There was an immediate react from the wand as it creaked and hummed loudly as the casing and core tried to sync up with each other. Sadly this was when tragedy struck and the wand crumbled under the power of the salts causing the wood to fall apart as if exposed to long term frost. The frost salts themselves were pretty much unchanged however so Nick salvaged them while cleaning up the mess to try again. Again and again Nick watched as the casings he made failed to withstand the power of the frost salts as he changed small details each time.-

Less salt , extra elemental runes , larger wands , all of this and more were done to test exactly the parameters needed to have the wands not self destruct. Nick even made a metal wand at one point to see if that would work and quickly came to regret that as he got a new scar on his arm. The metal exploded in a shower of sharp shards that he barely managed to mostly avoid save one that stabbed into his right arm. The dense frost mana on the shard directly created a frost bitten effect on his flesh so even after using the flesh mending spell he had a large scar on his arm.-

The frost salts clearly did far worse when exposed to a dead material like metal and so Nick made sure he wasn't going to be making that mistake again. Over the next two days he tweaked the formula over and over again until he finally made a wand that didn't fall apart during the harmonizing stage. The wand was by no means perfect as the wood was brittle and highly strained but it was very much functional.-

'So it is possible but not applicable for what I wanted to use it for so lets test out it's power.' he thought as he held up the wand and swished it "Verdimillious trio!" he said and sparks fell out of the wands tip frailly. Nick sighed when he saw this and immediately declared elemental salts unfit for wand making. He reclaimed the frost salts from the core of the wand and discarded the ruined casing as Dotty finally appeared with a return letter from Madam Maxime. Nick had sent her a couple of Nazguls feathers in exchange for the name of an alchemist who did good work.-

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The name he got was Leo Le Blanc a muggleborn alchemist that had even earned praise from Flammel for his work. Nick drafted up a new letter to this man asking for a couple dozen treated mirrors following his specifications and sent some frost salts as a down payment. Nick very much doubted that any alchemist worth the name would pass up the chance to study or use elemental salts given their unique nature. 'Assuming it takes a day to arrive like it did for Madame Maxime then I should get a reply within a week depending on how busy he is.' Nick thought before moving on to a different test with the frost salt.-

This new test was to determine how the salts would react if he solidified them into a single large crystal. The answer as it turned out was violently as the moment he fused the small pile together a biting cold was released from the frost crystal that nearly froze him solid had he not exploded out with fire instinctively. 'Fuck that was close!' He thought while breathing deeply to calm himself after he retreated out of the crystals range of effect.-

The room didn't look any different but the glowing white blue crystal on the table had turned a small area around it into a dead zone for anything stupid enough to enter it. Nick quickly undid the spell that fused the salts together and the crystal immediately broke down back into harmless frost salts. 'Well at least I now have a trap that no one would see coming until it was too late.' Nick thought while containing the salts again. He had a theory that when he joined the salt together it corrupted the surrounding mana in pure cold mana which explained why it seemed almost invisible to the naked eye.-

Nick chose to stop there for now as the end of the month was coming and he did still intend to invite his friends to the island. But before he could do that he needed to set up some barriers to keep them from getting hurt or messing with something they shouldn't like the atronach forge. He didn't intend to tell them about Lucas though since he thought it would be pretty funny to see their reactions to the royal vampire working under him.