The last new classes finish the week, Advanced Creation Magic, followed by Advanced Destruction Magic, leaving my Restday free. I arrive at the creation classroom and find a small class surrounding the front table and Mage Saria. I sit at the back, not desiring to crowd around anything. Instead, I crack the book and begin reading.
“We can take our seats now.” Saria begins before I finish the third page.
The now visible replica is haiminoid, with limbs that end at their crux, the light coastal cream wood speckles with varying size and color gems. There is also no head, so it’s mostly a torso. And there are carvings— Shifting reveals transference runes connecting the coalescence points. The largest sticks out of the chest and pulses with a red glow.
“On my desk is an amalgamation used in training advanced creation mages. It can mimic several inflictions and the control and power needed to heal them. As we learned in our first bimester, this is not an effect of us but of our control of the magic in another willing participant. This level of willingness can be vague and has many aspects, but these techniques will work on critically injured people who do not wish to die. The amalgamation here mimics that flow while indicating where it needs direction and to what degree. The reality cannot be born on this doll, but we must use it to learn lessons. Of all those, we heal and help. So, in today's lesson, you will learn how fragile those systems we balance are. The key here is that less is better than more. Once you have established a connection with the magic, you must also remember the rate at which your magic is entering the tissue. If the tissue becomes oversaturated, it will be a harder problem to fix. Who wishes to go first?”
Plenty are willing to go first, so I wait to see how they approach the problem. Everyone establishes their connection through the heart, a common practice that I now know to be limiting. I can only discern a little past their starting position and which area flashes. If they succeed, the light will slowly turn from red to green, but if they fail at any point, it will flash red before going out.
“Wasn’t expecting to see you again.” Mage Saria comments.
“I hope I don't disappoint.”
“Do you have an applicable technique?” Mage Saria asks, ignoring my snark.
“I have a question first.”
“Shoot.”
“Can the connection be made somewhere other than the heart?”
“It cannot.” She lies, that or she’s ignorant of the truth.
“I think I can manage.”
“Okay, I'd like to see this.”
Once the gem in the chest starts flashing red, I take the— arm part? -Of the worn doll and place its gem in my mouth. The center of the stomach begins flashing, meaning I will need to circulate it near there, but not right there and not too fast. My knowledge of my channels helps me as I use a tendril of my creation magic to guide the systems magic. The practice is similar to what I had done during the aftermath of the ball. The gem starts to blink steadier, lightening in hue. I keep this pace, steadily lightening the color of the gem. Red. I fail in a second before I even notice my mistake. The slightest change in flow rate would result in my patient dying.
“That is okay. It is impressive that you have come so far. Entering from a place like that will strain your control tremendously.”
“It is the best I have come up with so far.” I defend, put off by the failure.
“No, it is truly clever. Well done, Initiate Vesh.”
“Thank you, mage Saria.”
Advanced destruction magic is in the group of buildings across the street. From another seat at the back, I spot several familiar faces sitting in the front rows, little Gallah among them. I smile and mime friendly greetings as he catches my eye. He shakes his head and snorts, trickling fuel into my fire. The class is as large as the first, about two dozen students. I will not stick out too much.
“Well, now we have everyone. I shall start with the first and only lecture I will be giving this bimester. There are some here that deserve the honor of our time and others who do not. We shall embark on a new course of study to clarify those distinctions to observers. You will be given a reading list and must perform the practical lessons to my satisfaction. If you can not perform in the practical lessons, you will receive a failing grade on the theoretical. This mandate can be issued under my authority as this class is on practical destruction magic, not theoretical. If you have questions on the material, I have office hours, but if your questions are stupid, I will not answer them. Any questions?”
“If someone fails enough practical exams, can they fail before the exam?”
“Yes, they could. Thank you for the pertinent question, initiate Gallah.”
“And what are the metrics of your satisfaction? Will we have criteria to follow?” I broach.
“You must be able to perform simple tests that prove practical ability. Is that going to be a problem initiate?”
“No, High Mage,” I grumble.
Once I have all my classes, I fall back into a rhythm. The new month begins with early morning rune formatting, mid-day classes, and nights absorbing the knowledge from the athenary and connecting it to what I am learning in class. So much of this seemed out of reach when I first came to the citadel, and now I have my arms elbows deep in the secrets of the empire. The work progresses, but it's slow, partly due to the rate at which I’ve to purchase materials and partly due to the intricacy of the work.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
My first few weeks of class further fill the growing pot. They give information similar to what I had taken from the Athenary but missing key pieces, if not outright false. Each time I hear Mage Saria caution against establishing a connection anywhere else but the heart. Or when High Mage Gallah discusses the wasting theory without the underlying principles. The truth is that these people are here to stifle my growth. I need to use them to my ends and ignore useless things.
My first practical destruction magic class of the bimester drives the pikes further into my jaded shores. I am standing in front of a crowd while Mage Gallah humiliates me. I have to hit a stone that is twenty meters away with my destruction magic, not affect it, just touch it, a simple task for the external destruction mages. However, lobbing your spit to hit the same target is challenging. After twenty minutes of failure, Gallah determined a failing grade for the first week of classes even though I had earned an A in theoretical studies.
The blatant attempt to fail me by creating more difficult challenges is pathetic. Gallah is miserable, and his offspring got as far from the tree as piss running down a leg. The entire situation drips in more and more as I attempt to stifle it. Eventually, I convinced my rage that passing these tests would show both Gallahs how wrong they were.
I re-attempted the exercise for hours in my mental palace until I could reliably hit a target twenty meters away. It is a start, but I assume the next practical lesson will test a different aspect of control that I will have a challenge performing. The hanging possibility provokes me to try various tasks I could accomplish. After hours of effort, I only affect a portion of the rock with my destructive spit. The saturation doesn't change the saliva's damaging rate. I can lessen the level of the destruction magic but not the speed at which it decays.
I finally have a free moment on my first day off this week to start work on an idea I got earlier working on the— Magic beads?— The idea came to me as I considered the properties of water in cleansing mana and the ability of an inductor rune to oversaturate a material. The concept is simple: create an inductor rune that will harness mana from a power rune and infuse mana into water inside a jug. If you can get enough in the water, you can drink it and absorb the mana in the water naturally.
I will have to make two rune diagrams, one that uses ambient mana and one that is isolated and runs off mana gems. The next problem is the jug, which will be too big to place in my mouth. I decided to engrave the inductor rune on a mouth-sized disk and sculpt new pitchers around it. I have skill in sculpting, but I have never worked with clay, so there are a few lackluster attempts before I am confident enough to make one. After that, I use one of the jugs as a test unit and attempt to vary the inductor rune beneficially.
An hour of experiments yields the necessary rune dimensions to overtake the water's natural absorption rate. It is counterintuitive to need a higher flow rate than the water can naturally absorb, which will be essential in supersaturation. But I need help with the number of inductor runes and the affinities. My elemental water and creation magic test is less than fruitful as the mana disperses before condensing. The water is good at defusing but doesn't hold the mana well.
What I had uncovered from the Athenary hints at an ocean of knowledge like salt in the air. There are even entire books that I can hardly make out. It's as if they are so disconnected in advancement that I can't even get a hint at their formulas. Words like Internal capacity coefficient and Pinnacle formation prerequisites juggle without reference or explanation.
The last knowledge absorbed contains an exciting book detailing mana fields and their use in communication rune formations, which is also relevant to anchoring. But why are there no communication rune formations diagrammed? The information on how the mana fields interact is integral to working on the problem. Along with further explanations on oscillating mana fields, it describes the variances used in creating these fields and how different attributes are helpful.
With this advancement, I can finish the diagram of my wireless repeaters. By sending bursts of mana through the oscillating mana field to another device, we can use the repeater code to communicate. A relay will be invaluable in coordinating once at the wall; it will be useless in the waste, but that's less important. It's critical to get this done before Jer leaves for the wall.
I spent all Restday working on the rune diagrams and adjusting the components to optimize performance. It is a task that is eased by the size of the parts. With my particular abilities, my amalgamation skill doubles when the pieces are small enough to fit my mouth. A complex rune is my task, meaning it contains more than one distinct formation. There are three in parallel. The first is an oscillating mana field generator, which will alter when connecting to another field. The variation on transference rune coils is similar to that of an inductor rune but is more like a spring than a swirl.
The subsequent rune formation is the simple repeater. The rune will innately be open to indicate off and closed will indicate on once it connects to another device, which will close it. The difficulty here comes from placement, which needs to be parallel to the Oscillating formation so the mana travels through the field produced. Receiving signals finishes the work, which is easier to display as a flash of light from a light gem than creating another one to convert the magic into sound.
Shy of another week, I have one wireless repeater complete, but the other needs tinkering before Jer leaves. There is no harm in being sure, right? The palm-sized metal box is smooth except for the repeater lever and the two indicator gems, one connecting to another device and one relaying the messages. It is magnificent—Shannai appears in the workshop.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Shannai relents.
“You open the spatial pocket, and then I anchor it to the border rune.”
“Are you sure you know how to do this? And why are you lying on the ground— Wait, what are you putting in your mouth? You know the portal could kill you?”
“I— higy-rik herhen kur.” I try through a mouthful.
“That is reassuring.”
Anchoring is one of the last pieces of information I glean from the knowledge orb. It links a magic source to a rune with a technique called birthstoning. Birthstones are smaller pieces cut from the mana source. A natural link between the two can be attached. Six meters of twine and gold is the result, which leaves Shannai to create the extra-dimensional pocket while I link the anchors to the border. The only thing left to determine is how exactly that will happen. In anticipation, I had put the ends of the string in my mouth and sent a tendril through.
I am lying flat on my chest across the dusty floor with this string in my mouth. The rest of the string sprawls out in a circle. Unfortunately, we cannot do this without sticking my face inside an unstable dimensional pocket. I made a lot of drawstring, turning the prospective bag into more of a pit. Also, I can fit six space gems in my mouth.
A black spot appears in the center of the floor, its color lacking luster as it expands. The creeping dark is spinning, and then it is a trick of the mind. I can't discern any fixed point; I focus on it, and it shifts. Yet its nature plays in my peripheries. As the spot reaches the border rune of string, it slows, crawling the last few inches to meet the defined edge.
“Be quick— this is a lot— even for me.” Shannai grunts.
I collapse into my work, connecting the pocket seam with the infused gold in the string. It's like sewing pieces of cloth together, but the threads are small, as if each tiny space aligns with the wire. We go through all the mana gems, but the bag is done and will be large enough for everything. Once the pocket stabilizes, I sigh and look at Shannai, who is similarly fatigued.
“Did it need to be so big?”
“How else are we going to fit all the supplies?”
“Which we will need in the Waste. I got it.” Shannai interjects, helping me with the drawstring.
“Isn’t Jer leaving in a couple of months?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have the repeater done?”
“I have it done, still fidgeting with it, though.”
“It works?”
“Within a kilometer in an open field and no interference. I am trying to increase the strength of the mana field.”
“You worried about the wall interfering?”
“I am. But it will have to work. If not, we will find another way.”
“Sounds good. Don’t stay out too late.”
“I’ll try,” I mumble, moving my eyes to my next project.
Pure runes are something that I need to understand fully. The half-mentioned reference infers it is a rune containing all mana in equal alignment. However, I need more specific information on this material. Still, pure mana runes have particular functions, such as an inductor rune producing centrifugal force when infused. The hours fall under arduous intrigue in search of tools to see further.