It was after Jien's discovery regarding his spell 'Personal Library' that he became even more excited regarding absorbing the knowledge of the other two books that he had received from Runa on his birthday. He was most interested in the book regarding arcane formation because it held closer to what he felt was the essence of magic, while blacksmithing was less so. With that thought in mind he turned his attention to the arcane formations book to give it a read through and then imprint that knowledge into his mindscape like he had with the book on alchemy.
The book was covered in a soft royal blue leather with the title 'Arcane Formations For the Apprentice By Ris Corvid' printed on it's cover in elegant silver font. Jien didn't hesitate to open it to it's opening pages where it had a table of contents ranging from opening statements to complete formations and then further in more notes on theorizing formations and the risks involved. Jien skimmed the table of contents to try and give himself a better idea of what he may be getting himself into with this subject but most of the titles were either too generic to read into or too complex to understand without background information.
He could only sigh as he flipped the page to the opening statement of the book. The opening words were fairly straight forward, stating that the art of arcane formations was not an easy one to learn nor master. However, it made clear directly after that statement that those who were able to grasp even a modicum of the knowledge in this book it would help them greatly in many other subjects. It continued onward to make comparison's to how formations were just another representation of the flow of mana through the body. To add to this point it referenced a few different pages throughout the book that would give a proper idea of this concept.
Following along with the concept Jien flipped to the first listed page. This page spoke about the runes that would be used throughout the body of a formation. It listed examples of runes and that they served the same purpose as words spoken to cast a spell. The runes were meant to provide a specific purpose to the mana infused, using the mana from the power source involved.
The second page spoke about the patterns that formations could take. Most would involve one or many geometric shapes being drawn and intertwined with the runes spoken about in the first listed page. The shapes would serve the same purpose as the route one would run mana through there body to produce a spell. Using a specific path for the mana one could give their spell purpose without speaking words. To recreate this the most commonly used shape was often a circle or oval, though not always. For some more complex arrays would need to use many shapes in the setting of the array, this would serve the same purpose as body casting very specified spells. While it isn't a common practice to use body casting in this manner it wasn't unheard of. Most specifically mages who wanted the specifics of their spells from being understood would cast using this method.
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The last page that had been referenced discussed what were called nodes or catalysts in the book. They were the physical objects that would act as relays from the energy to allow the provided power to carry the meaning provided. Without these objects used at various points in the formation the energy provided would begin to leak from the runes and shapes the further from the source it was pushed. While some very powerful mages could manage to cast formations without nodes it was highly recommended not to do this as incomplete formations could produce disastrous results if they took on only a portion of the required purpose. This fact was also true for mages who would be cut off from imbuing their mana with the full meaning of their spell.
The book described how nodes could be almost anything as long as it had the capacity for mana to flow through it. The recommendation however was to try and align the nodes with the purpose of the formation for the best results. A prime example of the principle that assisted Jien in understanding this was the formation that he had tested that was meant to heat his cauldron. The formation used ignis stone as nodes, assisting in continuing the flow of the purpose of creating heat.
The section of the book was clear that as long as mana could flow through the object it could be used, even if the object didn't match the purpose of the formation. The issue of doing so would be two-fold though if you were to take such an approach. The first issue is that as mana would circulate through the runes and shapes used it would begin to acquire a purpose. If nodes represented something other than that purpose, while the object would take the mana and pass it along it would fight against the flow of the given purpose. This would cause the caster to lose efficiency as the node would act as an insulator rather than a conductor.
The other issue would be the same in that the object if it was not a good mana conductor it would cause the formation to lose efficiency. However, in this case it would be due to the type of material used rather than the elemental affiliation of the object. A good example of this would be using a piece of dry wood as a node. Similarly to trying to pass lightning through dry wood, mana would be obstructed. This isn't to say that it couldn't be done, but that the efficiency would be severely decreased leading to one having to invest a larger amount of mana than they would if they had used a neutral type of node like a mana crystal or something more specifically tailored to the purpose of the formation.
Jien found this topic interesting and after reading these few pages that outlined the major parts of any formation he began to read the book normally, front to back.