In the end, Jeb decided that he would make bottles of mead to give to the people who helped him the most during his first few seasons as a Classholder. As he started counting, he realized that the number could quickly grow to include almost the entire town. Talking through it with his Aunt Esther, they narrowed the list down to six people who had explicitly taught him a Skill: his grandfather, obviously, the Librarian, the Bard, his Aunt Esther (who promised to share with his Uncle Albert), his Aunt Sue, and his Uncle Frank. He made a mental note to make at least two or three bottles to share with the family if there was extra left in the barrel.
By the time that they had finished planning, Jeb’s Mana had refilled, and he poured it into the Attune Fire Mana Glyph that he had etched into the fermenting barrel. This time, Jeb was able to sense a slight ringing in the Glyph when his Mana ran out. He took that to mean that it had enough Fire Mana to be considered Fire Attuned Wood, if only just.
“Oh,” he said, following that train of thought, “will I need to prepare whatever bottles I pour the mead into?” he asked his aunt.
She shook her head. “For whatever reason, fermenting Elemental Honeys makes them stable. If you asked someone who works with Magical ingredients more, they might give you a different answer, but they would also be more focused on keeping the resulting product Magical than on keeping the consumer safe.”
Jeb nodded, but his aunt continued talking. “I know that you had been thinking about ways that your Class could interact with Farming when I taught you to Brew,” she said. “Is that still true?”
Jeb considered the question. Over the winter in particular, his focus had been almost entirely on music. He still didn’t want to become a Bard, he knew, but he did enjoy Bardic Magic, and he really wanted to balance his Statistics. Now that they were balanced, though, he could start working for his long term goals again. Was he still interested in becoming a Magical Farmer?
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Honestly there are so many potential futures that I can see right now, and I can’t tell which of them is the best for me.”
His aunt nodded. “Is Farming still one of those futures?”
Jeb nodded back. “Especially given the Skills that I have, I don’t see how something Farming adjacent couldn’t be one of my plans.”
“Well, if you’re looking for a way to occupy yourself this Spring,” his aunt said, taking that as confirmation, “breeding some Fire Barley would be nice.”
Jeb cocked his head.
His aunt continued, “You’ve made two barrels that can hold Fire Attuned ingredients. While I’m happy to just keep them for the next time that you want to make Fire Mead, it would also be nice to not have them go unused. I know that, at least as far as Magical Ingredients go, Elemental Barley is among the cheapest, so I can’t imagine that it would be too difficult to make.”
Seeing Jeb’s hesitance, his aunt clarified. “In no way am I saying that you need to do this. A few of us have noticed that you seem a little listless right now, though, and I thought a project might help you to refocus.”
Jeb nodded. “No, that’s true. I was just thinking about how I would Aspect barley with Fire Mana. When I made Watergrass, I was able to put Water Mana into the water that I used on the crops. I won’t be able to do that with Fire Mana.”
His aunt looked confused. “Why not?”
Jeb frowned. “Water Mana goes with Water, because Mana near Water will start Aspecting into Water. Fire Mana is completely different.”
“Sure,” his aunt said, “but why does that make a difference? You’re forcing the Mana to Attune, so it shouldn’t matter what you put it into, right? After all, you’ve made Fire Attuned Wood,” she nodded at the two barrels he’d carved, “and I know that you’ve also made Water Attuned Wood. Why would a piece of wood be able to Aspect with something other than Wood Mana?”
“Is Wood Mana a thing?” Jeb asked, excited. “Do you know what Tier of Element it is?”
His aunt smiled. “I think you’re missing the point. Why don’t you try putting Fire Mana into a bucket of water and see what happens?”
Jeb shrugged. The only other use he had for his Mana right now was working on the Ephemeral Song. Given how much he had worked on it over the winter, though, he was ready for a break. One thing that the Song had taught him without a doubt was that believing that his Magic could not work a certain way would ensure that it didn’t. So, as he filled up a bucket of water, Jeb repeated to himself Any Mana can go into any material. If I think otherwise, that’s just because I’m trying to limit myself.
Bucket of water in hand, Jeb called to mind Attune Fire Mana. As he poured Mana into the Glyph, it slowly shifted to the color of flames. When he tried to push it into the bucket, he felt resistance from the Aspected Mana inherent to the water. Jeb stopped the flow of Mana.
“See-” he began, but immediately stopped. Since when had a small obstacle been enough to discourage him from work? He called the Glyph to mind again and pushed against the Mana in the water.
Slowly but surely, he overpowered the Mana in the bucket. When he had exhausted his Mana supply, he looked down again. It was a confusing sight.
To any of Jeb’s physical senses, the water looked unchanged. It wasn’t even warmer. However, when he looked at it with his Magical vision, it was as though he was staring into the center of his grandfather’s forge. It screamed of fire.
“See what?” his aunt asked, noticing Jeb stopped. “Remember that I can’t see Mana.”
As she drew near the bucket, though, she recoiled slightly. “Though even I can feel the amount of Fire Mana coming off of that bucket.”
Jeb kept watching the bucket. Slowly, the fact that the liquid in the bucket was water, not fire, began to become obvious. The Fire Mana he poured in was being ejected into the air, and the Mana inside the bucket was slowly Reaspecting to Water.
“Hmm, I wonder,” Jeb muttered half distractedly. He quickly carved the Enchantment he had learned to trap Mana around his lute into a lid for the bucket and placed it on top. Then, realizing that he would have no way of knowing how it would work without a control, he grabbed two more buckets and filled them each with water.
His Mana had started to refill as he watched the bucket drain of Fire Mana, and he poured half of what he had into each of the two new buckets. Both immediately started giving off the Mana. He moved the lid onto one of them, and noticed that it suddenly gave off far less Fire Mana.
When the uncovered bucket no longer had any Fire Mana in it, he took the lid off of the other bucket. It was also completely deaspected. That was when Jeb remembered that the Enchantment he had used on the lute was made to absorb the Mana that was emitted, not reflect it.
“I think that I can make this work,” he said to his aunt, who had been watching the entire operation with a slight smile, “but I need to talk to the Librarian first.”
“Go right ahead,” she said. “Are all of these buckets back to being the normal water that they feel like to me?”
Jeb looked at each of them. “It looks like they are to me!” he said, already rushing for the door.
As he neared the Library, Jeb finally slowed from his run. He needed to consider how he would frame the request. By the time that he opened the door, Jeb was certain that he could phrase it in a way that would not set off any alarms to the Librarian.
“Good-” Jeb paused, remembering the position of the sun when he had opened the door, “afternoon!”
“Good afternoon, Jeb,” the Librarian replied. “What can I help you with today?”
“I was hoping to find an Enchantment to reflect Mana,” Jeb said.
The Librarian raised an eyebrow. “Oh? For what reason would you want an Enchantment which does that?”
“I’m hoping to make Fire Attuned Barley,” Jeb replied, “and when I made Watergrass, I poured Water Mana into a bucket of water to make sure that I had enough Mana to overwrite the Mana signature of the Managrass. When I put Fire Mana into a bucket of water, though, it dissipates out quickly. I was hoping that if I put an Enchantment to reflect the Fire Mana back into the container, it will keep the water Fire Aspected.”
Pages quickly flipped through the Librarian’s eyes, and he handed Jeb a small booklet.
“This Enchantment should be appropriate for that task. It keeps ambient Mana out and internal Mana in. I would draw your attention to the third Subenchantment, though,” he said, flipping through the book. “There is a safety release valve in case Mana levels build too high within the Enchantment. Please do not modify this piece of the Enchantment.”
Jeb nodded. His Uncle Albert had explained why safety valves were important when he taught Jeb to Distill. He hadn’t considered that Mana would also be something that could build pressure, but he supposed it made sense.
“Thank you!” Jeb said, rushing back out of the Library. If he hurried, he might be able to finish the Enchantment before dinner.
Back home, Jeb searched for a bucket that no one had a use for. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, he considered the fact that Enchanting metals was also far easier than Enchanting wood, since it took to etching far more readily.
He knocked on the furnace door, and his grandfather answered. “What can I help you with, Jeb?” he asked.
“I was hoping that I would be able to make a few metal buckets,” Jeb said. “Is the forge available?”
“Why do you want a metal bucket?” his grandfather asked, gesturing for Jeb to enter. As Jeb went through what had happened in his day, his grandfather nodded. “All that seems reasonable,” he said. “Have at it.”
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Jeb stoked the flames and formed a sheet of metal into a smooth cylinder. As he worked, he felt his Blacksmithing Skill guide his strokes, helping to smooth out the deformations that his hammer caused on the metal surface. The bucket came together quickly, and, after a quick glance at the Enchantment, Jeb also made a lid. Thankfully, it was already written to exist in two connected parts.
When the bucket was done, Jeb took a break for dinner. His family had all heard about his plans to make Fire Barley, and they each had their own opinions on the best way to make it happen. Thankfully, every suggestion that they made was prefaced with the disclaimer that they had never bred a Magical plant before, though some had grown them. Jeb listened to the advice, though he wasn’t sure if much of it would be helpful. He did make a few notes about potential avenues to try, since they could be done in parallel with each other.
After dinner, he went back to the forge and found that the bucket was cool enough to handle and Enchant. The Enchantment had three portions: keeping internal Mana in, rejecting external Mana, and the safety valve that the Librarian told him not to modify. Jeb started adding each in order.
“Buckets are meant to hold things,” he said after carving the lines of the Enchantment. “And metal in particular can trap almost anything, including gas. Trapping Mana is basically the same thing.”
The increases to his Statistics shone here. Unlike when he had made his mother’s gift, Jeb found that impressing his will onto the bucket came almost easily. Of course, it helped that he believed what he was saying.
The second piece had a similar argument. “Metal is solid, and doesn’t let things through,” was the essence of what Jeb said as he forced the Mana through.
The third Subenchantment was where Jeb ran into trouble. “Lids make things safer, and a safety release makes this Enchantment safer,” was the best argument Jeb could come up with. He felt the bucket reject that argument, but Jeb was more forceful than a bucket. He pushed the Mana in, and the Enchantment finished.
With the bucket finished, Jeb filled it with water and poured Fire Mana in. After arguing with reality so much that day, Jeb was beginning to feel like he had expended too much of his will. That had never happened before, and he was curious if it would remain true the following day.
Shaking his head to clear the thought, he forced the Mana in the water to become Fire. When he had finished, he closed the lid of the bucket and felt the outflow of Mana cease. Leaving the bucket in the forge with a note that said not to touch it, Jeb made his way to bed.
In the morning, he eagerly rushed to check in on the bucket. When he opened the lid, there was no rush of Fire Mana, which he worried about. Looking into the bucket with his Magical sight, though, Jeb breathed a sigh of relief. The water inside the bucket was still Aspected Fire. It had just stabilized, apparently. The bucket was still as full of Fire as the forge in the back of the room, if not a little more.
Jeb was curious if there was a name for the liquid in front of him. Even without touching it, he knew that it would react to non-Magical objects like normal water. To anything Magical, though, it would behave like fire.
“Well,” Jeb said to himself, “that worked far better than I had expected.” When he poured some more Fire Mana into the substance he decided to call Firewater, it accepted it as readily as the plain water had accepted his Water Mana.
Excited, Jeb quickly Enchanted a sheet of metal and rushed over to the small plots that he had staked for making Fire Barley. There were four, one for each strategy that he was going to try.
In the first, he carefully seeded the ground and watered the soil with his Firewater. Next to the the second, he took a sprouting container and filled it with seeds and Firewater. At the third, he set up the seeds to sprout in normal water. In the fourth field, he poured Fire Mana into the soil until it was aspected with Fire instead of the multitude of Aspects it had before. He then covered the top with the sheet of metal he had Enchanted to trap Mana. It was only the first of the three Subenchantments, which made it far easier to carve in.
Jeb had the highest hopes for the fourth quadrant. The first he did because it was how he had crafted Watergrass. No one sprouted Managrass before planting, though, so he was curious if sprouting the plant in Firewater would make any difference. He hoped that it would, but wanted to control for whether that made a difference compared to overwhelming it as it grew. Finally, he hoped that he would be able to Aspect the soil, which would hopefully make Aspecting the plants go faster. Satisfied, Jeb made his way to the brewery to see how his mead was progressing.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 9611/100
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Total Statistic Load: 489 Physical Load: 144 Strength: 34 Dexterity: 27 Endurance: 36 Vitality: 43 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 345 Intelligence: 68 Willpower: 75 Magic Affinity: 74 Mana Depth: 64 Charisma: 64
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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: 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 Glyph Specializer
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)