My afternoon lessons continue with the alphabet, reading and writing more letters, but Claire slowly shifts to Ternian, introducing new words I don't know. She goes over each one, explaining them. Now that I know more letters, it's definitely opened up what words she's able to teach me. She starts with small words. Ebb, bale, meek. Dale, balk, gall, balm. Claire carefully teaches me how to write them with the letters I know now. What they all mean, how to use them. We keep going, one word after another. I memorize them the best I can, I'm definitely going to write them all again when I get home.
I had no idea there were so many words...
Eventually, we get to slightly longer words. It's... weird. I can think of a four letter word easily, like... It's like the whole thing, made of four letters. As soon as we get to 'image,' it's harder to keep the shape of all five letters in my head at the same time. It's like, when I start to think of the beginning of the word, I can only do the first letters, and have to consciously switch over to the second half of the word after. It's... a very strange feeling... When I ask about it, Claire explains that it can get a lot more difficult to keep larger numbers of things in mind at the same time without practice. She points out that it usually starts after four objects.
"Since you're just learning now, you probably see each of the words as a string of four individual letters," Claire explains. "As you get more familiar with Ternian, it will get easier to think of the words as single objects." I think I get what she means, sort of. But she goes on before I can say so. "Think of it this way. Look at this room." She gestures around us to the entire room. "This is a single room, yes?" I give an easy nod. "If you start here, you can easily think of this room, Eryk's office connected to it, the hallway from there, and the street outside, right?" I tilt my head a bit. Yeah, I can keep them in my head fine. I think I might know where she's going with this now. Four individual places that I can easily keep in mind at once. I nod again.
"Now, you have to question: why do you see this room as one thing? Why, when you form the image of four distinct places, do you think of this room as one single object?" That... is a lot harder. Why do I think of it that way? I look around again. Yeah, it's one room, but just look at it. There's a blackboard, a table, chairs, the window, door... there's all sorts of things in here, it's obviously not one object.
I find myself looking at the wall as I think that, when I realize more. I squint a little. I... I'm not thinking it through enough. The floor, the walls. They're made of dozens, maybe hundreds of individual pieces of wood. They have to be held together somehow. Maybe nails or something. Thousands of nails keeping hundreds of pieces of wood together, that make up the walls, that make up the room, which itself is filled with almost a dozen other objects, each one made of its own individual pieces...
My head is spinning a little as my thoughts race through this realization.
I look back at Claire, blinking rapidly.
"Did that help a little?" she asks. She has an amused look in her eyes. How long did I just spend staring at the ceiling and walls exactly?
"Yeah, I think I understand now." I try to respond without showing how embarrassed I feel. She gestures for me to go on. I clear my throat, thinking it through a little more, until I can properly put it into words. "They're parts. I think of them as individual places, but each place is made up of multiple parts. And each of those parts are made up of smaller parts. Everything builds..."
"Good." She smiles a bit. "Now, apply it back to words," she instructs, so I go on.
"So..." I squint down at the word written on the blackboard in front of me. My finger comes to rest by the letter 'i' in 'image.' Without even thinking about it, the memory of Francis giving me my name comes back to mind. The way he wrote the number one. How he altered the lines that made it up.
"A letter is made of lines," I say. "They're a lot of individual lines, but once they come together, they form a single letter. When those letters come together, they form a single word."
Claire picks up after me, going even further. "When you bring multiple words together, you can form a sentence."
That stops me cold, cheeks going red. "Umm, 'sentence?'" Even Claire grimaces a little, before explaining what a sentence is. "O-oh... Well, I guess I'm already familiar with the idea..." I mutter. I was doing so well, figuring out how things work, only to trip over something so basic... I've been using sentences for years, how could I not know the word already?!
Claire leans forward. I don't really want to, but I raise my stinging eyes to meet hers. Only once I look at her, does she speak. "Don't worry, you already knew the concept, just not the word we use to express the concept. Understanding a new concept is a very difficult thing, much harder than simply attaching a word to that concept."
I nod slowly in response. Then the bell rings, signaling the end of today's lessons. We... kind of got off track at the end there, didn't we?
Claire straightens up quickly, thinking for a moment, before she addresses me again. "Looks like that's our time for today. I want you to practice your writing tonight. I'll be testing you on the first half of the alphabet tomorrow. Understood?" she asks, her voice more stern than usual. I must really not be getting better fast enough, even though I've been up pretty late practicing the last few nights.
"Yes," I agree immediately. I'll definitely practice a lot more tonight, especially since I have all these new words I learned today. If I haven't been practicing enough, I'll just practice even more. There's no way I can't get good at it with practice. Even broken, I've learned to wield dozens of weapons, there's no way writing is out of my grasp... "I'll practice a lot," I assure her.
"Good, make sure you do," Claire insists, then we both stand and head back into Eryk's office. I do another curtsy as I see her off, still trying to get used to the unnerving etiquette. I finally sit down, letting my lessons sink in briefly. I don't have that much time to rest though, work is up next.
I sigh slightly, I'm going to be really busy. Between class and work, and homework, I'm quickly realizing why Eryk insisted I take days off to just play. It's really stressful, finishing up one difficult, tiring thing and immediately dropping into another. I have to take a few deep breaths, letting my mind switch between tasks. I let all of the stuff I learned today settle in the back of my mind to think about at home later, and slowly get myself mentally prepared for work.
"Ok, time for work," I say to myself, and look over at Eryk. "So, did you have anything in mind for today?"
"Nothing particularly certain, what about you?" Eryk responds.
"Mm..." So he's leaving it up to me? In that case, I've already decided. So far, we've run into far more dangerous situations than I ever imagined. I can't put Eryk at risk like that, so it's time to fix the problem. "Then I'd like to test the other method I have in mind. We'll need some more tin and copper, and..." I trail off. "Hmm..."
"Yes?"
"Well..." Even if we're alone, I don't think I should get into any more specific details here since someone might overhear. We could use the back room, but... "Actually, is the back room fixed? Can we go there?"
"Sure," he agrees easily, and we head over. On the way, Eryk asks Patrick about tin and copper. Patrick just says that some will be ready soon. I wonder if it was by chance or if he was already prepared for the request?
When we head into the back room, it looks like the inner door has been fixed, or maybe replaced entirely. "I'm sorry about the door..." I apologize... meekly. Eryk just waves a hand like it doesn't matter, not even responding.
Once we're safely in the back room where no one can overhear, I explain my plan in more detail. "So, I mentioned this at the beginning. The two types of energy that might work are mana and lightning." I stop. Energy? I tilt my head a bit. What about fire? I was carrying around all of that fire energy for a while, would that work? Or maybe just regular fire? I shake my head. It looks like Eryk's just waiting patiently for me to finish thinking. I tell him, "I actually just realized using more fire might work. That might count as energy too."
"Alright..." Eryk answers slowly, before I manage to get myself back on track.
"Well, we can leave that for later. Today, I'd like to test if we can get metals to combine using lightning."
"Aria..." I can't exactly read his expression. "You want us to make more lightning... intentionally?"
I finally realize what he means. "Oh, no no no!" I wave my hands frantically. "Not lightning like that!" I ramble out, "This is like, normal lightning, not the dangerous kind!"
On Eryk's carefully calm face, his eyebrow twitches, just a bit. "And what, if you would kindly explain, is the not dangerous kind of lightning?" Like his face, his agitation shows through his forcibly calm tone.
"A-aah, right, here, I'll show you," I hastily grab my stuff, automatically nervous under his piercing gaze. Eryk can be really scary sometimes!
It just takes a moment to make some lightning mana, then grab a couple copper coins. I run the lightning mana across my body, carefully to go down through my stomach to avoid my heart, and give it a little push with the mollite in my wrist. With one in each hand, I tap the coins together to complete the circle, letting the lightning flow through the mana in my body. I slowly pull the coins apart so the lightning arcs across the small gap, just like I learned the first time I worked with it.
"So, uhh, this is the kind of lightning I was talking about," I quickly try to explain. "It can run through copper and other metals and stuff. Even going through me, I'm fine as long as I direct it with lightning mana." I force a nervous smile so he gets less worried.
"Mm, I see..." he responds, eyes stuck, not moving from the small arc of lightning between the coins. "I had no idea you had such a simple way of creating something like lightning..." He strokes his chin briefly, clearly thinking deeply about this new information. "How well can you control it?"
"With regular copper, it's no problem. It doesn't do anything like those combination metals do. It has a bunch of rules it follows with how it moves, so It's not too hard to control."
"Rules?" he asks.
"Hmm..." The rules are pretty complex, but Eryk's really smart. I carefully explain what I know, from how it usually needs a full circle in order to move, except for lightning bolts which I'm still not entirely sure why they're able to ground. How it tries to go through the easiest path, jump through the air if it's strong enough, and burns things that aren't metals.
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He listens intently the whole time, his complete attention on me. When I finish, he sits for a little while longer, eyebrows deeply furrowed as he thinks.
"Alright, I think I understand how it works now. You really figured that all out on your own?" He exhales loudly, leaning back. "Well, now I know why you aren't afraid of lightning at least. So, your plan is to run lightning energy through the metals to see if that combines them?"
"Yeah, that's it." I nod strongly. I'm so glad he understood that so easily, I don't think I've even explained all the details of lightning to Emily!
"Alright, let's get to work."
With that, we head back out into the workshop. Patrick points us over to a couple molds already filled with copper and tin they melted not too long ago. Eryk fills a crucible, and we're off to the back room once more. I sit for a bit as he stirs, thinking of how I'm going to do this one. It's a bit more difficult than usual.
I need to create a mana field where I can hit a piece of copper, but not hit the crucible. Otherwise this test wouldn't work, the metals would just combine because they're in a mana field...
Alright, I think I'll do it like this... I think to myself as I wrap a bandage around my left arm to hold a copper coin near the shard of metal in my arm. From there, I rearrange the lightning mana inside myself a little. It still goes across my body, through my stomach, but this time, I have it extend to my hands, with two sections connecting to the copper coin on my arm along the way.
Eryk stops briefly to grab a couple more copper ingots. If I hold them in each hand and use the coin to create the current, I can stick both copper ingots into the crucible and have the lightning run through the molten metal. The rest of the circle goes through my body, so it should work... I check my mana a few times and reposition my grip on the copper ingots. "Ready," I say to myself.
I stick the ingots into the metal and push, feeling the lightning current start up. Good so far... I let it flow for a bit while Eryk continues to stir. The copper is starting to get hot really fast though.
"Be careful, copper conducts heat very well. They're going to get hot, don't burn yourself," Eryk warns me shortly after I notice myself. I hold out for a bit longer, but obey his warning and pull the ingots back out before they start to burn. He has me set them down on a thick piece of cloth. I shake my hands a few times. They sting a bit and I shake them, I guess I held onto them a little too long. The feeling fades after a few moments though, so it should be fine.
"Hey Aria, I've been wondering." Eryk speaks up after a short time continuing to stir. "Last time, when everything went to sh- When everything went badly..." I wonder why he cut himself off like that, but he continues, "I noticed that those metals shot out all that lightning while they were still liquid. They didn't actually have to cool and harden before they combined together."
"Huh, that's a good point," I tilt my head a bit, wondering. Why did they work like that before they cooled? Or... no...
"Why did we even think they needed to cool?" I ask myself.
...
We sit for a bit. Was I thinking about things wrong? I always thought of metal as solid, tough, really durable. But even if you heat it up and melt it, it's still the same metal. It still reacts to mana exactly the same. Just look at illium, it literally becomes liquid in a mana field! Ugh, I feel so stupid, I keep assuming things and then basing my decisions on those assumptions. Then they turn out wrong and I have to rethink everything...
"Well, this makes things a lot more simple, doesn't it?" Eryk asks, sounding a lot more positive than I feel at the moment.
"Simple how?" I grumble.
He quirks an eyebrow at my response, but continues anyway. "Because we don't need to wait for the metal to solidify again before we can check if it worked." Oh. I didn't think of that either. I try to push away the bad mood and clear my head, but it isn't working that well. So I give up and just try to focus.
"Alright, I already used the lightning, so I should be able to check now, right?" He nods, so I take my nuvrite bar and hold it near the mixture. A good push gets it to light up, but I don't receive any light mana from the tin. "Yeah, looks like it worked," I note. I spend a long moment thinking how good it is that we proved my theory right and we don't need to use dangerous mana fields to combine metals anymore, and that gets my mood to lift a little.
I exhale, then say, "Good. We can combine metals without mana. We won't need to worry about triggering their mana effects the moment they combine either," I point out. He nods along as I continue. "More importantly, this means you can create metal combinations without me, so you should be able to make a lot more of it."
That stops him. "What do you mean?"
Since he doesn't get it, I expand on my explanation. "If you use lightning to create the metals, you don't need mana. Since you don't need me to do it directly, you can do it on your own." That will really help in the long-term since it's still highly likely I'll die. Even if I don't, I'm still only working three days each week, Eryk could make a lot more metal if he didn't need me to personally work on it.
Before I can explain any of this though, he asks another question. "You've lost me. How am I supposed to make lightning?"
"O-oh, I didn't explain that part," I realize aloud. "You just use magnets to create lightning energy."
His mouth opens and closes a few times. Then he finally gathers himself and asks, "How does that work?"
"Well..." I think briefly. "That... actually might have some issues now that I think about it..." So I explain what I know. "I figured out that magnets can create lightning, and lightning can create magnets, but there's a problem. They're really weak. I... don't know how to solve that. I only figured out how, not why, or how to make the process work better. I never really needed to."
"Wow," he mutters. "That's... incredibly interesting. Could you explain the process?"
"Sure, the basic idea is really simple. Like I said, it's the power that's the problem. To make lightning energy, all you do is move a magnet near some copper."
Eryk blinks. "That's it?"
"Yeah," I nod. "To make a magnet, you just put it in a lightning energy field."
"Lightning energy field?" he asks, reminding me that I never exactly explained these terms, so I take some time to go over how each of the three seem to create areas around them that affect things. Then I get back on topic, saying, "It actually works a number of different ways. If you put a magnetic metal in a lightning energy field or magnetic field, and you can make a new magnet, and it's the same for lightning energy. You can get it from magnets, or from lightning energy. The issue is always power. I had to generate a really strong lightning field right next to another piece of copper to feel it create more lightning energy."
"Hmm..." I give him some time to think over all of the information I've been bombarding him with for a while now. "If I'm being honest, it may be better if we research a method for generating lightning, but not magnets."
"Huh, why?" I ask automatically, before I even have a chance to stop and recall the meaning of the big word he used. Then I go on. "You'll need both if you want to combine metals."
"Not exactly." He shows a small, sneaky grin. "You can make magnets for us to use. As long as we have those, we can make lightning, so we can make the metals." His grin widens and he speaks excitedly.
"Here's the trick. We have a few competitors in the city, not to mention other cities. I know these guys, their first move will be sending spies to steal our methods. They probably have some here already. Or just pay off an employee to tell them how if they don't. In any case, when we move to mass production, the rest of the staff have to know how things work, so there's no way to keep the information from leaking."
I frantically try to follow his excited rambling, and I think I at least sort of understand what he's talking about. But, his competitors would steal from him?!
Just hearing that makes me angry. Stealing is wrong! Eryk goes on quickly, and I almost miss some of it while I'm suddenly overcome with indignation, before returning my attention to his explanation.
"Of course, they'll immediately discover how to mix the metals together, and I'm sure they'll pick up on the way we add lightning. Or at least, they'll figure out how to operate the machinery we'll need to create. However..." His grin suddenly becomes dangerous as he chuckles. "We can't leak information we don't know. If the key component in our machines is something no one can make, there's no way for them to copy our methods. Even if they steal the magnets, I've seen how you demagnetize them. One good hit and they don't work anymore. Even if they steal our methods, machinery, or the magnets themselves, they'll only be able to make a little of the metal themselves, and one good smack to the magnet will stop their entire operation. As long as you're the only one who can create magnets, we'll see minimal interference from the competition."
It seems he's done speaking. I take a while to let it all sink in. So that's where he was going with this. Once he can make the metals, by ensuring no one else can get what they need to copy them, his refinery will be the only place in... well, most of the world, actually, that can make the special metals.
I thought these metals would be extremely profitable. That doesn't even come close to what he has in mind.
I... think I underestimated Eryk.
I sit, stunned for some time. Eryk isn't looking to make a lot of money, he has a solid plan for making, well, pretty much limitless money from something extremely valuable that only he will be able to make. The only exception would be Eschalle, where the original sword came from. Clearly, they make special metals over there.
I wonder how they do it? Actually, how did the original Eschalle, the man himself, come up with it in the first place? Wasn't that like, a really, really long time ago, before we even had rail units? He wouldn't have had access to mana, so maybe he found some magnetite and used that? That must mean he already discovered everything I've been working on, hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
"Hey Aria, now that we have a real plan, what should we call these metals? 'Combined metals' sounds terrible, not to mention that it gives away half of how they're made. 'Mixed metals' isn't that much better..."
His question draws me from my wandering thoughts. A name? Still with Eschalle in my head, the thought of Metallica comes back to me, the way it combines divine arms, adding those stars with each combination... "I guess they'd be star metals," I think.
"Star metals?" Eryk asks.
Wait, did I say that out loud? "U-uh, no, umm," I start to stammer. "That's not, I mean, not even accurate-" I babble out half-formed thoughts related to the way the stars don't even function like that, but it's already too late and there's absolutely no way I can tell him about any of that, so I just make myself stop talking.
Eryk raises an eyebrow at my babbling, then speaks like he's trying to reassure me. "I like the name. Star... I didn't think of that."
Now I'm confused. I shove away my rambling thoughts and ask, "Star?" As far as I know, there shouldn't be any relation between the shape and anything about how we're making the metals... Nothing Eryk should know about anyway...
"Because they're like stars, we already have evidence that they're better than any normal metals."
"Umm?" I don't get it. "Star can be used like that?" It has some other meaning, completely different than the shape?
"Yeah, star is someone well known, or really famous. It would work well here since these metals are going to be extremely popular, well known, and powerful." After a moment, he narrows his eyes with slight confusion. "Wait, how did you mean it?"
"Aaaaahhhh...." I have no way to answer that. I close my mouth, and wait awkwardly for a few moments as I think. Then I decide that the best thing I could possibly do here is just... not.
"Star metal sounds nice let's go with that."
Eryk blinks a few times, then clears his throat. "Alright then. Star metal it is. Now, let's go over how to make this lightning generator..."
I spend some time going over what I learned, the way moving magnet inside a ring of copper made lightning, and we throw together a few quick tests to show it working. We don't have that much time though before we have to finish up, so I leave Eryk with a strong durite magnet to keep testing things out and see if he can come up with a better way of making stronger lightning energy before Firoday.
Then it's back to his office, where I eat another big bowl of food before heading home for the night.