Aeres Academy - Chapter 27 preview

By the point where Professor Wynn had finished giving her warnings, everyone was well and truly tired of plants and other minerals. Of course, we all perked up once she got to the Mana cores and shards, because that was where we would be making most of our income. Even Rayzan stopped lounging and sat-up.

"Mana cores. Beast cores. Core stones. Core spheres. Mana crystals. Stones." She ticked off the various names with a simple rapidity. "It matters not what you call them, and there are regional variations. The cores are the main goal of delves for the majority of Adventurers, most especially for those of you traversing the Aeres fault."

“Why’s that, Professor?” Kira again.

“Why, you all, of course.” Wynn smiled at the group, shaking her head. “Other faults can take their time, carefully manage the other resources-” a hand gestured down to the other tables, “and ensure they are taken out a little at the time. Did you know that there are spelled glyphs and enchantments that can grow metals or crystals utilizing ambient core energy to further develop these resources. Properly cared for, a fault can be quite a bountiful endeavor for such resources.” 

I noted a few in the group who nodded along to the comment. I assumed they came from other dungeon families, people who worked the dungeon itself as cleaners, harvesters or miners or perhaps received the byproducts of such items. A large part of Haeros’ industry – in fact, Tioneth’s main industrial output – was focused around the dungeon and extracting resources from it. 

Considering that just the first few levels of the dungeon cross anywhere from a third to half the city itself, and probably have more square footage than the city in total, well… it’s no surprise there are a large number of families tied to the dungeon.

No surprise either that many of those tied to the dungeon eventually end up joining academies. Some, of course, just apprentice directly under the relevant companies or guilds. Sometimes, they work with their parents, falling directly into the job – just like a blacksmith’s son might become a smith himself, a cobbler’s son a cobbler, a dungeon miner would showcase their world to their children. Or push them to related and less dangerous, less arduous or more prestigious occupations.

Thus, the preponderance of such individuals in an academy like Aeres.

“So the students destroy the environment?”

“The number of students.” She held a finger up. “It’s why other faults, the ones that are set-up to allow tourists, for the casual visitor to get their thrills or experience the under world are relatively empty of threats. The majority are only able to sustain themselves by pushing as many visitors as possible through, not with the taxes and other upkeep costs of such a fault.”

Now, Rayzan spoke up for the first time, other students who had meant to speak up quieting. The hierarchy in the class was fast appearing, at least in our year. “What costs?”

“Buildings, trainers, guards, the enchantments,” she waved a hand around. “Even the cost of the inspectors who come by are paid by the academy. I’m sure if you’re interested in such things, you can speak with the chancellor. That is, frankly, out of the purview of this class.”

Turning, she returned to the table and stopped, not at the cores that sat at one end but to a series of long, rectangular boxes where the shards lay. “Now, how many of you know what the major constituents that dictate the value of a shard or core?”

A lot of hands rose, some half held upwards, other shooting all the way up like Kira’s. I kept mine down, figuring that she would call on those who were particularly eager. I was proven right within moments as she pointed to one of the earliest to raise their hands.

“Cut, clarity, colour, carat and concentration.”

“Exactly,” Wynn said. She tapped each of the five boxes that contained variations of each aspect to further highlight the differences. I recognized them as shard broker boxes, work brought out to showcase differences in the event of a dispute, “It’s easier to understand such differences by studying shards, but each of these aspects give even orbs greater value. We will go over such aspects now.”

It amused me a little, that so much of the shards – and cores – followed the idea of purchasing gemstones in my old world. It wasn’t, of course, a one-to-one translation, and in many ways, it was very much a personal translation that I utilized to understand matters. For example, the word they used for carat was actually size and it certainly did not rhyme in their language, but for my own memorization; it helped to translate it into English.

“The cut of a shard - its shape will vary significantly, depending on the monster drawn from it. All shards come with a seed section, the concentrated core of power. Further work can be done by enchanters and core manipulators to further enhance a shard’s – or in rare cases, a core’s – value, by chipping away at growths.” She tapped the box before her, continuing. “Like most aspects of shard and core gathering, one cannot dictate the shards that you acquire, but as you progress, you might find yourself needing to be careful of which to carry, sacrifice, or leave behind.”

More than a few of the students winced at the idea of leaving what was literally money behind, but I was nodding along. There are stories, after all, of entire mountains of shards left or collected by certain monsters and the adventurers who stumbled upon them in deeper levels. Fortunes, awaiting the right person, if they could find them.

No wonder dimensional storage items were so expensive and in-demand.

“Clarity is how clear the shard is, though it also includes the shard or cores conductivity – the ability of the core to pass energy through, whether for storage or extraction. Most shards have a clarity rating at around the C and D range, with S level clarity only achievable via the work of core manipulators and A level, natural clarity extremely rare. For the most part, B level clarity is considered very good and will see a higher than normal payout.” She reached into the box, removing the S-level clarity shard to showcase the difference between that and a similar D level shard. “For the fault itself, you can expect mostly D level clarity shards, and our regular exchange rate is based off that clarity range.”

There’s no need to explain why higher conductivity is worthwhile, not to everyone here. After all, it affected the efficiency of Mana extraction, allowing one to pull more power from the same shard. Of course, the clarity could only adjust the value by a small amount, because it didn’t matter if you pulled more Mana from a tiny shard if the total amount was low in the first place.

Again, such things mattered more with cores; but for our purposes; it was unimportant.

Colour was easily passed through, mostly detailing elemental affinities. We would have to memorize the list, with certain affinities worth more – and others, specifically, extremely rare and/or unwanted affinities, lowering the cost. After all, no one needed a slime-elemental attuned shard.

“Carat is, of course, huge.” It sounded better in the native language, being a bit of a pun. It caused more than a few to snicker, before she showed the box in its entirety. “Remember, cut is the shape, carat is the size. You can often sacrifice size for cut, along with increasing clarity in some cases in the hands of a skilled jeweler.”

Finally, she moved on to the final determinant – concentration. In the end, that was the indicator of level, of how much power that a core or shard could contain. The deeper one went, the higher the concentration of energy that was contained in a shard or core. A single shard from those below the fifteenth floor could be worth more than a full core from a monster in the first fourteen or so levels, just because of the concentration of energy available.

Not always of course, you needed everything else to fall into place; but there was a reason that true delvers were in the upper middle class of this society at the least, if not trending towards upper class. It often depended upon their ability and how far they ventured. There was a delicate balance to play, if you intended to be a surface dweller between the deepest level you were attuned to and the amount of resources you could extract against the pain of returning to the surface.

“In most cases, you’ll want to trade your shards of lower concentration for those of higher.” Tapping the table and the cores, she ran a hand over them. “As always, while shards are useful for everyday enchanting and are the basic building blocks of our economy, the power source for the majority of our magics are cores. These must be worked and altered to become the orbs that we link ourselves to, and in the hands of a skilled orb enchanter; a mere B-grade orb could become as valuable as an A. As such, orbs are always in demand. No matter how many shards are collected, they cannot join together to make a core – not artificially at least.” 

No one interrupted her commentary, though all this was old news to everyone, even me. 

Entire branches of research were dedicated to the idea that we could, artificially, create cores from shards. It was the holy grail of core research, and a lot of bosses were thrown at it. Every few years, a new breakthrough would be announced, every few years, an old breakthrough would be discounted and the research methodology cast aside and everything would return to the start.

It reminded me a lot of nuclear fission research. Progressing, with a major breakthrough promised, but never, ever reached. 

Until that conundrum could be cracked, the only way to acquire cores was the dungeon.

Now that’s what I called job security.