Tent Block 4 smelled better than the rest of the camp. Which said a lot about the camp.
I clutched my iron leash-the badge humming with the blood signature of the Quartermaster- and ducked inside the canvas structure assigned to me.
Inside, the air was thick and humid. It smelled of stale sweat, old leather, and the distinct, metallic tang of exhausted men. Ten cots were crammed into a space meant for six. Most were occupied by sleeping forms-dense, huddled shapes of Rank 1 vitality trying to recover from the day's labor.
There was one man awake.
He sat on a crate near the entrance, using a dagger to carefully peel a green apple. To me, he was a patchwork of scars. His aura was dim, but steady-not powerful, but incredibly tough. Like a stone that had been eroded by a river for fifty years.
He was missing an ear. The side of his head smooth unlike the other side.
He didn't look up as I threw my pack onto the only empty cot. The canvas groaned under the weight of my gear and my Alloy Body.
"You're small for a Heavy Lifter," the man grunted, slicing a piece of apple.
"I'm heavy," I replied, sitting down. My boots sank slightly into the dirt floor.
"Ain't we all," the man said. He popped the apple slice into his mouth. "Name's Jace. Been in the 4th Battalion for six years. Welcome to Heaven on Earth."
I looked around the dingy, overcrowded tent. A rat scuttled under a bed.
"This is Heaven?"
"Compared to the alternative," Jace said. He pointed with his knife toward the open flap, gesturing to the west side of the camp.
I looked. Beyond the rows of supply wagons, across the main thoroughfare, the atmosphere changed. The warm, lazy aura of our sector vanished. In the west, the air was cold. The ambient particles were jagged, moving in frantic, fearful spikes.
"Listen close, runt," Jace said, his voice dropping to a lecture tone. "I'll only explain the geography once. If you get lost, you get dead."
He held up four calloused fingers.
"There are four Generals running this circus. Four Divisions."
He pointed to the banner hanging above our block-a golden leaf.
"Fire Division is Logistics. That's us. General Aurus. Battalions 1 through 5. We move the food, we guard the wagons, we dig the latrines for the officers. It's boring work, but we eat well because we carry the food."
I focused on the feeling hanging over our sector. Jace was right. The energy here felt... slow. Heavy. It tasted of indulgence. The officers I had seen nearby had Orange and Yellow cores that pulsed with a lethargic rhythm.
"Fat and happy," I muttered.
"Alive and fed," Jace corrected. "General Aurus likes his comforts. He doesn't send his men into the meat grinder unless he has to."
He pointed his knife to the west again, toward the jagged grey area.
"Second Division is Vanguard. General Draven. The Butcher. Battalions 6 through 10. They're the shock troops. They hit the enemy lines to soak up the spells. You see those banners? The Black Skulls?"
I didn't see them, but I felt the result of General Draven's tactics. The soldiers walking in that sector didn't have the steady, rhythmic auras of the Logistics men. Their auras looked fractured. Dim. Like candles running out of wax.
"Life expectancy in the 7th Battalion is three weeks." Jace said simply.
"And the others?" I asked, dismissing the statistic as it didn't have anything to do with me.
"Third Division is Intel. General Nyx. Battalions 11 through 15. Spies. Scouts. Ghosts. You never see 'em, but they're always watching."
Jace jerked his thumb toward the massive stone keep in the center of the valley-the source of the crushing Blue Gravity Well.
"And Fourth Division is Command & Defense. General Magnus. The Iron Wall. Battalions 16 through 20. They guard the bigwigs and hold the line if everything else goes to sh*t. They don't mix with scum like us."
I looked at the keep. The Blue Mana radiating from it was absolute. It forced the chaotic ambient energy of the camp into a rigid, terrified order.
"So," I summarized. "Logistics is the kitchen. Vanguard is the slaughterhouse. Intel is the eyes. Command is the brain."
"Smart kid," Jace said. "Keep your head down, do your lifting, and pray you never get transferred past Battalion 5."
He eyed me. "You look hungry."
"I'm starving," I admitted. My stomach felt like it was trying to digest my spine. The engine-my body- was idling rough, demanding fuel.
"Mess hall opens in an hour," Jace said. "It's gruel tonight. But we're Logistics. Sometimes... crates fall off wagons. Sometimes apples roll away."
He tossed me the core of his apple.
I caught it. It was barely a mouthful, but the Vitality inside it flared in my vision like a beacon. I ate it, seeds and all.
"Does the General know?" I asked, wiping my mouth. "About the 'falling crates'?"
Jace laughed. It was dry, wheezing sound.
"General Aurus? He takes the biggest cut. Corruption isn't a crime here, runt. It's the currency. As long as you don't steal from someone higher rank than you, nobody cares."
He leaned back onto his cot, closing his eyes.
"Get some sleep. Tomorrow you start hauling for the Officer's Mess. If you're lucky, you might smell a steak."
I sat on the edge of my cot, staring out the tent flap.
I watched the lazy, swirl of the Logistics sector. Then I looked at the jagged, grey fear of the Vanguard.
Heaven and Hell, separated by a muddy road.
I clutched my iron badge. I was in Heaven. I had a roof. I had a job that wouldn't kill me. I had a guide.
But as my stomach growled again, violently and painfully, I knew one thing for sure.
Heaven didn't have enough food.
"I need more than apples, Jace," I whispered to the sleeping veteran.
"Then you better learn to steal better than you hide," Jace mumbled without opening his eyes.
I lay back, listening to the hum of the camp, plotting how to turn Logistics into lunch.
Morning in the 4th Battalion didn't start with a man screaming at you. It started with the smell of unwashed bodies and the sound of coughing.
I woke up stiff. My Alloy Flesh had cooled down-even though I slept for about two hours-dense mana-infused muscles locking up like a rusted hinge. While the other recruits groaned and rolled over, I dropped to the dirt floor.
One. Two. Ten.
I knocked out about fifty pushups in rapid succession. I focused on the internal friction, grinding the fibers against each other until I felt the heat spark up all over my body. The stiffness vanished, replaced by the smooth, heavy sensation.
"You're a weird little bastard," Jace mumbled from his cot, watching me with one bloodshot eye.
"I'm a growing boy," I panted, standing up. Steam drifted off my shoulders.
Breakfast was exactly what Jace had promised: grey sludge that tasted like boiled shoe leather and despair. I ate three bowls-stealing from recruits who were too nauseous to eat- and my stomach was still screaming. It was like throwing twigs into a blast furnace.
"Work detail!" a Corporal shouted, banging a spear against the tent pole. "Heavy Lifters, move out! The supply wagons from the capital just arrived. We need mules!"
I grabbed my iron badge, and fell in line.
The Supply Depot was a chaotic maze of crates, barrels, and shouting officers.
The air here was thick with Yellow and Orange auras of Logistics officers-lazy, swirling patterns of bureaucracy. But underneath that was the smell. Fresh bread. Salted beef. Spices from the south.
It was torture.
"You! The heavy one!"
I turned. A Quartermaster pointed at a stack of heavy iron-bound crates. "These go to the Officer's Mess. Tent Block 1. Don't drop them, or I'll dock your pay for a year."
"I don't get paid," I muttered, hoisting a crate onto my shoulder.
It must have weighed two hundred pounds. To a normal man, it would be a two-person lift. To me, it felt like a backpack. The Density of my bones absorbed the weight instantly, grounding it through my heels into the mud.
I trudged toward Tent Block 1.
The Officer's Mess was less a tent and more a pavillion. The mana here was cleaner, refined. The air didn't smell of sewage; it smelled of lavender and roasting meat.
Standing by the entrance, holding a clipboard and directing traffic, was a girl.
She looked young-maybe thirteen or fourteen. She gave off scribe energy.
I stopped. Her aura caught my attention.
Most people in Logistics had auras that were sloppy. Hers was geometric. The white particles around her moved in perfect, synchronized lines. It was the cleanest, sharpest intent I had seen in the camp.
And in her chest, a tiny flickering Red Core pulsed.
A Mage, I realized. Mid Rank 1. But organized.
"That crate goes to the left," she said without looking up from her ledger. "The dry goods are on the right."
"This isn't dry goods," I said, shifting the weight effortlessly. "It feels like glassware."
She looked up then. She paused, her gaze landing on me. Then it dropped to my badge. Then to the massive crate balanced on my shoulder.
She frowned. "You're the weird one the Sorting Officer talked about. The recruit with the melted veins."
"News travels fast," I said. "Did he mention I'm charming, or did he leave that part to himself?"
The girl didn't smile. Her aura tightened, the geometric lines snapping into a grid of annoyance.
"He marked you as 'The Brick'." she replied coolly.
"I prefer 'The Rock'," I corrected. "Where do you want this, Your Highness?"
"I am not royalty," she snapped. "I am Rhea. Junior Auditor." She pointed a stylus at a table near the back. "Put it there. Gently. If you break anything, I'll have you flogged."
"You have a lovely bedside manner," I noted.
I walked past her. As I passed, I felt a wave of mana brush on my physique-a quick, analytical scan. She was checking my body.
"You're heavier than you look," she murmured, almost to herself.
"I eat a lot of bricks," I threw back over my shoulder.
I set the crate down on the designated table. It landed with a heavy, solid thud that made silverware rattle.
"Gently!" Rhea hissed.
"That was gentle," I said. "If I dropped it, we'd be in the basement."
I turned to leave, ready to go back for another load of torture, when a glint caught my eye.
Another wagon was being unloaded nearby. Two struggling recruits were carrying a smaller crate. They stumbled, and the lid shifted.
My Understanding pierced the gap in the wood.
Inside, nestled in straw, were twelve glass bottles.
But I didn't see glass. I saw the liquid inside. It glowed with a deep, rich Purple luminescence. It wasn't just the mana; it was the spiritual signature of fermentation. Aged. Complex. Potent.
It vibrated with the memory of sunlight and grapes.
Vintage Wine.
My feet stopped moving. My breath hitched.
The hunger for food vanished, replaced instantly by a thirst that was older and deeper than my new body. It was the thirst of the man who had died in an alley.
"That," I whispered, my voice trembling slightly. "What is that?"
Rhea followed my gaze. She marked something on her ledger, indifferent.
"My fa-The General's private reserve," she said. "Vintage from the Capital. For the victory feast."
She looked at me, her sharp eyes narrowing as she saw the sudden, desperate hunger in my eyes.
"Don't even think about it, Brick," she warned. "That crate is worth more than your entire bloodline."
I didn't hear her. I was staring at the bottles.
My whole body seemed to crave the same thing.
Just one sip, a voice in my head whispered. Just to take the edge off the pain. Just to warm the flesh.
"Move along, recruit," Rhea ordered.
I tore my eyes away. I forced my heavy boots to turn around.
"Right," I croaked. "Moving along."
But as I walked back into the mud and the stink of the common camp, the image of that purple glow burned in my mind brighter than any fire.
I knew where the tent was. I knew the rotation of the guards.
And I knew I was going to be in trouble.