At the end of the 100 hours the exam came. And it was A deceptively simple exam. Being split from his course mates and shown to a small room where Youn the teacher who came and asked him to decipher the runes, came into the room and said. “Ah, young one. How goes to deciphering? Have you finished yet?” Looking down shamefaced Krs answered. “Not yet, Sir. I'm sorry I failed.” Looking shocked Youn asked “You failed? You had 40 hours! Did you ask your fellow students for help? Wait, you didn't go to the library? You've been sitting here for 40 hours, and you haven't slept?” Speaking up, Krs said. “Sir, no, I actually did sleep a couple of hours. And asking someone no, I thought I shouldn’t. I thought I had to figure it out using nothing but the placard.”
“Well, you thought wrong.” Youn said while shaking his head. “I hope you learned at least something about yourself and your massive weaknesses and foibles. The exit is the third door on the left. Good luck, kid. Try not to die.” And with that, the man turned around and vanish behind a door Leaving Krs quite disturbed, quizzical and quite frankly Disappointed in himself.
Exiting the course KRS went up to the booth and looked down at his course selection.
Elementary mana changing short course on how to make mana aspected. 7 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish.
Elementary Evocation: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of evocation 11 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Elementary conjuration: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of conjuration 11 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Elementary Change material: short course on how to fundamentally change all material into something else. Needs: Elementary transfiguration and Elementary transmutation to qualify. 100 hours. 1 N-points at finish. Elementary druid craft: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of the druid 20 hours. 0.2 N-points at finish. Elementary illusion: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of illusion 11 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Elementary Restoration: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of Restoration 11 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Basic Transmutation, transfiguration, enchantment, Invocation: short continuation course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of Transmutation, transfiguration, enchantment, Invocation, 100 hours. 1 N-points at finish. Elementary abjuration: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of abjuration 11(5) hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Exam pending! Elementary magic tool creation: short course on making something no one will appreciate you enough for. 11(5) hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Needs: elementary Transfiguration, Elementary transmutation, Elementary mana channelling. Elementary magic tool use. Elementary Magic tool maintenance. Exam pending!
Narsinian rewards points: 1.7
Turning towards a Golem Krs asked. “I'm sorry, do you know where I can set up a guidance session with a teacher.” The grey creature looked up at him Then slowly raised his hand until it pointed towards a door, krs could swear was not there before. Not feeling the intense urge to press any of the Courses he had not finished. Krs just sat there for all little while and revelled in his newfound freedom.
Entering the doors Krs found himself in a hall awash with blue Rectangles As thousands of them whirred over his head, three of them grew bigger and bigger in front of his eyes.
Areto Specialising in shaping the natural world to ones will.
Tular Specialising in creation of magic equipment. Youn Specialising in mysticism, and the ways of magic.
Cost of a half an hour guidance 1 Narsinian rewards points.
Picking Tular Decisively, Krs found himself in front of another door, opening it, he saw a small office with a blueish woman sitting in front of a desk. Looking up, the woman said. “Ah, no knock this time. Interesting. Please sit.” Gesturing towards a seat in front of her. “So, I see here that you Have a keen interest in magical equipment creation. But I also see here that you have the least magical powers in the entirety of your cohort. Have you, perhaps on purpose, not been training your central mananode? Are you looking towards becoming a conceptualist or maybe an arcanist?” Shaking his head, Krs said. “No. Well, not most of it. I do enjoy magical, magical equipment creation, but I'm weak because I just gained sentience not long ago.”
Frowning the Blue Woman Asked. “That is normally not the case. There are many things in your file I could not access. Is this something you can speak about?” Nodding Krs said. “Yes, you see I'm a reformed blue from the gestalt. I then subsequently spent many years as a Narsinian servant.” Seeing the blue woman's eyes widen with some form of emotion left a hollow warning In Krs stomach. “Wait, that would mean that you are........ I'm sorry if you say...........” The blue woman got to her feet and went over to a bookshelf. Brushing her hand over the spine of one of the books Murmured something and so a warding sprang up. “If you are one of the few pure colours escaped. You will be worth an enormous amount of Wealth. Almost no meister in this school will not do almost anything to have you as a research subject. No, I mean they will do. They will kill. A lot. To be able to study you would be to them Worth an amazing amount of N-points.”
The blue woman walked back to her seat and said. “I am not allowed to speak of anything that happens in this room. The same cannot be said for anyone outside this room. Never again divulge where you come from Unless you would like to see the depravity of Wizards.” The blue Woman started to turn the pages in one of her tomes as she said. “You go by Krs, right? You will do so no longer. You are now Chris, OK?” Chris nodded. “Good. I'll just write in here that you’re a stipend student Because of your services as a servant of Narsinia. This will give you a sort of shield. No one likes to investigate anything about the Narsinian servants So just don't say anything and, I think you'll be fine there.”
“Good. Good. Good............Now, was there something else I could help you with?” Giving a small smile, Chris said. “Yes, I would very much like you to help me to become a bookmancer If you could.” Looking a bit quizzical The Blue woman said. “If that's what you want to work towards, we could do that, but it's kind of like going up to a miner and saying I would like to become the greatest swordsman. You're putting the cart way before the horse here. Now normally you can't really get into bookmancy classes until Late third year or even 4th year.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
looking around at her Desk, the blue woman got out an index and started looking through it While saying. “The way I see it, if you want to go for bookmancy, many, many years from now. You have three options. Continue going down the path of the enchanter and wonder creation. The upsides are the wealth and prestige that comes with the Profession that is quite hard to do and quite sought after. The downside would be in the massive amounts of hours he would need to Put in before you are at all useful.
Secondly You could go transmuter and be able to pay for the classes that way. The upside would again be the wealth and the prestige. But the downside would again be the hours, and you'd probably have to work for someone Just transmuting Mundane into magical raw materials. They say it's a lucrative path, but it sounds quite tedious.
Thirdly, there's always the option of going into the dungeon. Getting together a group and going into the dungeon in the first semester will net you an enormous number of points. It's almost certainly a death sentence, though.” looking pensive, Chris said. “Is there nothing I can do that even remotely Get me a foot within the door of this profession? It was my intention to create a tome as my focus and use it to increase my efficiency in my courses and subsequent classes.”
The blue woman started tapping her fingers as if remembering something and said. “Well, that's very smart, but a tome is an incredible piece of work, well beyond your capabilities at the moment. But there may be something you could do. There's a spell that's, well, old magic instead of the more modern Conceptual and law-based Magic that you learn in the first semester. I assume you know about the Wizards familiar.” Chris nodded. “Well, almost everyone knows about that, but what few know is that you don't really have to choose a natural animal or even the magical animal. The truth is you don't have to choose an animal at all.
Now in the stacks of the library under rituals There's an old witch's spell. It's there for people who wish to create an artificial familiar. I know about it because some Idiot used it and started pumping out talking swords. And of course, put on our heavy cloak, false beard and started a craze in several small kingdoms where he persuaded many a farmer's son, they were the chosen one and had the sword to prove it. Some say the some of the swords are still in circulation and making chosen ones to this day.
Now I've never heard of anyone actually using it on a book. But it's supposedly very similar to a tome Spirit, So I imagined, if you had one and it grew with you through Your semesters, maybe it'll be sort of a tome substitute. So which path will you pick? You have like 5 minutes remaining, so you better pick soon.”
“What do I have to pay for the Ritual of creating an artificial familiar?” Chris immediately said. “See, I knew you were smart. Through very little fault of your own, you were dumped almost immediately into a trial programme we were trying out. You know, the one with the blue boxes. Supposedly it's to make more people into better Wizards. But stuff like this is always tried out and A lot of people always die. You and nine other Cohorts simply Had the most casualties and the most experimental failures. So now you're sort of Guinea pigs now, you were not supposed to be put in this situation, but I have very little power to do anything about that.”
“However, there is something you can do. You'll never survive, even for a minute in the Great Dungeon, but you may survive in the training dungeons. Next to the great dungeon, there are set up artificial training dungeons The sift out potential Recruits for the great Mercenary and adventure groups. If you can go through the entire training Dungeon of the Horde, Ice, arcane, or sand Within two weeks you will get 2 N-points. This is also subsequently what the spell of artificial familiar creation will cost. So, if you sign this little document I have right here. You will get the ability to get a foot within the door of the bookmancer profession and maybe enough prestige to get yourself out of this mind-bending experiment You have been volunteered for. What do you say?”
Picking up the document and trying to speed read it. Chris was sweating even more now that he knew what the hell was going on. “Tick tock, little student. Tick tock. You have two minutes remaining.” Eyes nearly glazing over Chris Still found the reason why she would make such an attractive offer in this his hour of need. “I see here it says if I die, the contents of my room will go to you. It further says that this also means my corpse. Put in a clause that says you may not hinder me in anyway Magical or Mundane And you got yourself a deal.”
Smiling, but still knowing that he got the worst end of the shaft Chris walked as fast as he could Back to his room as the time to claim the prize was 13 days, six hours away. And he had a hell of a spell to learn.
There are many, many ways to use Magic. Most people agree that they come in two Distinct flavours. The one where you bend mana to your will Through either knowledge or your own prodigious will. Or your knowledge of concepts or aspects. We call this the new way, and it's by far the easier and safer way to add magic power to your own.
The other way Is through sacrificing something, as in a deal. Asking something with power to grant you that power as long as you give it the something. For priests, this is faith or grace, as they sometimes call it. For druids it is more like a job where you are the Keeper or protector of a place, or all natural places and you're paid accordingly. Beast master's tap into the power of the hive or pack and share freely. We sometimes call this the old way.
In this book you will learn How to create an artificial soul of the old way, A thing with a purpose, either singular or myriad. Now this sounds incredibly important and Momentous, but most likely you'll use this to imbue a washcloth with the purpose of cleaning. Creating artificial soul is something that gives itself power overtime. You'd have a much, much easier time creating his sword with the myriad ways of enchanting rather than creating an artificial soul inside of it. But this does have its uses, if you need something to be slightly magical, and much more durable but don't wish to waste so much time and energy. And let's not forget so many magical reagents. Then artificial souls are just insanely Cheap over time. Since it's a soul, it will automatically Take in ambient mana and use it for its purpose. So, if say, someone you love painted you a Picture before they died and you are off to go adventure, maybe for years and years. You can create an artificial soul within the painting that has as at its goal to stay like this forever to never fade or blemish. It does have a steep upfront cost of sacrificed reagents or life, but it will last for years and years. In fact, one good thing about this is that it will increase in power overtime. It'll take like 1000 years to be as good as a First circle enchantment, but it will not need much more than ambient mana to stand the slow clawing of time during the 1000 years. (The book then goes into quite graphic and unnecessary detail of when the writer of this book used the ritual on 99 green flowers to keep them forever in bloom. And how he subsequently bedded 99 mundane noble ladies of various kingdoms and duchies and left them with a flower each.)
After a couple of pages of what can only charitably be described as Harlequin romance. The writer got back on track. If you wish an artificial soul with more than one purpose It will require a subsequent Near doubling of Life force and/or reagents. I would suggest that you use two different items with an artificial soul and combine them. My first suggestion would be a broom with the purpose of do not break, added to a washcloth with the purpose of clean. If you try to combine them, you will find you will need about four times as Much wealth as you would to create just one. The third one would cost you 16 times as much and so on and so forth. The only way to make it Cheaper or easier is to find two Items with an artificial soul of the same purposes. It also works sometimes with very, very similar purposes. Do be careful, as many a wizard has Imbued statue with the learnings of an old teacher with the purpose of teaching His children knowledge and the magic taking over and simply teaching them how to put socks on. Do remember, spells that seem almost wonders are almost always hard to direct or to make them do what you Had in your head at the moment of casting.
The more wealth and the more purpose and power you put into the item. The better it will Be at that purpose and the faster it will grow in power. To rid the item of the artificial soul without destroying it Cannot, in my opinion, be done. This is an interesting path of study and A quaint little spell I picked up from a torched witches house. Please follow the rituals to the letter and don't expect too much.