The greenhouse looks like something a god would commission for a retirement villa. Vaulted glass domes arch overhead, dripping with condensation that catches the enchanted light in delicate prisms. Waterfalls spill over cliff faces with performative grace into pools so pristine they probably have opinions about your footwear. Even the air smells expensive—like wet soil, citrus blossom, and just a hint of power.

  Aster follows Lena through the lush chaos, dodging students perched at floating tables mid-discussion, mid-lecture, mid-someone-else’s crisis. It all feels like a lot. Too much nature, too much noise, too much alive.

  Then someone waves at them. Small. Eager. Dangerous in the way only people who enjoy group projects can be.

  “Aster, this is Yani,” Lena says, gesturing him forward like he’s a rescue animal being socialized.

  Aster manages a half-smile. “Hey. Very nice to meet you.”

  Yani shakes his hand with surprising force and a look that says she’s already decided she likes him, and he’d better live up to it.

  “She’s going to be helping you with your Artificing classes,” Lena adds. “She’s Spirit-Typed—one of the best in the school.”

  “Spirit Typing,” Yani says, by way of a humblebrag. “It’s not flashy in combat like the other Typings, but we make up for it with versatility. Spirit-Types can create Artefacts from nearly any Typing—mix and match, tailor-made. That’s our playground.”

  He nods slowly, mind already backpedaling through everything he thinks he understands about Artificing—which, if he’s being honest, amounts to “probably something like magical blacksmithing.” Apparently not.

  “What exactly is an Artefact?” he asks, hoping the question sounds curious and not like a child asking why the moon doesn’t fall out of the sky.

  Yani and Lena exchange a look. One of those “ah, sweet summer idiot” looks.

  “Think of it as a conduit,” Yani says. “You channel a little energy into it, and boom—it unleashes a preset ability. Something you’d normally need to train for years to pull off on your own. But with the right materials and engravings, we can bake it in like a spell caught in amber.”

  Aster doesn’t seem happy with that explanation.

  Yani gestures for him to follow. “Come on, I’ll explain. Artificing 101.”

  They find an unoccupied table nestled beside a patch of bioluminescent ferns. Yani pulls out a small bone dagger from her satchel and places it on the table between them. It glows faintly—not threatening, just… seemingly aware.

  “So,” she begins, “Artefacts are essentially externalized abilities. Instead of casting a spell or invoking a Technique directly from your Astral Vessel, you channel energy through a crafted medium—a focus—imbued with a specific effect.”

  She pauses, checking to see if he’s still following. Aster gives her a tight nod and a stare that says I’m pretending this makes sense so you keep talking.

  “They’re made from Astral Materials. Usually harvested from creatures with powerful Typings—cores, bones, carapaces, essence… whatever we can refine. Combine that with programming, a power source, and a ‘form,’ and voilà: an Artefact. Instant access to powers you otherwise wouldn’t be able to use.”

  Aster squints at the dagger, which looks like something from the Bronze Age. “So… magical tech. But made from animal parts like a tribal fever dream?”

  “Exactly,” she says. “Let’s say you kill a Water-Typed mantis aligned to a Mist hue—”

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  “Wait, that’s a thing?”

  “Oh, it’s absolutely a thing,” Lena chimes in.

  Yani continues, unfazed. “You bring the materials to an Artificer—me, for example—and I can turn them into something like this.” She taps the dagger. “You get an Artefact that replicates the mantis’s mist-stepping or water-blade technique. Channel a little energy, and it activates.”

  “So someone with garbage-tier cultivation,” Aster says slowly, “could use one of these to punch above their weight?”

  “Yup. Though not without cost. Artefacts require either Aether or Faith to function. The weaker you are, the more limited you’ll be with those two resources—not even mentioning what it would cost an initiate to own or craft an Artefact like that. Artefacts are a core part of most cultivators’ fighting ability. Having one that stands out usually comes from an extremely lucky break or divine fortune.”

  “Cool,” Aster mutters. “Weaponized capitalism. Love that.”

  “But Spirit Typing makes it interesting,” Yani adds, leaning forward. “We’re not locked to a single Typing like others. We can adapt. Fuse. Combine essences to craft hybrid Artefacts that can do things even high-rank cultivators can’t replicate without years of training.”

  She says it like it’s no big deal.

  Aster sits back, trying not to look visibly overwhelmed.

  “So Spirit Typers are… natural enchanters?”

  “We’re problem-solvers,” Yani corrects. “Engineers of the impossible.”

  A beat passes.

  “That sounds like marketing.”

  Yani smirks. “It’s accurate and marketable. That’s called efficiency.”

  Then, because he’s Aster and can’t help himself, the philosophical anxiety spills out: “Is that all this place is? Power hoarding? Everything here—every class, every system—just seems designed to help people climb higher. Why build a whole society around strength?”

  This time, the look Yani and Lena share isn’t pitying. It’s surprised.

  Lena speaks first. “Because if you don’t have power here, you die.”

  Which—fair. But also depressing.

  “Before the Council, before the Archipelago, this Plane was crawling with creatures that could crush cities. It took everything we had to survive long enough to build. Power wasn’t optional. It was oxygen.”

  “And even now,” Yani adds, “the high-tier beasts never really went away. We just pushed them deeper. Into the Astral Caverns. Into the Astral Storm. They’re still out there, waiting.”

  “Also, the Astral Vessel itself… is designed for growth. Even the Unaware—the ones who don’t cultivate—subtly move along predetermined paths to strengthen themselves over time.”

  Then, with a casualness that makes him genuinely concerned for her worldview, she says,

  “The most accepted theory,” she explains, like someone reciting basic algebra, “is that the Astral Vessel is designed to grow in order to help us break free from the cycle of reincarnation. Cultivation isn’t just about survival—it’s about transcendence.”

  Aster nearly chokes on his tea.

  Reincarnation? Ascension? That’s not just metaphysics—that’s religion-adjacent. Or, well, in the real world it is.

  He blinks, looking at Yani, then at Lena. And suddenly, every neuron in his brain screams a unanimous, panicked: Don’t say it.

  But Aster—being Aster—speaks anyway.

  “Sooo… is that, like, the general theory here?” he asks, and then—gods help him—he adds, “Or is that something your people believe?”

  The words hit the air like a slap at a funeral.

  Silence.

  Glorious. Crushing. Immediate.

  Yani tilts her head slightly. Lena blinks once. And Aster can feel the blood drain from his soul.

  He tries to backpedal—mentally, physically, existentially.

  “I didn’t mean your people like that, I just—I mean I wasn’t sure if it was a cultural—if that’s—if it’s a shared—”

  He shuts his mouth. Too late. It’s out there now, hanging like a bad smell.

  In his defense, she is Indian. And in the material world, that usually means Hinduism, which often includes reincarnation, and—he’s spiraling.

  Gods, is he a plane-traversing bigot now?

  Yani and Lena exchange a look.

  And then, mercifully, hilariously—they laugh.

  Yani clutches her chest, Lena wipes a tear from her eye, and Aster just sits there, quietly dying inside, contemplating whether throwing himself into one of the waterfalls would qualify as spiritual growth.

  Finally, Lena catches her breath and says, “Sorry—it’s not you, that’s just... new.”

  Yani grins. “It’s adorable how worried you were about sounding racist. But no. There’s no religion in the Society of the Aware. Not because we’re above it or anything. It’s just... we know what gods actually are.”

  Aster blinks.

  “They’re constructs,” she says. “Machines built to generate and harvest Faith.”

  Lena nods. “Big, metaphysical devices. Powered by belief. Fueled by followers. Maintained by priests who may or may not know the whole thing’s a glorified spiritual bank.”

  “So no worship?” he asks, still trying to emotionally uncurl from the cringe.

  “Would you worship a vending machine?” Lena shoots back. “Even if it gave out miracles, once you knew it was just gears and programming?”

  Aster takes a long sip of his drink. At least the tea is good.

  “Still,” he mutters, “you didn’t have to laugh that hard…”

  Yani pats his arm with exaggerated sympathy. “We did, though. That was adorable.”

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