CRASH!

Dirt sprayed all over the clearing as the two Vigors clashed. The dirt golems broke apart with every strike, but more dirt would simply be extracted from the ground, replenishing the both of them.

Solera stared darkly at the fight, sweat pouring down his forehead. He was running out of power and mental strength much faster than his opponent, one of the soldiers on base. If he didn’t end this quickly, he would lose the match!

An attachment grew out of his golem, made of mud and rock. It was supposed to be a sword, but it more closely resembled a club. Solera’s Vigor stabbed it into the other Vigor’s torso, sending mud and dirt spewing out of the opponent’s golem in all directions. The moment the sword-club had penetrated the enemy Vigor, Solera reformed it into many small strands of rock that took root inside the enemy Vigor, probing for the control talisman that powered the golem.

The opponent, Burtie, smiled. “Ah, so close, but too far.” Completely ignoring the carnage his Vigor was being subjected to, Burtie had the golem raise its arms high into the air. Several thick rocks emerged from the top of the arm, forming a stone fist that would strike with much more force than mud ever could.

Solera gritted his teeth as he tried to have his Vigor redirect more of its mud into the enemy Vigor, but it was too late. The fists smashed down, blowing away half of the Vigor’s body. The mass of mud that had made up Solera’s Vigor crumbled into a heap on the ground, cut off from the control talisman’s signal.

“Oh?” Burtie frowned. “You actually moved your talisman into my own Vigor? Bold move!”

Indeed, Solera had inserted his own talisman into Burtie’s Vigor. The control talismans channeled power into the mud, allowing the controller to manipulate the mud as they pleased. This Vigor was simply a heap of mud shaped into the general form of a hulking man with no head and an exaggerated torso.

Thus, by moving the talisman into the other golem, Solera was trying to wrest away Burtie’s control of the mud, while also destroying his Vigor from the inside out. The writhing mud and stone tentacles that made up what was left of Solera’s Vigor sliced their way through the insides of Burtie’s golem, desperately searching for the control talisman. If he came into contact with it, then he would win the fight.

Burtie’s Vigor jammed its arms into where the stomach would be, slashing straight through the branches of mud that made up Solera’s Vigor and extracting a dirty paper.

“Nice try, kid.” Burtie grinned. His Vigor grew a head, from which a sphere of rock protruded. “But I encased my talisman with this shield. Unless you could break through that, you weren’t going to win.”

Solera stared at the sphere unhappily. He had actually seen that sphere multiple times, but had never been able to break it. Burtie had been hiding the talisman in plain sight the whole time!

Burtie walked up and clapped Solera on the shoulder. “You just need some more practice, son. If you can get Chip to make some more pills for me, we can do this again.”

Burtie’s Vigor crumbled into a pile of mud and stone as he stopped channeling power into his helmet. As Burtie went to retrieve the control talisman, Solera took off his helmet, taking out the signal talisman from his helmet. He handed it back to Burtie and trudged off to breakfast.

It had been a few days since they had arrived at Fortress Hickory. Though everyone complained about the long hours and grueling training, Solera didn’t really mind. Actually, he found that the lectures were quite relaxing, compared to Vinoh’s nonstop sparring.

Solera grabbed some food and sat down next to Chip, who was spooning broth into his mouth. The day they had arrived, Chip had unloaded all the talismans he had made over the course of the last month onto the armory. They had all been traded away with soldiers for contribution points, the military’s currency. Solera wasn’t sure what contribution points were used for, but Chip seemed to want them quite badly.

“You guys only want drugs.” Chip grumbled. “All my crumble talismans and high jump talismans, but you want drugs.”

Ignoring the small talk, she put a one hundred CP (contribution points) note on the table. “I have the money, Chip.”

Chip nodded, rolling a capsule of pills to her. “This is the last batch I made. Next time, I’ll be working at the workshop in an official capacity.”

The girl rolled her eyes, popping out a pill. “So Selim found out that fast, huh? How much is he taxing?”

Chip shrugged. “Your military provides the materials and I make the pills. It’s a symbiotic relationship.”

Solera looked at them blankly. He never really understood what Chip was doing. Working day and night and cutting business deals instead of going to skipping class, what were his goals?

“Cool.” The girl washed the pill down with Solera’s water and left.

Solera stared at his empty glass, confused. That was his water!

Chip stood up, pocketing the contribution points. “I’m going back to the room.” He said bluntly as he walked away. Solera watched him leave, frowning. Chip was supposed to go to class after breakfast.

Solera suddenly thought of something. Putting on the Truesight goggles, he looked at the food curiously. While the table had turned into a colorless gray, the food was varying shades of orange and yellow. Although the food here tasted disgusting, it was saturated with a fair amount of power, which was excellent for cultivation.

This meant it was over ten times the price of unsaturated food. Solera had never eaten such things in his life. After all, he had lived in the Grove, which existed to export power-infused food. Naturally, his food would be of a higher quality.

After breakfast was a class in one of the rooms in the fortress, which used a lift to ferry people up and down the tree. There was no opening on the ground floor; rather, the entrance to the fortress was forty meters above ground level. Solera stared at the jet black tree as they ascended.

This tree was actually not made out of wood, but rather Siehnti, the most powerful material in the world! It was said that the Ancients could make Siehnti from anything; tar, sand, magma, even wood. The technique, however, had been lost long ago. As a result, the remaining Siehnti swords and armor were beyond value.

Yet this gargantuan fortress was actually made entirely of Siehnti! How many hundreds of thousands of swords could it make? It was no wonder Fortress Hickory was one of the wonders of Eden.

During their tour, Fayvitt had taken out an axe and hacked several times at the fortress. Not even a scratch had appeared on the tree, but the axe had cracked into two. This fortress was ridiculous, to tell the truth.

Solera was ten minutes early to the class, which was held atop a particularly large branch. There were very few children there, and they were from other cities in Eden, like the capital. They had their own friend groups, so Solera had not spoken to them a single time since he had arrived. He sat down on the ground, leaning against the curving wall of the branch.

Pinot walked in with Cassady, waving to some boy whom they had not journeyed with. After glancing at Solera, she sat down next to another group of girls. She hadn’t spoken to Solera ever since that random incident on the Bamboo eagle.

Solera held his spare card, channeling power into it out of boredom. After a while, the yellow card took on a miniscule hue of green as more Iotas were created from the power being channeled into the card.

Like meditating, creating Iotas was a slow, arduous process. It was definitely not worth the effort with so many Iotas in circulation already, but the thought of creating money out of otherwise unused power was very attractive, so people frequently did it in their spare time. The practice also helped to strengthen the channels, so many aspiring channelers chose to channel with cards.

After a minute, Solera stopped channeling power for fear of falling asleep from exhaustion and stared up at the ceiling as kids around him babbled on and on. He had spent the whole morning controlling, and now had exhausted the power stored in his Lake, which meant he would be drowsy for the next hour.

At some point, a short, plump man walked onto the branch. This was Lieutenant Ming, a long-winded intellectual who enjoyed embellishing his points.

“Ahem.” He coughed, causing the hubbub to die down. “Class is in session, everyone. Today, we’re going to talk about Sky.”