Ten minutes after the small break began, it ended with Havenheart clapping loudly into her hands to signalize that the break was over. The students quickly returned to their seats and quieted down.
She then said "Now that we have learned what glyphs are and how to use them, we will next learn how to form one through the use of glyph alchemy. The glyphs that we will be forming will be "tiny spell protection" and "erase glyph". The first glyph protects a mage from the first attack of an enemy spell. It is the worst possible glyph for spell protection but it is still far better than to have none."
"The second glyph is to, as the name suggests, erase a glyph from your body. This glyph is a "one time use" glyph. That means that when you use the glyph to erase a glyph from your body, both glyphs disappear."
"This glyph is often used by mages in their career as a mage. Most mages don't want to clutter their bodies with large amounts of glyphs for mostly asthetic reasons but there is also a practical reason for that. As you all know, glyphs have a certain form and if an enemy recognizes that glyph, the enemy would know what spell you might use and be ready for when that spell gets casted."
A girl with brown hair suddenly asked a question "Is that why mages typically wear robes? To cover their glyphs?"
Teacher Havenheart smiled, she answered "That is very perceptive of you. Yes, that is one of the reasons. The other reason is that we mages don't see much need for heavy armor due to us being able to carve protection glyphs into our bodies and our focus is to deal out damage, not take it."
"Of course that is not to say that plate armor is not advantageous in it's own right. Battlemages for example wear armor because their intent is to hold out as much blows as possible. Also, protection glyphs get strengthened if it is carved onto heavy armor. Many mages tried to make the same possible for robes, but none have succeeded thusfar. What exactly causes that to happen is also unknown."
Havenheart coughed a little "Anyway, let's not get stuck on that topic. Follow me. We will go to the alchemy hall to form your first two glyphs now"
Everyone's eyes shone instantly. They get to form their first glyphs! Some in the room waited years for this moment! Everyone in the classroom stood up with hurry. Some nearly stumbled upon their classmates. Havenheart even needed to scold them to not hurry so much.
Though secretly, she was very pleased. Although many wanted to become mages, it was a few years already that she witnessed such excitement in the hearts. Even the imp showed much excitement, which suprised her a little.
After a short walk, the class arrived at the alchemy hall. When they looked around, they were shocked to find so many alchemical cauldrons and as they looked around in more detail, they found ingredients of all kinds. Some cauldrons were burning from the inside, some were frozen and letting out a cold mist and some were incredibly weirdly shapen. For example, one type of cauldron was shapen like a star. Another one looked like a fat golem that was kneeling, empty inside and in chains.
The class arrived at a line of cauldrons that looked like shields that were lined up to form a circle, the only difference was that the shields were much thicker and the bottom was closed up by sturdy metal.
"Now I will show you how to form your own glyphs by demonstrating it." said Havenheart.
She then walked up to a shelve and took cracked stone and metal that one could almost see through.
She explained "This cracked stone is, well, a simple cracked stone. It is one of the two materials for the tiny spell protection glyph. The other material is more unique, although this small piece is of horrible quality. It is Aaskite. It is a metal that if the quality of it is good enough, you can completely see through it, like glass. This metal is one of the most ordinary metals to create a glyph of the abjuration school."
She sat down on the chair before one of the cauldrons and threw the materials inside. She activated the spell former glyphs and under her guidance, thin, ethereal white webs came out of her finger tips. Through the careful and skilled disassembling through the white webs, the materials began to dissolve at a fast pace. From the materials a silver smoke from the aaskite and a grey smoke from the stone were being produced. Suddenly an ethereal silver bubble appeared above the cauldron, sealing the smoke inside the cauldron.
Havenheart quickly explained what was going on. "You must first carefully disassemble the materials, if the materials are disassembled too crudely, they will simply shatter and the materials are wasted."
"Every material has different weak points that you must use to successfully disassemble them. If you have done this properly, they will produce smoke. What color it is depends on the glyphs inside the materials. The stone has earth glyphs and the aaskite protection glyphs. But beware, the smoke that is produced is poisonous."
"The more glyphs inside the materials, the more toxic the resulting smoke. With such low quality materials, the smoke is easily contained through this ethereal barrier but if the materials are of a higher quality than the quality of the cauldron, the barrier will break and if you are unlucky, you might even die because of the toxic smoke."
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The materials were now fully processed into smoke, Havenheart withdrew two web strands and directed them to enter her two ears. Soon after, the lines withdrew themselves from her ears but now yellow colored particles were stuck on them.
She inserted these web strands into the cauldron. These particles soon shone with bright light and soon after, the smoke circled around these bright yellow particles. Shortly after the two different colored smokes began to fuse into each other violently. Thirty seconds later, a very tiny glyph formed. It looked like a cracked shield with a faint light gray smoke covering it.
The students had a number of question but before they could ask them, Havenheart already began explaining everything. "After processing all the materials, you must insert two web strands into your ears or through your nose, the important process of it is that the strands must reach your brain and very lightly touch it."
"Be incredibly careful with this for the web lines are designed to take thoughts. If you do it roughly, it can also steal memories, so be careful."
"While you do this you must think about the glyph that you want to create. What it's properties are to be exact. This glyph's effect is to block the first enemy spell, that is under the classification "novice". For example a novice spell is the very common "fire bolt" spell."
"So, after extracting your thoughts that are based around the glyph that you want to create, you simply need to insert the strands into the cauldron and if you ideas of the glyph are compatible with the materials you threw in, the glyph will form automatically."
"Extracting the fitting memories is quite difficult for a beginner, you need to hit the timing. Just grab a few materials and try to form the glyph. Begin!"
The students stormed to the materials and afterwards to one of the cauldrons. Luckily for the imp, he was the first to both grab a few materials and get to a cauldron.
The imp first threw a cracked stone and an aaskite into cauldron. Then, just as his teacher, he activated both of the spell former glyphs and commanded them to fly out. It was a weird feeling. He could feel the web strands just like he felt his fingers or legs. It was like he gained an incredibly flexible new limb. As the strands touched the materials, he could feel the materials like with his finger tips, only the web strands were much more perceptive.
He could feel the profoundity behind this spell former glyph. It was incredible! He could feel every little detail of this stone and aaskite. As he carefully touched the materials through the strands, he could feel some openings and weak points. Some areas were more cracked than others and some areas were completely alright, without any cracks but were softer.
He carefully disassebled the materials, he did it on the first try. Although there was one point during the process were he almost shattered the stone. Fortunately, he didn't.
Now he needed to extract his own thoughts. He withdrew two strands and lightly touched his brain through his ears while concentrating only on the properties of the tiny spell protection glyph. When he withdrew his strands, there were much more yellow particles than on Havenhearts attempt. He felt uneasy but still went forward with the process.
Just as his uneasiness suggested, he failed. Shortly after he put his thoughts into the cauldron, the smoke and the yellow particles made a small explosion and disappeared.
He sighed. He was sure that he would be able to do it on his first attempt.
This time, he didn't stubbornly continue but asked the the teacher what went wrong.
"Too many yellow particles? Ah, I didn't mention this but you cannot overthink it. You need to do it casually. Only with a calm mind can you produce thoughts that aren't chaotic."
"You need a calm mind for creating abjuration glyphs. For example to create pyromancy glyphs, you need to have chaotic thoughts or be in a very "fiery" mood, it can be passion, anger or something similar." explained Havenheart.
"Hm, is that so? Thank you for this explanation" thanked the imp and returned to his cauldron.
This time, after he once again processed a cracked stone and an aaskite, he extracted his thoughts while thinking as calmly as he could. He thought about the properties in a calm and orderly fashion.
And it worked this time! After his thoughts and the smoke fused, the tiny spell protection glyph formed!
It seemed that he was the first to succeed because his teacher walked up to him.
She said "You succeeded on your second try? It seems you have some talent in glyph alchemy. Well then, now you need to go to a cauldron like the one that you saw in the classroom to form an "erase glyph" glyph."
"The glyph erase glyph is extremely unusual for it doesn't need any sort of material to form but the difficult part is that you need to think of absolutely nothing. No thoughts, no feelings. One needs to be like a corpse to create this glyph."
"But this time you need to insert all of the strands into your ears but as I said, during this time, you need to think of absolutely nothing. Understood?"
Confusement and disbelieve crawled into the imp's facial expression. He asked with a confused tone "How does that even make any sense? Or is even possible in the first place?"
His teacher chuckled and said "Believe me, every mage that ever existed asked the very same question, including me but no one has ever found the answer. Go now, I need to tend to the others."
The imp nodded while thinking about this incredibly confusing thing. It didn't make any sense to him. Aren't spell glyphs formed through existing glyphs in materials? So how did it make any sense that a glyph could be created through nothing?
The imp shook his head "I shouldn't think about this now. If no one ever found the answer to that question, then I most certainly won't either"
He quickly went to one of the "common cauldrons". It seemed that some people were there from other classes.
When it was his turn, he sat down before the cauldron and activated his spell former glyph and inserted all of the web strands inside his ears and tried to think of nothing but this was easier said than done.
It was incredibly difficult not to think of something and not to feel something.
After a whole twelve tries of utter failure, on the thirteenth try, a glyph suddenly formed after he inserted the strands into the cauldron after extracting nothing from his brain.
Joy flooded the imp's feelings. He did it! He finally did it! He created the "erase glyph" glyph!
The glyph was completely transparent except that on the edges of the glyph, a faint, almost invisible black fog could be seen. The imp picked up the glyph with the glyph telekinesis glyph and hurried to his teacher to report that he finally formed the glyph.