Finally out of school, Augus could now do so much more. With ideas swirling in his head he wanted to rush home and start working but as the top 2 in his generation he also had to give a speech. But first came the speech the only one who could match his pace, Lu:

  - “After years of nightless days we have finally graduated. I congratulate all of you, my classmates and wish you well on your journey.”

  He then proceeded to step down, like he just gave more than a 20 seconds speech. They were clearly not his forte but even Augus was left frozen when he just stopped. Left with no choice by the pleading eyes of the professors, Augus stood up for his speech, luckily he had already prepared it.

  - “Thank you, Lu, for your… encouraging words.” -He was just gonna roll with it, if Lu was shameless enough to give a speech like that, he could only match him and gloss over it. – “After four years of studying in one of the most demanding schools of the country I can confidently say that all of you are capable of achieving great things. Even if our role in this society is not of front liners you must not be discouraged. We can accomplish great things, we have to accomplish great things.”

  The mood went down a bit after the last part, although none of them had fought a real one, they all had seen the damage the enemy could inflict in their world.

  - “So I ask you, develop yourselves, be better. Better people, better makers, better cultivators. So that we may win and vanquish the Siphons in our generation.”

  Although none took the last part to heart, they thought it to be too much of a pipe dream, the mood improved regardless.

  - “Just do what you do best and we will have a better future. Congratulations to us and, to a golden era.” – He just closed it off with a traditional catchphrase when he realized that non of them would want to listen to the rest of his goals. They were unrealistic for them as fresh graduates so they might as well be just nonsense.

  After a respectful applause he took his seat again so that the professors could finally put an end to their graduation ceremony.

  * * *

  He was finally in his room, after the ceremony, a few photos and the crying of his parents (and maybe a little bit of his). He didn’t talk much with Lu after his speech, they had already said most of what they had to tell each other before the graduation.

  Augus would go freelance while Lu would join one of the big companies, not because he didn't receive offers, he got a lot of them. But because what he wanted the most was the freedom to create, to make his own successes and failures and a Sect was never an option for neither of them. Not having a boss who told him what to focus on would have him making wonders and he knew it. He wasn’t unsure, not about his skills at least.

  Although he really wanted to take a nap after the toll of the day he was too excited to start his own projects. Before heading in tho, he had to run his routine check, after four years of drilling they had become part of him. First, his apertures, from top to bottom, the head, open and clean. The chest, open and… a bit dirty, he had to do a cleaning before resuming. He gathered spiritual energy in front of his chest (he couldn’t use the other apertures and meridians before checking them) and created a spiral outwards from his chest aperture. After he expelled the tiny impurities from his chest he let the energy disperse outside of his body, the impurities, because of their small amount, were like grains of dark sand.

  The rest of his body didn’t seem to have any problems, he checked arms, legs and feet. So now a quick scan of his meridians, they were open (of course) and, as expected, free of impurities, he never used much of his chest aperture to absorb energy after all. Finally, his dantian, it was half full, because he still had the last model working after his finals. Now he new what to take care of first then, get rid of his final work, as painful as it may be. How many hours did he dedicate to the thing?, a few weeks went solely to actually making it so more at least a few months certainly. Why did the professor decide on such a useless model for the last test anyway?. Add to that the constant up-keeping that had him at almost a negative level of absorption, because of course keeping up with such an inefficient design as this one was part of the score… “Focus.”

  Yes, no more stalling, he had to unravel the old model or he would never be able to work on anything else. To begin he stopped sending energy to the model, then he started unraveling the nodes and sadly sending the excess energy to the open, his dantian was already full with the energy in the first node, of nine…

  So, over the course of two hours he just erased all his work until finally he was free of the burden of such a classic model nicknamed “Little Siphon” by his classmates for it’s maddening energy requirements.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Now, even though he wanted to start working, it was late enough for dinner so Augus went out of his room to help prepare the table and sat to eat with his parents. After telling them about his plans for the day his parents just told him:

  - Take it easy and remember to get some sleep, meditation doesn’t replace sleep at your stage.

  He knew that, but the warning was warranted considering his previous ‘mistakes’.

  After a good meal that was becoming less and less of a need and more of a liking he went back to his room to start simulating. Why simulate? Because in the words of his favorite teacher, “it’s way cheaper than actually creating.” Thanks to him he had managed to master the ability of making actually good simulations instead of being stuck at creating and destroying every time he wanted to test an idea, or in the case of the aforementioned test, being forced to create a ready made model with horrible optimization, which to boot, he had to maintain himself.

  Now he would use it on the final test before submission of his ecosystem, as he liked to call this particular creation of his. Instead of the training dojos or training arenas of others, his training ecosystem aimed to be dynamic. The problem he solved, a few days ago in fact, was the energy problem, trying to keep up a complex system like the one he was aiming for was too energy demanding to be feasibly maintained by the government. Keyword being was, he had finally solved his roadblock, it was simply formations, the foundational element of a good World Maker. They were his first solution to be honest but because most of the formations he had been thought up until his third year at school were the classic illusion, killing and trapping formations, he couldn’t be blamed for not thinking about mathematical formations. They were a niche type of formations which after the advent of computers had become basically obsolete. What he could do with these was combine them with Siphon monster simulation formations (of course they have a category on their own) and input enough situations to emulate actual intelligence.

  First, he had to simulate the terrain, he would go for the classic forest template with minor modifications here and there that he had made (like taller trees with dense foliage and some fog for extra curses). Then the formations core, just below the little landmass which will control and direct everything that goes on the creation. The only modification he had made of the Siphon monster formations was their creation. Instead of random points were they simply appear into existence, he had made it so they imitated the actual mechanism of a Siphon monster to be created, from a Siphon, a simulated one but a Siphon nonetheless. So it had all the nasty effects, lower spiritual energy density and a minor passive spiritual energy loss, mostly because anymore and neither he nor the Fighters to use his creation could withstand it. Because he had to create an actual cycle were the energy wasn’t actually lost after it entered, every bit of spiritual energy the government lend his creation had to be used, even if he returned it to the small world were his “World” was in (it’s more like a small island in size), it would count as a loss in the government books.

  Then the mathematical formations which if nothing else were cheap to run, if outdated, the final touch was his signature, which he had to put in the core as per regulations.

  Now, finally he could run a simulation, a short one, he didn’t want to exhaust himself out of spiritual energy by running a days long one. A 6 hours one would let him check any problems in the design.

  In the first hour it went as designed, he placed dummies as Fighters stand ins and had the Siphon monsters detect them as real. The second hour was the same, no apparent problems. It was by the fourth hour he finally noticed a problem, the cycle wasn’t good enough and it was losing energy, a small amount of spiritual energy was being returned to him, which wasn’t supposed to happen, as it meant it was being released into the outside of the “World”. So after a minor bug fixing round he let it restart, this time it went as smooth as butter, no weird interactions between Siphon monsters, no weird responses to cultivators, no over or under absorption of spiritual energy. It worked as intended and that filled him with satisfaction, now all he had to do was wait until tomorr… That was the sun, the sun was rising. Just when he was about to enter panic mode and start prepping for school did he realize that wasn’t necessary anymore. It was only then that it really downed on him that he was actually a graduate, no more school in ever. While he thought about all this the sun kept rising, it must have been no later than 5 or 6 am if it was just appearing which meant he had about 3 to 4 hours until the Department of World Makers (DWM) opened. He could make it, he would just go sleep deprived, nothing unusual if he was being honest with himself. One hour to recoup his spiritual energy and another to Solidify his simulation, then he had at least an hour to arrive, because it was actually 6 am. Thanks to the government making the opening time 9 am instead of the typical 8, he didn't know why but it really helped him now.

  *

  It never crossed his mind to grab something to eat before running out of his house, so now he was hungry on his way to the DWM. To which he arrived just in time for the opening of, an empty opening that thought him why the opening time was later than other departments. No one came here early it seemed, aside of the government personnel obviously. His submission of the “World” was rather quick, they asked him size (an area of about 10 km) , type (live combat); that got their attention but no comments, and finally cultivation level, which helpfully just needed a minimum and a maximum (min: Qi condensation, max: Foundation establishment) as his own cultivation was at the second realm only, he couldn’t really make a stronger version. They didn’t ask more questions aside of his personal and contact information so he was on his merry way back home in just fifteen minutes. Where he proceeded to eat and shortly after, pass out/sleep.