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

Thirty-First Day of July, In the Year of the Empire 6777

When I finally wake up, I'm stiff and sore from sleeping on a rock bed. Oops, silly me, no bed, just a rock-hard floor. I was not in a pleasant mood. And my sarcasm sucked. 

Tomorrow is to be my first day working as a teacher. Nothing at this moment required me to go back to school today. For which I was very thankful.

Last night I had dozens of ideas on how to fix my situation, none of them good, most of them unbelievably bad. 

I could share the 'collection rune' with everyone, but I'm not so sure that would help either. Someone else came up with it, and I do not steal and especially don't want to face all the problems that would bring.

If I give up becoming a High Mage now, I will have to wait until I turn sixteen and to do my years of service.

Nor would I be allowed to research something else. Minor changes in High Mage research projects are allowed, as somethings just don't go as planned, but no significant changes.

With a growling stomach, I headed away from the school to buy breakfast in the city for the first time. Was I just too young to be attempting all of this? Instead of doing normal kid things, which the mage school barely allows, I had been hyper-focused on becoming a mage as fast as I could. Here I am, considered an adult after only twelve summers, instead of sixteen. Buying an entire estate and becoming a baron at twelve summers, who does that?

While I was waiting for breakfast at a nearby inn, I began to wonder what I wanted to do next. What would I do after school? Magic, of course, but no longer here at the school. The library was open to graduates for a fee, so I did not have to work there either.

Teaching was supposed to get me out of military service. Not that military service would be that bad for a year if I quit now.

After a large breakfast, I finally asked about a furniture store. In no time, I had a bed, an armoire, table, chairs, ice chest, kitchen cabinet, stove, and three doors to be delivered and installed today.

Returning to my place, I sat on the floor with no idea where to go next. Pulling all my runes and rituals notes out, I started slowly going through every single page, looking for something. 

Try as I might, my mind kept going back to the collection rune and what to do with it. How to build without it was the question I kept asking myself.

A knock on the door told me that the furniture was here. Mr. Green had let them in through the back as I had asked. It did not take them long to place all the furniture, and the carpenter went to work installing the doors.

Sure, it would have been smarter to have doors on hand than trying to build them with magic. Wait. What?

All I wanted to do was to put a building together fast. Creating all the materials out of nothing was insane. 

Just bring everything to a site and have the ritual be the carpenter and workers putting the building together. And it would be fast, at least that is what I estimate would happen, it needs testing.

As the carpenter was leaving, I asked him any extra lumber he might have on hand. Sure enough, he has some. I paid him two gold to have him pack it in for me and to leave me plenty of nails. For that amount, he was happy to do it.

I moved the trunks to the bedroom and pushed the table and chairs against the wall. In the middle of the room, I had a pile of boards and a small bucket full of nails. Now, what could I build that would be small and be something the military would use. An outhouse came to mind, but that was just stupid. A catapult? No, not sure I have that much wood, though I could build it smaller. Working models? Those would work. I could carry those. 

And not having a full-sized catapult stuck in the middle of my basement home would be even better.

Still, the issue of not using the collection rune must be solved. What is needed is a way to be able to add and store mana from any number of mages for a ritual without a mana backlash. 

Add some mana from a mage, then put everything on hold until another mage is available. A ritual 'suspension' rune. Not the correct name for it, of course. I don't want to give anyone hints about the 'collection' rune that I'm saving for myself.

Going through my rune notes like mad, I put together a new 'Mana Backlash Protection' rune.

Now to test it. A light rune with the protection rune? No! Protection rune first, then light. 

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Realizing I've gotten overly excited now, I make myself slow down and carefully review the new rune. Make some small corrections and done.

Picking up a short piece of lumber, I quickly paint on the runes. With a small bit of mana, I begin feeding the ritual. After a moment, the suspension rune begins to feed the light rune. Light is shining from the rune, and I stop adding mana. As soon as the suspension rune drains a bit more, the light rune goes out. Both runes are holding mana. They just are not doing anything now. Slowly I add more mana again. 

"It works!"

I leave it off while I search for the Basic Military Engineer book. I know I have one. Once found, I push all my mana into the ritual. The light comes back on and holds steady for a while, even after I'm out of mana because the light rune slowly uses it.

I let the light ritual sit while I go through the engineering book after grabbing several sheets of paper. Using a copy spell to get the images correct, I soon have ballistae, catapults, shield walls, and scorpions copied. 

Adjusting each plan to one-tenth size takes little time. With the new Working Model plans in hand, I make ten copies of each and store the originals I made.

Grabbing some lumber, I quickly use magic to create forty wooden coins, now to mark them.

A quick check in the military books and I find the map symbols for each Working Model. I quickly burn those symbols into the wooden coins, ten of each model type. I finish by spreading out the forty copies of the plans I made in a large circle, and then I place the proper wooden coin onto each.

Soon it the ritual is ready to produce forty wooden coin tokens using the plans and materials available.

I'm excited about the possibilities if this works. Still, I review everything again and once more.

Slowly I start adding mana to the ritual. I can see it collecting the needed mana, but it is not enough to do the entire job yet. For a moment, I stop my mana flow, and there is no backlash. The protection rune is working.

I shout for the joy of it, "No backlash!"

Sitting down beside the ritual, I push all my mana into it. Even though I have no mana left, the rune stopped the backlash. No, that's not right. It seems I still have a fraction of mana in me. I must use all my mana nearly three more times before the rest of the ritual lights up. The protection rune just dumped all the stored mana into the ritual when it was enough.

The best part, not a single moment of backlash! No mana headache!

The ritual is quick to finish absorbing the materials and plans once it receives the mana. A moment later, the tokens all blaze to life for a moment, and then it's done. There are now forty wood coin tokens that can create working models.

I must test it out myself, picking up one of the catapult tokens, I toss it on the floor away from other things. There is a flash of light and the tortured sounds of all the materials coming together extremely fast. Then it's done, a working catapult model is sitting on my floor! I put it on the table to check that it is all there. Thankfully, it seems to be in perfect working order!

While my mana regenerates again, I grab a new book and begin creating all the instructions to create the working models. Then I explain every bit of the ritual process, how to prepare the ritual, how to include the gathered supplies, and finally how to place the plans and token.

Then I explain the 'Mana Backlash Protection' rune, how it works, how to draw it, and how to use it.

Closing the book, I leave it on the table with the model catapult. Getting a small bag, I collect all the tokens and place them on the table too.

There are some lumber and nail leftover. I'll get rid of that mess later.

I sit down and consider what to do next. 

I don't want to go to school with this. It's too important of an advantage for the military. Even I can figure out you just need to carry a pocket full of catapults to war, toss them down when needed, crazy awesome.

I need to go directly to the military. There is a military liaison office at the school for students. They would know whom to talk too.

But two things first, well three. First, I clean up and put on my best clothes and sash. 

Second, I create another ritual that builds a stone box into and under my floor. Once it is complete, all my research books go in. The only things I have left in my bag are the new ritual book and a bag of tokens. Another ritual restores the floor leaving no sign that anything is there.

Third, I head up to the Emporium. In a short time, I have two signed confidentiality agreements that the Greens will not tell anyone about me building the walls in the basement with magic.

With new confidential agreements, I head to the school to find Sienna. Thankfully, I see her in the library. I don't want anyone to think anything is suspicious, so I calmly walk up to her table.

"Hello, Student Green. How are you doing today?"

She smiles at me, "Hello, Instructor Hartson. I'm doing very well. Is there something you needed?"

Perfect. "Mind coming over to the desk for a minute. I believe I miscounted the books you collected for me."

She gets up, saying, "Sure."

Once we get to the desk, I quickly note a book received from her in the logbook.

Speaking softly to her, "I'm sorry for the pretense, but do you remember discussing walls recently?"

She nods a bit confused.

"This is especially important, have you told anyone else?" I ask.

"No. My dad mentioned keeping it quiet. What is going on?"

"I need to be careful about who knows what I did. I wish I did not need to ask, but would you please sign a confidential agreement?"

Sienna nods, and her smile returns, "Sure. I don't mind."

We both sign the document, and my copy quickly goes into my bag.

Holding some coins as my Father would, I offer them to her. "Thank you, Sienna, and this is for the book and your trouble."

Dropping several silver coins into her hand, I excuse myself. "Unfortunately, I'm in a hurry, Sienna. Maybe we can talk again sometime?"

She blushes for some reason, but tells me, "Sure."

Maybe I gave her too many coins? Oh, well. 

Waving bye, I say, "I'll see you soon. Bye."

Trying to avoid other instructors, I make my way to the liaison office as calmly as possible.