'Had he lost his family? Is that what made him this way?'

Meiris wondered. Her ex-family's betrayal still pained her, but maybe because it was exactly that... It was easier to distance herself- To use it as a driving force, rather than to wallow in despair. At least now that she could dream of a future...

Shaking off the thoughts, she concluded that either the staff wasn't here or that it was in one of the private-looking compartments, so she decided to head back.

However, once Meiris exited the room, she noticed a door in the very corner that she had failed to see earlier...

----------------------------------------

'It has always been this way, has it not?'

Stegat leaned against a wall with his eyes closed.

'It will not lead me anywhere, and yet I could not resist... Should I consider this repentance or a selfish illusion of it? What is either worth?'

The girl that came to his shop had - currently subconscious - insight into things that had blocked his progress in the past... But he couldn't make use of that, not completely.

'What am I thinking... Repentance? I risked killing the child, but dare think my time with her now counts as repentance... As if it had any use.'

Initially he had managed to stop himself at the measurements, satisfied with the readings- But when Meiris had asked him to become her teacher... The memories clashed in his mind, yet in that moment he saw that forbidden image far too clearly to hold himself back from checking... That is, whether she could gaze there.

It was pointless.

"Haaa..."

He should have simply taught the child as long as she wanted - that's what made the most sense...

Stegat's mind wandered for a while, until Meiris' return. Which happened all too soon-

"Is this the one?"

She offered a one and a half meter long staff to him. The design was rather simplistic, with a few horizontal incisions made in its metallic body near the bottom and the middle. The top looked like a star, with a lilac crystal surrounded by six thin dull blades.

"Yes."

"..."

"..."

"Then what shall I do with it?"

Stegat's original intention was to hold it for the sake of the times it reminded him of - it brought him a sense o tranquility. But now that she held it, he had a different idea.

"Look at your mana within it."

At that, Meiris focused and saw a crimson blur not unlike the color of her eyes wrap around the staff. Maybe slightly better defined than with the bronze disk, but that may have been simply what she wanted to see.

"Now use it, keep your focus."

So she tried, but there were multiple triggers-

"Does it matter what I choose?"

Practically all imbuements were designed in a way that was instinctively compatible with souls - it would have been insane and meaningless to fill them using mana directly. However, some spells couldn't be activated this way or simply weren't useful like that, so there was also the art of making triggers.

An average person could easily manage a single trigger of decent quality, but there was a steep increase in difficulty with each additional one... Meiris recognized seven of them, four hardly distinguishable.

"Ah, right..."

Stegat hadn't even considered that Meiris didn't know what the triggers did and could have destroyed the shop right then- Well, maybe nothing so extreme. She lacked the mana to do so.

The new issue was explaining to her which one was the spell he wanted her to activate... Ordinary people would try the triggers to learn them, because of how difficult it was to explain the feeling without the reference training only some mages received, but-

"Can you sense it?"

He could convey that with his mana. Though that still depended on her perception... The aura disappeared as she was currently unable to do the two things at once-

"I... I think I know which one it is..."

She wasn't entirely sure since the feeling was similar to one of the four triggers that gave her trouble, but it should have been...

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"Good."

A purple flame appeared above the lilac crystal-

"What do you see now?"

"The mana has gone towards the top and slightly beyond it..."

It would have been the first time she saw mana move inside an active artifact... If not for the fact that she had already tried the same thing with the tap when she was washing the dishes at the inn.

"Now cast your own flame against this one, have your attention remain on the staff."

Her vision faltered for a split second, but then it became manageable. The two flames collided, rather than become one.

"Good."

Stegat appreciated that she was already able to do this - things got much more convenient from this point onward.

"Both flames are made of your mana, but as you can see they are interfering. Even if you are focusing on just one, the other will help you to accurately define the space in-between them."

Indeed. What Meiris saw there was a well-defined edge.

She practiced this for a while longer and the blur around the rest of the artifact has decreased as well, enough so that it couldn't have been her mind playing tricks. It was really working that quickly.

But at the same time, the process was far more tiresome and eventually she lost focus to the point where there was no use in continuing-

"That is enough."

Stegat just returned to their dark training room and gauged her state- He had left her to it, while he went to grab a makeshift salad and a few slices of bread. Previously he had tried to convey some theory when she had worked on the simpler exercises, but it would have all gone to waste today.

sigh

The sight of such obvious progress had motivated Meiris to push beyond her preferrable limits, but even that had to come to an end eventually.

"As I suspected. Your shifting does not affect Kratallan fibers."

"...What?"

Meiris' mind was still busy returning to reality after the extended period of heavy focus on things it wasn't used to. Not that she would have understood him if it wasn't.

"Does not matter. I will infer why that is so we may solve your issue of breaking every imbuement you touch, just in case improving your abilities will not do that first."

"Ah-" 'That's good, I suppose...'

"This purple flame... Didn't it consume less mana than my own?"

"You are correct."

He answered very matter-of-factly before taking another bite of the bread.

"Yet it was stronger than my own..."

"Also correct."

They had talked about magic circles earlier - Stegat's knowledge in the field was limited, but he had told Meiris that designing one suited to her would be a futile attempt. Unless she became a prodigy designer herself...

Because of that, she needed a different way of harnessing her power. For a while now she expected that imbued artifacts would be her only option due to the shifting that adjusted everything on its own-

"Would you make me a dagger with this spell? If at all possible with unlimited mana intake like my flame?"

"I could. I take it you want to shift it, but why a dagger, miss?"

That was... A good question.

"It is for protection, is it not?"

"...Yes. I imagine a dagger would be fitting to counter physical attacks?"

Stegat hadn't taken her for someone capable of doing that, but if she said so- Her plan was actually to ask either Helrin or Jill to teach her this.

"I do not know. It will not reach far, but at the same time it will be light and might require less strength if you indeed stop an attack with it..."

Weight was Meiris' main concern, especially after her encounter with the sword at the treasury.

"It has been a while since I made any weapons, much less daggers... But if that is what you want, then I do not mind. I will only say that in my opinion a wand with ranged spells could suit you better."

In general she agreed, but there were multiple reasons why a great majority of mages learned magic circles over having wands or staffs made for themselves. Since she needed an artifact either way, the primary issue for her was aim... It was much harder than with a magic circle that appealed to the subconsciousness, but it was also something that she could practice along the way-

"Then if it's not too much to ask for, could you add a ranged spell to it as well?"

Was it really that simple? Would she get a weapon made and imbued just like that? There had to have been a catch, but she couldn't find it. That worried her, but she decided to ignore her doubts...

Of course Meiris wasn't aware of what Stegat did to her back when she asked to become his disciple. If she knew, she wouldn't be surprised if it could make the highest nobility experience guilt... At least if they were to understand the feeling that would follow if she wasn't able to withstand the test.

On top of that, what Stegat craved was justification. In his eyes, Meiris gave him exactly that.

So they talked about a couple other details and then she left his workshop - she was already late for her evening shift at the inn. Not the best start to make her other request...

----------------------------------------

There wasn't much work to do this evening - several locals gathered for drinks and an unknown man with long hair and an impressive beard was eating dinner - but Helrin couldn't handle being everywhere alone. Which is why Meiris saw Jonarth helping him out behind the bar when she opened the door-

"I've a feeling someone isn't getting paid today."

It was the kind of remark she expected from him, especially if he were in a foul mood. Though their first meeting was still the only time she felt malice directed at her coming from him.

"I apologize. I have focused too hard and lost track of time."

Not like she was getting paid either way, or rather not for a while. Everything she earned so far still wasn't enough to pay off the clothes that she ended up choosing to keep.

"Hi Lena!" "Hey!" "Fair day!"

Three familiar adventurers sitting by a table to her right said their greetings and Retmor just waved his hand.

"Hi!"

She wondered if they had gone on any errands lately? Perhaps they would come to pester Helrin later so she could listen...

tsk "Have you learned anything useful ye-"

"Evening Lena." Helrin left the pots cooking alone for a moment, then looked at his father- "Dad, if it was this easy, everyone would be a magesmith."

Which was also why Jonarth doubted she had what it took, but that wasn't his concern. Her being late was though...

"...Don't be late again."

He left it at that.

"I won't be. I'm currently learning to see mana."

"Pfft, I le-"

Jonarth wanted to say that he learned how to sense mana when he was fourteen, ignoring the fact that Meiris spoke of seeing, but he was interrupted-

"Did you just say something about seeing mana?"

Wald didn't miss a beat. He stood up from the table and looked at Meiris who was getting ready to wash the pile of dishes waiting for her.

"Sure. If y'all want to keep interrupting me, I'm going upstairs."

"Rest well, Dad."

"Goodnight, mister Jonarth!"

Wald's goodbye earned him a headshake.

"So what did you mean?"

His expectant celadon eyes gazed back at Meiris...