“Ok if this works, yall have no idea how much change this could bring.” Says Mr.Glenn, handing everyone a piece of concrete.
“We can guess.” Replied Von,” If we can shape matter, as the Magic Nerds do with their conjured elements, we might be able to re-use a lot of the wood chips, or even metal shavings from the machines. Giving us a lot more resources to work with.”
“OOU!” Said both Niko and Neo.
“Exactly!” Said the excited Mr.Glen,” now let’s begin.”
Looking down at their own piece of concrete, the four of them controlled their Mana towards the concrete, letting information of its shape flow into them. Then each decided to slightly alter it by shifting it into a block.
And so all 4 collapsed.
The magisterium had long since found out that their passing out could be caused by 2 things. The brain handling too much mana flow, or all the usable mana in the body was exhausted. In this case, all 4 handled too much mana flow.
It would take an hour for anyone to find them in the side room of the Manufacturing room.
“Niko, Neo!.” Said Leo as he walked In,” we need to get to training or Coach will whoop our A---What the hell!!”
~~~~~~~~(12:34 AM)~~~~~~~~
“AAAAAHHHH!”
“Oh, Shit!” Said someone as they tumbled to the floor.
“What the!” Screamed another, startled by the sudden change of atmosphere.
“I can’t see! I can’t see!”
All of these sounds and more were prevalent throughout Velysium Hall, and the second-floor hallway they had taken to survive when the lights went out.
It had been so sudden that people doing their task, such as fixing the barricades from minor beetle attacks, screwed them up. All electrical equipment stopped working, which meant the manufacturing team couldn’t continue making arrows and crossbow bolts in preparation for clearing out the hive. Whether the lack of electricity was from a power grid failure or the beetle’s constant digging, nobody knew.
After the initial screams, lights from phones and flashlights came on all over as the adults began to take charge of the situation. “ Get the flashlights to the barricades now!” Order Coach McConnel, himself running towards the barricades,” Everyone quiet!”
It didn’t take long for wizards to come down from the second floor, a solution to the darkness already in their hands. The second floor was already a mess of glowing balls of concentrated mana, thus they spread about to do the same to Velysium hall.
The Magisterium wizards conjured 4 large orbs of light and tightly knitted their mana flow so that they would last for a fairly long time. From there they spread to other areas of the Hall and lit them up as well. Until finally they continued to the main barricades, lighting up the area around there as well.
The orbs of light were by no means bright enough to illuminate the whole hall as perfectly as the electric lights had done, but it was better than no light at all.
“Well, this was unexpected.” Said Mr.Valko, looking around the hall with the rest of the adults and a few of the Wizards standing around.
“Is everyone at least ok?” Asked the Principal.
“Yes, I think only a few people got hurt.” Said, Ms. Stillwater
“That's good. But we should all prepare for a beetle raid, there is a chance they would come with all the noise we’ve made.” Said Officer Wheeler.
“Yes of course,” replied the Principal, rubbing her temples,” let's go gather the kids.”
Thankfully the beetles were preoccupied with their things and a few beetles made their way to attack the barricades. Thus the survivors could rest easy and not have to worry about a beetle raid anytime soon.
By this time, around 4 hours later, Mr.Glenn, Niko, Neo, and Von woke up in the room designated as the new nurse’s office. All 4 of them were equally confused as to why the hell was happening.
“Is that ball of light?” asked Neo,” you're seeing this too right? I’m not crazy right?”
“Yeah, what happened to the regular lights?” Asked Niko standing up from where his makeshift bed was on the floor, heading for the lights. A flick or 2 told him all he needed to know.
All 4 of them made their way out of the nurse’s room and into Velysium hall, to which they immediately noticed the 4 giant glowing balls of light that illuminated the hall. Shocked by what was going on they made their way towards the mass of people that had gathered around the entrance of the manufacturing room, from which a flash of blue light was prevalent.
“What's going on?” Said Mr.Glenn, pushing through the people to get into the room with Von, Niko, and Neo in tow.
“Glad y’all could make it.” Said Coach McConnell,” Also all three of you have a training session to complete.” He said towards the 3 teens.
“Awe man,” they said as they realized they had missed training.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Sorry guys,” Said Mr.Glenn, truly sympathetic for the 3,” But coach what's going on,” he asked, looking over at the Wizard as they messed with his power tools.
“Oh, well the power is out, and the manufacturing room needs electricity if we want to keep working on our weapon supplies to eventually destroy the hive. So they uh….” Coach McConnell paused for a second remembering the name the wizards had given themselves,” the Magisterium decided to use electric magic to get the non-battery power tools working.”
“Oh.” Said Mr.Glenn with a hit of surprise,” what's the result?”
“So far we’re pretty sure they’ve broken 2 jigsaws.” Said the Principal.
“And a drill,” added Mr.Stillwater.
“The electricity they generate is a little too strong.” Clarified the nurse.
“Oh…..” Replied Mr.Glenn as everything they’ve said began to sink in.” Riken! Stop! “ he said, going after the Wizards.
“Oh, you're awake!” Said Mr.Valko as he was about to destroy a piece of equipment.
“You know we have a multimeter to test voltages, why did you have to destroy my tools?” Asked Mr.Glenn.
“We were trying to tell him that but the Magic Nerds were too excited with testing electric magic.” Called out one of the Manufacturing students.
“Oh. My bad….” replied Mr.Valko
That was how the lighting magic got officially banned from the Manufacturing room.
After cleaning up the mess the Magisterium people had made Mr.Glenn had to answer a few questions.
“So Glenn, why were you found passed out with those three in the side room?” Asked Mrs.Gibson as all eyes went to Mr.Glenn.
“Oh, we were trying to figure out if we could mold regular matter like the Wizards do when they conjure elements. It…..well did not go as planned. Our magic got sucked out too fast since we haven’t completed our flow.” Replied Mr.Glenn.
“What could be the use of that?” Asked Mr.Valko as he scratched his unkempt and growing beard.
“Well the idea was if we could mold matter like clay, we may be able to reconnect say like the pile of wood chips there,” Mr.Glenn said pointing at a pile of small pieces of wood and scrap wood,” all of that is useless now, but if we could reconnect them we could probably get multiple planks of wood right of the bat.”
When he finished explaining, Mr.Valko's eyes went wide along with several other people,” Bring me that pile!” He said all but ready to test out the idea.
A sizable stack was put in front of him as he worked his magic into them while everyone watched. Being more adept with magic than Mr.Glenn and the other students that had tried this before, he was able to control his magic so it would be sucked out quickly and overload his senses. It didn’t take long for that same pile to begin fusing, and from there being shaped into a ball.
“No freaking way… that worked!” Said Mr.Valko wiping the sweat from his forehead. That had used up a lot of mana.
“Holy frick were geniuses!” said Neo.
“Try it with concrete!” said Mr.Glenn excited to see if the same result could be achieved with other materials.
Mr.Valko had the other Wizards give him some mana, he wanted to see if there was a difference in how much mana one material used over the other. So using about the same amount of broken concrete, he molded that. Then did the same with other metals and plastic that could be found in the Manufacturing room. He had used so much mana in so little time that he felt that he could collapse at any moment.
“You ok sir?” Asked Josiah.
“Yeah, just a little tired.” He said Stumbling back a step,” Anyway, from what I can tell, so far the wood has been the hardest thing to shape. I’m guessing it's because it's organic? Plastic took second place. The rest were not as bad in how much mana I had to use.”
To make sure of that, the other Wizard tried out the same thing, even going as far as using some of the beetles’ carapace. Those were pure hell to mold, Vastly different from the wood, some more so than others. So they theorized it had to do with how degraded the organic matter was that dictated the amount of mana one had to use to mold it. After for non-organic matter, they were still unsure.
“You know.” began the nurse, “what would happen if we did the same thing to live matter.”
That caused everyone to pause for a second. “As in closing wounds….would that even work?” asked Mr.Stillwater
“Wait! Did we just stumble into possible healing magic?” Harry asked, surprise clear in his voice.
“That's a good idea.” Agreed the Principal,” that needs to be worked on immediately!”
“We’ll have to wait till the nurse and some of the medical students get their magic unlocked though because there isn’t any way I’m letting my kids do that, way too little experience or knowledge.” Said Mr.Valko sparking groans from the wizards around him.
“That's understandable.” Said the Principal,” Mrs. Booth? How close are you to completing the pathway in the brain?” she asked the nurse.
“Uh...close.” She replied with a face full of uncertainty,” haven’t found the wall you're describing yet.”
“Work on it.” said Coach McConnel,” if we can use magic to close wounds, it would be another vital ability to have.”
And with that people went on to work on the discoveries of today, as well as going back to the tasks they were assigned. Niko, Neo, and Von got dragged away by Coach McConnel to receive their punishment for failing to attend training.
“Well on that note, For their discovery, I think the Manufacturing team deserves a name too!” Said, Josiah.
“No, we don’t!” Cried out the students that made up the manufacturing team, reluctant on having an edgy name like the Magisterium.
“We the Magisterium officially dub the manufacturing team, the Artificerium,” Josiah announced.
“The what?” asked Mr.Glenn, not so keen on having the name.
“Artificerium! I mixed Artificers, the people that make cool magic equipment with consortium.” Replied Josiah with a smile, causing groans all around.
“You know, wasn’t the group doing all the guarding and fighting formed first?” Asked Leo.
“Yeah so.” Said, Harry.
“So our group should have a name!” replied Leo.
“No, your group is---” before Josiah could continue Leo stopped him there,” Everyone is technically part of this group. The Magisterium and the Artificerium - sorry guys, this name is your name now I guess - are a section of it, so we should come up with a name for it.”
“Ok, I can come up with another consortium name.” Said Josiah as he began to think.
“No, we are done with your naming sense. Time for mine.” Said Leo as he cleared his throat, ``I'll name us, the Valiant First Order.”
The Manufacturing room was silent as whatever adult remained shook their head and began to leave with students who had no care for what a group was named.
“How is that any better?” Asked Callie, squinting her eyes at Leo while shaking her head.
“I wasn’t supposed to be good, I was just replacing Josiah’s naming sense with mine.” Said Leo.
“I for one I’m not ok with that name.” Said Maya,
“Too late, that's the name,” said Leo.
And so an argument for what the names for both the Manufacturing team and the overall group were infused. Eventually, the adult returned to break it up. They left it up to luck to decide the names by letting everyone write their opinions and shuffling them in a box.
By a stroke of awkwardness or God's intervention, Artificerium and the Valiant First Order were both picked out of their individual box.