With both wood and metal, Jeb had worked Glyphs into the new material. That was not what Jeb wanted to do here. Partially, he wanted to push back on the habit he was forming of using Skills only to improve his ability to scribe Glyphs.
While leaning into the habit might give him more Statistics, it was almost certainly going to direct him towards a Class focused on Glyphs and inscribing them. Jeb may not have known what he wanted to do, but he knew well enough that he did not want to be pigeon holed so early in his Class Progression. That wasn’t the only reason he was opposed to just shaping a piece of glass into the shape of Least Create Fire, though.
The more that Jeb had worked with Glyphs, the more easily they came to him. By this point, the effort required to shape a Glyph was only slightly more than the effort of making any other shape. If he was going to make something to demonstrate his mastery over glass, it would need to be something more than that.
Still, Jeb knew that he would need to use a Glyph if he wanted to tie any of the Magics that he knew into the glass. Even though the Bard had assured him that it did not need to be true, he still saw his Magic as fundamentally moving like a river of light or a thread. In the Enchantments and Song he knew, that required his Mana to travel through more than three dimensions.
Rather than dive into the project anyways, finding a way to fit the woven thread of Lute Enforcement onto a static piece of glass, Jeb looked through the list of Glyphs he knew. There were a number that all fit in three dimensions, which was nice. Unfortunately, he would not be able to use any of his Efficient Spell Glyphs, because the extra layers of connections all took place in higher dimensions.
Still, his eye was drawn to the newest Glyphs he had made. While Jeb had not spent much time making glass from sand, his grandfather had walked him through the process. If Least Create Sand were like any of the other Glyphs that he knew, it would produce perfectly pure sand, which would make firing it into glass far easier.
Jeb nodded. He would make Least Create Sand, not through glass, but by bending and reflecting light through lenses and mirrors. The only issue he had to face now was how he could use colors. After all, his image of a Glyph was generally white light.
Shrugging, Jeb got to work. He hadn’t used every technique he knew while working with wood or metal, so it was probably fine to do so here. There was another question deeper in his mind, which was what the Glyph would do when he ran light through it. As he thought about it, he realized it was a question he could not answer any way except by making the Glyph and seeing what would happen.
The first issue was making the beam of light. Jeb considered a variety of sources, but ultimately decided on a candle flame. It was easy for him to get candles, and it would be replaceable with Least Create Fire if Jeb really wanted to add Mana to the working.
Once he had marked where the candle would go, Jeb blew a quick sphere of glass, taking the time to decorate its outside with an arrow. As he decided on the color for the arrow, he realized that he had found a use for his skill with color after all. He would use it to mark the flow of light through the system, or any other notes that he wanted to be permanent.
When he had blown the sphere, he carefully cut and shaped it, then added a mirror coating. Once the solution had set, Jeb made sure that all the light from the candle would focus on a single point. He was a little surprised at how bright the beam of light coming off of the candle was once it had been focused. If there was anything flammable near him, he would have been tempted to see if the intense beam of light was hot enough to burn it.
As the light started to diffract, Jeb placed his first lens. He became doubly glad for the fact that he had chosen not to make one of the Efficient Glyphs. Even with only straight lines, he knew that it was going to be a struggle to get the light to move how he wanted.
The hours passed by quickly as Jeb made mirrors and placed them to shape the Glyph. As he started to align the light, though, he realized that he had an issue: the Glyph was not totally flat. It was an easy enough problem for him to fix once he had realized it, since he could just mount the mirrors in other small pieces of glass. But, it did add another level of complication to the process.
At the end of the Glyph, Jeb realized that he needed to find a way to finish the light. When he used Glyphs in his mind, the light would change color slowly as it passed through the Glyph, before dispersing as it effected whatever change on the world the Glyph said that it would.
Jeb considered how he could represent that with light. He tried just putting a lens out to let the light scatter, but that made it move too regularly. The dispersion he visualized was far more irregular, like fog drifting down the farm on a cool morning.
Try as he might, though, Jeb was unable to get the entire effect to play out how he wanted. When his grandfather came in to check on him, Jeb was going through the entire Glyph for what had to be at least the tenth time, making sure that each line was precisely how the Glyph said it should be. His grandfather cleared his throat, and he looked up.
“Are you almost finished?” his grandfather asked, looking at the project Jeb had made.
Taking a step back, Jeb thought he had an idea why his grandfather was asking. What had begun as a single Glyph had quickly spiraled into a much larger project. Now, some of the white light from the candle was broken into red, yellow, green, and blue light, and some was left as a focused beam. The white light traveled through the Glyph for Least Create Air.
The blue light traveled through the Glyph for Least Create Water. Jeb had to create the Glyph for himself, because it began to bother him how different Least Conjure Water was from the other Least Create shapes. The red light traveled through Least Create Fire, and the yellow traveled through Least Create Sand.
For those four, his impression of the Mana traveling through the Glyph and the colors that he made from the light were mostly the same. He had needed to blend the light more than he had expected to get exactly the colors he wanted. For the Fire Mana, he had even needed to use panes of colored glass to get exact shade that he visualized the Mana as changing into.
Unfortunately, try as he might, Jeb was unable to make a satisfying brown color for Earth Mana. The green light that he split from white was more or less unused, so he had resolved to use that as Earth Mana and just ignore the itching in the back of his head that he could be doing it far better if he was willing to just run through some brown glass. The diversion of shading brown glass to produce exactly the shade he saw Earth Mana as took far longer than Jeb was ever going to admit. He just hoped his grandfather didn’t ask about the various colored pieces in the trash.
Once all the lights split, Jeb reformed them all through their own Create Glyphs. Wherever possible, he had the beams of light overlapping and crossing over themselves. In all, it was a really beautiful work of glass and light, at least in his eyes.
Or, it would be if he could just get over the fact that Earth Mana was not green.
“I’m not sure,” Jeb replied honestly. He could spend at least as long as he had spent on the project again and still find more to do. A voice in his head suggested that he could blow tubes for the lights on each Glyph to run through.
Jeb was distracted from his musings by his grandfather’s voice. “Have you unlocked the Skill?”
“Um,” Jeb realized he hadn’t checked.
Congratulations! You have completed the Minor Quest Glyphmastery Third Tier Glyph Chain “Create a First Tier Glyph”. Like a true Glyphmaster, you were not bound by others’ Glyphs. Rewards: 58 Experience, Mana Depth +2, Willpower +2, Mana +10
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Congratulations! By learning to shape and blow glass under the personal direction of a master Glassblower, you have unlocked the General Skill: Glassblowing.
“Yes,” Jeb replied.
“Congratulations then! What did you make?” his grandfather asked, clearly still unsure what the overlapping beams of light were. Jeb explained eagerly.
When he had finished his project, his grandfather brought the rest of the family in to look at the work. “Now, then, Jeb,” he began as the last members of his family filed out, “what do you want to do with this?”
“Hmm?”
“I will need the forge’s floor back at some point,” his grandfather prompted, “where do you want to move your work?”
Jeb considered the question. Ultimately, the transient nature of Glyphs and light were appealing to him, though he wasn’t sure how to frame that to his grandfather. Still, he tried his best. Nodding, his grandfather helped him to clean the glass from the floor. They kept particularly well ground lenses or beautiful pieces of blown glass, but threw the rest away.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 6515/100
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Total Statistic Load: 352 ->357 Physical Load: 127 Strength: 29 Dexterity: 22 Endurance: 31 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 225 ->230 Intelligence: 47 Willpower: 52 ->54 Magic Affinity: 55 ->56 Mana Depth: 37 ->39 Charisma: 34
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Mana: 1070 ->1080
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Glyph Attunement: 27 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 Least Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Water Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 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 Tier 2 Spell Attune Air Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Fire Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Sand Mana Tier 0 Spell Least Create Sand Tier 1 Spell Attune Sand Mana - Efficient Tier 2 Spell
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Bard Songs Known: 1 Lute Enforcement
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Skills: Least Mud Magic Meditation Mana Manipulation Spell Glyphing Improved Glyph Groking Gift of Gab Running Identify Soil Savvy Animal Handling Fertilizing Lifting Athletics Lute Playing Singing Musician Pollination Brewing Distilling Bardic Magic Smithing Wood Identification Woodworking Soil Improvement Enchanting Glassblowing
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)