“What is bothering you?” Vahl asked.

  At this point, he had begun to mentally distance himself, and he asked purely out of curiosity. The trial had been bearing down heavily on his mind, and Vahl needed some time to think through things.

  “My father gave me the task of picking up some information on his competitors, and the worker who was supposed to hand it to me disappeared. I think that he got scared because I checked his apartment and workplace and found out that he disappeared on the day the hand-off was supposed to happen.”

  Vahl looked at Drew as if the man had just said something silly: “You checked the docks, right?”

  Drew looked at Vahl in confusion: “The docks?”

  “If I were trying to get out of the city undetected, I would get on a ferry and escape through the canals. That way, you can avoid the checkpoints where people might be waiting for you. What sort of information are you looking for anyway?”

  Drew’s eyes shone with recognition: “How come I didn’t think of that. I guess I was stressed out because I didn’t want to disappoint my father on such a simple task. The information is literally just a competitor’s shipping import manifest from this warehouse.”

  Drew wrote the name of the company and the warehouse address on a piece of paper.

  “If you can find the papers for me, I will give you a common spell orb. My father gave me a basic budget of two million crowns for assembling my deck, so I can spare that much if you manage to help me with this.”

  Vahl took the paper and replied: “You’re going to go run to the docks now?”

  Drew awkwardly smiled: “Yes, I will. Perhaps we can continue this conversation at some other time.”

  He threw way too much money on the table and ran off.

  “I wish I wasn’t broke,” Vahl lamented.

  Becoming an arcanist was just the start. Continuing in your journey beyond the trials was more expensive than collecting castles as a hobby. The price for a loaf of bread was one tenth of a crown. A day’s worth of essentials was one full crown. A small manor would set you back half a million crowns. A common spell orb was worth between a quarter of a million and one hundred thousand crowns, depending on the specific spell.

  This was the reality of being an arcanist. Two common orbs could be exchanged for an apartment block. Such was their rarity and value. Spell orbs were vital to an arcanist. They allowed the casting of spells. Magical powers are far more powerful than any conventional weapon. That, combined with the difficulty of acquiring them, is what drives their extreme price.

  Most arcanists only ever collected as many orbs as their archetype gave them spell slots. That was why old families with massive collections of artifacts and orbs had dominated the continent for centuries.

  If Vahl wanted to compete with them, he would have to take extreme measures.

  It was rather late in the day, so the man decided to go home and rest.

  Upon closing his eyes and falling into slumber, Vahl was transported into his inner world.

  He found himself standing beside the gazebo, where the long grass tickled his feet.

  It was time he assessed his magical abilities.

  His archetype was “Architect.” It granted him four spell slots with three already filled by the spell orbs he scavenged during the trial.

  First was the red orb, which turned out to be a fireball projectile. The green orb that he had found inside the secret room allowed him to summon and control thorny vines. The purple orb was by far the weirdest one because nothing seemed to transpire upon activating it.

  An arcanist can cast any spell that is slotted in his deck. To do so, he must think of the spell and resolve the puzzle that appears in his mind’s eye. These can range from simple symbol configurations to complex mazes and combination games. Depending on the spell and the spell’s level, the casting time can vary from a millisecond to a minute. The more an arcanist practices casting a certain spell, the more proficient he becomes at it, and the spell’s level increases accordingly, requiring less cognitive bandwidth.

  Vahl summoned a practice field and a few targets and started flinging spells. At first, he missed every shot, but eventually he came to understand the basic principles of the fireball.

  His archetype’s unique ability was the power of designing the shape of the spell. Other arcanists had to rely on the spell’s base form, but Vahl could change the shape of the fireball to be a disk or a cross. He could make the thorns on the vines curved, or he could make them go away. As long as he was in the proximity of his own spell, he could mould it to his liking, albeit at the cost of a significant cognitive load.

  After hours of practice, Vahl concluded that his deck was in dire need of a defensive spell. The thorny vines were a nice utility spell with many uses, including defensive, but they could not be a substitute for even a common defensive spell like forcefield, liquid barrier, or dark shield.

  This inevitably led to the realisation that Drew’s issue was a great opportunity for him.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Most arcanists without the sponsorship of a major family needed ten to twenty years to put together a decently powerful deck. If Vahl acquired what Drew needed, then he would be skipping five years of toil or more. Saving up a quarter of a million crowns wasn’t easy. Vahl already sold the textile factory he inherited so that he could afford the Academy tuition. He was not planning on selling the family castle as well.

  Vahl realised that there were three ways to acquire the shipping manifest.

  The first was to don a disguise and steal it that way.

  The second was to put on a mask and beat up the guards.

  The third was to climb up two stories, jump through a window, and then find the warehouse admin office.

  "I am not yet used to the strength of my new body, so climbing is out of the picture."

  The main issue with the aggressive approach was that Vahl didn’t want to hurt these dreamless workers. He felt a certain noblesse oblige as most arcanists did.

  These people did nothing wrong. He was the one who was stealing the papers. And while Vahl did not feel guilty about working in his personal interest, he felt uncomfortable with hurting someone who was effectively a powerless bystander.

  Hence, he decided on the disguise approach.

  Naturally, he was smart, unlike the characters in most books he had read. He knew that prep time was crucial for executing this heist with a comfortable margin for error.

  Vahl decided to research publicly available information on the company, eventually picking a security chief whose contractor he was going to impersonate.

  Then, right before executing the operation, he made sure to find the telephone line leading to the building and cut it. He wasn't about to take unnecessary risks. If things went south, he wanted an extra time buffer to safely exfiltrate.

  He picked an exit point in the form of a biofuel-powered ferry and then a backup route in case he missed it.

  Then at noon, he entered the warehouse. He made sure to pick the hours with the highest traffic so that people wouldn't have time to ask him too many questions.

  He jogged into the ground floor of the warehouse in his pristine hat and coat. Compared to the grimy workers, he looked rather out of place. But that was the point of the disguise. He was impersonating an authority figure. If he disguised himself as a worker, people would immediately recognise him by his unfamiliar mannerisms and challenge him, which could lead to a fight.

  Some labourers rose up to observe him with curiosity, but most just ignored Vahl due to his confident posture.

  Vahl sauntered up the warehouse stairs towards the office section.

  That was when the first barrier arose.

  A worker and some sort of security guard were standing in front of the doorway that led to the office annex.

  They were chatting about something unintelligible.

  Private security was illegal in the capital, with some exceptions, like contracting arcanists for it. Dreamless were not allowed to wield firearms, so companies would just give them titles like receptionist or doorman and have them stand guard with a staff or baton, the purpose being intimidation.

  That's what the guys in front of Vahl seemed to be: doormen.

  He just walked past in the hope that they were too focused on their conversation to notice him.

  “Sir, the boss doesn’t let anybody enter the office annex during his lunch.”

  ‘I guess it won’t be that easy,’ Vahl thought.

  He had picked this moment to infiltrate because he saw the office workers leaving the building. Vahl correctly guessed that lunch time was different for ground-floor employees.

  “Kazersky sent me. I am on an investigation,” Vahl replied with confidence.

  “Big boss K sent you? But I don’t remember there being any sort of investigation.”

  Vahl got up close and personal with the receptionist to emphasize his position. He raised his left sleeve and showed off his cyan arcanist tattoo. The symbol faintly glowed as Vahl prepared a spell.

  “If you knew there was an investigation, you wouldn’t be freely walking around! This shit is on a need-to-know basis. Do you really want to know?” Vahl threatened.

  Even if the man hadn’t believed Vahl, there was no way he would dare speak against an arcanist ready to smite him. Even five dreamless could not defeat an arcanist in a fair fight. Such was the chasm between those who could dream and those who could not.

  The receptionist’s buddy grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him away from Vahl: “We meant no harm, Vir. We will get out of your way.”

  Vahl turned around and walked into the office annex. He was secretly sweating bullets, but it seemed like the men bought into his story.

  Vahl estimated that he had around ten minutes before the administrators returned from lunch and saw him. Perhaps the workers he scared off were already trying to call the main office. Once they realise that the phone isn’t working, they’ll run to a nearby building and call from there.

  Vahl quickly arrived at the admin office. It was locked as he had foreseen. He didn’t have the time to acquire key replicas, but with his strength, it would not be too hard to smash the lock.

  However, Vahl decided to try something quieter first.

  He cast his vine spell and summoned a thin brown branch that he modified with his architect archetype. The branch slithered into the lock and grew into all the pins, pushing them away and unlocking the door after Vahl turned the wooden key.

  Once he was in the office, he put on his gloves and started ransacking everything. He soon found the shipping manifesto in the second drawer behind the main table. He double-checked the authenticity and bolted it out of there.

  The receptionists had most likely already run to the administrator for help after they realised the phone wasn’t working.

  Every worker gave Vahl a wide berth on his way out, reinforcing Vahl’s suspicions.

  However, nothing outside of expectations happened. Vahl safely made it to the exfil point and hid in the crowd of passengers on the ferry. Soon, he arrived at his dwelling, where he ditched his clothes. Everything seemed to have gone according to plan.

  It was a sensible outcome since Vahl had made sure to prepare plenty of contingencies and planned every part of the heist well.

  He sat down and looked at the calendar. That was when Vahl realised that the academy started tomorrow. He had completely lost track of time. The trial, spell practice, and Drew’s issue. He had even forgotten about going to the Heritage Foundation.

  This was an issue he would have to amend tomorrow before the lecture. Now was the time for more nightly practice.