exam in three days. That would give him three days to work on progressing his Soul Heat, and two days to find himself a job before his money ran out. He supposed that maybe he could ask the Tinos family for some more support, but that just did not sit right with him, he had asked and received enough of the kind trio.

He spent the rest of the day thinking over his training method while making almost no progress on his second read-through of the Soul Force Manual. When standing still he was now able to be pretty precise with how much he infused with each attempt. According to Tamas, this was really stunning progress, making her convinced that he must surely have been a talented Soul Force user before losing his memory. He was just happy that he had finally been able to do something impressive in this world for a change. It would be great motivation to further develop his Soul Heat over the next few days. He fell asleep while planning and scheming.