"What?!" I yelled in shock.

"Yes, the orb is confused because you contain about five times the lethal dose of ant blood extract." He said while poking at the orb.

The lead guard stared for a second then asked "so... should he be arrested for smuggling ant blood extract or... what?"

"Oh no, I was specific when I said 'contain', his body is full of the stuff but he has no way of getting it out and selling it." Jeremy answered while handing the orb back to a guard.

"So what does that mean for me? What does ant blood extract do?" I asked them.

"Well, the fact you aren't extremely dead already means you will probably be fine. As for what it does, it's a drug made by condensing the blood of an ant queen, it increases the users fertility over a long time but it's also toxic at a dose slightly higher than what it takes to get the positive effect meaning it is classified as a poison so it's on the contraband list" explained jeremy.

"Well that's good enough for me, you can head on in, but if I get news about ant blood appearing on the market I will be very cross with both of you" the lead guard said before waving towards the bridge.

"Thanks, and I heard about what you guys did to the ant army, I think you did the right thing" I said to him while walking away, his face showed the same relief the others had. I then turn to Jeremy who is walking with me "so, magic technician, you may be just the guy I am looking for."

"Oh? What reason would you be looking for somone like me?" He asked with contemplative look

"I am trying to learn magic that isn't from level bonuses, or enchanting, you know, making magic items." I said while making hand gestures to the effect of building something

"Can't help you with that first part, but I can help you with the other, enchanting is both simple and complex, you just need to attach a spell to an item, which is simple, but how to do that is pretty complicated, could be easier to just buy what you are looking for." He told me

"Maybe, i'm looking for a pair of hoops that can generate a dimensional portal linking the two together, as in when something goes in one it comes out the other and they work both ways. Imagine I can stick my arm through it and pull it back out." I described it to him, a ring gate.

"There are indeed portals, but they are big complicated things, there is one in this city linked to the capital but only nobles can use it. Attaching such a thing to pair of hoops is quite an undertaking, and you will ether need to custom order it from someone or learn to make it yourself. I take it you would prefer to learn yourself?" After I nodded he continued "in that case you'll need an apprentiship, if you work hard it should only take a month before you can change class to enchanter."

A month?! "A month?! I don't have the time to do that, If I could just get a book on it I would be fine with taking few years to learn it."

"Hahaha, good luck getting a book on that, the crown has outlawed anything that could let someone gain a class without apprenticeship, to 'ensure the enemies of the country cannot learn our secrets' everyone already knows the elves and dwarves already know all the same classes, but the law is the law, there are no books that can give a class." We reached the gate accross the bridge "although... there may be a little something, it wont give you the class, officially. We should go to my shop."

He seemed to be taking quite some risk to help me, if he is being honest "why are you helping me? We only just met because I had a weird reaction to the orb."

He smiles "that is exactly why, i've been here almost twenty years and have never heard of that happening, something about you is special, it just seems like fate I would run into someone so interesting."

When he said fate I realized it probably was fate, god was still tweaking things to help me. When I thought that I got a bizzare feeling, and felt... something, it felt like it was saying I was mostly right but he could only help me meet people, he can't convince an army to go another direction. Yes, it said that with just feelings instead of words. About five minutes of walking brought us to his shop 'Jeremy's magic repair', and he lead me inside and to the back. Once there he opened up a drawer and pulled out some papers.

"These are diagrams I made for making some simple items, a magic technician is not really an enchanter but we can still make a few things. Have a ring of magic power, gloves of skill, boots of agility, and a thinking cap." He explained while pointing to them "Most of what us technicians do is repair and maintenance of already made magic items, like if your fire sword stops being on fire. An enchanter can make you a new one but a technician can get it going again." 

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"That seems odd, I would think there would be a lot of overlap between those two jobs." I told him

"Yes, it does seem like they should be one big class, but I get various powers that make it easier to fix things, while enchanters get powers that help them make things. The fact I can enchant anything makes me think the class skills only makes things easier, if you are dedicated enough you can learn to enchant without any bonus." he sets three of the papers aside "let's start with learning how to make the ring, do you have a preferred material? Gold is the strongest but best start with something cheaper that you can handle easily."

I called up a ring made of dirt by pulling it from between the floorboards "I have dirt magic, it is pretty versatile"

He seems surprised "i'll say, incantationless magics are usually very broad, but they are supposed to be slow, you just did that near instantly."

"Well yeah, just up the input for faster output" I pointed out.

"Upped the input?" He had a confused expression

"Uhhh, yeah, force more magic into it, with your mind, yanno?" That didn't seem like a big secret

"Could it really be that simple?"He suddenly rushed out the door and came back in with a wand and placed it on the table and started saying some spell, before suddenly clutching his head in pain "huff huff, it worked! that wand had been giving me trouble all week, but casting repair gave me a killer headache, how come you are fine?"

"I don't know, maybe because I never used the spell the same way twice, how many times have you used that spell without ever changing it up?" It was my best guess "if you do it again after your head clears up and it hurts less it would prove it."

"I'll think about it, for now we should see if you can turn your dirt ring into a magical dirt ring." He seemed to be feeling better already

The first lesson was about feeling magic, just magic, it helped that I could already sorta feel dirt magic, so I just had to learn how to bridge the gap from elemental to raw. It took a little past sunset before I could figure it out, even with his help, but it was really cool once I managed to get it, the wand he just fixed was like a bright line of energy to it. He remarked that learning that in a day was really fast, but he just chalked it up to it being another oddity I had. Since it was already sunset he lead me upstairs to the loft over his shop, I could crash on his reading chair for the night.

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We got back to work first thing in the morning, now that I could sense magic I needed to learn how to move it without it being channeled through a spell. That part was rather easy, I just grabbed hold of it with my mind and pushed it out, which Jeremy said was reckless and I could have blown my hand off. I asked how he knew that could happen and he said his master told him, when I asked who his master heard it from, it was their own master. So on and so forth up the line, the point of origin being lost to history, a fear of magic going out of control holding people back from experimenting extensively. 

I wasn't going to start a magic revolution here in a technician's workshop, i'd need real power myself before anyone will listen to me. My next step in magic training was to finally learn how to enchant, it was about using the raw magic to burn the spell into the item. Using dirt rings was great for practice, it's irregular density made it quite a bit harder but they could be reformed in my hand if I failed. After two failures I got that leveling feeling but no skill appeared on any of my lists, meaning you can have a skill without it being listed. Four more failures and I got it again, this was even stranger than my dirt magic keeping it's status hidden.

It wasn't until I think I was at level four of whatever skill I was using before I succeeded, Jeremy was amazed at my speed, it took him a week to get good enough to make that ring. Which made sense, these people take eveything slowly and carefully, while I grabbed magic by the throat and wrestled it into submission. I put the ring on and I could feel my magic automatically circulating through it like it was part of my hand. We broke for lunch before moving on to the last part and the thing that really makes an enchanter, being able to understand how the enchantment works, and thus able to make new things. 

Now this was tricky, looking between the four diagrams he had there wasn't really anything similar between them. There also weren't any runes or words written on it. It made no sense, until I tried looking at the diagram and the magic in the ring at the same time. I realized that the ring is 3d while the diagram is 2d, it is technically identical but it's like a drawing of where to fold paper to make an airplane rather than a paper airplane itself. The ring itself had magic blazing through it and it was hard to see because it was running off my own magic so it was like submarine trying to detect itself with sonar. 

I still couldn't really read the ring but I knew it was part of the key, i'll need to make all four items and compare them and their diagrams until I find the starting point that I need to start reading them from to make sense of them.

I told my idea to Jeremy and he laughed."Hehehhe, I knew taking a chance on you was a good investment, if we figure this out we will be the first off the grid enchanters in ages."

"Yes, but it can't be done here, I need to get going" I pointed my thumb over my shoulder towards the bridge.

"What could be so important that you could only be here for a day?" He asked me grumpily.

I just stated matter of factly "my wife."

He looked surpised for a moment "you're married? Wait... a young man coming from the forest, his body imbued with an ant fertility drug, magic mastery over earth, your wife is an ant!" 

I whipped out my dagger and pointed it at him "yes, and you wont tell anyone." My heart rate was spiking and I felt the adrenaline surging through me.

His arms shoot up in surrender "I know! It wasn't a threat, I was just making an observation."

"Well, you'll have to forgive me the fact I don't really trust you. I'm going to take the diagrams and go, you probably wont hear from me again until I am a big deal." I said while grabbing the papers and stuffing them in my bag. 

I slowly backed out of the room, once line of sight was broken I booked it out of the store and powerwalked to the bridge. I gave the guards a wave as I passed them by and followed the path away from thd city for a bit, before I took off the ring, threw it into the air, and ripped it apart just in case. Then I turned and headed for the river through the woods so I could begin my journey back home.