Now I have even more questions about enchanting. Can I pour all my magic into a single piece of enchanting paper to increase the effect? Can I synthesize the enchanting paper together to reduce the amount of papers I'd need to make? To make one hundred papers it takes ten minutes to enchant the mana into it then 20 minutes to enchant the stat or effect onto it.

Making each take thirty minutes, meaning it would take fifty hours of straight enchanting to get one effect. Then another fifty hours straight to add one bonus stat. I can see why people actually sell enchanted paper. Seeing as anyone trying to make a rare, that would shorten it by a 10 hours minimum.

“You also have to add an equal amount of mana into the gear.” 

So doing that would double the time it takes meaning one hundred hours for the first effect. One hundred more for the first stat.

“How long would it take to add mana to these mithril plates.” 

“I'd say around five hours for each single scale. Mithril is a very bad mana conductor.” 

“Could I synthesize the enchanting paper down to increase the effect?” 

“I don't think it will work.” 

“Could I pour extra mana into each scroll with mana control from black mage?” 

He pulls on his long white beard thinking. “I'm not sure if that would reduce the amount needed or increase the amount of the stat or effect. You'd have to add the exact same amount or something might go wrong.” 

Enchanting sure is hard to understand. 

“A few more questions. Is there a book or books I could learn more about enchanting from. Can I have one of those void storage scrolls. Is there a way to reduce the time it takes to make rares?”

“Have you checked the library? I also have a book you can buy for five silver. It would be less expensive but I made the book myself. It's all my findings for enchanting over the years. I'll give you one of those scrolls for twenty copper or for you to enchant five pieces of paper with mana." 

He moves over towards his table and grabs a void storage scroll for me. He then reaches under the table, fumbling for a short while before he fishes out the home made book with no title. The pages being held together by a nail stabbed through the top corner.

"I've found a few ways to reduce the time it takes. Every person extra enchanting is obviously going to drop the time. A group of six people can make a rare six times faster than a single person. Also the more mana rich the environment the reduced time to enchant paper and add the enchants onto the gear. You could also use special trees that are mana rich to make the paper. Removing the time it would take to add the mana itself.”

He gets up and walks outside the room putting his ring case away. He points at the ring he handed me.

"I'm not giving you that ring. I'm expecting payment for it. I'll allow you to decide how to repay me though. It could be another rare or something of similiar value."

I bought his book and the scroll, I'll head to the library now. I use detect on the ring again to read the exact effect of it. “Void ring” Effect can store items into the ring by thinking of the ring sucking in the item you want to store. The exact size is close to a one square foot box. If you'd load the ring up with a square foot of bricks it would still weigh the amount of the bricks. As I head to the library I deconstruct the void storage scroll.

Void storage tree learned

  Enchant ring lesser void storage

Enchant bag void storage

Enchant tent greater void storage

Enchant weapon increase radius to magic attacks

Enchant armor increase radius to magic attacks

It might be better to not enchant some pieces of my gear. Putting rare or higher enchants on gear makes them similar to mana bombs. If they're in contact with other rares for too long it could cause an explosion. Also you can enchant a piece of gear normally with a single stat or magic skill, like shell from warden. That's what I've been doing. Doing that makes it impossible to improve the gear to rare quality or higher. 

I could layer my gear with a rare lining. Then do a single enchanted stat on the outside leather pieces. Then enchant the metal plates overtop of the gear with a rare effect. The leather gear wouldn't have enough mana to mess with the rares mana. So the chances of causing an explosion are extremely tiny. 

I'm not sure if I could use the red mages infuse ability on a rare or the anti magic runes. You can only put those onto weapons though. It might be better to keep my weapons without rare enchants on them. Enchanting can be done to everything though. You could enchant a brick with shell magic to make it able to withstand magic attacks. It would take an extremely long time to make a house like that though. Maybe if I teach some gnolls enchanting. I'll have them start replacing the bricks of the fortress walls with special bricks.

I guess weapon is a blanket statement for every weapon, including wands and staffs. I'll have to remember that. Judging from the enchants I just learned the enchanter made that set of legendary robes. Wow it would take months of non stop enchanting to make a single legendary. No wonder they're so rare. It would take over a week straight to make an average rare and another three months of straight enchanting to make a legendary. So in order to make a relic it would take over two years then? One thousand days to make a relic and that's just a guess. 

It might even be more. I can enchant twenty hours a day, which should be impossible to do for most people. Also it seems like depending on what you enchant. It could take even longer since that's with the very best enchanting material, gold. 

The void storage's change in size depending on what you enchant. A ring is a square foot. A bag is five square feet. A tent is ten square feet. It might be nice to make a tent to use as a portable base of operations. I should teach a few of the gnolls how to do enchanting. I might be able to teach them how to make rares. I still have to go to the library to do more research.

I make it to the library. In a city this big it's surprisingly run down. The mayor must not spend a lot of funds keeping it well stocked. The librarian there doesn't bother looking up when I enter. I search the library for books but don't find any useful ones. I pick-up some of the duplicate books I see and head to the front desk. 

“I would like to buy these books.” 

The head librarian looks away from the book he's reading. “This is a library we don't sell books.” 

“I'm only buying duplicate books, with the money you make please expand the inventory of the library.” 

“I still don't think that's allowed.” 

I had over a silver coin for each book. His eyes widen at how much money he's seeing. It's eighteen silver for the eighteen book's I've picked out. I just over payed by five times the amount of each book. I load as many as I can into my new void storage ring. I head outside to empty the rocks from my backpack to carry the rest. The weight of the books in the ring is like carrying four books on one finger so having items stored in a ring might not be a good idea.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

I also head to the schools library. It's far more stocked then the public one. I look for an enchanting book and see two. I'll borrow them for now. I head out of the schools library and head towards the book shop. I buy every book he has on enchanting, totaling three books. I also buy another ten books that I might learn something from. As well as some books I'll donate to the public library to help improve their selection. I head back to the library and give him the books I bought to donate then head towards the fortress.

I get home and am greeted by everyone. I have a busy day planned. I'm going to use the scholar skill absorb knowledge on all the books I bought from the library and shops. Then I'll start reading the enchanting books. I don't want to consume them because you lose some of the knowledge from the books when you do that. 

Consuming twenty books all at once should give me something. I'll also consume the basic enchanting book I bought from the shop. Making it so I only have five enchanting books I need to read through. Well I get started and spend the rest of the day consuming books.

Mental map expanded 

Increased plant knowledge 

Increased monster knowledge

Fairy language partially learned

Orc language mastered

Satyr language partially learned

Orc Blacksmith recipes unlocked

 Thief level 14 to 15

 Bandit level 14 to 15

 Scholar level 14 to 18

 Cook level 21 to 22

 Farming level 18 to 19

 Merchant level 20 to 21

 Detective level 2 to 6

 Enchanting level 24 to 25 

Secret Merchant passive skill gained Improved haggling- shortens the time it takes to haggle and increases the amount you can haggle by five percent (totaling fifteen percent) 

Secret Cook passive skill gained Caterer- Able to obtain more food from all sources, store food for longer and serve food faster to more people

Wow what a haul of knowledge. I did end up consuming around twenty books so it took the rest of the day. With the new information I learned it was worth every second. I think about consuming another enchanting book. Maybe if intermediate is too easy to understand. After reading the several pages I decide I will. 

With my mental map expanded I see a few dungeons close to here. Several only a days walk away. Only one at entry level though. I'll grab Gobber and some of the other gnolls. We'll head to one of the easier ones in the next few weeks. I'd like to have a void storage tent ready by then. 

If the void tent is punctured in any way and someones inside they'll be thrown outside and an explosion might happen. If a void bag gets ripped all the items stored might come flying out or explode and get damaged. I decided to risk deconstructing my rare shield and crossbow. The shield is a success but I fail at the crossbow and the enchant disappears from it.

Nature mage tree learned

Enchant boots natures grasp learned

Enchant weapon natures grasp learned

Enchant ring nature magic boost learned

Enchant armor self repairing learned

I learned a few things I needed from that shield. The ring enchant would boost my moves from tier one to tier two without synthesizing. Meaning I could make my wooden sword even bigger. The weapon enchant seems fairly weak. Since that was what was on my shield. The boots enchant would allow you to walk straight up a wall and maybe on a ceiling. I already can move up walls quickly with string. It might help my generals enough to actually sink time into making the boots. 

I teach a few of the farmers enchanting and have them start making enchanting paper to level their enchanting up. It still takes a very long time to make paper. So maybe this is why there aren't many books and rare quality items in the world. Not from lack of skilled enchanters but the difficulty to make paper. I guess it makes sense from that standpoint seeing as one hundred pieces of enchanting paper would be the amount that a normal worker makes in a year.

Still rares seem inflated in price because of that, I wonder why they're so expensive. Maybe I unlocked more enchants because of my class. Meaning certain rare effects are harder to find. Not sure but most rares should only sell for around fifty silver like the crossbow I bought. Others sell for several gold. Maybe I'll go back and ask the city enchanter how to price rare equipment. 

I talk with Gobber before heading to bed. Through everything I haven't even asked what he thinks about Hilda. I have to be very blunt with him because he doesn't know what subtlety is. 

“Gobber what are your feelings towards Hilda?” 

Feeling like I forced her onto him because I didn't ask. 

“I think I love her. I had started to get feelings for her when I was waiting for you to come out to train. I didn't realize what the feelings were until recently though. She was the only person nice to me besides master before I became a hobgoblin. I'm sorry to say this master but if she asked me to leave here with her, I would.” 

Well that's fine. I'd miss Gobber but if that's the way things play out I wouldn't mind.