"Hi, Eryk," I say when I walk into his office. I glance down at my shoes out of habit, but they're still not that dirty after he had my clothing cleaned yesterday. Still, walking around in the orphanage for another day or two will probably leave them too dirty for his office... But for now I go in and take my usual seat.
"Good morning, Aria." He still looks a bit overworked, but nowhere near as dead on his feet as he was yesterday. No big dark circles under his eyes at least. "Food should be here soon, we'll get started after." I give a simple nod. "For now, I wanted to take a quick look at the sulphra from yesterday."
"Ah, right. We never really got back to that after..." but I trail off, remembering how unpleasant all that was.
"Pretty much. Can you just give it a try to see if your guess was correct?"
"Sure." I grab a mollite ingot from my bag and he slides the sulphra ingot across the table to me. It's still flattened out from when Patrick hit it yesterday. I push some mana through my mollite, and the field makes the sulphra change shape immediately. In just an instant, it shortens on one side and elongates on the other, shifting to the shape it was when we had John pound on it while I kept it inside a mana field yesterday.
"So it works after all," he says with a grin. "Well, I would be a lot more excited if there was more I could do with it. Since it requires your mana, it's not exactly a product I can sell..." He chuckles at himself, rubbing a hand against his head. He must be remembering how he got too excited yesterday. All for something he can't actually make use of without me.
"Haah..." I sigh. He really wasn't thinking straight yesterday, was he? "Why were you so tired yesterday anyway?" I ask before I think better of it.
"I spent the day searching for instructors, and the night going through all of my relatives to find your dress," he gives a big shrug. "It was a lot of work, but I got it done."
"Ahh... thanks for that." I feel awkward and guilty now. So it was everything he set up for yesterday that took so much out of him after all.
"Anyway, Irene will be here soon with your breakfast."
"Why Irene?" I ask. Hasn't he always used messengers before?
"Yesterday, you pointed out that you don't know any proper etiquette, so I'll have her teach you during your downtime. Just playing it by ear and copying things you see will only get you so far, and I don't want you to accidentally offend your instructor. You only have a few days, but try to learn what you can in that time."
"Ok, I'll do it," I answer with a determined nod. I guess I already have things to learn before I can even learn from Claire properly. I sit for a little while before something else comes to mind. "Hey, Eryk. I was just wondering, are you a vulgant or a divant?"
"Mm, that one's a bit hard. There isn't any precise line between the two. I'd say I'm around the top end of the vulgant class or bottom of the divant class. I have connections in both classes and I've learned the manners you need to get by with both, so it's more a matter of acting according to the company."
"Huh..." I think about that for a bit. So how he acts depends on who he's with. "Is that why it's so easy to talk to you? You don't act any special way around me because I'm a peasant, right?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Since the peasant class doesn't observe any special manners, it's easy to just act simply. It takes less effort than ensuring I maintain proper etiquette at all times." I nod slowly. I guess that's also part of the divide between us that Jannette mentioned. The higher classes are better off and think more highly of themselves, and they even act in special ways to show it. But all of that takes more effort, and more confidence than I have. That's why I have to fake it, and why faking it is so hard. At least pretending to be a peasant doesn't require me to do anything special. That's why I've been able to do it this whole time. Pretending to be a vulgant is going to take a lot out of me if I have to keep it up.
I worry about that for a while, but there's nothing to do for it. Eventually, Irene arrives with my food. She looks just like yesterday, but oddly, the trim on her dark clothing is a different color today. Instead of a pale off-white color, it's yellow now. But I look past that to the food. When she sets it down, I pick up my spoon to eat.
Smack! Irene suddenly smacks my wrist, making me drop the spoon. I'm so shocked for a moment I don't even know how to respond.
"Master Eryk told me to instruct you in proper manners. Immediately digging into your food like some sort of animal is considered very rude." I just gape at her for a few moments until the words sink in.
"Ahh, I'm very sorry!" I bow my head and apologize as soon as I realize what I did wrong.
Ignoring my apology, she goes on. "When you are served food, you should first thank your host. You may only begin to eat after they respond." I nod emphatically, memorizing her instructions immediately.
Then I clear my throat and glance at Eryk, who is clearly trying not to look amused. "Thank-"
"Not like that," Irene cuts in as soon as I begin to speak. She pinches the bridge of her nose while sighing. "A proper lady thanks a man of higher station by gently pressing her hands to her chest in deference and lowering her head like so." She shows me how, pressing her hands to her chest just beneath her collarbone, and tilts her head down slightly. "Since he is of higher station, you should also stand while you thank him, crossing your legs as well."
"You're going too far, Irene," Eryk cuts in. "Aria only needs to know about vulgant manners."
After thinking for a moment, Irene answers, "Fair enough, Master Eryk. In that case, holding your hands properly and inclining your head will be sufficient," Irene instructs.
So I try it. I bring my arms up, touching my hands to my chest so my fingers trace along my collarbone, the same way Irene did it. Then bow my head down and say, "Thank you for the food."
"That is acceptable." Irene nods. Then she glances over to Eryk. She said I needed to wait for him to respond before I can eat.
"You are welcome, go ahead." His tone sounds exaggeratedly gracious, I think he's really amused by this... Nervously glancing at Irene, I pick up my spoon, watching to see if she has anything else to say as I slowly scoop into my bowl of food. I'm only two bites in when she stops me again.
"Ladies do not shovel food into their mouths. Sit up straight, don't lean over your bowl like that."
"Y-yes, ma'am!" I stammer, straightening up.
"And you should chew your food slowly and carefully before swallowing."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"And you don't take another bite until you've finished the last one."
"Yes, ma'am!"
By the time I've finished my bowl of food, my head is spinning with all of the instructions about how I'm supposed to eat. And the even longer list of ways I'm not supposed to eat.
"You ate all of that? Isn't that too much food?" Irene asks after I've finished. "Ladies should not eat too much food." So it was too much food after all...
"It's fine, Irene." Eryk finally speaks up. "She needs to eat a lot because she's recovering, and she's still growing." She slowly lowers her head to show she accepts his judgment, and steps back. "By the way, Aria."
"Yes...?" I answer, still nervous after Irene's harsh lesson.
He goes on lightly. "While all of the etiquette on eating is fine, the initial thanks isn't generally necessary outside of formal events. So you don't have to ask like that every time."
"Ok, but... what is a formal event?"
"It's a special event that you are invited to. Usually there is an expected level of decorum above what is normally observed. If you're going to a formal event, you'll generally know." He says the last part with a slight snicker.
"Ok, but what does 'decorum' mean?"
"Decorum refers to the level of manner and etiquette expected."
"Oh, another word that means the same thing..." I mumble. There are so many of those!
"In any case, I'll go check on the workshop and tell you when we're ready to get to work. For now, just continue with Irene."
"Alright," I respond stiffly. With a dark chuckle, he leaves the room.
Irene says, "Until Master Eryk decides that it's time for work, I will continue to instruct you." He knows Irene is a scary teacher, doesn't he? He's doing this on purpose!
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My lessons on proper etiquette and lady's manners continue under Irene for a while. She starts by teaching me how to greet people properly. Apparently it depends on whether I'm greeting a man, woman, or a mixed group, and whether any or all of the people involved are higher or lower class than I am.
For the most part, it just comes down to a curtsy. But why are there so many variations?! With men you bend down more. With woman, less. But if they're a higher class, you have to incline your head. But then there are alternate greetings like clasping hands specifically with other women, if you're in an informal situation or you're well acquainted.
Not that I even know what would count as being informal or well acquainted! Or this really feminine version of a handshake if the woman decides to, but it shows preference to the man or something like that. When Irene demonstrates that one, I realize that it's similar to what Eryk and Claire did after signing my education contract. But when I ask about it, Irene insists that's something completely different.
By the time Eryk returns, my head is absolutely spinning with all of the overly detailed explanations of exactly how to greet people based on all of the different factors involved. "Hey, Aria. We're ready to get to work. Irene, you can just wait here for now."
"Yes, Master Eryk." I grab my bag and hastily escape the room. I follow him over into the workshop, where he shows me that they just finished melting some tin and copper. It's not long until the third bell, so it seems like it took them a while, even though he was supposed to tell them to start pretty early today. Maybe that's just how long it takes to get the furnaces going?
Just like last time, we gather a crucible, stand, and a ladle. He points out that they only have a small number of titanium tools in the workshop since most of them are made of illium. But at least there are some, since apparently they are a lot cheaper, even if they're not quite as good as illium. I guess titanium doesn't transfer heat very quickly either if it can be used for things like this.
The only exception are their molds. Those are all made of titanium. Because all the other metals come out at lower temperatures, which aren't enough to be an issue for titanium? While I wonder about that, he ladles some tin and copper into the crucible, and we carefully bring it into the back room like last time.
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"Alright, you said you figured it out," Eryk says once we're alone. "So what do we do next?"
"To make it work, I think we need to mix the tin and copper, but we also need to add more energy."
"More energy?"
"I'm thinking either mana or lightning energy, we should probably try both."
"Alright, but why are we adding more energy?" Eryk asks.
I look away a little as I answer. "I can't tell you why, but that's what I figured out."
The truth is, my idea is based on Metallica. After talking with Eryk yesterday, it seems that some of the divine arms are based on historical figures. I guess it isn't that surprising when I think about it. If The God of War made all of the divine arms, why not draw inspiration from important, influential people like the ones who created entire countries? If Metallica is anything like Catherine or Shizuka, then its effect should have been inspired by the real book it was named after. A book containing all of the secrets of metals. Like how to make the ones Eschalle created that have remained a mystery ever since.
Metallica is another book type arm, like Ren. You can put divine arms into its pages the same way, but it doesn't let you change parts about how it works like Ren does. Instead, it lets you copy arms out of the book for a reduced mana cost compared to summoning them normally. But its primary use is that when you put another divine armament into the same page, they combine together to give you a new divine arm that works like a combination of the two you put in. That is why I still think it's a mixture of two metals.
But the last thing Metallica needs to combine divine arms is mana. And it costs a sizable amount of mana to combine two armaments. Honestly, it costs more than it's even worth, which is why I don't think it gets used much. Well, at least based on what we were taught anyway. I think the mana being added translates to needing to add energy to the metals being mixed together to get a special combination. I guess it really comes down to how literal Rostor was being when he created the divine armament...
"That's fine then," Eryk says while I'm considering my thoughts on how it all should work. "How do we add the energy?"
"I'm not sure. I figure the first thing I'll try is just generating a mana field around it. If that doesn't work, then I could try pushing mana directly into it, but I'm not entirely sure if I can do that with a material like this. Honestly, I'm kind of working backward and assuming that it is possible, because that makes my guess that the metals will combine correct. But still, I don't know how to do it with a material like this." I admit that there are a lot of specific parts of this that I don't understand.
"Sorry, I don't follow. You're assuming you can push mana into the material because that will prove your theory? Why are you reasoning backward from your conclusion to begin with?"
"Because the conclusion is what I figured out. I can't really be sure it's right until I find a way to get there though."
"That's not exactly reassuring..." he sighs.
"I'm sorry, I don't have enough information. I'm using everything I have to work with, but I still I need to fill in all the gaps myself."
"That's fine. Even if I can't understand how you're coming up with things, you're offering specific ideas to try with at least some thought that they might work. That's more than literally anyone has ever had up to this point." He shrugs. "So let's just give it a shot." He turns to the crucible, beginning to stir it with the top end of the ladle like he did last time. I go into my bag and get set up. Some lightning mana in case things go badly, a couple ingots on the floor to draw any lightning away, and then I take a mollite ingot. I double check to make sure all of the tools are made of titanium before generating the mana field.
Interestingly, the mixture immediately lights up. I guess the metals still do interact with mana fields even when they're melted into a liquid. It kind of makes it so I can see how the two are stirred together. At least at first, when the tin and copper are in separate rings as Eryk stirs. But eventually, they get mixed thoroughly so I can't really see much difference between them anymore. Kind of like the other time, when he only mixed them together, and I tested afterward.
The copper should also be generating lightning energy, but it shouldn't have anywhere to go inside of there since it can't form a circle. Well, unless the lightning energy just moves around inside of the copper. In that case, does that count as adding lightning energy? I don't really know. But either way, we'll see if this works once we finish.
From there, all I can do is wait. It takes a good deal of mana to keep up the field the entire time, but I just keep it going. I have to pull more mana from my well a few times. The third bell rings, and we're halfway to the fourth bell by the time the mixture really starts to cool down. Eventually, it's thick enough that Eryk pulls out the ladle he's using to stir, and the entire mixture settles. Just a little while longer, and he says that should be good enough.
I sigh. "Well, I already have the mana field up, so I can tell you this isn't it. It's still just glowing."
"Huh, no good this way either," Eryk shrugs. "So what's up next?"
"Well, next I could try pushing mana into it and seeing if that gets what we're looking for." I just don't know exactly how to do that. I guess that first would be trying each type to check for differences, then I'd go from there.
I still don't have my glass, so I borrow some chromium, as well as azrium, then I generate some of each element. Eryk empties the crucible, leaving the still red-hot solid tin and copper mixture sitting on the floor under the table the sword is on. Out of the way, where we don't touch it by accident.
Actually, the one from yesterday is right there next to it. I guess he can't really let anyone see what we produce here since it might give a clue about what we're doing. Then we head back into the workshop and he ladles another scoop of each molten metal into the crucible from the molds Patrick points out.
We head into the back room once more to try out my next idea. Eryk sits and stirs, and I carefully dip the end of my mollite ingot into the mixture. I try pushing my mana across the ingot, into the metal mixture. Colorless, fire, water, lightning, earth, and air. None of them will go through the ingot. It's not like those stones I worked with. It's not a mana well, so I can't push mana there. But I don't want to give up too early. If I'm really going to test this, I want to test everything. I want to try light, dark, and absolute too. Since they're different than the others, maybe they'll work.
My biggest hurdle here is dark. I push most of my mana back down into my well, and focus. The dark mana should be here somewhere. I'm better with my control now too, so maybe I'll be able to feel it now. I close my eyes, letting my mind become still and allowing the little mana I left to drift on its own. Bit by bit, it moves into tiny clumps. Ever so gently, I reach into the center of them. With as much focus and control as I can muster, I feel for the dark mana. It's more like a gap than a thing I can actually touch, but I try to take hold of that gap and pull it along. One by one, I carefully pull the little bits of empty space together into a ball. It feels like it has a pretty strong draw with all of them pulled together. At least it makes them somewhat easier to sense.
Keeping most of my attention on making that work, I reach out carefully to dip the mollite ingot into the metal mixture. Then I take the ball of dark mana and push. But it's no good, it won't push out into the ingot either. I pull back the mollite ingot and sigh sadly.
"Careful, Aria. It's still covered in molten hot metal. You'll burn yourself if you aren't careful," Eryk warns.
"R-right. Sorry, Eryk." I slowly set the ingot down on the floor near the crucible so I won't touch it by accident. Then I go back over to my bag and grab the nickel and tin to make some more light and absolute mana. I give the light a try, but that's no good either. Then the absolute, and... something happens? I sit there, unsure exactly what is happening. I'm trying to push the absolute mana through the ingot into the molten copper and tin, and I'm actually able to push out the absolute mana! But... it doesn't really feel like it's going through the ingot. So what is it doing? Where is it going?
I slowly set down the mollite ingot on the floor again. Something is happening here, something new. I don't know what it is or how it works, but I can definitely push absolute mana out of my body without following the normal rules I've had to follow until now. It doesn't need me to push it from myself to another mana well. I sit, staring at my hands as I try to comprehend how this works, and how it's different from what I've done before. But I still don't know what's happening. When I pushed it out, it didn't feel like it was going through the ingot into the metal. It just sort of disappeared. But where did it disappear to?
"Aria?" I look back up at Eryk, who's staring at me. "Did you figure something out?"
"I don't know," I respond. I try pushing the absolute mana out again. This time, it's different. The absolute mana pushes out of my palms, right out into the air. I can see it. It glows like flecks of pure white up into the air. Eryk's jaw drops open. The specks of white don't seem to create any light or anything, they just move in straight lines after leaving my palm, floating for a bit before simply vanishing like they were never there to begin with. After showing Eryk, we just sit there for a bit.
Finally, he manages to ask, "So, what was that?"
"Absolute mana. I can push it out of my body for some reason. But I guess that's what it does. I have no idea why. How do I figure out more...?" I mutter while trying as hard as I can to try and come up with some explanation. Some way to move forward with the new information I have. But it's so far away from everything else I've learned about how mana works up to this point, I don't even know where to begin. "Maybe I can..." What? "Maybe I can... do... something with it." What can I do with it? I'm talking to myself, like that'll help somehow.
Finally, I manage to come up with a single place to start. After I push the mana out, can I catch it again? I push some out of one palm, then try to catch it with the other. It works just fine. But there is less absolute mana when I catch it. I try a few more times to make sure, determining that the absolute mana slowly reduces as it moves outside of my body. Good, I'm finally making some forward progress. Even if I have absolutely no heading or any idea where I'm going, I can move forward a little.
No, I need a plan. Right now, my goal has been trying to get mana into the metal mixture. Obviously I can't touch it, but maybe I can just push the absolute mana over to it? But can anything else take the mana? Even if I try to test it, I have no way to check if it works because normal objects don't have mana wells.
Then I look over at Eryk. I can try it with him, right? I don't know if it will really tell me anything about whether it would work for the metal, but at least it will tell me if I'm the only one that can pick up the absolute mana from the air or not. One more piece of information can't be useless.
"Don't move," I say then I hold up my hand so there's a small gap between me and Eryk. I push a little absolute mana out so it floats over to his arm. Then I touch him and look around for the absolute mana inside him.
Weird, he's feels a lot bigger inside than I remember Emily and those guards being... It makes it a bit tricky to find the little bit of absolute mana, but it's not too hard since there's mostly just his colorless mana everywhere, except for the bit of lightning and earth I gave him.
I carefully pull the absolute back out without disturbing anything else. So that confirms that absolute mana will be absorbed into anyone. It doesn't tell me much of anything about objects though. They don't have mana wells to contain the mana, so maybe even if it does go into an object, it might just fizzle out the way it does in the air. I have no way of knowing.
"All I can do is test it," I tell myself. I grab the nickel and generate more absolute mana. Then I turn to Eryk again. "I'm going to try pushing absolute mana over to see if it works for giving it mana. I don't really know, but I guess we'll see." Eryk just nods slightly. The two metals are already very well mixed from him stirring while I worked through all of my other tests.
I hold my hand near the crucible, careful not to touch it. Even just sitting near it has me sweating a lot. Ignoring that, I slowly push out absolute mana so it will float over to the molten metal.
Bit by bit, the metal begins to glow. It's definitely doing something! I keep it up for a little while. It looks like if I stop, the metal slowly begins to lose its glow. Watching with wide eyes, Eryk keeps stirring. I need to keep converting absolute mana as I go, but I want to see what happens. So I keep going for a while, until the metal begins to cool bit by bit. It's just a little after the sixth bell when it's cooled enough that it's nearly done.
Then something weird happens. I bring my nuvrite coin over to the nickel ingot to convert more absolute mana. I push some mana through to create a mana field. The nickel ingot grows cold and produces absolute mana as usual.
And then it disintegrates. The entire ingot just falls apart in my hand, turning into a fine dust which vanishes into nothing before it even touches the floor. It leaves nothing but the chill in the spot it previously occupied. "What?" I stare, completely dumbfounded.
"I take it that's never happened before?" Eryk asks after a few long moments. I shake my head.
Then I find my voice. "No, nothing like that. Using a metal to convert mana doesn't use up the metal. Unless it's different with nickel? Because absolute mana is different?" I start rambling to myself as I think aloud. "But I still don't know why it works differently, and that was my only nickel ingot. So I guess I'll have to use the last of the absolute mana as that cools down. It's almost cool now, right?"
"Yeah, just a little more," Eryk answers. He lifts the ladle out of the mixture, letting the glowing metal slowly drip off the end of the ladle, before wiping the last of it off with a cloth. Just like he instructs, I use the last of the absolute mana while the metal finishes cooling. After I run out, we wait a little while longer as the white glow slowly fades away. Once it is gone completely, it leaves the metal a dull, glowing red color. Eryk taps the metal with the end of the ladle to determine that it has already solidified.
"Alright, looks like the one ingot of nickel was enough to keep it going the whole time," he notes. "Want to test it now, see if putting the mana in like that worked?"
I nod and carefully hold up my nuvrite coin to the metal in the crucible. I create a mana field and it immediately starts to glow like it did before. But still no lightning...
Then it finally clicks and I immediately feel stupid. "Ugh, how did I miss that?" I go back over to the one we worked on earlier, the one I just tried keeping inside a mana field the whole time. I tested that with the same mollite ingot I used to keep the mana field up the whole time, didn't I?
Testing it with nuvrite this time, I find exactly the same thing as the one we just made. It produces light like tin, but no powerful lightning effect like the sword. But they do have one crucial property in common with the sword. I missed it in the one before because I didn't test it properly. Neither of the ones we created produce light mana. And now that the first one has cooled, it's obviously a different color. Not a muddy, gray-yellow, but a somewhat shiny, brownish gold.
I turn back to Eryk with a smile. "We're on the right track."