“By popular demand,” said a man draped in white, “we will be covering the topic of Engines today. I looked into the backstory of why the sudden boom, and it seemed that apparently someone bought the legendary Stellar Core a few days ago. Add that to the Congress shifting their manufacturing away from Engines, and now there’s a price hike in the Exchange for any Engine.”

Lecturer Shirou shrugged. “Maybe I should sell my personal Engine to earn some points, eh? I’ve heard that there’s an auction for artefacts and formations coming up, and since Engines are highly-condensed formation plates, I could sell mine.”

Gaius leaned forward, interested. Some Harvesters were egging the lecturer on to sell his Engine, while others were asking about the auction that Lecturer Shirou just mentioned offhandedly. What Gaius was most interested in, however, was the Lecturer’s personal experience with his own Engine.

To his side, Nakama yawned, bored.

“Silence.” Air rippled around Lecturer Shirou, his image warping as an intimidating aura emanated from him. “Whether I put my Engine up for sale or not is my business, and as for details about the Auction, the Campmaster’s probably going to mention it tomorrow, when Heritage opens up. I suggest that you lot double down to earn more points tomorrow.”

It was alright when the lecturer didn’t add that last bit, but now that he did, the usual harmony within the class shattered like glass being dunked into a pool of lava. Harvester looked at Harvester, their usually-ignored calculative matrixes spinning up with the prospect of high-quality equipment at stake.

After all, one’s equipment quality had immense impact on a Harvester’s combat ability. This auction had done what the Second Extermination didn’t — and that was awakening the humanlike aspects of the beastfolk, a focus on benefits gained. Gaius hadn’t meant for that to happen when he suggested the idea of an auction to Nalus, but it was a good thing for the generally-naïve beastfolk. The Harvesters were not sensitive to politics and the subtlety of interaction between people, but this auction would probably change that, for better or worse.

The class rippled again, but other than some looks of suspicion thrown about, no Harvester dared to speak. Lecturer Shirou was that intimidating, and no one wanted to be the first one to be beaten up or yelled at by him.

“So, Engines.” The lecturer fished out a simple disk of azure from inside his shirt. “This is a standard Engine, issued to all Knights who pass a simple test. Or it used to, at any rate. We ran out of stock quite some time ago, and Congress has halted all production of Engines for reasons I don’t know. But Engines are very powerful pieces of equipment.”

He took out a metal plate. “They are similar to high-grade artefacts, but there a few major differences. First, the material Engines are made of are very, very rare. Hundreds or even a thousand gemstones are melted down and reforged, unlike the base material for artefacts, which can be as common as wood.”

“Next, is the way that the paths are carved.” A shimmering blade of light appeared in the lecturer’s right hand, and he brought it down on the metal plate, slicing it into two with a horrible shriek. “Even for high-grade artefacts, which this certainly isn’t, there’s almost always one layer. But the base material for Engines are sliced into multiple pieces, which have paths carved on them, and then placed back together.”

Someone raised his hand, and the lecturer nodded at him. “Go ahead.”

“But isn’t that supposed to be impossible? According to the textbook, there’s only one standard size for paths, but if you carve out paths in multiple layers and place them together, there’s no way that every single new path in the end product would still be the standard size!”

Gaius wasn’t too sure about what that Harvester just said, other than the fact that a ‘path’ was half a centimetre long and wide. If it didn’t meet these dimensions exactly, the artefact wouldn’t work, but Gaius himself didn’t know why the ‘path’ had to have such exact dimensions.

Lecturer Shirou’s reply was something that Gaius wasn’t able to comprehend, and the young, petulant boy tuned his answer out until the Artificing Lecturer started talking about what an Engine could do.

“So,” said the lecturer, “by leveraging on the Compound Indices Rule, the Engine therefore functions differently from a regular artefact. Engines that are mass-produced usually do three things: flight, energy amplification and sigil manifestation. Absent either of these functions, and the Engine…probably isn’t useful. Flight is self-explanatory and we went through energy amplification earlier, so let’s move on to sigil manifestation, which is an aspect that many others don’t bother mentioning.”

“Sigils are basically the opposite of artefacts. Paths in artefacts are carved out, but paths for Sigils are drawn by Qi and other forms of energy.” The lecturer raised up his right hand, and lines of light appeared in front of him. “Manifestation can only be done with Engines; you can’t draw sigils yourself unless you’re a Paragon or a Lord close to the Paragon level.”

Lecturer Shirou folded his arms. “Which is why Engines allow one to fight above their cultivation level, when up against an enemy without an Engine. Furthermore, some Engines even have innate abilities, as a result of quality craftsmanship, luck or both. Some, like Howling Gale, which is incidentally the most expensive Engine on the Exchange right now, enable the user to fire off devastating attacks from unexpected angles.”

Gaius tilted his head. He remembered seeing the Howling Gale, but it was thirty to forty thousand points cheaper than the Stellar Core. But if it worked the way that Lecturer Shirou claimed, Gaius wouldn’t mind buying the Howling Gale before someone else got enough points to claim it. But first…

Gaius raised his hand.

“Go on—oh, Lecturer Gaius!” Lecturer Shirou blinked. “It’s quite rare to have another lecturer sit in my class.”

Gaius inclined his head, and asked, “Is it possible to use, say two or threre Engines at once. Maybe a mass-produced Engine and the Howling Gale together?”

“I’ve never tried that, but Engines are rather…” The Artificing Lecturer tapped his right foot. “…exclusive. Most Engines bond with their owner, since the process of amplification requires the layered formations in the Engine to connect with the body’s qi flow. If you were to bond with more than one Engine at once, it’s likely that problems will arise when the modified qi flow goes through the second Engine.”

“I see.” Gaius drummed his fingers on the desk lightly. “Looks like I can’t compensate for weaker Engines by using more of them at once.”

His words hung in the air, and the other Harvesters suddenly got an epiphany — the little boy here was probably aiming for the Howling Gale too, even though he already had an Engine of his own. Gaius could feel the other Harvesters bristle as they reined in their reaction to raise a commotion at his words.

But better that than them finding out that he was the one who got the Stellar Core. Oh, sure, the people at the apex of Ark City’s pyramid might know, but as long as he denied it, no one could do anything. Gaius was in a rather unique position; he’d long worked out that he had some support from a few factions in the Congress. As long as his existence stayed agreeable to them, the young lecturer had a certain level of autonomy.

Smiling, he leaned backwards on his chair, and listened to Lecturer Shirou run off on a tangent for the rest of the day.