The week settled into a rhythm of sweat and steel.

  Each morning, Alph hauled water from the well, his arms burning as he lugged the sloshing buckets to the forge’s quenching trough. The steam hissed when the water hit the red-hot metal, sending up plumes that stung his eyes.

  Varrick would already be there, shirt discarded, his brawny torso gleaming with sweat as he worked the bellows. The dwarf’s muscles flexed like coiled springs, his every movement precise, economical. Alph watched, memorizing the way Varrick judged the heat by color alone, the way his hands adjusted the angle of the hammer without thought.

  By midday, Alph was sweeping ash from the hearth, his broom scraping against the flagstones. The air smelled of char and iron, thick enough to taste. Varrick would be at the anvil by then, repairing a cracked plowshare or reforging a chipped axe head, his strikes ringing like a blacksmith’s hymn.

  Sometimes, he’d toss Alph a rag and a half-finished piece. "Polish the burrs off," he’d grunt, and Alph would sit cross-legged on the floor, rubbing the metal until his fingers ached and the surface gleamed like a mirror.

  Varrick showed Alph the simple things first—how to shape an axe handle, weld a crossguard onto a blade, or reinforce a shield with sturdy hinges. It was basic work, but Alph understood what the dwarf was doing. Varrick was laying the groundwork, filling in the gaps Alph didn’t even realize he’d missed.

  Once, he heard voices from below—Haldrix, muttering to himself in the basement quarters, the words too low to catch. Varrick had warned him off that door the first day, his voice sharp as a blade. "Father’s work isn’t for prying eyes. You want to keep all your fingers, you stay clear."

  Alph never saw the old dwarf, only heard the occasional clatter of tools, the hiss of something being quenched in liquid that wasn’t water.

  Evenings, Alph escaped.

  He’d tell Varrick he needed air, and the dwarf would wave him off with a dismissive snort. "Don’t get lost. And don’t come back drunk."

  The streets of Val Karok were a labyrinth of stone and shadow, the lower tiers crowded with merchants hawking everything from rune-etched nails to pickled ember-mole tails. Alph wove through them, ears pricked for snatches of conversation.

  At the Bronze Hammer tavern, two journeyman smiths were deep in argument over gauntlet alloys. "Mithril’s too brittle unless you fold it with steel," one slurred, slamming his tankard onto the stone bar top.

  "Where the hell are we supposed to get mithril anyway?" the other scoffed. "The Federation’s hoarding every scrap for their war-machines."

  His companion wiped foam from his beard. "Black iron, then. Cheaper. Holds a rune better too."

  Alph lingered by the door, feigning interest in his boot laces, but the conversation hushed when a server arrived with another round.

  Near the guildhall, a cluster of runewrights were locked in debate.

  A woman with silver-streaked braids crossed her arms. "It's not slavery if they're willing," she insisted.

  Her companion scoffed. "Willing? You think a fire sprite understands consent?" He shook his head. "They're drawn to the heat, not the contract."

  Alph lingered just out of sight, straining to catch more. But their argument soon shifted—guild politics, unfamiliar names and factions. He slipped away before they noticed.

  The night air was thin and cold as he trudged back to Grimforge, his boots scuffing against the cobblestones. The city never slept—somewhere, a hammer rang against an anvil, the rhythmic clang-clang-clang echoing through the terraces like a heartbeat. His room was a cave of silence in comparison, the only sound his own ragged breathing as he sank onto the cot.

  Alph shut his eyes, letting the familiar darkness pull him inward. His thoughts scattered like leaves, then settled into the quiet expanse that housed his mindscape.

  The Mind Garden stretched before him—an endless void studded with distant stars. Alph stood at its center, his constellation pulsing with quiet energy. The Tier 1 Slayer node burned brightest, flanked by Hunter and the dimmer glow of his Tier 0 professions. A flicker of pride warmed his chest before he tamped it down.

  His focus snapped to the newest addition—a faint, flickering ember at the edge of his awareness. The Apprentice Crafter node, nearly ready to ignite.

  "You've been diligent." The Shaper's voice resonated through the void, neither warm nor cold, merely observant. "This one comes faster than the others."

  Alph exhaled. "Repetition. Muscle memory."

  "Yet your goal remains unclear." The Shaper's presence shifted, a ripple in the darkness. "Will you bind it to your existing constellation? Or forge another path entirely?" A pause. "The latter would be… illuminating."

  Alph's gaze flicked between the pulsing constellation and the unlit node. "Yes." The word came firm. "The first one's stable. I'm not disturbing that balance."

  The Shaper hummed, a sound like distant thunder. "Prudent. For now."

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  Alph reached toward the Apprentice Crafter node. It trembled under his attention, threads of potential spiraling outward. A few more days of work—proper work, not just hauling water—and it would solidify.

  "Then we proceed as before." The Shaper's voice faded, retreating into the expanse. "But remember—each choice narrows the road ahead."

  Alph clenched his jaw. He knew. Every node, every skill, was a brick in the path he was building. And he couldn’t afford missteps.

  Not when the real work had only just begun.

  The brass bell above the smithy’s front door swayed without a breeze. In the workshop, tools rattled in their racks—hammers shivering against chisels, tongs scraping across their hooks, the forge poker bouncing against the coal tub with a tinny clatter. Embers in the hearth flared white-hot for three rapid breaths before settling into their usual molten glow.

  In his room, Alph lay on his threadbare cot, unaware of the disturbance. His consciousness floated in the starless void of his Mind Garden, fingers outstretched toward a newly formed node that pulsed with golden light. "Almost done," The Shaper murmured as tendrils of energy spiraled from Alph’s hand into the node.

  Varrick sat alone in his second-floor room, polishing his battle axe as he did every night before bed. The silk cloth slid smoothly over the blade’s surface, a familiar motion to soothe his mind. The blade, crafted from mana-conductive alloy, bore intricate runes for sharpness, added heft, and lightning infusion. The axe blade hummed in his hands, a low thrum that traveled up his arms like the distant purr of a cat. He hesitated, fingers tightening around the haft—no external vibration should have affected the stormsteel alloy.

  Then he felt it, the faintest harmonic resonating with other tools of the craft in his room. The runes along the blade's edge flickered with erratic blue sparks, reacting to some unseen disturbance in the workshop below. Varrick's frown deepened as the hum intensified.

  "Awakening!" The word left his lips before realization struck. He was on his feet, boots crushing the polishing rag as he bolted into the hallway.

  On the first-floor, he arrived at the corner room where he sensed the source of the disturbance.

  Alph! He did it!

  He stopped short in front of the locked wooden door, his face twisting with unease and wonder. His fingers twitched at his sides, but he knew better than to disturb what was happening inside—every child learned that lesson before they could walk.

  "What profession would the kid awaken as?" he mumbled under his breath.

  The basement door creaked on its hinges as Haldrix emerged. His braided beard quivered with barely contained energy while he took the stairs two at a time. When he reached the first floor landing, he stopped beside Varrick, the brass plates of his mechanical hand clinking as he tightened his grip on a crumpled blueprint.

  Haldrix rasped, luminous citrine eyes widening. "Gift of the Forge-Heart. The Stonemother laughs!" Wonder flickered across his weathered face—the same look he wore when discovering a new rune pattern.

  Varrick studied his father’s face—those sharp eyes gleaming with something almost like pride. Down in the forge, tools rattled and clattered like restless children. Varrick understood the implications. This was no combat profession. The boy had awakened the Apprentice Crafter profession.

  The old envy flared only from the absence of something he had lived with so far. His father had never looked at him that way. But the resentment crumbled under a fiercer warmth. The Grimforge Smithy had not experienced a genuine artisan's resonance since the mana surge incident; if this youth had indeed awakened as one, it signaled a slow, potential restoration for the failing workshop.

  Haldrix exhaled sharply through his nose and turned toward the stairs without another word. The wonder had already faded from his face, replaced by the distant, inward look of a mind returning to half-finished equations.

  Varrick exhaled, calloused fingers flexing against the doorframe. Through the floorboards, the hum of the awakening lingered—soft, steady, hungry.

  "How do I keep him here? He can't walk out—not now." His brows furrowed. The question gnawed at him, "What’s the best way to make him stay?"

  The hum of awakening faded like the last embers of a dying fire. Varrick's jaw tightened. He couldn't let this chance slip away—not now. With a quiet breath, he rapped his knuckles against the door, the sound soft but insistent.

  In the Mind Garden's vast expanse…

  The golden node flared crimson, its glow deepening to the color of molten iron fresh from the forge. Heat radiated from it in waves—not the dry burn of flame, but the steady, living warmth of a hearthstone. Alph’s soul-form flickered as the energy pulsed through him, branding his fingertips with phantom embers.

  "Apprentice Crafter," The Shaper murmured, voice tinged with something between amusement and awe. "A profession born of hands and hammer, not bloodline."

  The node pulsed again, its light casting long shadows across the void. Alph exhaled—a reflex, meaningless here—and flexed his fingers. The heat lingered, not painful, but present, like the memory of a forge’s breath against his skin.

  Alph’s lips pressed into a faint smile. "Thank you," he murmured into the void, the words carrying the weight of every trial that had led him here.

  The Shaper’s response was immediate—a resonant hum, deep and knowing, like the reverberation of a perfectly struck anvil.

  Alph allowed the profound sense of stability the new node granted him to settle deep within his consciousness before he disentangled himself from the Mind Garden. The shift from the limitless expanse, where pure thought defined reality, back to the cramped confines of the hold was initially jarring.

  He felt a deep sense of satisfaction about his latest awakening, a hard-earned validation that he was actively forging his own path, independent of his existing constellation.

  He recalled the 3 skills he got access to upon awakening the node. Insightful Gaze, Patient Refinement, and Tool Affinity.

  The names spoke volume of what the skills represented, foundations required for a genuine artisan.

  Knock! Knock!

  Alph turned his gaze toward the door, his fingers tightening reflexively around the edge of his cot. Did that awakening ripple outward? The thought sent a jolt through him.

  A cold spike of panic shot through his chest, his breath hitching for a fraction of a second before his discipline reasserted itself. No. This is exactly what a genuine apprentice's first awakening would feel like—controlled, localized, unremarkable. He forced his shoulders to relax, exhaling through his nose. The persona held. It had to.

  Still, his pulse thrummed a frantic rhythm against his ribs as he rose up, "Coming!".

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  Destiny on the Frozen Peak: The Myriad Constellations

  Released on January 1st, 2026