"This one's for accurately siphoning off units of mana for alchemy, but I think it's broken. that piece isn't supposed to be hanging off like that."

"That's a training sword for novices, it automatically leaches mana from the user when held after a drop of the user's blood is added to the formation in the middle there. It uses the mana to soften impacts. It's useful for training young ones who might lose their mental grip on powering an enchantment, but not for much else. It has a mana crystal in the hilt though, if you want to take it apart."

Oh! This is actually really promising. There's a full spell on this for softening impacts! I'm going to inscribe this on my belly so I can jump off cliffs! And endure beatings! Grimal is looking at me funny, but this is actually a grand breakthrough. And the other spell, that leaches mana... I wonder if I could leach mana from someone if I got a drop of their blood and hung on to them. I don't think it's practical, but I can try it sometime later.

The impact softening spell devours mana though, I'm going to have to use it with care.

Let's see, what else do we have here... What about this!

"Ah, that's a good find. That's a lifeform scanner. Pretty hard to use, but if someone practices, they can tell where nearby life is. I knew a fellow who could tell you were coming from a mile off!"

"How do you use it?"

"I don't really know... never was any good with the things."

"Ah, thanks again for your insight"

I look closely. There's a clearly labeled input and output, but it doesn't actually say what kind of mana it takes. Maybe there's a manual somewhere in these books. Not sure if this will be useful in the short term, but maybe later. Let's look at something else.

"Hmm. Not actually sure what that is. Looks cool though."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Oh, that one is a beam sword. It shoots a beam of energy out, they aren't that popular, kind of weak, but they're good for training matches since they rarely cause fatal injuries. Not good for the eyes."

HOLY SHIT! MAGIC LASER! All right, gotta stay calm so I don't annoy Grimal... Focus. Calm. MAGIC LASER!

Precision engraving! Distance weapon! Magic Laser!

I carefully stow that one for later, since I know if I start playing with it now, I'll never finish learning about this stuff. Calm... Let's pull out the next item.

"Oh. Um. You should get rid of that... It's gross."

Oh. I didn't really look at it before but I found this in a secret drawer with a bunch of books. I got excited because of hidden loot... but...

Yeah. Let's take this and those books and put it in the old fridge in the kitchen.

Gross...

Let's move on.

"Ah, very good find, that's a mana splitter. You can use it to seperate unpurified mana into various component types."

Wait. What?

"A lot of folks who specialize would get a splitter mounted on a wristband, feed the kinds of mana they wanted into their mana core, then fed the rest into a converter core like that fire one you use for your flamethrower"

WAIT. WHAT.

"So, you're telling me regular mana is just... mixed together specialized mana."

"Yep."

"Spells can use any kind of mana?"

"Well, yes, but not as well. If you put fire mana into your flamethrower spell, it should last longer and burn hotter than if you used regular mana. Most important people end up specializing in a mana type and only storing that kind in their mana core."

"Why? That seems a bit limiting."

"You can still cast other spells, just not as well, but your specialty gets really strong. A specialized mage is twice as strong as a non specialized one."

Hmm. I need to rethink my "Make one big mana core" strategy now that I have a splitter.

I show Grimal a few more things until he gets tired, but a lot of it is worn out, non magical, or kind of lame. I don't actually have a use for a magic tooth whitener, for instance. There's a few elemental weapons that I store to study their spells later, and a few instruments for studying microbial life, analysing organic and inorganic samples, and refining materials, but I decide most of that can wait in favor of messing about with typed mana and playing with a magic laser.

*BZZZZZZT*

*BZZZZZZT*

*BZZZZZZT*

I might not have figured out how to use magic to make decent metal parts yet, but I have gained the power of subtractive manufacturing. So far, I made a box to put all the scientific tools in out of what was left of the ovens and some chunks of benches, and a couple of book boxes to store all the books in but still keep them clean and dry. I'm going to figure out how to read them. But later, there's still too much combat at hand.

After playing about with the laser for a while, I get a feel for it and decide to try something a bit harder.

The engravings in the mana crystals that are typed... is this how they were made?

The answer is no. Sigh. I'll find out your secrets someday.

I attempted to play with the splitter, but aside from my mana crystal grenades, I don't have enough mana crystals to store all the types of mana it splits into. I combined most of them, and I have only 4, of increasing size. They're uncombineable because I don't have enough crystals to combine with them. I could just feed the leftovers into the fire crystal like Grimal said, but that seems wasteful somehow. I don't even know what some of this is.

It's obvious. I've spent too long playing with toys, and now it's time to get back to work.

Prepping my mana crystal grenades, I wiggle all my legs in the ever more familiar pattern of a centipede's walk as I head off to the jungle. Let's see what that spider is made of, then go investigate the place if I survive.