A week later, Leander was panting along with the rest of the initiates after their morning workout. Most days, Martin would take this opportunity to laugh at them a little for being tired, to motivate them to keep working hard, and then send them off to spar. That wasn't happening. Martin was in front of him, but his head was cocked to the side as he stared over at the city, like he was listening to something the rest of them couldn't hear. Leander took the moment to discreetly wipe off some of the sweat from his face.

Over on the other side, Laurel was in the same position in front of the novices. Matilde was even sitting on the ground to catch her breath. Leander did his best to get her attention and gesture her back up. Laurel did not like it when they took breaks without permission.

Leander narrowed his eyes at their two teachers. A sensation like a cat's tongue brushed against his mana senses, and he realized they were having a whole conversation! Laurel was doing something to the air, keeping the sound hemmed in so it didn't reach any of them. He poked at it with his mana. Nothing happened, so he poked harder. That got him a reaction. Laurel turned to him and winked, before his mana got slapped down. His head jerked back and he stumbled.

"What's going on," Rebecca muttered under her breath.

He could feel the whole group leaning forward to try and hear the response, as though the extra centimeters would help. "I DON'T KNOW. THEY'RE TALKING."

His friends winced in unison. Everyone in the yard was staring now. Except Martin who was shaking his head with his eyes closed, and Laurel who was bent over and howling with laughter.

"Bit of a situation in the city, so I'm going to head out." Laurel's voice carried to everyone on a breath of wind, like she was speaking right next to his ear. Which was what Leander tried to do, but his technique always came out like shouting. "Martin will rotate between groups, don't think this means anyone gets to slack off. And Leander, since you're feeling so sprightly this morning, you get to head over to the fort and let them know we want someone from the cultivator corps to meet me in the foundry district. And choose a friend to bring the same message up to the Magical Affairs bureau at City Hall."

A few of the others laughed but Leander puffed his chest out. He was feeling sprightly this morning, because unlike some of the others, he did extra practice on his days off. He jogged off towards the fort without a backwards glance. Laurel didn't say he had to come right back after, and he wanted to see what was going on.

They hadn't had a big beast wave recently. Or maybe there would be another sea monster, and Laurel would let him fight it this time.

********

He trailed after Trip and an older officer as they made their way into the worst smelling part of the city. Worse than the docks, which was an achievement. But every street kid knew you never slept near the factories, not if you ever wanted friends. It was better now than it was when he was growing up, but it still wasn't what he would call pleasant.

When they arrived a pair of guards met them and led them to where Laurel was squatting at the back of a narrow alley. Leander trailed his fingers along some of the bricks in the wall, only to snatch them back when the layer of grime registered. Why were his adventures always in the dirtiest possible places?

Laurel waved them over to join her and Leander squirmed to the front of the modest crowd. He was still shorter than everyone, but he knew his growth spurt was right around the corner.

"Check it out," Laurel said, gesturing vaguely to the corner where two factory walls met.

Senses extended, Leander and the rest of the company edged closer. He saw something reflect the sunlight before Trip shoved him, gently, out of the way, and then kneeled next to Laurel. The muck must have been soaking into his pant legs, but the pilot didn't notice or didn't care.

"It feels like a natural treasure," he said. "But we're in the middle of the city. Is it like the crystals that keep popping up?"

Laurel stood and nudged him with her foot. "Follow your instincts."

"A natural treasure then. But it's not like we're out in nature."

Leander's own cultivation continued to probe around Laurel's discovery. It felt anchored to the world, which was the part he remembered best from his harvesting quest, back when he had just barely been an initiate.

That was the only trace of familiarity. All those treasures had a logic to them. The air ones felt light, or refreshing like a breeze. Water treasures felt wet and were found in or near water, earth treasures seemed heavy and were on the ground. Or underground, in a hole Laurel would make him crawl through. Another of the many reasons he hoped for some height. Soon. Even the weirder treasures made sense. Gravity from where something fell, wild from a jungle, pressure from being on the bottom of the ocean.

They were in the middle of the factory district. Was it going to be soot-based? For soot cultivators, with powers to make everyone nearby need a shower.

Laurel waited for them to give up before she spoke. "It's a natural treasure, but an aspect I haven't seen before."

That wasn't good. Laurel was super old, she'd seen everything.

"Trip," she said in an odd tone, "what does it feel like to you?"

The pilot blinked but instead of speaking, bent his focus to the puzzle. They all stood around while he poked at the treasure, wiping away the dirt that had built up around it. When the whole thing was revealed it was a lot more impressive than Leander had expected for something inspired by factory runoff.

It was made of metal, probably, part of it was shiny at least. It looked like a bird's nest otherwise. Little bits folded in on the rest, or twisted under or over. Like a knot it would be impossible to unravel.

"I don't know." Trip finally spoke and it was a bit of a let down. But Leander couldn't blame him when he had no idea either. "It feels like my plane, sort of."

"Machinery, maybe." Laurel said. "Well you know the drill, she tossed a jade box to Trip where he was still on the ground, and passed over a sharp knife a lot more carefully. "Get to harvesting."

*********

"Concentrating a unique resource in an individual's hands is foolish."

Laurel was in a hastily scrambled meeting with General Mansfeln and Madam Curson, back at Fort Sarken, listening to the circular arguments about what to do with their first home-grown natural treasure. It was a good day, made increasingly worse by both councilors being unable to decide how to use it.

The problem of course was that Mansfeln was right, it was a unique natural treasure. At least as far as the books could tell. Laurel hadn't known that it was possible for the little gems to sprout up within the influence of a City Core. The years since her awakening had been an object lesson that there was quite a bit that conventional wisdom failed to account for. That area of the city had been dedicated to industry for decades. Before that it had been the closest the pre-industrial world could come to mass-production, with hundreds of low-skill artisans working side by side in company-owned centers. It made sense that when such focus was mixed with mana, the output would be unpredictable.

One day, someone would read her sectmaster journals and be impressed she'd handled it so smoothly. Assuming they came to any sort of decision. Being unique was exciting, but it also meant they had no idea what it could do. It felt weak to Laurel's senses. She could fit it into a Core matrix, with all the other natural treasures empowering the City, but it didn't seem like it would do much. Probably make every factory more efficient, by just a little bit. Helpful, interesting, but not groundbreaking. And though she had been holding her tongue in the debate, she would prefer an option that wasn't so dreadfully boring.

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Their other option, which Curson and Mansfeln had both argued for and against in the last hour, was giving it to a cultivator and seeing what they could accomplish. Trip was the obvious choice. The boy's metal aspect was already closely aligned with mechanics, and he spent all his cultivation focused on his plane anyway, along with whatever they were up to in the Crafting Hall. Yet, giving a treasure that literally had no price, because no one had ever had a chance to buy one before, to one person was a show of rather extreme favoritism.

They were interrupted with a refreshment cart being wheeled in, behind which strode Theresa Skycrest.

"I'm already caught up for the most part," she started. "Let's get back to basics. Laurel, is there any chance if we give this to Verilia or another city, that we'll get something great out of it?"

Laurel gave the question due consideration. "No. I think it would only be helpful to those with large industrial centers anyway, and not in a way we desperately need."

"And does the City Core not have any ideas about what those specifics would be?"

"Cultivators innovate, Cores recreate," Laurel said. "That's one piece of wisdom I haven't seen change. The City Cores can recreate something that's existed, store knowledge and then regurgitate it millenia later, but it doesn't have ideas. That's part of why they need cultivators to work with them in the first place." She felt the comforting thrum of enchantment as she stroked the side of the box holding the treasure. "It would be up to us to direct the mana, and it feels to me like any effect we could create with this one would be diffuse.

"A cultivator would be better. Smaller area, weaker mana flows, more ability to concentrate the effect. If not Trip then put it in the Guild store or require whoever gets it to earn it in some way. But I think it should go to an individual."

"Why are we still debating then?" Theresa asked.

One of the things Laurel truly, deeply loved about her adopted home, was the insistence that every argument came with snacks. Meristans would shout at their worst enemy, but there would be tea and cookies provided as a matter of course. She loaded up her own little plate and teacup while Curson reiterated the same point she'd made several times before.

"If we agree it should go to a cultivator, who gets it? Trip appears to be an able pilot and a decent young man, but he is not the only one pursuing a method of welding magic and conventional technology. He merely had a head start."

"A fact I appreciate, but a head start is what we need." Theresa was not leaving without a decision. "Here, let's try this. For the cultivators that get advancement aid from the army, you require them to commit to either longer service or paying off a portion of the resources, correct?" She didn't bother waiting for the confirmation to continue. "Do the same thing here, and let the boy know the stakes."

********

It was only a day later that they had their answer. The cultivator corps ran without her input, exactly as she wanted. Laurel's time was to be spent on working for her sect or on the City Core, not teaching everyone in the world how to cultivate. She barely recognized most of the practicing cultivators in Verilia these days, and the fact she could was more down to the connection to the Core than her own attempts at seeking them all out.

Exceptions could always be made for new information. What was the Eternal Archive for, after all, if not stewarding the cultivation knowledge of Decorra? A mandate which meant Laurel found herself in a crowd of powerful people, all looming over Trip where he sat in the center of a utilitarian room, fiddling with the natural treasure. Adam was standing next to her, rapt and clutching a notebook, the ink already on the page and moving slowly, ready for his will to shape it into words. The entire Council had shown up as well, King Edward included.

Trip was holding up admirably under such exalted scrutiny but his nerves were shining through. They probably didn't have to attend in force, but it was a world-first and Laurel agreed it deserved a bit of pomp.

"When you aspected your mana, you were just absorbing what's in front of you. This will be a little different." Trip was holding on to every word like they would be the lifeline that got him far away from royal attention. "As you absorb it, you should feel a sense of options, ways you can direct the energy inside. There's no way to know ahead of time what those will be. Though if you can remember them afterwards, Adam will document everything for the next time the treasure matures enough to harvest."

"Understand?"

"Uh-huh."

Laurel didn't believe that for a second but he wouldn't understand until he got in there and did it.

"Go for it then."

Watching someone else absorb a natural treasure was not interesting. There were no light shows or obvious magical spectacle. Only a finely-tuned spiritual sense let Laurel see anything was happening at all. So she had no idea what Adam was writing down as he tore through page after page of his prepared notebook, the ink reforming and perfectly dry within instants as he flipped through.

The Council settled in to wait, working through the agenda Curson never appeared without. Hours passed and the others relaxed into more casual discussion. Laurel ignored all of it and stayed focused on Trip. There wasn't much she could do if something went wrong, but he was taking a risk and deserved someone to be looking out for him anyway. The attention paid off, alerting her a few moments before Trip came out of the trance that something had changed.

"It's done, one way or another."

The previously relaxed councilors all came back to crowd around, but not too close, as Trip himself opened his eyes.

"I need to get to the hangar."

He made to run off but was betrayed by his own legs when they wouldn't support his wait and he fell back into the chair. Laurel grinned. She had been that kid when she first absorbed her Shrike Wing. Complete with collapse.

"Slowly," she chided. The rest of their companions chuckled as they gathered their belongings and made to depart.

"We'll be taking our leave, but I look forward to your report, General Skycrest."

"Yes, your majesty."

The king and Curson filed out while the rest of them set off for the hangar, Trip using walls and Ridge's shoulders to support himself as needed.

It was a long walk, unfortunately for their test subject. The hangar dominated the southwestern corner of the fort, providing maintenance and storage for the army's planes, butting against the area for takeoff and landing.

"Last push, lad."

"Yes, sir," Trip groaned as they set off across a training field, trampled to a sheet of sad slush that typified the waning of winter.

By the time they were back inside, Trip was walking mostly on his own. Laurel took a moment to observe. From what rumors she'd picked up on, the army cultivators had gravitated to two distinct groups. Those that dreamed of action and adventure – Laurel's people, in other words– joined the special forces. Others, who had the hearts of crafters and scientists, had emerged amongst the engineers, those that spent long hours at the Crafting Hall up the hill.

Trip was firmly ensconced in the latter group, and the area around his plane confirmed it. Laurel could feel some of the tools were actually enchanted, a commission from one of the army cultivators she presumed. Mana crystals that had Trip's signature were laying around on benches, and tucked away into the plane itself. Wires and pipes she didn't understand encrusted the lumps of raw energy in every part of the plane. And the guns. Laurel wasn't sure what any of it would do, but Trip had given a fair shot at the redesign. Her metal aspect, so close to evolving, resonated faintly with the weapons.

The whole display gave the impression of a mad scientist from a cheap novel, augmenting reality without any regard for caution. She was impressed. That was what a cultivator's workstation should look like.

While Laurel had been cataloguing the contents, Trip had made his way to a table that held scrap parts, as near as she could tell. He did something, and a mass of mana pushed from him into an unidentified chunk of metal, which in turn started to glow.

Age and experience came into play next. Laurel ran to Trip, ripped the object from his hands and ran back outside. A strong throw almost straight up was all she had time for before the thing exploded. Laurel caught the metal with her own mana as it rained back down, collecting the pieces in a small pile at her feet.

"Awesome," Trip breathed when he joined her.

"You infused it, that much I could tell. There's a lot of use to make things blow up."

"I think there's more to it. Like I could push an idea into the metal. I bet if I fiddle around I can make it hold stable for longer. Or maybe an attachment to the propellers for a speed boost." He trailed off in thought while Ridge stood in front of him.

"Captain!"

"Sir." Trip snapped back to attention on reflex at Ridge's tone.

"Did I just hear you say you made that thing explode on purpose?"

Laurel tsked. That was a trap if she'd ever heard one.

"General, I can explain."

"And you will. While you and your buddies run laps you can tell them all about it."

"Yes, sir." Trip started off running while Ridge turned on the rest of the pilots, all conveniently trying to hide, to harangue them as well.

She tapped a few of the fragments and sent them to her tattoo. Adam would want to include them in his log of the events.

The man himself was still in the hangar, now filling a second notebook with frantic observations. "Here!" he shouted, tearing a page from the book.

He and Laurel converged on where Ridge was forcing some exercise on the pilots.

"All the testable hypotheses I could come up with," Adam announced, passing the page over. "I'll need detailed reports on each whenever you have them."

Ridge looked amused but took the paper anyway. Peering over his shoulder, Laurel skimmed the list but didn't bother adding anything. Adam would have thought of anything she would come up with and more besides.

"This could be big," Ridge said when he finished. The page was folded up and disappeared into one of the many pockets the Meristan military uniform was comprised of.

"Very much so," Laurel agreed. "For most weapons aspects, blade, spear, bow, that kind of thing, you can develop techniques to empower the weapons. I think this is giving Trip a shortcut to something similar. He was able to force an effect onto the metal, and it complied."

"So you're saying he can do what you can with a sword, but with anything?"

"No not at all," Laurel corrected. "If I had to guess, he'll be limited to mechanical effects, and he'll struggle on anything that's not metal. So making something heat up or vibrate, spin faster, spring apart, weld together. But that, combined with the mana stones he's already working with will give quite a few interesting opportunities. I'm looking forward to it."

"We'll need a stockpile. Explosives, ammunition. If the kid can supercharge an existing effect…"

"Eh," Laurel said with a shrug. "I doubt a stockpile's in your future, general. Things like this usually have a limited time frame. And afterwards," she pointed to the still smoking chunks of metal in their newly-formed puddle.

"Not to say it won't be helpful, but the kid is still a long way off from the superweapons I pretend you aren't trying to build up the hill."

"That's enough!" Ridge shouted to the pilots.

All except Trip gave a ragged cheer and then found anywhere else to be while a senior officer was lurking about.

"Next time you decide to make something explode, do it in the Crafting Hall where you won't accidentally kill yourself, understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"You know, we've skipped an important step here," Laurel said. Her remaining companions turned to her as one. "Trip here is the first person to use a never-before-observed natural treasure. By rights and tradition, that means he gets to name it."

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