Johan was tired. No, beyond that even. He had been repairing the crystal batteries for the last week and had almost completed the project. So far he only needed to repair the last 4 batteries out of the original 56. After he had managed to fix the first half dozen the older guardsman finally let him be and focus on his task as well, which was great, because that man just would *not* stop talking and asking various questions.

That normally wasn't so bad a trait, but for the fact that the old man only ever asked questions about things that Johan could not care less about, such as how he thought of the town, or did he sleep well the day prior.

Johan had also gotten much better at crystalizing mana in the last week as well, which was to be expected as he spent so long doing this same task everyday. The only issues he had with the task was simply the fact of him not being very fast at it. He had spent over 5 hours per day working on the batteries simply due to how slowly he had to do so.

This wasn't something that could be fixed easily either, since it was due to him lacking the ability to draw in more mana. It was something that could only be fixed through advancement in making Constructs, which was also something he was slowly approaching now. He could feel his heart beat ever so slower than the day before, meaning it would likely be time to advance within the next few days, maybe a couple weeks at most.

Aside from that he had also been looking through the vault of knowledge that was located near the center of the city. Knuth, or rather the church of Knuth was a great resource for him as it was free to enter, and it also did not restrict his searches even for magic related subjects, though he hadn't found what he was looking for regarding the next stage after constructs, he had found hints about how to construct solid light.

It was not a lot of information, but from what he got, he simply needed to trap so much mana in one spot that it became a physical substance. It was strikingly similar to his light gathering device, but taken to the next extreme. It also stated that after one reached around 5th construct they would be able to somewhat manipulate the features of the mana they were most attuned to, though if one was proficient in multiple, then it was also possible to do so with multiple.

This was important since it seemed that he should be able to make light more of a physical substance if he used earth mana attributes with light mana. This was also rather important information in overall usage of magic, which had confused him, at first, since there were no notes from Nath regarding the information.

When he had first heard about that Johan had a few thoughts of it perhaps being a case of Nath not knowing about it, but there was no way for that to be true if he was as strong as Johan had been led to believe. Perhaps he knew of it, but hadn't had the chance to prepare the materials to teach it to Johan. This sounded far more likely.

After all, the circumstances in which they had to leave were abrupt to start with. Nath had likely only had time to grab the things he had already prepared. That would not include any information about things that Johan likely wouldn't need for a long time. From what the stage after Constructs is, or that at some point he would be able to manipulate mana type attributes. Those were both things that would normally be several years to a few decades down the line for a normal mage after all.

With these thoughts in his head he finished repairing the last of the batteries. Once he finished the last one he wiped the sweat off his forehead, having been built from his intense concentration, then descended through the structure, looking to tell the older guardsman that he had finished his task.

"Oh! You're out. Does this mean...?" The pause in the mans speech was a clear insinuation.

"Yep. I'm done, there shouldn't be any issues for another long time. I also went ahead and transcribed some information related to the crystallization of mana. You need to get this enchanted with preservation magics so that if the need arises you can have a mage learn the technique and help you again." Johan handed the man a sheet of paper that had his hand writing all over it.

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"Thank you so much! You don't know how much this means to us." The old man was starting to tear up, making Johan feel awkward.

"Yeah. Don't mention it. Anyways, I'm going to go now. I'll talk to you when I leave town so that you aren't trying to pay for a room that isn't occupied." Johan waved it off, and quickly took his leave. He completed his job after all.

----

Aside from working on the batteries and studying, Johan and Pat had worked together with a blacksmith to create a gun, or rather all the parts to a gun, in the way the Johan planned to make it. Today he was going to put the pieces together, it was a prototype but it would help to get a better idea of what he needed to do next. After that he would then need to look into how to properly inscribe the spell forms he needed into the gun so that he could get a better idea for the more precise measurements.

One of the biggest benefits of helping out with fixing the batteries was that Johan now had a battery circuit. This was useful for him as it meant that he could now set up the magical armament to charge to a specific point, and then stop drawing on mana. This was good for a few reasons, one of them was that the crystals would explode if charged too much which was prevented using the battery method, and the other was that it would set a specific number of Bullet casts at full charge. This would allow there to be a more easy and reliable way to keep up with how many shots were left, which would be measurable and then be able to be displayed, though he wasn't sure how to go about that yet.

Now the only issues were just engraving everything needed, which was a complex process that Johan was likely going to need the more specific version of Earth Manipulation, Metal Manipulation, to complete. His other issue lay in the fact that the various stores he could find in town that sold things that he needed for enchanting all had no gale flower petals. He needed those to help imbue the Bullet spell, even more so since he was putting the spell into metal.

Enchantment was quite different from imbuement after all. Imbuement used no material components directly, though the imbuement could be bettered through such usages such as how Clara use lightwater to hold the imbuement of healing spells for longer. Enchanting, however, relied upon the material components to better gage intent and then the mana used in the process imbued the intent into the object, and the outside mana force, another required piece of enchantment, held it in place once it was properly held in the object.

First thing first though, he needed to create the battery of the gun, which would be stowed in what would normally be the ammo chamber. the battery would almost certainly take most of the rest of his time here, but he would also work on other useful spells while he recovered from spell fatigue.

First on the list was Metal Manipulation, and after that was the spell Silence. Silence was an illusion spell that made it so that a target seemingly made no sound while moving. This was a spell he was planning to put into Jens cloak, and perhaps shoes as well. He still hadn't yet found a spell to help with not being noticed, but he could certainly do things that would make it more difficult to do so.

From what he had gathered in the last week it seemed that what Jen had *wanted* was mind magic related, so he decided to do the next best thing and was currently researching various illusion magics that could mess with senses. Unfortunately for him Nath only had 3 of those, being Silence, False Image, and Unscented. False Image made it so something else appeared to be there, like a poster over a hole in the wall. Unscented made it so that the target had no smell, at least if no one knew it was an illusion.

That was something that Johan had noticed while looking into all these things as well. The only difference between most illusion spells and mind spells was that illusion spells broke when discerned. Mind spells did not. For example, if there was a spell called Vanish that made someone look like they were not there. Illusion magic would make it so that they don't seem to be there, but if they were touched the spell would break and you would see the person fine. For mind magic however... It would make it so that the person was not able to be noticed by those who would perceive them, regardless of circumstances. It was also seeming that mind spells would be cast on a different person rather than the person you wanted to make disappear.

It was interesting to Johan how various magics worked with each other, whether they worked well or were literal opposites.