- 79 -

True to form, the mercenaries were up before dawn and on the march.

They thanked the farmers for the safety of their land and marched away.

Damien dragged himself along at their fast pace. The man’s age was showing after the hard days march and battle yesterday. Drew wasn’t looking much better.

Ooof, I could have used some more sleep. At least I can wash off in a trough. Poor humans have to wait for showers.

Too tired to talk, Drew focused on his mana abilities while he flew.

[Mana Channeling] lvl 4

That helps me use my healing spells, charge my wands, and keep [Mage Hand] active longer.

He pulled out one of the shell pieces from the spider melon and fed it some mana.

Amazing what this material can do. It’s too brittle for armor on its own, how would a blacksmith work with this?

[Mana Reinforcement] lvl 2

That enables me to embed mana into my body. Right now it’s increasing my physical stats by 2%, and reduces my my mana pool by 2 points.

[Circulating Mana] lvl 3

This one is really cool. It helps me take mana and store it within my body. It is slow and takes time but I can build up a reserve of mana. It’s currently at level three so it’s raising my mana by three points and increasing my mana recharge rate by .15%.

All three of these skills make me more likely to survive, and also help me get my healing spells up longer and more often.

I guess that makes my build agility, caster, healer? If this were a game then I could mix/max.

Would I even come close to the strongest John? He's been hunting powerful monsters for a while. Those things are giant, protecting his brothers and their wagons. And I guess protecting all the nearby towns that would have been in the paths of these beasts.

I should start the physical training that the guard recommended back in Rottervale. How could adapt it to my Skurr body? Carry a weight? Do squats? Holding my breath underwater could still work the same for a Skurr. I could pull myself out with [Mage Hand]. Or work on [Mana Channeling] by charging up wands?

The scouts came back to report a spider melon patch and the group changed course towards the south to avoid it.

Once we are back in town I’ll focus on training, and there will be plenty more enchanting work to do. I’ll be able to level up with the crafting experience.

There were still 3 more hours of marching until they reached town. Drew spent the time gathering and unloaded his spoils on Damien when his ring was full.

Skill Upgrade: Flying lvl 7

Skill Upgrade: Foraging lvl 3

Skill Upgrade: Gliding lvl 6

Skill Upgrade: Mana Channeling lvl 5

Perception +1

Agility +1

Stamina +1

- 80 -

The guards let them through the gate without issue. Word of their return spread through town quickly and the innkeeper was preparing a lunch of spider merlon sandwiches and a heavy soup made from grains and loads of herbs and butter.

The Johns spread out through the group of hungry men and women to get the story of what happened. Thrain and Krag were sitting down to eat already and Krag picked up seconds for himself and another ale for Thrain while they waited for the party to tell their tale.

“There was a goblin camp less than a day away.” Jeff said.

“As we thought. That must have been tough to clear.” A John said.

“It’s destroyed now.” Maggie said. “Completely flattened.”

“Flattened? How?” The John asked. “He looked at Damien as he ate his soup, and Drew as he silently considered the origins of his sandwich before picking it apart and scarfing it down.

“A massive red drake tore through the camp. And it was fighting an even larger spider melon.” Maggie said.

“A giant drake and a giant Spider melon?” The John said. “How did you escape, and everyone is here?”

“We fought them goblins off while we retreated.” Jeff said giving Maggie her turn to take a few bites of food.

“It was a tough fight for sure but we were able to regroup and avoid the giant monsters while we took down the goblins and their leader.” Jeff was getting really animated now, standing up and making shield and sword gestures as he retold the story.

“The drake fought bravely but the spider melon won out in the end.” Drew said. “That's when things went from bad to worse.”

Drew shuddered.

We all nearly died.

“Until your brother showed up.” Drew said. All three Johns turned and rushed to him at the mention of their brother.

“John was there?”

“Was he harmed?”

“How did he look?”

“I didn’t get a long look at him.” Drew said. The intensity of their questions made him hop back to get some space.

“I barely saw him. He popped up out of nowhere to stab it in the face, and then he set it on fire and ran away.”

“Nearly burnt down the forest.” Maggie said. “We had to bury the flames with dirt to put them out.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Oh dear, that does sound like our brother. He's become even more fickle and fast like the wind.” John said, with a dour look to his brothers.

“He may not have much time left.” Damien said, he crushed some of the gravel beneath his foot. “How long has his affinity with wind been this strong?”

“It came on strong about a year ago. He started using wind to sharpen his blades, then extend their reach.”

Okay that’s a cool ability.

“Then he learned to run faster, even over water. And he could throw razor sharp blades of air to slice monsters apart from a distance.” Another John said.

“That's around the time he stopped traveling with us. He’d become impatient. Fickle. He would be late, or-“ the John laughed sadly and put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Or far too early. He was losing touch with mortals like us.”

“What? He’s immortal?” Drew asked. “I mean he looked like some kind of super human forest assassin.”

“No. Immortality would be impossible.” Damien said.

Thrain chimed in solemnly. “It happened to me brother. He was a blacksmith and when he built an enchanted forge he developed a fire affinity. Lost his mind after that.” Thrain took a deep pull on his Ale and continued.

“He became a mage and started throwing fireballs around. And anything he crafted had fire built into it. Made sense for frying pans, but a coin purse that catches fire when stolen is a very bad idea.”

He chuckled and the group around him waited quietly for the dwarf to speak again.

“Poor fool went mad, and quickly. He started wearing only red and going out to grind experience. His beard turned to flame and burned like a torch. And his eyes, they were the strangest part. They glowed like embers.” Thrain said. “One day he blew up his smithy and himself with it.”

“At least John still looks human.” The third John said.

“But when you lose yourself to mana, mundane people seem so much smaller.” Damien said. “Even your family.”

“That’s how it was with our brother.” John said. “If he’s around still, I may catch sight of him from up on a roof.”

“Go, we’ve got the meal covered here.” The other John said and pushed his brother towards the inn.

“Well Drew, an Enchanter’s work is never done.” Damien said as he cleaned his hands on a napkin and stood up from the meal.

“Let’s get to work copying down the enchantments from this wagon for the new one. And we should also check on the blacksmith. If he heeded my advice then he will have sobered up by now. He may have gotten started on the bands we need for the wheels.”

Drew and Damien worked for 30 minutes. Using the mana lens to follow each enchantment as they wound their way around the wagon.

These enchantments are different than Damien’s, the sentence phrasing is different, almost a formal way of writing.

“Damien does this style of enchantment have a need for this section here?” Drew asked, indicated a section that seemed to shape the mana before moving it on to the next phrase.

“Well yes and no, it can help regulate the mana and takes some pressure off the rest of the enchantment. Essentially this section will wear out rapidly and need repairs. Damien replied.

“And that protects the rest of the enchantment from wear and tear.” Drew said. “Why not shape the mana at the beginning before it can damage any of the enchantment?”

“How do you mean Drew?” Damien asked. “That's essentially what a mana crystal array does. It purifies the mana and stores it at a set shape and calms it down for the enchantment to shape it.”

“Well okay, I see that. Let’s say that there was a phrase that could take in the shape of the mana and smooth it out, as it was positioned and shaped for the enchantment.” Drew scribbled the words for [Calm], [Ready], [Malleable] on their paper.

“If you could build an outer ring around the enchantment that would prep the mana then couldn’t you skip using a crystal at all?”

“Inconceivable,” Damien said with a chuckle. “An outer ring such as that would wear down incredibly fast, especially in different environments.”

“I’m not so certain. If it could be done gradually, at a low flow, and in incremental steps.” Drew said as he carved out an enchantment lightly on a test piece of wood.

“Let me see what you have there.” Damien said walking over. “Mana crystals are a reliable way to create clean and exact mana for your enchantments. There is no way that…”

He trailed off as he read Drew’s rough notes and looked at the enchantment he had sketched out. He read it again twice more before he looked up excitedly.

“Drew this might work!” Damien shouted. “If I change this sculpting phrase and this coefficient then I should be able to get this functioning.”

“We have to test this and see how long it lasts until it degrades.” Damien said. “Especially as we travel through different mana density areas.”

This actually reminds me of the programming I did modding games as a kid. There are too many variables to wrap my head around, maybe I should have used my calculator less in school?

Wisdom +1

“Let’s try something like this.” Drew wrote out the mana gathering command from the crystal charging array as a large ring. Then wrote a ring of mana shaping phrases leaving space inside for an enchantment.

A ring like this should smooth out the mana and hold it for a moment, then that mana shouldn’t tear up the enchantment as much.

Drew’s first attempt burned up after a minute.

Looking at the enchantment through the lens the mana was forced into shape too roughly, it got backed up and then tried to crystallize.

His second version included three shaping phrases that smoothed out the mana more gradually, that way the mana never slowed down enough to crystallize.

They will act like capacitors, or funnels, allowing mana to pass through if it’s smooth enough, and shaping it incrementally for the next funnel. Preparing the mana for the next funnel and eventually get it to the shape that a mana crystal produces. Which is the shape and power the next part of the enchantment wants.

The second version burnt itself out in 39 seconds.

Well that’s worse. Seems like the mana gathering sections aren’t correct. Or am I not correcting for the ambient mana here?

Drew looked at the notes from the wagon and his three phrases.

It should scale with the mana density. That part is flexible.

What if I build it in concentric rings like the mad mage’s tower then they share the load of shaping the mana to my needs.

The third enchantment activated and didn’t burn up immediately. Instead it slowly built up mana and the air began to buzz with power before Drew shut it off.

It’s not being directed to use the mana, but it’s working!

“This could possibly work.” I can test it with the [mana crystallization] enchantment.” Damien said. “If it’s enough to grow mana crystals here then it could power anything.

They completed the concentric rings and triple checked the work before activating it. Over the course of a minute a thumb nail sized mana crystal formed.

“Oh well at least it works.” Drew said. “I guess there’s no easy shortcut to figure it out without even trying.”

“What do you mean?” Damien asked. He handed Drew the [mana lens] he had been looking through and started scribbling in his notes.

Drew took a look and the enchantment was glowing bright blinding white.

“Wait are we gathering that much mana? Is it leaking out?” Drew asked.

“No, it’s not leaking out. If my calculations are correct, there’s enough mana in the enchantment to create three crystals at once without slowing down.” Damien said.

Damien was drafting up a new enchantment and scribbling furiously in his notes.

“And if I modify it to have three gathering entry points then it would go twice as fast.” Damien said.

It’s actually trying to take in more mana than I expected. Does each capacitor have its own pulling force?

Drew watched the mana flow through his enchantment and looked at the notes Damien had written down.

At this rate, the mana gathering scripts are a bottleneck in the process.

“Could we build the mana gathering phrases into the shaping phrase?” Drew asked.

Or do we need it at all?

Drew wrote out a new enchantment with the three rings of shaping phrases, three mana crystal forming enchantments inside, and a fourth ring to turn the process on and off.

He gave it a spark of mana to get it started and within the span of a minute the enchantment had produced three small thumbnail sized mana crystals.

Looking through the [mana lens], Drew could see the mana around them swirling in and towards the enchantment from over 50 meters away.

How does the enchantment pull in mana from so far away? It’s almost like the mana wants to be used.

Wisdom +1

Wait seriously? Is the mana seeking a way to be used?

“This is amazing, unfortunately it’s going to draw way too much attention as we travel.” Damien said shutting down the enchantment. “I believe this would be an ideal array for a city.”

Damien handed over a new schematic for the wards and Drew could see he had applied the shaping arrays instead of the standard mana gathering arrays.

“Built like this, at a smaller scale? They should run even in the lightest mana regions, and not pull mana from such a wide area.” He said.

Damien really is an expert at this. He was able to fix the issues I had with the enchantments immediately, and now they are safe to use. My way would likely have drawn another giant spider melon.

They carved the new version of the enchantments into the two remaining carts. Damien packed up all their notes into his folio and set the scrap wood from their fiddling into the campfire.

“Alright Drew, I’ll need some time to consolidate my notes. This new phrasing is going to change things, if it works reliably across mana densities. Once I’m done we will go visit the blacksmith and finish the last wagon.”