“You’re not part of the Resurgence initiative, right?”

“Partially true, Gaius.” Nalus fiddled with a lock of silver hair as he walked alongside Gaius and Nakama. The three were in a building made of stone, one of the many that dotted the interior of Heritage Basestation.

“In that case, why are you attending the Artificing lecture?”

“No rule saying that non-Harvesters can’t,” replied Nalus. “In fact, even our sentries are allowed to attend, although they must be off-duty to do so. Basically, if you’re here in Heritage Basestation, you have the privilege of attending. Even our lecturers do attend other lectures at times. More importantly, artefacts are key to fighting wars.”

“How so?”

“You’ll find out in a moment.”

Nalus pointed at the classroom in front of him, which at first glance looked like it could fit around thirty people. “Lecturer Shirou’s class is very popular, if we go by the mere fact that there are always students listening from outside or without a desk whenever there’s a lecture or class.”

The small crowd blocking the doorway of the classroom parted as the three drew near. There were a couple of whispers about how people were abusing their power and privilege, but Gaius wasn’t hearing any of it. Nalus sat down on a chair that had been hastily vacated by its former occupant, and motioned for the other two to do the same.

Minutes ticked by as the classroom and the corridor outside began to fill up. It was fortunate that Heritage Basestation was in an eternal winter, or else Gaius might have started sweating somewhat.

Light flickered in front of the teacher’s desk, and a white-haired man walked out. He was clad in a black long coat, and his well-defined body rippled as he turned his head to survey the class. There was a billowing presence around him, one that drew people’s eyes to him naturally.

It was an odd power.

“According to our records, Lecturer Shirou’s beast trait is that of a lion’s majesty,” whispered Nalus. “You should be able to feel it keenly too; how every movement of his draws attention.”

Gaius nodded, his curiosity somewhat mollified. It was the first time he’d heard about an intangible aspect, but Orb was a world of mysteries.

“I’ve heard that there are new students here,” said the lecturer, “so I’ll be going through a short introduction on artificing and artefacts for their sake. I’m not too sure who or where they are, but if you can hear me, please pay attention to this point.”

Silence followed for a moment, and then Lecturer Shirou continued to speak. “What is artificing? Simple. It’s the process of imbuing tools with qi to create items with numerous effects. By storing enough qi into a small enough place, you create a compressed resource of energy that, when passed through certain pathways, are able to create effects like ranged attacks.”

The lecturer rapped his knuckles on the table. “This is particularly important in Heritage, since qi cannot be used there. However, when qi is stored outside the body, it turns back into its primordial form — Ether, the chilly energy people feel when cultivating — which can be used in Heritage.”

“In Orb itself, these tools are more efficient.” He took out a wooden baton. “I’m sure some of you recognise this. It’s the baton that is issued to sergeant majors of any battalion, but it’s not an ordinary item by any account. When activated, it can ward off both physical and energy attacks, and can block a Knight’s full-powered attack three times before shattering. There are other aspects to it, of course, but these are military secrets.”

Gaius glanced at the baton. It looked like a wooden rod, barely longer than his forearm, but if it could ward off attacks…well, Gaius wasn’t really going to care what it looked like then.

“We’ll be teaching you how to make tools like this every lesson,” continued the lecturer, “Every class will touch on a new tool, the materials to make it and the pathways to be inscribed. If you miss one class, either find me or practice on your own with the textbook I’ll later issue for all newcomers.”

He placed a small stack of books on his desk. “Now, we’ll move on to the topic of today’s lesson. By popular demand, I’ll be going through the procedures to create a Curved Shot artefact. The principles of this artefact are similar to those of Simple Shot, but the curving effect can be hard to pull off accurately.”

Lecturer Shirou took out a rifle-like object, and then dismantled it to show the cross-section. He held it up to the class. “Here, you can see that there are two adjustment mechanisms for the relevant pathways, one of which governs the distance the blast flies before it begins to turn, while the other decides the angle of the turn.”

“For the first pathway, we use…”

Gaius began to zone out. Although he could understand the individual meanings behind the words he said, the concepts and ideas behind the lecture was foreign to him. All he could see was the man gesturing and pointing at different areas of what seemed like a gun to him, but clearly wasn’t, while learning nothing entirely.

“I suppose I’ll have to read the textbook first,” muttered Gaius. He turned to look at Nakama, who had to be bored out of her mind too…and found her listening attentively to the lecture. He then turned to look at Nalus, whose eyes were gleaming brightly, and then realised that everyone else in this classroom apparently knew what the lecture was about.

Gaius felt his pride and ego crumble slightly from the shock, and minutes slipped by as he tried to recover from the shock. Narrowing his eyes, Gaius focused on the lecturer again, who had just reassembled the artefact.

“Operation of the Curved Shot, other than adjusting range and angle, is the same with other Shot artefacts.” Lecturer Shirou raised the artefact, and then fired. There was a flash of blue light, which turned upwards after a few metres to impact harmlessly on the ceiling.

Grey dust fell as a small crack formed, but that was the extent of it.

“One final thing to note is that the Curved Shot can only fire half as many times as the Straight Shot, since a good amount of Ether is used to guide the turn.” The lecturer placed the artefact to his side. “Now, if there aren’t any questions, class is dismissed. Newcomers, stay behind.”

He patted the small pile of books by his side.