Mark was currently blissfully devouring his third croissant, with scrambled egg, bacon, and Avo. He had agreed to join Cara and Sam but grabbing food on the way had been a condition. They agreed and when they had shown up, Mark noticed someone had gone through a lot of trouble to put croissants on the menu.
Mark was pretty confident the recipe file had been used to create these little fluffy delicacies. They were a little more costly as there weren't a whole lot of them but Mark had jumped at the sight of them.
Right now Mark sat in the grass of the training area, watching Cara attempt sixteen consecutive jumps. She managed it but was bushed after that.
“Gimme a minute to rest and then I’m going to try for a long-ranged jump”
She said slightly out of breath. Cara’s magic turned out to be complex to comprehend but simple once you knew what you were doing.
The reason Mark could always detect Cara when she teleported was that for short-range teleportation, she had to send her Mana where she wanted to go. It acted as a guidance system, making sure she didn’t materialize inside a wall or something. Long-ranged jumps were different and the reason they were here now. She had been practicing them and she was finally ready to go for the gold. Sam had tried to explain theoretically what Cara should be aiming for, but ultimately success or failure was up to her.
The spell consisted of a large initial cost to fold space and join two points, distance increased the cost, but there was always a minimum amount of Mana needed to make it work.
While they waited Mark and Sam chatted, first discussing Donny’s situation and them moving onto Henry. Apparently, the guy was difficult to work with, with quite a few demands, luckily they were all kept in check by Chloe.
When they had both been caught up Mark explained the intents for [Corruption recovery] to her. Sam even attempted it and actually managed to get the spell to work for a few seconds before it fell apart. She said she would try again later when she had more time.
They discussed some more and at the same time, Mark was typing up everything he had learned and putting it online. When he opened his thread he was inundated with messages complaining that he hadn’t posted in far too long. People had been getting impatient and some even thought he’d gone and gotten himself killed.
Mark snickered at this because he was about to attempt a trip that just might claim his life.
Creating a new thread he titled it “Ten reasons why this spell will change everything”, purposefully making it clickbaity.
Once he was done writing out the Intents and how [Corruption recoverey] could help their situation, he put a warning there stating that it was a complex spell and that people should give it time.
Checking the ‘Spellbook’ thread he saw it had grown to just over two hundred and fifty spells. At this stage, Mark would have to go back and look through each one to make sure people weren’t messing around but this job was hugely time-consuming so he invited Sam into the thread and set her up as a moderator. She had already been a frequent viewer but the number of spells was starting to require help to maintain.
While they were doing that Mark asked her what magic she was going to be attempting next. To which she pointed to Cara and said.
“Well we are here to help her in case anything goes wrong but at the same time I’m here to learn too, thought I’d try and pick up Space and maybe some Lightning magic”
It looked like she was learning those to help her understand other magics. Her theory was that some magics could be building blocks to more complex magics.
Mark wanted to tell her that most people didn’t just pick up magic like they were shopping for groceries, but he realized that might be a little hypocritical coming from him.
Mark had quite a few options for different magics -Some he hadn’t even touched on yet- but he had nowhere near as many as Sam.
This raised a good question though, what was her highest compatibility magic?
Asking her she paused and thought about it.
“Well my top three are all complicated and honestly I’m not even sure how to go about using them. I have the problem that my most powerful magic’s are locked away behind my own ignorance.
They are Ather, Cosmic, and Temporal. Temporal being my best one. But as I said I don’t know where to start for any of them. I feel like Ather might have something to do with dark matter but who knows? Cosmic feels like a balance of light and dark, and I think I can get a step closer to Temporal with Spatial magic”
Mark thought he had a problem with his magics but it turned out she didn’t even know what she didn’t know. Sam couldn’t even put them to use as she didn’t yet understand how to apply them. Earth magic was self-explanatory, but what the hell could cosmic magic even do?
He’d be frustrated for her if he didn’t know she loved the idea of working with magic and simply took this as a challenge.
They continued to chat while Cara used [Meditation]. Mark even practiced using [Nature control] to familiarize himself with it.
When her Mana was full she got up and told them she was ready. Short-range teleportation capped out at around 15 meters. Long-distance jumps could theoretically go as far as the casters Mana could handle.
Cara closed her eyes and silvery Magic began to surround her. Mark waited at the touch-down point, while Sam coached her through the imagery thirty meters away. There was no pulse of Mana like Mark was used to, only a small amount right next to him as Cara blinked into existence two steps away.
She collapsed the moment she got there and Mark went to check on her straight away. Cara wheezed in exhaustion, but a look of triumph flashed through her eyes.
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Confirming that she was just suffering from sudden Mana exhaustion Mark relaxed. Sam was next to them shortly, seeing how she was.
Only when she was sure Cara was okay did she start testing the magic out herself. It wasn’t long until she had grasped the basics of short-ranged jumps. An hour later Sam was blinking all over the place.
Cara jumped up excitedly and the two of them began chasing one another with rapid teleportations. Mark watched them but had to stop as their speed picked up and it became difficult to follow them as they flitted all around the field.
Soon enough Cara caught her and that seemed to symbolize the end of their tests.
Sam had already organized Chloe’s and Henry's assistance and now she wanted to go see if she could help her dad. Mark had updated her on what was going on with the Knights, so now it was just a waiting game.
The three of them split up and Mark was finishing up with another of his posts when his earpiece crackled to life. He had made a point of keeping the comms on his person instead of his inventory.
Placing the earpiece in he heard Jonathan speaking.
“-Mark, if you got time, head down to George’s workstation. He’s only got a little while before he has to pack up. If you still want that lesson then nows the time”
Mark got up heading over to the ammunition district. He’d forgotten they had made plans for a lesson, what with the sudden mission and all. But Jonathan seemed keen, so he must have rescheduled with George. Oliver had proven Mark’s theory that there was more to crafting than meets the eye and getting a lesson from someone who was knowledgeable in the field just seemed like the smart plan. When Mark got there he saw Jonathan was already there pouring what looked like liquid hot metal into molds.
When George spotted Mark he grinned and said.
“Ah, Mark good to see you. Normally I’d prefer to let you start with the very basics but we are tight on time and I’m hoping to help you guys simply get an idea of the steps today. A skill would be great but focusing on the process is more important. All I want you to learn today was how to cast ingots. I just learned recently that making an ingot in the same manner as that blade I showed you makes for a better outcome, so let's get started”
From there he launched into a description of what Jonathan was already hard at work with.
“I’m going to take care of everything else, you just need to get the steps down”
They were working with iron as it was easier to learn with.
Normally during this process, one would need to mine ore and bring it back for processing but here the system came to their aid.
They bought cast iron pans from the marketplace and began melting them down. This meant there were impurities in the metal and obviously, this was not the best method to go about making the best weapon, but right now it was the best they could do. Mining it was out of the question and there wasn't a whole ton of excess metal lying around right now. It was fine, it just meant they needed to refine it slightly more.
George took Mark through the steps, from smelting, to purification then finally casting. The physical aspects weren't so hard to get down, in fact, Mark got a handle on it after one demonstration.
Obviously, the difference between being able to accomplish each step and truly understanding each one to perfection was bridged by decades of practice. This wasn’t something Mark could just master after one lesson but it wasn’t like it was some impossible feat to at least break into the field. Jonathan was doing exactly that, each action he took was with precision and absolute focus. By following George's guidance raptly, his ingots were benefiting from it. One thing George hammered home was ‘Start with good ingredients, get good stew’. He meant that if they messed up one of the steps in the forging process then it would affect the outcome, so getting the basics down was important.
With his constant direction, both Mark and Jonathan produced passable ingots. Next, he had them attempt to keep up a constant flow of energy through their hands while they worked.
It was interesting to watch because as George demonstrated by moving the energy to his hands, some of it was naturally absorbed by the metal. He made it look easier than it was because Mark knew from experience moving multiple forms of energy was challenging.
This also happened to be where Mark hit his roadblock. Without Aura, the outcome of his ingot was almost entirely mundane. To remedy this, he attempted to circulate more Mana and Prana through his hands but that actually caused more of a problem, in that molten metal suddenly went exploding out of the crucible.
Mark had been shielding himself from the heat and had noticed the sudden violent change in the metal’s Mana. So it had been easy enough to just catch all the flying metal in a construct, but after that Mark had opted to watch the rest of the lesson. On Jonathan’s third and final attempt, he produced something close to what George was looking for.
Item: Saturated iron ingot (Iron)
Item lvl: –
Description: A product of a craftsman [Jonathan Wilson] that has stored a small amount of energy within its structure.
Dimensions: Length: 8 inches (20.32 cm) Width: 3 inches (7.62 cm) Height: 2 inches (5.08 cm)
Crafting rating: low
The fact that Jonathan had managed to produce an ingot at all made George proud. He could easily do this by now but Jonathan had managed to create one with almost no previous training.
Apparently, there were three ratings for each rank. Low, Medium, and High.
Of the ranks they know of so far there was Iron, Bronze, and Silver. If things continued at that scale then gold would probably be next, but who knew when they would even find one of those, let alone be able to make something like that?
What Jonathan had created was the lowest of the low, but the fact that he could do this with just one lesson spoke volumes. As a side, George was also only capable of making Iron rank ingots but his were high grades.
Mark was wondering what affected the system's ‘Crafting rating’ and if there were things they could do to improve it. Looking at the material they used, it was almost a given that the product would be of low value, but as mentioned before they were tight on sources.
Frowning to himself Mark stopped for a moment. Maybe they weren’t.
Mark opened his spell descriptions and looked at [Earth control], his eyes looking for one line in particular.
Mana requirement during material creation correlates to the density and complexity of the material created.
Mark lifted a palm and concentrated, he had always created stone because that's what came to him when he thought of Earth, but Earth magic was so much more than just rock and stone.
Picking up one of the cooled bars, Mark looked at it, feeling the cool, heavy metal weighing down his hand.
Picturing iron, with its strength and resilience. Slowly using that image he built up his concept of earth magic.
Mana funneled into the spell and kept going until it had consumed nearly 55 Mana.
Gathering rapidly above his hand like thousands of iron filings clumping together was a spear of pure iron.
Looking at it, he shaped it to his liking, first turning it into the shape of a sword and then a hammer, finally breaking it into five perfect ingots of iron. Of course, they weren’t system items, but they were still usable as mundane versions. Plus they were incredibly pure, so what would the outcome be if George used these instead of the pans?
When Mark offered them to the guy he was only too happy to take them. If they worked well then maybe crafters could work with casters to forge things.
Mark was a little down he couldn’t craft system weapons but that didn’t mean he would give up here, there was bound to be something he could work with, without having to use Aura.