Laia knelt there, staring at the tiny crystal-crested creature on her palm, and still could not quite see what all the fuss was about. It made cold and hot. It put rocks back together. Neat, certainly, but hardly world-shaking.
Gimli Stonefist stepped forward before she could say another word, rubbing his calloused hands together with poorly contained eagerness. "If the wee thing can summon heat on command, I could put it to work in the forges. No more tending the fires. No more wasted charcoal. Fine precision on every blade."
King Theron huffed a laugh, sharp and amused, and shook his head. "Putting it to work at the forge would be the greatest waste of power this kingdom has ever seen. Master this ability properly, and it will rewrite every rule of how we live."
Laia's brow lifted. That was a bold claim. "What do you mean?"
Theron's eyes were bright, the sharp, hungry glint of a man who has spent years staring at blueprints he could never build. "It breaks the limits of every craft we know. All the ideas I've set aside—all the machines that couldn't work because no fuel burned hot enough, no metal held strong enough, no seal stayed tight enough? This little creature makes them possible."
Laia did not fully follow, but she trusted Theron's knack for squeezing value out of everything. She looked down at the tiny beast, which blinked up at her with amethyst eyes, and tapped it gently on the crystal crest.
"Alright. You two are in charge of it for now. Your name's Imp," she said. "Be good. Don't pick up any bad habits from these heathens."
Imp tilted its head. Then it glanced over at Theron, who was staring at it like a starving man staring at a full feast, and its tiny body trembled.
Wait, it thought, wordless and panicked. This one looks scary. Take me with you. Don't leave me here.
Laia was already turning away, her mind on the tournament and her dorm and the thousand small worries of the world above. She did not notice the little creature's distress. She waved a hand over her shoulder and vanished in a soft glow of golden light.
Once the god was gone, Theron did not waste a second. He scooped Imp up very carefully, as if handling a shard of starlight, and carried it down to the sealed royal workshop beneath the castle—his private vault of half-built devices and half-proven theories.
Imp perched on a stone workbench, shivering slightly, as the human king leaned in, his voice steady and deliberate.
"Your power reverses entropy. You turn disorder into order. You turn scattered, useless energy back into something you can hold and use."
Imp hesitated, then nodded its tiny head.
Theron smiled. It was not a cruel smile, but it was the smile of a man who has just seen the door to a whole new world swing open.
"Good. Then I need you to do something for me. I need you to run your power on the carcasses of void beasts. Pull the taint apart. Sort the energy. Extract that strange, corrosive essence from their flesh. Cleanly. Completely."
He leaned forward slightly, his voice low with quiet fervor.
"If you can do that… we're going to build something that will turn this whole world upside down."
Laia's eyes fluttered open back in her dorm room. The first rays of dawn were seeping through the tall windows.
She stretched, and for the first time in years, she did not wake up with a cold twist of anxiety in her stomach about crystals and food and keeping the lights on. The spark was lit. The Imp was down there, already hard at work. Things were looking up.
She grinned to herself, swinging her legs over the bed.
She was practically a scholar now, wasn't she? Third Rank, divine spark lit, oracle crafting skill sharper than most. When she graduated, she could walk right into one of the great merchant houses, get a stable position, work her way up. Maybe even buy her own little house someday. No more scrounging. No more counting every last crystal. Just a quiet life, slow cultivation, and steady pay.
The thought made her feel light enough to float all the way to class.
She left the dorm building bright and early, and spotted the academy's old stray hound dozing on the stone steps by the gate. Rusty, the students called him—scrappy, yellow-furred, perpetually grumpy.
"Hey, Rusty," she said, cheerful, leaning down to offer a pat. "Long time no see. Looking good."
Rusty opened one eye, looked her up and down, and sniffed with utter disdain.
He knew this one. Moody thing. End of every month, she'd trudge past with a face like a thundercloud, kick a stone right next to him just to take her bad mood out on something. Start of every month? All smiles and coos, trying to pet him like they were old friends.
He stood up, shook himself, and trotted away without a second glance.
Women, he thought. Can't figure 'em out. One day she's yelling at a street cart for being too expensive. Next day she's cooing at it like it's the prettiest thing in the world. Not worth the hassle.
Laia did not take it personally. She was already thinking about the monthly stipend. It was almost the start of the month. Free resource cards. Free crystals. Beautiful.
The second she stepped through the academy gates, her whole demeanor shifted. The easy grin faded. Her shoulders settled back. Her face went calm, reserved, politely distant—the quiet, unassuming scholarship student who kept to herself.
Old habits died hard. Even with her problems solved, she knew better than to draw attention.
She found a seat in the lecture hall and pulled out one of her old textbooks, flipping to the section on divine familiars. She'd never paid much attention before; familiars were for rich kids. But now she had one.
The words on the page made her eyes go wide.
Divine familiars are among the most valuable assets a young deity can possess. They share in their god's authority, amplify their power in battle, and grow alongside their master's rank. Even the most common, low-grade familiar fetches no less than one thousand divinity crystals on the open market. Top-tier specimens with unique abilities have sold for well over one hundred million.
Laia's mouth went dry.
One thousand crystals. Minimum.
That was a hundred days of living expenses. A whole season of breathing room.
She pressed a hand to her chest, where she could feel the faint, warm echo of Imp down in her kingdom.
No, she told herself firmly. We're not selling him. We need him.
But the back of her mind couldn't stop doing the math. Higher ranks meant higher costs. The divine ore veins wouldn't last forever. If the clans kept growing, if the kingdom kept expanding… she'd need more income. A lot more.
Maybe she should pick up a side job. Something on the Nexus. Crafting low-grade cards, maybe. Repair work. She was good at cobbling things together from scrap. In this economy, you could never have too many income streams.
She was still mentally scrolling through possible side hustles when the classroom door slammed open.
Lyra Voss marched in, looking thoroughly miserable, her shoulders hunched. Then she spotted Laia, and her face lit up like a festival lantern. She darted across the room and threw her arms around Laia's waist in a flying tackle hug.
Laia wheezed, caught off guard, and patted her awkwardly on the back.
"By the gods, Lyra. You're going to knock us both over. A little dignity, please? You're a noble heir."
"Ugh, don't start with the noble heir stuff," Lyra groaned, dropping into the seat beside her and slumping forward onto the desk. "I got lectured for two hours straight last night by every elder in the family. All rules, all expectations, all tournament this and gala that. I'm so tired of it. At least here I don't have to be perfect all the time."
Laia sighed softly, staring down at her textbook.
Everyone else came to the academy to cut loose and be themselves. She came here to put on a mask. To be small, and quiet, and unremarkable, so no one would bother her. It was safer that way.
But things were different now. Her tiny rented room on the edge of town was almost up on its lease. Before, she'd had to commute every day, because the dorm girls stayed up all night studying and training, and she'd needed every minute of sleep to conserve her dwindling essence. Now? With the ore stabilizing her leakage, with Imp handling the kingdom's waste? She didn't have to worry about that anymore.
Staying on campus would be safer. Easier. No more walking past Rusty the judgmental hound every morning.
She'd move into the dorms. She'd decided.
She glanced sidelong at Lyra, who was already rambling about her cousin's latest annoying scheme.
The Voss clan was one of the biggest in the empire. Even if she never made it big, even if her kingdom never amounted to much… a good word from Lyra could get her a foot in the door at the Voss card forges. A steady job, decent pay, no risk of starving.
She looked away, staring down at her notebook, and a faint, bitter little smile tugged at her mouth.
She wondered how much of this friendship would still be there, come graduation day.
She wondered if it would be enough.