The Spell Library was packed full of metal plates. Each plate had a different Schema on it. The Library played the role of an armory and museum. All of the public rooms had various artifacts and Relics that had been collected by the school over the years of its operation. From tapestries and books, swords and armor. Every thing in the Library was valuable or dangerous in some way.
Outside of the public rooms were private rooms that could be reserved to allow a mage to anchor Schema in peace. These rooms were little more than a chair and a desk. The rest of the building was taken up by special magic tools which were created to keep Schema in a usable form to allow mages to switch out spells easily.
Andonys group were reading through reference books that listed all of the spells in the Library's catalogue. One such spell that Andony had selected was the first rank version of the so called Hammerspace spell class. The spell worked by reserving a portion of the users mana in order to create a space separate from reality. Another portion of the spell was used to access this space. Andony had picked this spell because it was one of the spells that were only really practical using Schema.
Lilly had pair of basic elemental spells and was currently anchoring them to her mana pool. Sanueal had quickly picked two body strengthening Schema. Segrick Chose a farsight Schema and picked a telekinetic spell Schema to go alongside it. Amilly had chosen a Schema that created a secondary reserve of mana and had found a book on exercises to improve shaping skills. Narsisca had chosen a basic healing Schema. Omma had picked a personal defense Schema.
Finally Andony decided on the ‘reserve’ spell Amilly had chosen; a Schema that could create force barriers up to five meters away; and a Telekinetic schema designed to bind its targets. With the dimensional Storage Schema that covered the four Shells slots he had available to him. After the Librarians Retrieved Copies of the Spell Schema he wanted he entered one of the meditation rooms and opened a book explaining the technical details of anchoring Schema to his mana pool.
The term mana pool is used to describe one of two things, either core of a person's soul or the cloud of mana contained around that core. General Mages use only the mana contained in the air around them for spell work. This mana is attracted to the soul though a force called soul force. This force gradually increases through practice and use of magic. As the force increases the size and density of the cloud of mana increases. Spell Schema can be woven into the outer layers of the soul and kept active by placing a slight drain on the user's mana regeneration. As Schema are anchored into the soul they form artificial outer Layers called Shells.
While the processes isn’t fully understood the Shells follow very specific rules. First the closer the Schema to the core of the soul the easier it is to use and the more complex the Schema can be. Second as the soul develops through use of magic it improves the effects of the first trait, the mage is able to cast bigger spells more efficiently. Third higher shells can contain more more schema. This increase clearly follows some sort of pattern but the pattern is not understood. Fourth the Mages with incomplete Shells, especially with the first spell in a layer or missing only one Schema from the layer, have more trouble with Spell static than Mages with Filled Shells.
What this meant for Andony was that he was going to fill his first Schema Shell with two spells, in his case the storage spell and the spell that would increase his mana Capacity, and that he would be filling his second shell halfway.
Andony entered a meditative state. He then carefully took control of the Schema on the metal plate. Once he had taken control of the spell he began purifying the mana. Each mage has a personal signature of mana. To anchor a Schema to their soul the mage must replace all of the magic the makes up the structure of the Schema with their personal mana. It took Andony a few minutes to do this but with a little effort he managed to move on to the next step. The Schema was constructed in such a way that it wouldn't unravel readily, but Andony had to remove a portion of the Schema and connect the spell to his soul. The moment he did this he felt a spike in his concentration as the spell started unravel until he managed to get the Schema under control again. Connecting the Schema to his soul was easy enough as there was a component of the spell that was designed for that very purpose. All he had to do was activate it and let it do is work before that portion of the Schema unraveled.
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The whole process took Andony half an hour and drained his magica resources. After a brief rest to stretch and recover his focus Andony sat down to recover his mana through mediation. He could already feel the affect of the Schema on his abilities.
The first Schema he had anchored was the spell that augmented his mana pool. The spell had a function to collect mana from the air and store it in the secondary reserve. The process was slow because it was more of a flaw in the spell than it was a feature. Because the spell was connected to his soul the mana was slowly shifting to match his mana signature. One of the problems with the spell was that he couldn’t use the energy directly. Instead he had to let it trickle into his regular reserves. He could however, use one one of the features of the spell to stop the flow. He did this because the connection was bilateral allowing the energy to freely flow between the two containers, the spell and his soul, freely.
The second Schemal he tackled was the Hammerspace Schema. He repeated the same process he had used for the first. This spell was inactive by default and had a number of functions that could be operated separately. After another recovery session he was ready for the next step. Andony had to construct layer that would separate the two Shells. This was an easy enough task and his soul could slowly complete the task on its own. This wasn't preferable because it could take weeks. Instead he compressed his mana around the first shell with an effort of will. After he had the compression under control he began to take the mana floating in this mass and compressing it into a film above the Schema he had anchored. After a few minutes the strain on his focus began to lessen. Once Andony was able to move and still maintain the effort he stood and released some of the tension from his body.
Once he felt he was ready Andony redoubled his effort at creating the shell layer. After a few minutes of intense concentration the pressure he was fighting in his mana ceased and he realized how draining the effort was. A lot of his mana had been consumed in creating the outer shell and the intense concentration required by the task ad taxed his focus almost to the limit. Finishing the shell layer had also boosted his reserves which made the magical fatigue even more pronounced. The second pair of spells was much easier than the first if only because he had a feel for the process. Finally after three hours of effort he had managed to Anchor all four spells.He restarted the flow of mana between his soul and the secondary reserve and touched a silver strip on the wall and waited as his mana began to purify itself before exiting the room.
Unsurprisingly he was the last of his house members to finish anchoring their spells. The final part of their day was a welcoming banquet in the school's dining hall. The group followed their journeyman to the dining hall in an exhausted silence. Andony made an effort to clear his mind as he absentmindedly touched another of the many silver strips the occupied the walls across the academy’s campus. His ability to shape mana had improved immensely after the effort he had gone through. While he was a little disappointed that it only related of the amount of mana he could control at any given moment it seemed like an extreme effort would reap comparable benefits for him.
A voice caught Andony’s attention causing him to shift his attention ac to reality.
“Andony?” Amilly was looking at him, “What kind of spells did you get?”
“Oh... I got the same spell you did; a spell from the Hammerspace class that lets me keep some things in a pocket dimension; a spell called Entangle; and a barrier projection spell called Force Wall.”
Segrick closed his eyes and frowned for a moment before saying, “At least one of us took some utility spells.”
Sanuel added his own two cents. “The first assignment won't be too difficult. Just enough to make us realise that we need to be a cohesive group.”
“The problem,” Lilly remarked, “is that we just don’t have the ability to cover more than just the basics at the moment. I still think Amilly was right to focus on her raw shaping skills to begin with. They wouldn't lock us into the first spells without having a good reason.”