“Okay, that makes sense, but it’s essentially a way of making free money. I assume it’s easier for more advanced Enchanters than it would be for me. Why aren’t they making dozens of crystals and flooding the market?
“There’s no point. If you’re a Citrine-level Enchanter or higher, you probably don’t need the kind of crystals you can make yourself. Most crystals are relatively cheap, because most non-Enchanters have no use for them, and practically every monster in the tower has a crystal at their core. Magical items, however, are quite expensive. For a veteran Enchanter, it’s vastly more efficient to buy crystals for a pittance and then make and sell fully-assembled items for ten or more times the cost of the materials.”
That made sense, but I still figured it would be a useful skill to be able to make the components I needed to enchant something. There was a key flaw — I’d only be able to make crystals for the mana types I could generate in my own body — but that still meant I could make the crystals necessary for some basic devices, like more shield sigils. I could live with that.
I did have one more question, though. “You said these are for practice. What’s the next step?”
“Focusing your mana in the air, forming a solid crystal without a shell. It’s vastly more difficult, since mana quickly dissipates when exposed to air unless you force it not to.”
Vellum steepled her fingers. “You can either learn to make and solidify crystals so rapidly that there’s minimal mana loss, or you can learn to create a solid shell out of mana. The latter effectively mimics the current function of the prism, and then form the rest of the crystal inside the shell.”
Both approaches made sense to me conceptually, but the latter definitely sounded easier. “Okay. How long do you expect me to take to learn to be able to do that?”
The professor chortled. “You probably never will. Once you’re over your little financial hurtle, you’ll probably stop bothering with this process entirely. Almost everyone does.”
That sounded like a challenge.
“But, if I wanted to, how long would you expect it to take?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Hundreds of practice attempts. Most likely several months to a year.”
I resolved to figure it out by the end of the week.
***
I sat in my room, focusing on channeling mana from my right hand into the empty space inside one of the crystals. It was a familiar enough process, similar to powering a rune, but I wasn’t used to trying to push mana through something.
The crystal wasn’t very porous, which I’m sure was part of the point. The structure made it harder for mana to escape, but it also made it tricky for me to get mana through the crystal and into the empty space within.
It took a few minutes before I was confident I was managing to get any mana into the prism at all, and even then, it was slow. Excruciatingly slow.
Several times, I wondered if I was doing something fundamentally wrong. Was I supposed to be able to just manifest my mana directly inside the crystal without forcing it through the prism first?
Probably not. That was probably what made the process different from what a Shaper could accomplish. I could shove mana out through my hand, but I needed to stay in contact with the energy to do anything with it. A Shaper could sense and restructure mana remotely, which was how they could make things like phantasmal swords that floated in the air — or, at more advanced levels, things like simulacra.
I felt a pang of disappointment that I’d ended up with an Enchanter Attunement rather than something as obviously useful as the Shaper one would have been, but a Shaper couldn’t make permanent items, and I was enjoying that too much to feel too bad about it.
If the goddess really had played a role in giving me my attunement, she’d probably been closer to right than I’d given her credit for. And there was nothing saying I couldn’t get a second attunement later on. The trials in the tower would be much more difficult, but I was confident I could face them eventually.
After an hour of practice, I had a pounding headache.
I may have panicked a little bit when I realized that.
I hadn’t been trying to use my mental mana. My hand was throbbing from the mana I’d syphoned out of it, but I’d expected that, and I was fairly used to it.
I wasn’t just pouring raw mana into something this time, though. I was actively concentrating on detecting the structure of that mana, both to get it inside the crystal and so that I could eventually try to condense it into a solid.
That meant I was using my mental mana to monitor my progress, without even realizing it.
And I’d used more of it than I’d ever knowingly used before.
I stopped immediately, barely having the presence of mind to lower the crystal back into the box. With my focus gone, the mana would dissipate, but I didn’t care.
I just sat there shaking, agonizing over the possibility that I’d caused myself permanent mental damage through some stupid practice exercise.
Deep breaths.
It took me a good ten minutes to calm myself down. I reminded myself of the lectures — how I’d get headaches long before I suffered permanent damage, that I’d notice if I was causing myself cognitive harm — but they weren’t particularly reassuring.
No amount of reassurance could completely neutralize an irrational fear.
I ran fingers through my hair, massaging my own temples. I might have made the headache worse by fixating on it, but I couldn’t not think about it.
After another few minutes, I managed to get my head together sufficiently to realize I needed a distraction. I chewed on an iros fruit while I headed to Sera’s dorm. I didn’t know if she’d be around, but just having a goal helped me defocus somewhat.
Fortunately, she answered her door when I arrived. I didn’t know what I would have done if she’d been gone.
“Corin?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you okay? You look...off.”