by Andrew Rowe
“I can see how mixing air and fire might be able to let someone use lightning, but what about something like your Enchanter attunement? Isn’t that more, well, actually unique?”
I shook my head. “Not really. I don’t exactly know how enchanting without my attunement would work — I guess I should look into that — but it’s clear that some people from Keras’ homeland can enchant items, and they don’t have any attunements at all. And Soulblades are basically doing something comparable to enchanting, too, just through slightly different means. They’re basically like a mix between an Enchanter and a Summoner.”
“Hm.” Patrick scratched at his chin. He must have picked up that unfortunate habit from me. “Okay, I can understand all that. But doesn’t replacing bone require stone mana?”
“Creating bones outright does. That’s probably how Sheridan makes those giant bone spears, for example. But that’s a good example — I think they could make those even without their Mender attunement. Whatever their Necromancer attunement does seems to be even better at interacting with bone than a Mender.” I paused, then realized I hadn’t actually answered the initial question. “I wasn’t making bone. I was using life mana to stimulate your body to grow bone. That’s much slower than the traditional Mender route, which is probably why they call Menders ‘unique’ for their ability to conjure bone outright. The human body is capable of making any kind of material that it already contains, and life magic can be used to give it instructions. I learned the basics of that while studying my books on healing magic, but I did it wrong.”
“Got it. But that means that if you studied properly, you could learn to mend bones correctly?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah. But learning all the ins and outs of that would take years. I’d have to have a much better understanding of human physiology, otherwise I’m just going to end up hurting someone again. The regeneration spells are safer, since they just accelerate existing healing. I’m going to start practicing stronger regeneration magic, rather than experimenting with direct healing again.”
“But what if one of us is too badly injured for regeneration to work?”
I grimaced, thinking of Tristan’s eye. I’d given him my phoenix sigil in hopes that the regeneration might help him, but I didn’t think it would completely fix the damage. It took exceptionally powerful magic to heal things that wouldn’t heal naturally over time, and severe eye damage was generally on that list. “We do need better emergency measures,” I admitted. “The healing potions I purchased were good for that. They’re much stronger than my regeneration spells. But now I’m out.” I frowned. “I’ll see if I can figure out how to make some.”
“Cecily might know. I think she took the alchemy elective.”
That was good to know. “Okay. I’ll see about asking her, then.” I looked away for a moment, feeling a pang of shame for my failure to heal him properly. “...Thanks for dealing with me, Patrick.”
“You’re my friend, Corin. It’s not a chore. Are you forgetting that you helped make me an awesome magic sword?”
I felt a hint of a smile. “I guess. I just don’t think that’s a fair trade for putting you in harm’s way all the time. You never would have gotten injured if you weren’t with me at the ball.”
“If you’re feeling bad about putting me into a position where I could help people, you need to wake up, Corin. Reflecting that blast from Mizuchi with the sword you and Keras made? That was the best thing I’ve done in my entire life. I helped save one of our friends, Corin. It doesn’t matter if I got hurt in the process. For just one moment, I got to feel like an actual hero.” He leaned a little closer, then paused. “I was going to hug you, but I remembered that you’re not big on that.”
I smiled. “Thanks for remembering. I’d still rather not have a hug right now, but I’ll take the sentiment into consideration.” I took a breath. “I’m glad you got to be a hero, Patrick.”
“Me too. And given the kind of trouble we tend to get into? I think I’m just getting started.”
I had a feeling he was right, but the tone of my thoughts were a little different.
We’d have more chances at heroism to be certain, but I wasn’t the least bit confident we’d be lucky enough to survive all of them in the future.
If I wanted to make sure that my friends were safe, I had to work harder, study harder, and learn more.
I couldn’t let myself make a mistake like I’d made with healing Patrick again.
***
After that chat, I spent a little bit of time researching healing magic. I only had one book on the subject, though, and it was super dry. Most of it focused on things like human anatomy, and while I was pretty good at memorizing the terminology in there, I found it excruciatingly boring.
Still, if a bit of reading made it more likely I could save lives in the future, I’d stomach it to the best of my ability.
I spent the last days of the trip reading that book and working on one final set of enchanted items. I wanted to get more batteries made, but I’d run out of materials for them — the last remaining silver discs that Keras had made had served as anchors for our upgraded shield sigil teleportation functions.
I borrowed the rest of Patrick’s money to get two more silver discs made. I planned to save one of the two for any rare needs for on-the-spot enchanting. The last went to one of my patented (although not yet literally patented) Cadence-brand special enchanting projects.
There were a number of existing tools that were used for creating enchanted items, and most of them could be improved further. I used an etching rod to make runes, for example. That required manually cutting each rune, which was both error prone and time consuming.
I likened that process to writing with a pen — it was reliable and easy to learn, but imperfect.
After seeing a typewriter in the restricted section of the Divinatory, I’d realized that the technology wasn’t just usable for the written word. Something analogous could be used to make runes more quickly and without error.
I was willing to bet that Caelford had already invented a rune typewriter (or at least a rune printing press), but it was worth looking into whether or not I could make one myself. Or, at the very least, obtain an existing one.
I decided to start with something simpler; a rune stamp that always made the same mark. After a few false starts, I managed to make a stamp that used fire mana to melt a rune shape into a metal object. Unfortunately, due to variable melting points, it wasn’t going to work on every type of metal we used, and if I pressed the stamp against the item for too long, it would melt too much and make the rune unrecognizable.
...There was clearly some room for improvement, but I enjoyed the experiment, and it gave me some ideas for the future.
There were tons of other projects I wanted to work on. Improving my enchanting efficiency was important, and the stamp concept was just a first step.
I also considered making more devices that expelled additional mana into the air, similar to the bracer I’d made Sera for improving her summons, but ultimately, I decided those served the same function as the batteries but with less efficiency.
I still needed to make more message items, like Sera had asked for, but I hadn’t gotten around to that. There were too many things that felt like higher long-term priorities.
My biggest goals involved finding ways to increase my mana more quickly. Emulating Summoner contracts like I’d discussed with Sera and making enhancement elixirs were the two most likely candidates for that.
My third was figuring out a way to use my mana repeatedly without the risk of scarring so I’d be able to both build items faster and train more rapidly. I spent some time trying to study more about how mana scarring worked, and I got a little bit better at understanding how mana flowed through the body in general, but I didn’t make any breakthroughs. I wished Sheridan was around so I could ask them about it, but I didn’t expect to see them until I got back to Valia.
And with that, I’
d run out of time.
Two weeks after our journey had started, our train pulled into the city of Westbridge.
We’d arrived in Caelford.
Chapter III – Splitting the Party
Upon arriving in Westbridge, we disembarked the train. We immediately had to go through a customs checkpoint. While the whole process made me incredibly nervous, we got through without much difficulty.
As we waited in line, Cecily made a suggestion. “Um, would you all like me to check your safe mana limits?”
I hesitated. Others had fewer reservations.
“Sure! I haven’t checked mine in a while.” Patrick grinned at her, eagerly sticking out his hand.
“121. Very impressive, Patrick.”
Patrick beamed, flexing his arm. “Ooh. I can almost feel how impressive I am.”
Cecily giggled. “Okay, who’s next? Master Selyrian, perhaps?”
Keras shook his head. “I’ll pass. It probably won’t work on me, anyway.”
Cecily looked a little confused by that and maybe a bit disappointed. “Uh, okay. If you’re sure?” It was easy to forget that Cecily didn’t know as much about Keras as the rest of us did — she hadn’t been present for his story-telling or living at the house with us. “Anyone else?”
Mara walked over. I looked away while she exposed the mark on her chest. “Hit me.”
“That’s...wow. Okay. 268, Mara. That’s incredible!”
That really was incredible. She was already even closer to Sunstone than I’d expected. She still had almost a hundred to go, but at this rate, she’d hit Sunstone well before we graduated from school.
With a couple more tricks, maybe we can even get her there before we get back.
It seemed unlikely, but it was a good goal.
“Sera?”
Sera frowned, then turned around and showed her own attunement.
“80! You’re almost caught up to where you were before, uh, the incident. Good work.”
“That’s...much better than I expected.” Sera breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Cecily. I think I needed that. Maybe I can catch up after all.”
“You’re actually already ahead of me,” Cecily explained. “I just hit 75, with Corin’s help. That Arbiter attunement is really useful. Wish I’d known about it a little sooner.”
I winced. “Sorry. I should have told you.”
Cecily blinked at me. “Oh, no. I’m sorry, didn’t mean to make it sound like you had an obligation. I’m just a little envious, since you’ve all had access to those power increases for a lot longer. You’re vastly ahead of average expected mana values for our age. I’m a little bit ahead, too, but not by anywhere near as wide of a margin.”
“You’re doing pretty good, all things considered.”
She nodded slowly at that. “I suppose so. But I’ll continue to ask for your help, if it isn’t too much trouble.”
“Sure, it’s my pleasure.”
“Th...thanks. Uh, did you want me to measure your mana?”
I took a deep breath. “Yeah, go for it.”
I really did want to know. I just also didn’t want to get back into the habit of checking it every five minutes.
“Let’s see...” She pressed the mana watch against my forehead. “128. That’s excellent growth from the last number you told me. And this one...” She pressed the watch against my Arbiter attunement. “Even better. 160. Very impressive.”
I gave her a nod. “Thanks, Cecily.” I frowned. “That actually seems a little lower than I expected, though.”
She blinked. “What were you expecting?”
“I was at 122 and 155 before we got on the train. If I kept gaining mana at the same rate as before, I should have been somewhere like 134 and 167...” I shook my head. “I couldn’t train as fast as back in Valia, but it shouldn’t have been that much of a decrease.”
Cecily tucked the mana watch away. “I don’t think you were accounting for the Sunstone Wall, Corin.”
The Sunstone Wall is a concept in attunement development theory. It states that, from the point of Sunstone onward, an attuned must train in areas of greater and greater ambient mana saturation in order to continue to improve their safe mana levels at a noticeable rate.
For this reason, most people never increased their attunement beyond Sunstone level, even if they’d reached it at a relatively young age.
I shook my head at Cecily. “That’d make sense if we were Sunstone-level or higher, but I’m not. Even if you account for both of my mana pools, I wouldn’t total to Sunstone-level.”
“No, no. You’re taking the name too literally.” She paused, seeming to have difficulty articulating her thoughts. “Okay. How long did it take you to get your mana back in Valia?”
“If I drained it completely? Around an hour or so. Less if I used the bracers.”
She nodded. “Right. And on the train?”
I was starting to see where she was going. “Several hours, due to the lower mana density on the train. My silver phoenix sigil helped, but it was recharging more slowly, too, for the same reason.”
For most people, maybe that wouldn’t have been too noticeable, but I’d gotten used to working myself to near-exhaustion by draining my mana pool multiple times per day.
“Right. The train has virtually no ambient mana, and we’re all sharing it. It’s not like school, where we’re sitting next to the Serpent Spire, and everything is saturated with mana all the time.”
I frowned. “Sure, that impacted my training, but my mana shouldn’t have gone up that slowly. I was still training, maybe, half as frequently as usual. Shouldn’t I have improved half as much?”
Cecily shook her head. “If you’re not training beyond a certain threshold, your mana pool isn’t going to grow at all. And with the lower ambient mana in the air, your body is essentially mana starved. It’s honestly surprising our mana grew at all on the train. I suspect your Arbiter attunement was the primary source of our growth, and the training served very little function.”
That was...discouraging to hear, if she was right. But it did make some sense.
For the first time, I was starting to comprehend the difficulties I might run into trying to get to higher attunement levels. My progress to this point had been relatively smooth.
If I wanted to continue to increase my attunement power rapidly, I’d have to start thinking in terms of ways to compensate for low mana areas...or simply train in areas of high mana saturation.
Derek’s choice to live right next to the Serpent Spire suddenly made a great deal more sense. It wasn’t just about being able to visit the spire and climb very easily, although that was clearly a factor. Sitting right next to the spire also offered enough mana density for him to train there.
And, of course, training inside the spire would be even faster.
If I wanted to get as powerful as people like Derek — which I obviously did — I’d have to either use a similar strategy, or figure out a way to cheat the system and continue saturating my body with mana even in low-mana areas.
Mana regeneration items were the obvious solution, but my current ones like the bracers and phoenix sigils also drew mana from the environment, meaning they were less effective in mana-starved regions. If I wanted to go that route, I’d have to study other types of recharge runes, but those had other problems.
I thanked Cecily for her insight, then spent much of the time in line lost in thought.
My frustration with my lack of growth made me even more jittery than usual. I was already thinking about checking my numbers again before we got to the end of the line. I resisted the urge. Embarrassment helped me when mere personal restraint might have failed.
I honestly don’t know how Keras talked his way in, given that he was an international criminal. Maybe his identification listed another name? I didn’t ask.
Either way, it was a relief — if a bit jarring — to be back to standing on ground that wasn’t moving.
Two weeks on a train
had been plenty of time to discuss our vacation plans. We had, in fact, talked about them. We had not, however, actually come to any concrete decisions.
I had my own priorities, of course. Just after boarding the train, I’d gotten another message in Trials of Judgment.
Corin,
Thank you for agreeing to help with my cause. I can’t tell you how much it means to have you on my side in all this. With your help, I believe we have a real chance of success.
Unfortunately, I can provide you with little guidance. I won’t be able to reach you much longer, since you’re going to be out of the book’s range shortly. I can tell you what I need, but the details will largely be up to you.
In order to accomplish our goals, we will need to understand the intricacies of how attunements work. I believe our best bet on that is Warren Constantine, a man who was deeply involved with the artificial attunement project in its earliest stages.
Over a decade ago, Warren vanished. I do not know the cause. My contacts believe that he had a falling out with Anabelle Farren, the owner of Farren Labs.
In the last year, my agents have reported seeing someone who meets his description (a Valian man in his 40s with white streaks in his hair and a moon-shaped scar under his left eye) back in Caelford, but he has thus far evaded all attempts to contact him. I would like you to find Warren and attempt to recruit him, or at least discover what happened to cause him to leave Farren Labs. To that end, I would recommend visiting Farren Labs and attempting to find their records of his employment and hints about his current location.
If you do find Warren, appealing to him as a fellow Arbiter might be effective. Very few others share your attunement and he may be more receptive to you than my other agents.
Do not give any indication to Anabelle Farren that you’ve met me. She is intensely dangerous and cannot be trusted.
If you cannot gain Warren’s allegiance, I will trust you to find a suitable alternative.