Today was one of Jack’s days off and he wanted to use it to put into practice some of the material he had been learning in class. After that horrifying dodgeball experience, he really wanted to increase his overall control.
In hindsight, I guess Choi’s crazy stunt worked, Jack thought. I will always remember that day in dodgeball class. He was standing outside in a very compact little park. The park was a small yard that had a couple of trees. The trees were very similar to the one Chad had been examining. They somehow always seemed to be different vibrant colors of fall. They were spectacular to look at. The little park was hidden away in a discreet area and Jack thought it was a perfect place to practice outside without being bothered. He took a deep breath of the fresh air and then got to work.
Jack had been getting a little better with his control but needed to work on more advanced techniques that used more power. He would focus and create as much energy as possible. While concentrating, he would close his eyes, stand in a relaxed position, and slowly build up power. After a few moments, his head would start to hurt, and his body would begin to tremble. The electricity wanted to naturally blast off. Eventually, all his muscles would burn as if doing a full-body workout. Slowly he would relax, releasing all the pent-up energy. After a small break, he would go again. While standing in the relaxed position he would focus on his body. Feeling the electricity flowing he would attempt to slowly give the crazy and disruptive element conformity. To do this, Jack would use the technique Fineus had taught him; by imagining the electricity stacking like sheets of paper inside his body. Controlling the electricity was hard but he was determined to gain better management of his powers. He would do it again and again. He quickly exhausted himself but was feeling good today, so he tried something different. Once again starting the process but now trying a different method. Working more on his micro-control. He had found an interesting book in the library that had advanced micro control techniques that even Fineus didn’t seem to know.
Jack focused on the electricity and created a small spark. Next, he would make the spark grow, then slowly break it into two separate pieces. Doing this method made it much easier to control both pieces. Once they were separated, he would slowly move them apart. Once they were roughly 2 feet apart, he attempted to make them split again, this time turning two into four. It was hard, it was confusing trying to focus on two separate pieces. If you focused too much on one, the other spark would lose conformity. He slowly focused and pushed; going until it felt like his head was going to explode. Then he would slowly release the energy. He would sit and try to let his body recover. The recovery process was weird. It was hard for him to tell when his body was fully recovered. His muscles would burn for a few minutes then they would go back to normal. His headaches would slowly fade as well. The pain that did stay was really hard for him to pinpoint. It felt like he had no energy. Each time left him a little more tired as he pushed himself passed his limit and kept practicing. After one of his more strenuous attempts, he collapsed to the ground in his room and had to crawl over to a bench in the park. He finally stopped when his nose started to bleed. This had happened a couple of times when he was on the streets and enchanting but at the time, he didn’t know what had caused it.
He decided to work on some of his other homework. Later in the day, he went back to training. Jack grit his teeth and kept pushing himself. He was given a chance, a chance he prayed for every night on the street and was not going to let that chance go. Jack kept pushing himself, suddenly he felt a new sensation. Thinking he had reached some new plateau Jack started to push himself even harder, but unfortunately, the last thing he felt was his face hitting the ground as he passed out.
He woke up a few hours later. His entire body hurt; it felt a lot like the day he awoke in the hospital. I think I might have pushed myself too far. He got up off the ground and went to have some food. While his face angrily served as a constant reminder of his stupidity, his stomach happily absorbed all the nutrients. Jack was deep in thought while chewing his food when he suddenly felt as if someone was watching him. He paused and looked up and around when he noticed a tiny mouse in a shadowy area. The mouse looked like it was staring at him. Something about it seemed odd, but it was difficult to see in the shadows. Jack wanted to get closer and slid his chair back to get up, but the mouse appeared startled and fled. Oh well, whatever. He resumed his meal. His nose continued to hurt when returning to his room.
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He decided to practice some enchanting. Grabbing his stuff, he went to the designated enchanting rooms of the academy. You could work in your room if you wanted, but they had special rooms that were specifically designed for enchanting and were made of material that would dampen external mana making it much easier to enchant. He went to apply some basic enchantment on some equipment he had bought. This was the first enchanting he had done since obtaining electricity. Fineus and Gant had constantly been bothering him with other stuff, so he was unable to enchant. Now he had much more knowledge and access to materials and equipment he could only have dreamt of.
He took his backpack off and laid out everything he had brought. He had planned to enchant a few different items with some new techniques and styles he had learned about. First, he pulled out a very simple-looking flat disc. It was small, twice the size of a large coin. Jack placed it on the table and then laid his tools out. After organizing everything neatly, he got to work using a basic enchanting scribe. He was still using the Terdan technique which involved slightly scratching the item with shapes while forcing your mana into the object. With his new knowledge, he went about applying more advanced shapes to the small disc. Some simple stuff that had been difficult for him before was applying more than one enchantment to an item. He had never been able to figure out something so simple on his own and it had bothered him a lot. In class, he had learned that you needed specific sub-symbols that would allow the enchantments to work together. Now he was just trying a simple combination on the disc just to see if he could do it properly.
A Failed enchantment can have various effects. Some just do nothing. Others can be explosively dangerous. That was another reason for using the enchanting rooms. They had a bunch of safety features that were supposed to keep him alive if he messed up. He slowly went about applying two runes to the small disc. The first was a rune of color changing. Then he combined that rune with a sound-dampening rune. The disc had no purpose. He combined both runes and added a physical contact trigger to the disc. The process of enchanting with the Terdan technique required an instrument that could scratch the item while allowing you to push your mana into it. The one Jack was using was one he had brought from Carcas. It was a little old and worn, but it had a hollow glass core that was in perfect shape. The glass core made it easier to channel the mana. When he looked into getting a new one, he quickly realized the one he was using was a very high-quality scribe. It was the scribe he had found abandoned in the factory and was one of his favorite tools.
He quickly scratched the runes onto the disc, while slowly but firmly pushing his mana into the disc. Through experience he found it was best to almost scratch the rune completely before starting to push your mana in, then it was very obvious when the item was full of mana. Pushing in the resistance would slowly increase then it would hit a wall. You could feel that if you really wanted to you could probably push more in, but it felt like overfilling a glass. It just felt wrong. Jack pushed his mana into the sound-dampening rune and then finished by connecting the contact activation rune to the colour-changing rune. Once done, he stepped back and held the disc up to the light. Jack had been trying for such a long time with no success to create such a simple contraption and in this moment while finally looking at the complete product, he felt a huge wave of satisfaction.
After a moment of reveling, Jack decided to test it. Looking down, he casually held his arm out and dropped it. The coin hit the ground. It didn’t make a sound and as it hit the ground it changed color; the coin bounced a couple of times before rolling and then falling on its side. Every time it bounced it would change into a random color. “Yes!” Jack yelled loudly with glee as he watched the coin bounce across the room. It was a small win, not much good had come from him going to the academy yet, so he was very happy to have this. Eventually, he walked over and picked It up. Now that he knew he could do multiple runes he was ready to work on his other equipment.
It took a couple of hours to finish all his projects. By the end, Jack was exhausted but he had been mostly successful and today had turned out to be a very productive day.