Margaret picked up the pile of books that she had just dropped and flipped her dark brown hair back. “Define more efficiently.”
“The Librarian in my hometown gave me an Enchantment which kept ambient Mana out and internal Mana within. I Enchanted a bucket with that, and then poured enough Fire Mana into the bucket that the water’s own internal Mana signature was overwritten.”
Margaret’s eyes glittered like new snow. “Just to clarify,” she asked, “you want to know whether I, a Stacks Librarian in the midst of my domain, can find a more efficient method to Aspect water than you were able to come up with as a First Tier child on your first attempt?”
Jeb flushed slightly and frowned. “It was at least my second or third attempt, but yes, I guess that’s a fair assessment.”
Margaret began walking, hair slowly raising around her as though she was in the calm before a storm. With each step she took, a book fell from somewhere outside of Jeb’s vision, landing on her hand opened to whatever page she was searching for. She quickly glanced at each page before shrugging and tossing them back to the Stacks.
The overall effect was stunning, for all that Jeb felt like he needed to keep ducking to avoid being hit on the head by the different flying books. He noticed that not all of the books seemed to disappear back into the shelves.
Some of them began floating behind the Librarian as she wandered seemingly aimlessly through the endless halls of the Stacks. Despite the fact that Jeb knew they had not looped in a circle, they ended up back at his desk a few minutes later. The large pile of books that had begun following Margaret set themselves down on an empty corner of Jeb’s desk with a loud thump.
“Now that I have gathered you a few options,” she nodded towards the stack of books as tall as her, “I will admit to being curious as to why you are interested in changing the Mana composition of water.”
“I’m not entirely sure where to begin the story,” Jeb admitted. Her eyes glinted like forged steel, and Jeb quickly continued, “so feel free to stop me or have me start from somewhere else. I found that if you replace the Mana composition of Managrass with an Elemental Mana, you end up creating a new species of Magical Plant. Before I left home, I made Watergrass,” he pulled out a sheet of Waterweave and passed it to Margaret.
She took it and stared, seeming slightly puzzled.
Jeb continued, “and I made that by imbuing water with as much Water Mana as I could. I thought that the same might work for making Firegrass or other Elemental Grasses.”
She nodded and seemed ready to leave. Remembering the other reason he had worked so hard, Jeb stopped her.
“Also, I Bound myself to a hive of bees. Some of them have been Aspected to different Elements, and they seemed hurt that I only made Waterweave. The Fire Bees in particular seemed to really need a way to gather their Aspected Mana. I could not find an Enchantment that would Aspect Mana, and so Firegrass seemed like the next best option.”
Margaret paused for a moment, hair weaving itself into a complex knot on her head as it settled back down. Jeb looked at her, waiting for her to respond.
“I would guess that this Enchantment will be most helpful for you,” she said, grabbing one of the books from half way down the stack. The stack of books above it seemed confused for a moment until Margaret glared at them. They slowly settled down on top of the other books, though Jeb noticed that they moved differently than gravity would have pulled them. He couldn’t tell exactly how they’d moved differently, given that they only fell a few inches, but it was clear that they hadn’t moved correctly.
Holding the book in front of her, Margaret spoke. “As you can guess from the fact that this is a modular Enchantment,” she showed Jeb the Schematic, “Professor Bearson crafted it. This module will pull the Mana out of any liquid placed within it, and this one,” she gestured to a section that was blank in the Schematic, “Attunes it to whichever Element you choose. Does that seem sufficient for your needs?”
Jeb nodded. “Thank you!” he said.
“I am just doing my job,” she replied. “Do let me know how your research goes, though.”
Jeb flipped through the book until he found the section which Attuned Elemental Mana. To his surprise, it did not seem as though it would just output Elementally Attuned Mana. Instead, it worked with the part of the Enchantment that pulled Mana out of the liquid, somehow using that Mana to power itself, if only slightly. Even if he could not understand exactly how the Enchantment worked yet, Jeb was still confident that it would work for him.
He picked up the book and debated his next steps. Jeb could either make a the Enchantment and start working on making Firewater, or he could find a space to grow the Managrass seeds he had packed with him. “Well,” Jeb said to himself as he began walking, “I suppose that there’s no point in making a pail of Firewater if there’s nowhere for me to grow crops. Academy, if there are any spaces I could use for an experiment, I would be very grateful.” During the semester, Jeb had asked his family if anything had come of his one off attempt to make Firegrass. They said that it hadn’t come up as anything but normal Managrass, at least as far as they could tell.
Jeb remained optimistic about the experiment in general, though, if only because he had been able to make Watergrass with such little effort. As he wandered through the Stacks, the scent of knowledge and ages long past steadily receded. It was replaced by the growing smell of nature, something that Jeb realized he hadn’t really smelled since coming to the Capital. Even when he had visited Dean Aquam in his office, the trees there smelled somehow sterile.
When one step brought him out of the dimly lit Library and into a worn down field, Jeb was hardly surprised. The land had clearly fallen fallow many years ago, and he could barely see the edges of what were clearly once marked fields. It was a shockingly large space, which made Jeb quirk an eyebrow.
During his time in the Academy, he had noticed that, though it gave the illusion of being impenetrably large, most of the size was an illusion. When he had tried to wander in the eerily static forest after a meeting with the Dean, for instance, Jeb kept ending up back on the trail he had taken any time that he went more than a dozen or so paces off of it. For all he knew, the same could have been true of the Stacks. Sure, it seemed like he wandered for ages, but all of the shelves of books looked more or less identical to him. They could all have been the same shelf repeated over and over, for all he knew.
Testing his suspicions, Jeb paced around the entirety of the field. Somehow, the large area was exactly as large as it had seemed. Reaching down, he picked up a handful of soil, letting Soil Savvy help him to figure out what its condition was. To his mild surprise, the soil was rich and healthy, perfect for growing Managrass, or anything really.
Let’s see how long that lasts, Jeb thought, thinking about how quickly the Managrass had drained the soil back at his home.
Out loud, he spoke to the Academy, “I don’t suppose that you’d be willing to give me the tools I’ll need to prepare this land for planting?” He looked around, hoping to see a shed. When none appeared, Jeb sighed and walked to the forge, where he quickly shaped the farming implements he knew he would need. While he was in the shop, he quickly made a bucket and etched the Enchantments he would need for Aspecting the water into Firewater on it.
As he worked the Enchantment, Jeb was struck by how much smoother the whole process felt compared to the last time he had scrawled an Enchantment into a bucket of water, or even from his work at the start of the term. Even without gaining new Statistics or Skills, the hours he had spent carefully aligning his cuts and enforcing his will on reality had made the skills required for Enchanting almost second nature to him. He considered that fact as he set the farming supplies back down beside the field he planned to work.
“Maybe there is a benefit to restricting gains the System would give,” Jeb mused aloud. Without anything explicitly improving his ability to perform any task, he had been forced to actually develop his Skills, like his grandfather had recommended.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Possibly because he had been thinking about his conversation with the Dean, Jeb found that his wandering had taken him by the Dean’s office. “Come in!” the Dean called, seeing Jeb walk by. “I have been thinking about the conversation we had this morning, and I have a few questions and answers for you.”
Jeb hurried inside and closed the door behind him.
“First, a question,” the Dean said. “On the farm where you grew up, how do you ensure that you end up gaining the Skill you hope for?”
Jeb cocked his head in confusion.
“For instance,” the Dean clarified, “say that you were trying to gain Fire Magic. How would you ensure that you gained that, instead of Flame Magic, or something broader?”
“Oh!” Jeb replied, “while you work on the Skill you want to earn, you focus on that particular Skill, rather than any of the other, related Skills. In general, my family also tried to tailor what I was doing to avoid my work resulting in one of the other possible Skills.”
The Dean nodded. “That is one clear benefit of the Academy system for gaining Skills, as I am sure you can see. Other than that, the primary benefits are reducing the Experience penalty for those who choose to advance their Classes mid term, and the fact that lessening or removing System influence has been shown to result in stronger Skills when the System is allowed to influence them again. The historical notes also claim that the lack of System influence can make earning certain Skills much easier, though that does not seem to be attested recently.”
The two chatted about the pros and cons of the two systems for a while longer before Jeb made motions to leave.
“Before you go,” the Dean said, “do you know what you are planning to spend your term break doing?”
Jeb nodded. “I’ve just started a project.”
“I look forward to hearing about how it goes.”
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Humdrum Human Age: 16 Class: Wizard Level: 3 Experience: 1015/204
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Total Statistic Load: 633 Physical Load: 228 Strength: 52 Dexterity: 53 Endurance: 54 Vitality: 55 Presence: 14
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Mental Load: 405 Intelligence: 83 Willpower: 85 Magic Affinity: 89 Mana Depth: 74 Charisma: 74
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Mana: 1755
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Glyph Attunement: 31 Least Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Earth - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Lesser Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Water - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Lesser Shape Water (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Destroy Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Earth Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana - Efficient (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Air Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Fire Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Sand Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Least Create Sand (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Attune Sand Mana - Efficient (Modified) Tier 2 Spell
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Bard Songs Known: 1 Lute Enforcement
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Skills: Meditation Spell Glyphing Gift of Gab Identify Soil Savvy Animal Handling Fertilizing Lute Playing Singing Musician Pollination Brewing Distilling Smithing Wood Identification Woodworking Soil Improvement Glassblowing Magic
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic Glyph Specializer
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)