The academy library was as cheery as always, its grand facade bathed in the soft morning light filtering through the tall windows. The warm hues of sunlight cast long shadows across the polished wooden floors, giving the space a welcoming glow. A few students and senior wizards strolled leisurely across the grounds outside. However, the interior of the library was largely empty, save for a few who came for other reasons. The librarian, seated behind her large mahogany desk as always, had her usual fan club—several male students who were pretending to study so they could enjoy the free show but other than that the place was empty.
“Morning,” Ravina greeted the woman as she approached the desk.
The librarian let out a soft, contented moan before slipping a bookmark into the thick tome she was reading. With a languid motion, she closed the book and looked up at Ravina. “Morning,” she echoed, tilting her head to one side with a curious expression. “Is it morning?” she questioned, her tone light and playful.
Ravina shrugged. “Had a bit of a delay with my day, so I’m not sure right now,” she admitted, “but it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
The librarian grabbed the front of her chair, swaying slightly as she rocked her head back and forth, the motion almost hypnotic. “Suppose it doesn’t,” she agreed, her voice dreamy. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, her demeanor brightened completely, her smile radiating warmth like the sun. “So, how can I help you today?”
“Ah, well,” Ravina began, clearing her throat with a quick, nervous cough to steady herself. “I was hoping to look into practical enchanting. Something quick and dirty… what was his name… Pesto Lemento, I believe. Do you have anything by him on vein enchanting?”
The librarian’s fingers tapped lightly on the chair as she considered the request. The faint scent of old parchment and leather filled the air, as the silence hung around for but a moment.
“Vein enchanting,” the librarian repeated, her voice soft and slightly distracted. She slowly rose from her seat, her movements languid and unhurried. She didn’t bother to fix her crumpled skirt as she walked past the desk, her steps fluid yet effortlessly graceful. Ravina followed behind without hesitation, watching as a few of the male students glanced up, their gazes lingering on the librarian with undisguised admiration.
Ravina could only shake her head at their obviously pathetic show, though she didn't know who was more to blame, them or the woman who didn't seem to notice the predatoral gazes from the same three men.
“Here…” the librarian murmured, pulling out a few books from a nearby shelf. She turned and handed them to Ravina, “This should be what you want. If you need anything else, let me know. Otherwise, just leave them on the desk, and I’ll put them away later.”
“Thanks,” Ravina said, accepting the books. She glanced down at the titles: Divine Enchantments: How to Succeed Where Others Failed and So You Forgot to Enchant Your Item: 110 Ways to Fix an Apprentice-Level Screw-Up. She couldn’t help but groan inwardly at the magical words titling sense.
Quickly Ravina added, “If I can rent a practical room?”
“Oh? Well sure… I guess?” the librarian responded, her voice trailing off as she fell into a moment of thought, her brow furrowing slightly. The pause stretched out, long enough for Ravina to glance around slightly worried time may have frozen.
“Yeah…” the librarian finally nodded, as if coming out of a fog, and walked back to her desk. Ravina followed, setting the books on the counter as the librarian placed a sheet of paper and an ink pen before her. “Just fill this out as much as you like,” she suggested, her voice almost dreamy as she dug through one of the desk drawers.
After a moment, the librarian pulled out a small wooden plaque, carefully carved with the number 3, and handed it to Ravina. “And then you can head up to room three on the stairs,” she added.
Ravina quickly filled out the form, her pen scratching across the paper in quick, deliberate strokes. Once done, she accepted the plaque and gathered her books, making her way to the third room on the second floor. The familiar private study room greeted her, its dark wooden paneling and tall bookshelves lending it the air of a scholar’s private office. Every time she used one of these rooms, she was reminded of her dream to have a large, cozy study of her own one day—a place where she could lose herself in her work for hours on end.
Or at least enjoy enough room to pace around all day and call it intellectual thinking.
Shaking the thought from her head, Ravina set the books down on the polished desk and began to scan them quickly, flipping through the pages with practiced ease. It didn’t take long for her to find what she was looking for. “Ah, here it is… Enchanting by Pesto Lemento… bla bla bla, any leather object can do so long as it wasn’t magically made—shit…” Her gaze shifted to the two bags beside her. “Well… I guess, shit’s expensive enough,” she muttered under her breath, shaking her head in mild frustration.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
She continued reading, her eyes narrowing in concentration as she scanned for the necessary information. “Materials needed… materials needed… ma—here.” She pulled one of the spare sheets of paper from the desk and began to jot down the items she would need, her handwriting neat but hurried.
“Enchanting set… hammer… aρκαδία stencil… preloaded? What does that mean? Preloaded?” Ravina frowned, flipping back through the pages in search of an explanation but finding none. “Fuck it, I’ll worry about that later,” she muttered, shaking off her confusion as she continued reading. The more she read, the more she realized just how involved the enchanting process was.
“After that, I need to know the aρκαδία to use in the—oh, is that what preloaded meant?” she mused aloud, the realization dawning on her. Most of the items were relatively easy to gather as they were provided by the teaching staff, but she knew she would have to leave the library to find the rest.
Luckily, the wooden plaque was enchanted with a spell that ensured she was the only one who could open the third door, aside from the librarian who held the other wooden key. Confident in the security of her belongings, Ravina left her books and supplies on the desk and hurried out of the library, her footsteps echoing in the quiet halls as she set off to gather the necessary materials.
Soon enough, Ravina found herself surrounded by a chaotic pile of items, carefully following the recipe in the book as she worked on the first bag. “I really should have used a random-ass object,” she muttered, wiping sweat from her brow as she delicately hammered the Spirit Ink Chalk into the leather. The process was time-consuming, each strike of the hammer requiring precision. More often than not, she found herself holding her breath as she etched the intricate magic circle into the material, her hands steady but tense.
“Fuck,” she muttered, panting from the effort as she set the hammer down. Her arms ached from the repetitive motion, and her hands were shaking violently. She couldn’t help but wonder aloud, “Who the hell makes this a career?” Frustration simmered beneath the surface as she allowed herself a moment to stand and stretch, feeling the tightness in her muscles. She made her way to the cabinet, fetching a mug to collect water from the cabinet. The cool liquid spilled from her lips as she drank it hungrily, a steady stream trailing down her cheeks and flowing down her neck before following her collarbone down to her chest. Then with a loud, satisfied sigh, she scooped up another mugful and drank half of it before pausing to catch her breath, the momentary relief easing her weariness.
After a brief respite, Ravina returned to her work, eyeing the bag with a mix of determination and dread. “And now comes the hard part,” she scoffed, lowering herself back down beside the bag. Normally, red and yellow mana were quite different despite their similar hues, and Ralf would have been right if she were a normal mage. The level of attack magic she wielded should have barred her from manipulating yellow mana, but Ravina was special—so special, in fact, that her mary sue ass didn't need to worry about such plebeian obstacles like mana color or universal laws that govern how the world is run. Sure it required a knife to be slowly inserted into her stomach, a bleed of angry magical energy to rip apart her very soul itself but hey. Easy magic right?
“Fuck” Ravina cried loudly as she slapped herself in the face to bleed the thought form her mind. “Focus,” she chided herself. It did not matter why. What mattered was that Ravina could pull whatever mana she needed and weave it as she liked, even though she hadn’t been formally taught by the academy yet. To her, it was all instinct, a natural flow of energy that she manipulated with ease. With that instinct guiding her, she delicately forced the mythic energies to the edge of the spell circle, her fingers trembling slightly as she directed the power. She slowly washed the energy down into the center, causing the intricate pattern to glow faintly with a sickly yellow hue. Taking a deep breath, she began the process of pushing the spell into the long-dried capillaries of the leather, washing the entire bag with arcane energies.
It was an arduous task, like trying to push dirt up a running water hose to fertilize a water tower—an absurd comparison, but it was the only way her mind could make sense of the difficulty. Thankfully, the spell was pre-crafted. Meaning that thanks to the circle, and all Ravina had to do was pour the energy into that small hole. Take a deep breath and push in the magical energy on the exhale… another deep breath and… guiding it patiently until it finally it had connected itself into a loop having run the full length of the bag.
Slowly but surely, the bag became infused with the spell, negating the weight of not only anything that would be placed inside, but the bag itself. “Suck it, Ralf,” Ravina panted as she collapsed onto the floor, drenched in sweat. Her muscles ached, and she felt like she could lie there for hours, the cool wooden floor a welcome relief against her overheated body. But her pride urged her to get up and head to the guild, eager to gloat about her success.
She sat up, casting a satisfied glance at the newly enchanted bag and then at the other, still unenchanted one. Her smile faded. “Spatial magic…” she muttered with a tired sigh, the mere thought of it exhausting her further. There wasn’t even a spell circle prepared for that, and if she had to form it from scratch while pushing it through the bag, she was sure she would absolutely die from the effort. Or at least prefer that outcome over having to do it.
Instead, she threw the books inside the enchanted back with a nonchalant flick of her wrist. As she picked up the bag, she felt a surge of elation. “Oh, hahaha,” she giggled, the sound filled with genuine happiness. The bag was weightless, and Ravina was overjoyed by the success of her enchantment. Giggling like a madwoman, she tossed the bag into the air and caught it as it came down, her heart racing with excitement. “I can’t believe that worked,” she laughed, spinning on her heels in a moment of pure exhilaration.