Chapter 5: Several Visits to the Workshop
The Workshop was incredibly accommodating, and provided me with several materials I hadn’t even thought to bring, all purely mundane in nature, like string and metal. There was even an anvil off in the corner, though I hadn’t the faintest idea how to use it. Linn was taking a blacksmithing class, though, as her side of the family focused on warping magemetal. While my mother followed her father’s footsteps, her core lying in the same intersection between Force and Crystal mana pools as mine, my aunt had wanted to become an enchanter of her own right. Her core lied in a blend between Crystal mana and Metal mana known as Magemetal mana. Magemetal mana allowed her to infuse metal with energy and strengthen it, similar to what Strength mana does to a human. After expanding her reach into the Aether, she was also able to access both Crystal and Metal mana individually.
Thankfully, I didn’t need to use the anvil myself. Several metal rings lay in drawers, with empty sockets for mana crystals. There were also rings made of wood, stone, and several other materials, but I didn’t care to use those. They were fairly bland, which I didn’t enjoy, but I had to make do. It was more convenient than my original plan, which was to waste precious mana crystals making the ring. I was just about to reach for one of the metal rings when I noticed another drawer entirely – labeled “Crystals”. A devilish grin found itself meld onto my face as I reached for the drawer.
They weren’t mana crystals, but I would still be able to exert control over them using Crystal mana. It took a fair amount of time to mold the sapphire into a design I liked, and I had to take several breaks as my soul was still reeling from the abuse I put it through while working on the doohickey. In hindsight, I really should have worked on it over the course of a couple days, but I needed to have more mana crystals. I was going to use up a fair amount of my stash just on what I had planned to make.
Eventually, I’d gotten the ring to a point where the design was… passable. Not my best work, but I didn’t want to waste more time on pointless flair. Then, I took out a Crystal mana crystal, a Force mana crystal, and a Knowledge mana crystal. I shaved off a small piece of the Knowledge mana crystal, and shaped it into a tiny circle. I cracked the Force mana crystal into two, and shaped the two halves into two equal-sized spheres.
I slowly altered the structure of each so that they followed a specific pattern. It took me much more time than I wanted – a couple hours for the Force mana crystals, and about an hour for the Knowledge mana crystal. But then, if I could have done it faster, I wouldn’t have bothered with enchanting; I would have simply resorted to Crystal-Casting. Unfortunately, that was something far beyond me… for now. Once the three crystals were done, though, I placed them all into the empty slot at the tip of the ring, the small, circular Knowledge mana crystal held tight by the two Force mana crystal spheres. To test it, I slid the ring onto one of my fingers and used Crystal mana to grind the crystals against each other. Immediately, a navy blue, semi-transparent energy surrounded my body, copying its shape as though I were outlined by it. I grinned. I stopped the enchantment, slipped off the ring, and placed it on the table. I activated the enchantment again, and the same navy blue energy began to surround the table, again as though the table had a blue outline. It was all thanks to Knowledge mana – it reacted to its environment, and the enchantment used those reactions to determine the shape of the object it was touching. Most Force mages wasted a lot of effort creating entire domes of force around them, but this would condense all of that into a me-shaped blanket of protection, strengthening the shield overall.
I took the ring back off the table and started repairing the mana crystals – the damage from using it was incredibly minor, but it didn’t sit right with me to have any damage at all come to my enchantment when I had only just made it. Once that was done, I spent about an hour creating a Flowform enchantment out of the Crystal mana crystal that would grind the others against each other without me needing to do it manually. Once it was finished, I placed it onto the ring so that it was surrounding the other mana crystals. I sighed with relief once it was finished, and without planning to, fell asleep.
[break]
Shitshitshitshitshit, my mind groaned as I raced to class. It’s day three, I can’t be late on only the third day!
Lo and behold, I was late on the third day.
I rushed into my enchanting class and winced as everyone looked my way. “Sorry, Professor.”
“It’s day three, Decimation. Don’t let it happen again,” he said sternly. “Now – As I was saying, after many debates, arguments, and… well, shouting matches, the school board has begrudgingly agreed to allow me to teach you about mana type interactions early.” Had I not been running off of two hours of sleep, I would have lit up, but my mind at the time was barely even running off of fumes, and I was far too focused on the aching of my soul. “The first, and most important mana interaction, has to do with unattuned mana and mana crystals. Unattuned mana is inherently disruptive to mana crystals. This is why we need it to activate Flowform enchantments – as we disturb the mana crystal of a Flowform enchantment, Change occurs, and a predictable effect is produced based off of the design of the Flowform,” he explained. “However, this also contributes to damage over time to the enchantment, which necessitates maintenance.” Something in what he said made my mind click, and yet again, a grin found itself crawling onto my face. “That being said, it wouldn’t need as much maintenance as most other forms of enchantments.” The professor began going into detail on other mana interactions – such as how Lightning evocations could travel through Metal mana crystals, and a few others, but my mind was too lagged to keep up.
The rest of the day was fairly unremarkable. In combat, I was paired with Garberend again, and it was clear that his overnight lessons had yielded results. Or maybe I was just too tired to fight. Or both. I fell asleep in spellcasting – Professor Andsware was going over common First Circle rune sets for certain mana types, and I just couldn’t bring myself to stay awake – and again in history, though Professor Kendra woke me up with her Light Breakstone right next to my face. Apparently it’d had just enough time to solidify, or so she said as she began dropping liquid Light mana into the clay brick template.
“Julian,” I grumbled once class was over, “Carry me to the Workshop, would you?”
“No, I’m not gonna carry–” I was asleep before he finished the sentence.
[break]
I slowly awoke in the comfort of a soft couch – the same couch where I recalled filling out a particular form. “Thanks, Julian– oh.” Julian wasn’t anywhere nearby. “How long have I been sitting here?” I asked the attendant.
“Two hours.”
I clasped two hands to my face. “I’m gonna have to apologize to him when I get back. Are there any forms I need to fill out, or can I just go into one of the cubicles?”
“That depends,” the attendant chuckled, pulling out a form from under his desk. “Did you fall asleep in one of ‘em last night?” I reluctantly took the form and filled it out, then gave it back to the attendant. Yet again, he guided me to one of the cubicles and I got to work.
I pulled out my pouches of mana crystals, woefully mourning my dwindling collection. In truth, I still had a somewhat fair amount left, but all that mattered to me was that I’d already used more than half a pouch. All I had left were unattuned mana crystals, the cheapest form of mana crystal, and one Knowledge mana crystal. Granted, I had plenty of others growing in the Doohickey, but those wouldn’t be ready to split apart for at least another day.
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I started by cracking several unattuned mana crystals into fourths. I wanted the parts to be small, but not too small. I reshaped each part into a sphere, and focused on three specific ones to start with. I spent an hour slowly shaping each into a pattern similar to the one I used to dissipate the Knowledge mana crystal, but with some subtle alterations. For one, I wanted the enchantment to be its own target, and I wanted the overall structure to be a bit sturdier. Additionally, I needed it to be able to be activated on its own, without the help of another grindstone, more similar to a Breakstone. Thanks to the small size of the pieces, which I felt looked sort of like beads, the enchantment only took around ten minutes to work into the pieces. I pulled out a Knowledge mana crystal, apologized to it in advance, and placed it on the table.
Then I fired one of the beads at it.
The effect was immediate, but barely noticeable. Normally, Knowledge mana crystals were white, but almost entirely clear. However, around where the bead collided, it was visibly disfigured – it was not at all clear, and looked brittle, as though I could flick it and it would dissolve. But the area of effect was too small. Damn, I knew it’d turn out like this, I thought to myself. I picked up the remaining two finished beads and fired them near – but not at – the mana crystal. Instead of colliding with the Knowledge mana crystal, they collided with each other, activating each other’s enchantments.
The effect was much more prominent. The entire crystal turned to that same shade of white. I flicked it, and it cracked into a hundred tiny pieces. I knew that most mana crystals wouldn’t be nearly as brittle or reactive, but that’s what I had Force mana for.
I looked at my remaining unattuned mana crystals. I have more growing at home, I have more growing at home, I have more growing at home… I repeated to myself as I began my work.
[break]
I’d fallen asleep in the cubicle again, but this time at a much more reasonable hour. I’d stuffed the finished beads into a pouch, unsure what to do with them. Since they looked like beads, I’d considered making a bracelet out of them, but I didn’t want to disrupt the enchantments with string. Theoretically, I was more than capable of just levitating them around my arm to make it appear like a bracelet, which would be a great way to exercise my soul, but soulstrain wasn’t the only battle to worry about when it came to spellcasting. The concentration needed for each individual bead was just too mentally taxing when you added them all up together. I resolved to get some practice in whenever I could.
When I returned to my room, I walked in on Julian doing his stretches. “Julian, thanks, and I’m sorry for–”
“You owe me a sword,” he said, turning towards me.
“I– what?”
“You owe me a sword,” he repeated. “That’s how you can repay me. Make me a sword.”
I sighed. “Guess I’ll be heading to the Workshop again tonight. Any chance you can carry me again?”
“Not unless you wanna make two swords,” he chuckled.
“Worth the shot,” I shrugged. “It’ll be ready by next week.”
“Wait,” he said, placing two gold-hued crystals in my hand. “Use these.”
[break]
During enchanting, we’d unfortunately gone back to going over spellcasting basics, much to Professor Andsware’s chagrin, so I spent the time drafting ideas for Julian’s sword. He’d entrusted me with Royalflame mana crystals – probably ones he’d spent time crystallizing himself. That placed a lot of pressure on me.
I continued to jot ideas down for possible enchantments, when I looked over at my ring. That gave me an idea. I’d need Linn’s help. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any classes with her, so I had to wait until lunch.
Periods one and two came and went, and as I predicted, I was no longer paired with Garberend for combat. Instead, I was paired with a girl named Mayda, who was equally as awful at combat as I was. Finally, lunch came.
“Linn!” I yelled, trying to get her attention. “I need your help with a project.”
“What’s in it for me?” she questioned.
“...The feeling of fulfillment that comes with helping your cousin?” I suggested.
“Nope. The journal. I want to take a look at it,” she whispered.
“Fine. You get one look. And you have to be discreet about it,” I whispered back.
She squealed. “Alright, I’m in. What are you making?”
“A sword. I need you to make the handle.”
[break]
Yet again, I found myself in the Workshop, this time with Linn, and quite a few mana crystals that I had chopped off of ones growing in the Doohickey. They had finally grown enough that I could leave more than just a shard in the Doohickey. “You’re gonna need to fill out–” the attendant began, pulling out a form.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.” I filled it out as quickly as I could, and we made our way to the nearest open cubicle.
The first thing Linn and I did was begin experimenting with the Royalflame mana crystals. This was an invaluable learning experience, one we likely would never get again with our lives. Even our parents had never held a Royalflame mana crystal with their own two hands.
Of course, “experimentation” really meant “testing how powerful the wards on the cubicles are”, the answer to which is “very”. We could barely make a dent in the walls, even using our most efficient evocation enchantments with the Royalflame mana crystals. “What a disappointment,” we said at the same time. Then, we spent some time reshaping the mana crystals into manipulation enchantments, to test what the most efficient ways to manipulate Royalflame were. Technically, any manipulation enchantment would have worked, but when working with different mana types, different methods and designs will be more efficient. This lasted hours, testing various different common manipulation enchantments. The best one we found mimicked the manipulation enchantment that most Radiance enchantments used, though we were sure there was probably a better way to do it. Radiance mana was a blend between light and fire. It’d be more accurate to call it Plasma mana, but the name Radiance had been around long before we as a species started screwing around with states of matter. It was one of the few blends known that wasn’t esoteric – most of the time, when you slapped two mana types together, the resulting attunement was for something that definitely didn’t exist in the real world.
Then, once we were happy with our experimentation, we called it a day and went to sleep. We had school the next day, and to be frank, I’d spent too much time occupied with being tired to miss more school.
But the next night, we were back at the Workshop and could work as late as we wanted, because it was finally the weekend. We spent that entire night and part of the day working on the handle. Linn was able to use Magemetal mana to integrate any mana crystal into a metal and enhance it depending on what mana crystal was used. She wanted to use Magemetal mana crystal, as it was incredibly strong and was a more wide-use case, able to protect against all forms of abuse. I argued that we should use Heat mana crystals, as that would prevent the handle from melting from the overwhelming heat of Royalflame. Linn insisted that Magemetal mana crystal would be enough to protect against the heat, and I conceded – she knew more than me about blacksmithing, and she was the one with a Magemetal core. I still grumbled about it, though – I planned on making it clear to Julian that if the whole thing melted, it was Linn’s fault.
We ended up falling asleep in the cubicle, and when we woke up, we got right back to work. Once the handle was finished, we both got to work on the enchantments. Linn worked on the evocation Grindstone enchantment, while I worked on a Flowform manipulation enchantment. I had to get the shaping exactly right, as I didn’t want any Royalflame to go vaulting off in a random direction. Once we had finished, Linn worked on a Crystal Flowform enchantment to control the Grindstone enchantment, and I got to work on the triggering mechanism.
We had to do extensive testing, and we found issue after issue after issue – one time my head was almost cut clean off – but eventually, Sunday night, we’d finally finished and got to show Julian our work.