The class quieted down. In the entire class everyone was wearing a gold thread. I was not in my uniform so most probably no one outright dared mock me yet.

  But that confusion was soon shattered by the professor who opened his mouth as soon as he saw me.

  “You must be the genius that everybody talked about the past five years… You’ve been quite the hot topic amongst the professors. Your inclusion in this group of students has been based on the talent you displayed, I hope you won’t disappoint.”

  ‘Aaand there you go… Now each one of the nobles was fully aware of who I was… At the very least the professor didn’t question the lack of uniform…’ All eyes were gathered on me. Aside from Magnar’s of course. He already knew who I was so the news didn’t shock him.

  “I’ll also try not to. Considering the situation you’ve put me in… It would be embarrassing if I didn’t. I just hope you can handle it…”

  “Handle it?” He asked raising a brow.

  “You’ll see… I’m sure there will be opportunities…”

  “Regardless, in class today I will be introducing you to the basic theories of arrays and formations. Let’s start with a brief history lesson.”

  In short there was Aldus, the first recorded user of Formations that designed the gathering formation after traveling and studying the geology and geometry of various places where aether gathered. Then came Emeric, who inspired by the spells and effects of manifestation or domain stage over the environment designed a formation set that would continuously produce a phenomena, such as a flame.

  Most impressive of all however had to be the last one mentioned. Beric father of Arrays as his title went… He was the first that coupled various formations to create a defensive array that stopped the advance of a domain powerhouse, stalling for ten days until the powerhouse gave up, impressed by Beric’s creation.

  Hard to say how much was myth and how much fact from the way our teacher talked about these, but regardless they were all impressive accomplishments.

  Leaving behind the boring history of arrays and formations, the actual fundamentals that I gleaned from his long discourse were related to math, physics and material science. How were these interwoven? I had no idea.

  The difference between arrays and formations was that arrays were fixed while formations were not. There were two types of formations: human and mineral.

  In theory an array would be made of multiple formations which made its structure more complex and as such hard, or even impossible, to use unless it was mounted or built in an object.

  Arrays also tended to be planar, while formations were three-dimensional. All these conditions made it so natural formations were common and represented the source of the first formations while natural arrays were almost impossible to find.

  Overall, if one wanted to draw a parallel, Formations were like electronic components while arrays were like a circuit board… Only that somehow… a formation could work like a fuel source… well I guess that could work after all aether is all around and has its own flow…

  ‘But the same could be said about electricity back on Earth… my brain hurts…’ ideas popped up in my head as I was trying to figure out how power could be obtained without fueling it. How did they make aether gather and produce power from it without any other fuel source.

  A thing that I had seen many interpret wrongly was electricity. The electric current was not a source of power, it was a carrier for power. Rotating magnetic fields imparted kinetic energy to electrons, creating flow. A flow of electrons creates an electric field. By using various arrangements, the energy given to the electrons was then converted in the home appliances to make them work.

  In other words electrons and their flow, named electricity for convenience, were simply convenient carriers.

  Here however there was no other fuel source. Aether itself was treated as the power source, which didn’t make any sense. Energy could be manipulated by consciousness. Aether was an explosive medium to obtain that. It readily bonded and resonated with the body and it answered the thoughts of beings.

  But it took time to restore and gather. In order for aether to be turned into one’s own, one needed to be alive and to exert their mind on it. Even jing was an energy derived from food that one needed to focus so that they store part of the total production. In other words, both cases used an external power source and that was food.

  It took time to train the aether pool to answer a call for larger output, same with the dan tians. None of these worked just because… This generating formation, or gathering formation was going to be a very important piece of information. It challenged everything I had learned until now.

  The rest of my classmates were less interested compared to me. They probably already got taught most of this by private tutors hired by their parents. All so that they would excel in the academy… Most of them wouldn’t understand how monumental of a thing this was.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  They all lived in a world were this kind of formation was the norm, it was normal, only I felt it was monumental. It could be called a perpetual motion machine… The grand dream of any electrician, one that back in my world, had so many people fight to uncover, so many stories of people that could have even accomplished it, only to be silenced forever.

  My leg was twitching, my hands were trembling as I listened to the teacher rant on about other less important things. How can one care about a formation that produced flames when the secret of independent worry free life was within reach.

  Magnar started to give me a strange look seeing me in such a state of trepidation. ‘You can’t understand! You will never understand! How could you understand how big this is?’ To not cause a scene I tucked my hands under my butt. I crossed my legs so I could press down and suppress the twitching.

  Soon my face and neck reddened, a vein popping on the side of my forehead. The bastard professor just wouldn’t stop talking about useless stuff. ‘Who cares about the discovery of metallurgic integration of formations? Tell me how the gathering formation works!’ Small beads of liquid were already forming on my forehead.

  Finally, after more than an hour of uncontrollable mood switches between excitement, fantasies, anger, and sourness at my failures to infer how that formation could work, the professor dismissed the class and was ready to leave.

  I jumped out of my seat, over the bench and onto the podium stopping him.

  “I need to know how the gathering formation works.”

  He looked at me like I was some leather clad monkey. The other children were the same. ‘What do you expect me to do? Not like I’m some rich ass like you that already learned most of this…’ I could feel my teeth tremble under the pressure of my clenching jaws, as I stood there under their gazes.

  “Wait until next class.”

  “At least give me instructions to set it up.” I couldn’t relent. Not when my hands still trembled and my heart pounded so hard my fingers pulsed and my ears buzzed.

  “What is going on with you? Stand down and stop acting like a fool!” The anger was apparent in his voice.

  I looked in his eyes and with the most serious look I could muster I said.

  “This is very important for me. I’m not getting down until you give me what I asked for.”

  He didn’t avoid my eyes. His frown deepened, yet he sighed. With his voice sounding like a deflating balloon, he replied in the tone of an adult giving in to a kid’s rants for candy.

  “Fine. Come with me. No point in keeping your classmates here for this and I don’t have anything to make it with on hand. If you think you can figure out anything from it then be my guest.”

  “Alright!” My chest finally expanded, fresh air rushed in, my trembling body relaxed. The others left one by one. I heard some girls giggling like idiots and some mocking phrases were thrown my way. But I had no mind to care yet.

  I followed the teacher out. After a few steps however I realized something was not right. The ground was shaking slightly and my shadow was unnaturally large near my feet… I turned around only to see Magnar follow along.

  “Why are you coming?”

  “Why not? You were really worked up so I’m curious what it is that made you tremble like that.”

  “It’ll take a long time to get you to understand… And then you’ll wonder where the hell I got to know all that… Just give up, it’s probably ordinary knowledge for you what interests me…”

  “…” His eyes narrowed, and his lips pressed against each other becoming thin. “Are you by any chance calling me dumb?”

  “No. You don’t even look dumb, despite your frame. I’m calling myself smart.”

  “… You really got a knack for making others bewildered…” He said as his shoulders sunk and his eyes fixed on our teachers back.

  “I know, right? But isn’t this more fun?” I skipped a little and smiled widely. “Better than getting lost in the masses.”

  The rest of the walk was done in silence. We reached a less populated part of the academy. We entered a room where a strange gathering of rocks and variously shaped metal pieces were gathered. Professor Hargrave grabbed a few small things and arranged them together.

  “These rods collect the aether and let it flow directionally. The rest need to be arranged in this manner for the array to work. The gems and stones need to be connected by rods. The general direction of flow is from this green one to the red one and from there we get the aether output.”

  He continued. “Various materials can be used, it is not limited to just these, but these are the best found until now. Other observations made were that the output grows faster than the size does, but not by much. Generally, this is used so that specific arrays or formations don’t break over time as its throughput is too low to power most artifacts. In larger arrays however it is the main aether supply method.”

  He placed his hand on the green gem and inserted aether. “It needs an initial input to work, but after that it just goes on by itself”

  I looked at it from different directions. I couldn’t understand how it worked. I sensed the aether flow toward it, the entire formation attracted aether, however more of it indeed moved towards the green gem. From there just as density difference dictates it flowed through the conductors and came out near the red stone…

  I wasn’t familiar with the minerals, however I also couldn’t understand how this entire thing worked. ‘Why does the aether flow to it?’

  After five minutes in which I just stared at the formation in silence Magnar placed his hand on my shoulder. My shoulder sunk under the weight of his hand.

  “We should get going Cato. The next lecture’s about to start… If it didn’t start already…”

  I reluctantly moved my eyes away from the small gathering of metal and rocks… My mind was blank, my heart was heavy and the world lost color. ‘Can’t figure it out… I can’t figure it out…’

  I looked towards the professor. My eyes unfocused, lost in the many theories my brain came up with.

  “Can I… Come here again?” I asked my brain buzzing. I could feel the veins in my head pulse with more and more power… ‘Aaah! This is going to give me a stroke!’.

  “Sure… Be my guest, if you think that’s going to change anything… Just remember to stop the array when you leave. You do it by pushing the aether in reverse… Be careful or it could blow in your face… Also if you don’t stop it, the minerals might shatter or the rods might melt.”

  “Sure…” The professor demonstrated the stopping process. He unknowingly revealed several pieces of information that were critical… Whatever made this phenomenon work was something that could make the stones shatter…

  Under Magnar’s urging I quickly left following him… I have to say… Keeping up with this mountain of a guy was quite hard… Human in every aspect but strength and size is what Eld-Mother, Rhys, Fjorn and Hale told me. ‘Ah… melancholy catches up to me again…’

  As I was falling behind… I decided to sprint. Once I did this the distance closed and I could keep up. It wasn’t even my fault… The guy’s step was almost twice my own…

  I shifted my focus to the next class trying to push to the back of my head my worries and obsession with that formation. Now came basics of alchemy. I sure hoped this won’t go as badly as my chemistry classes back on Earth.

  ??? GOBLIN SMASHING ???

  by CSN Publishing

  GOBLIN SMASHING

  Tokyo, 2045. For most, a future costs more than they’ll ever earn. For Rin Kazehaya, it costs everything his family’s home, his mom’s life in a hospital, and debt collectors closing in on his siblings. The only thing that pays is hustle and hope.

  When Hero’s Glory Online launches its Crystal League expansion, a single tagline is everywhere: “Bring your business here.” One week. Discounted entry. Real cash for every match, every territory won. Anyone can play but not everyone survives.

  Rin gambles the last of his savings on a shot he can’t afford to lose, logging in from a battered first-gen pod built by his father. But a glitch locks him in as a Goblin the weakest, most-mocked race in the game. No reset. No second chance.

  Now, every victory means cash, every loss risks everything, and every move is broadcast to millions while Tokyo’s most ruthless family closes in on his real life. If he fails, he loses more than a game.

  But Goblins don’t know when to quit. With nothing left but his wits, a gambler’s instinct, and a dream nobody believes in, Rin’s about to find out what happens when the underdog brings his business and his fight to the world’s biggest stage.

  New chapters every Friday at 8pm Central Time.

  Goblin Smashing comes from someone who’s lived the grind as an esports organization owner and competitive MOBA player. If you love siege games, high-stakes MMOs, and underdog stories, you’re in the right place.

  This story is only published on Royal Road.

  If you spot it anywhere else, it’s fake, please flag and report.

  ?? Listen to the Official Goblin Smashing OST ??

  

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