Despite the surprise Augus wasn’t worried for his parents, they appeared mostly calm and maybe even a little excited. The stranger was peculiar, as they give the vibe of a strict teacher, with impeccable robes, a straight posture and a calm and scholarly aura.
With various questions floating in his head Augus approached the trio. His mom was the first to notice his arrival. “Perfect timing honey. Sir, here’s my son.” It seemed the stranger was looking for him instead of his parents.
“Perfect indeed madam. Greetings Augus, my name is Dominic and I have been sent here as part of your military assignment reward.” The second part he addressed to Augus after turning around.
“The formations instructor? I didn’t expect you until next month.”
“Yes, the classes will start next month but I like to be thorough in my teaching so I get to know the students beforehand and fill out any paperwork.” Augus believed him, though he suspected the second reason weighted more than the first, no one liked paperwork after all.
“Then please come in, we can’t be having a conversation out in the street, can we?”
Instructor Dominic entered the house and accepted the tea they offered, after a few pleasantries with Augus’s parents he focused on him.
“Let me introduce myself properly Augus, I’m Dominic, an external contractor for the military that is called for teaching from time to time or help with a formation or two. I’m a Master Formations professional and I’m to be your instructor during the next month. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“The pleasure is all mine sir.” Augus made a pause to give the window for Dominic to add anything, when he didn’t he continued. “So, sir, to what do I owe the early visit?”
“I need your help with some of the paperwork that needs to be filled out for the lessons and also to understand you.” A small pause to wet his throat later. “It would help for me to know what we will be working with, what do you know of formations, what do you not know and what you don’t know you ignore. This will take time though, so for now lets talk about your current level and goals.”
“I believe I’m at an Expert level though I haven’t taken any tests to check. My main objective to learn formations is to help in the building of my Worlds projects.”
“So Formations would be your sub-profession, a way to help your main World Maker one. That’s quite common between World Makers. Though there’s a lot that choose from the other professions Formations keeps being the most popular for obvious reasons.”
He didn’t seem to think that naming those reasons was necessary and it really wasn’t. Augus knew why most World Makers chose formations because it was the same reason he chose it. Formations opened an array of options when building a World.
This didn’t mean the other professions couldn’t accomplish what Formations could, thinking about Augus’s cultivation chamber for example. Though he designed it with formations an Artifact refiner or a Machinist could have accomplished similar or even better results.
What sub-specializing in formations gave was versatility, while other professions were restricted in the areas they could excel, Formations could help in all areas and even excel in it’s own niche.
The best example being the “Research realm”, the way Augus approached it was only possible because of formations. Maybe other professions could have achieved similar results, but through a wholly different path.
Like, instead of giving a False soul to the Magical beasts and puppets through the “Enlightenment” technique, a Machinist would have created a factory that created responsive puppets beyond what is normally possible. An Alchemist could have created a potion that would do something similar to the “Enlightenment” technique.
If a World Maker created a good, functional World depended on their skill, how they did it was mostly dependent on their sub-profession. And a formations master allowed Augus to either, create a Garden for the growth of spiritual plants or a factory that could churn out machines, without being an expert of neither discipline.
Augus got out of his musings and refocused on the conversation. “Though many teachers may consider a certain level of expertise sufficient for someone who chooses formations as a sub-profession, I do not. I consider that if you are going to focus on formations over any of the other available professions I have the responsibility to let whatever passion and talent you have for the craft to flourish.” Augus liked this approach more than he realized as it resonated with how he understood World Making in general.
He could either create a World that would allow a cultivator to achieve what was expected of them or he could make one that would let them develop to their limits or, if he put sufficient effort in his craft, to go beyond their limits. It didn’t matter whether they took the chance, it mattered that he left the option available to anyone willing.
This mentality, Augus realized, was why despite his two published Worlds being a public success he would never go back to them to improve them unless necessary. From their very conception they never aimed to teach or guide a cultivator in their path, but to generate revenue and maybe help someone in their practice or experiment, something nice to have but not indispensable. And what Augus realized he wanted to make was that, something, a World, so great it became indispensable for any cultivator. A creation which cultivators would use for decades or centuries and that will inspire the generations to come, a Magnum Opus for all humanity.
And all this grand dreams rested, at least partially, on the man in front of him, instructor Dominic. For the first time since he entered Augus really studied the man, past the exterior of a strict yet calm scholar was a fighter. Not in the cultivation meaning but in the character, someone who had to fight and defend themselves of enemies who tried to kill him and his comrades. His slightly tense muscles that were ready for danger, and his analytical look that judged where was the safest exit and who might need in case of an emergency.
Which was expected, Dominic wouldn’t be affiliated with the military if he was only a scholar, only someone who understood the war against the Siphon from first experience would stay with the military despite the need for absolute obedience when ordered.
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This meant that Augus could learn formations from the man and maybe something extra, like what needed a warrior who had to confront the Siphon when the city was at their back. What was needed and what were unnecessary flourishes when training. And mainly, what differentiated a living Fighter from a dead one.
Augus told the instructor about this, his mentality and his goals. It erased his relaxed demeanor, his posture changed to a focused one, he knew who Augus was, mostly.
The military had given him basically all the information available about Augus but even that didn’t prepare him for the ambition of the young man which, if Dominic was honest, was expected, someone talented like Augus usually had a goal or ambition that fueled their progress.
What separated Augus from most of these talents was that he is realistic, it didn’t matter how grand and innovative his ideas were if he couldn’t convince others they were achievable.
As such this meeting dictated how Augus’s teaching was going to be, he needed to make his goals clear. “Instructor, although I like creating and coming up with ideas as a World Maker and a Formations master my main objective is aiding humanity.”
This gave Dominic pause as he seemed to recognize what Augus’s goal was. “So, what else do you request of me?” He expected a typical answer, maybe grandeur dreams of winning the war with a single creation or some other grand, unrealistic goal. But there was something else there, anticipation for a goal, an answer that wasn’t grounded in imagination but in concrete, short goals.
“Though I would like to win this war,” Augus chose his words carefully, this man had already seen many students who spoke of unrealistic goals, he wanted something concrete. “currently that is beyond my capabilities. So I would like to address a problem that I know I can help with with my current skill, even if I can’t solve it from the root.”
“I would like your help, aside from your formations instruction, to create a World that will help the new recruits of the military.” This managed to pleasantly surprise Dominic, this was a problem he knew of. The military did constant calls for recruitment that, regardless of their cultivation level, always resulted in a staggering number of dead recruits despite the veteran’s efforts to help them. It didn’t matter how strong they were individually, against an army of invading Siphon monsters the recruits were helpless, they weren’t prepared to react against such an unexpected attack from a massive army.
This was because true veterans were rare, not the ones that survived an attack by pure luck but those that kept calm and contributed in the defense despite how off guard they were caught by the enemy, there weren’t enough to keep the greenhorns alive during such a chaotic fight. Powerful cultivators were of little help in invasions of this type as the Siphon always sent monsters strong enough to keep the higher realms busy, at least long enough that they couldn’t alter the course of the lower realms war.
The military had, of course, tried to solve this matter, but the solutions never stuck, it would work for one invasion and by the next attack the Siphon’s would have adapted to whatever strategy the military trained its new recruits on and the cycle would restart.
Augus knew this problem had no easy solution but he also expected that with the help and teachings of a true veteran Formations Master he would have a good shot.
“An ambitious one, aren’t you? Your parents would be surprised had they heard you right now.” Only with this comment did Augus realize his parents had, at some point, left them both alone while they retreated to their room.
“I think that with your help I might have shot.”
“You will have to prove yourself worthy of that help. I don’t want to waste my time and the military’s resources on another hopeless ambitious. We have had many people trying to solve this problem, from internal military to external contractors yet none have been able to solve the root problem. What can you do that all of the haven’t done?”
Augus took a moment and a sip of his tea, to think about Dominic’s question, but just found blank. He had too little information about the current state of affairs to propose anything concrete so he expressed that but proposed something else. “For the moment I don’t have anything concrete, but I can throw a few ideas and you can tell me how feasible they are and whether they have been tried before.”
“It seems I was too hasty there. Please, the least I can do is answer your questions.”
“Then I will start from the obvious, group training?”
“Descended into chaos when injuries started to appear. A missing arm isn’t easy to recover from at most realms.”
“Hidden masters that can jump in when the situation gets ugly?”
“Either the Siphon send another monster to stall the guy from who knows where or they pile enough grunt forces they can’t do much.”
“Artifacts, machines, poisons that can target groups of enemies?”
“We need people to use them and they end up targeted by droves before they can do any lasting damage.”
Like that Augus continued to throw ideas at Dominic while he answered with how they had all spectacularly failed. This back and forth continued for almost two hours until Dominic got tired.
“Look, everything you have proposed either has already failed or is unfeasible because it’s too risky or too difficult to pull off consistently. I will just teach you formations like a normal student and we can forget about all this.”
All the hope Dominic had harbored was gradually grinded by the reminder of their repeated failures, by this point the military just sent the new recruits back home if an invasion was underway. The Siphon were careful enough not to send the same amount than during a normal invasion as if they knew that would be answered with more high level combatants than they could stall.
The bastards sent just enough monsters to kill how many they could while not being enough to necessitate an overwhelming response. They couldn’t throw such a counterattack all the time, the attacks weren’t so rare to allow for that.
“Wait, just one more, the last one. It’s actually the best solution that occurred to me during our conversation.”
“Fine, what’s one more after all this? Go on, let me see how crazy you are.” At this point most gave their most nonsensical ideas because that was all they had left.
“Thank you, first, have you played any of these new video games that are around?” Though they weren’t really new for Augus, he didn’t know how old was Dominic so he just formulated the question like he was at least his grandparents age.
“Yeah, I have seen some of my grandkids playing that stuff, why?”
“Because I want to make something similar. In a game when you lose you just try again, armed with the knowledge of why you failed before. We could implement something similar for the training of the recruits.”
That piqued Dominic’s interest, he had heard of something similar, just way more out there, about creating a time-loop where the recruits could train, like it was something easy to do. No, this sounded plausible, at least for now. “Go on.”
“In simple terms it’s about using the system of Worlds for pseudo-death where when fatally injured they don’t die, they are just thrown out. The idea is that we position the recruits in a simulated invasion which they can repeatedly attempt. The idea came from all the instances you mentioned of recruits just not being mentally prepared for what an invasion involves, despite repeated training.”
“We have tried something similar, it was actually detrimental because the monsters didn’t behave like they would in an actual invasion and that gave the recruits a false impression, causing more deaths.”
“Oh but they didn’t have what I have developed. Though I will need the military’s assistance on the details I can “program” the monsters to react in realistic ways. If necessary I can even give each of them a False soul to make their reactions more realistic.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because I have done it before, the programming and the false soul I have implemented in two different Worlds I released. The first one, “Siphon raid”, uses realistic responses from a human raid on a Siphon, while the second one, “Research realm”, was used to make Magical beasts and puppets more responsive. With both I think we can truly let a recruit experience an invasion without the risk of death.”
