“Just by thinking about where I want it to take from.”
I scratched my chin. “There’s some potential there, then... if you could get your attunement to think an item was a part of your body, maybe it could reach into the item to pay the mana cost. But that might mean passing the mana through the object into your body before the spell goes off — which could, as we discussed earlier, make you sick. If you could even use the item at all.”
“Okay, what about setting up the item to detect when I’m casting a spell, detect the result of the spell, and channel mana into the result?”
That...seemed possible, but it also didn’t seem to help. “Yeah? You could do that, but I don’t think it’d make your spell any cheaper.”
She pointed at the second item on the list. “I was thinking something more like that. Or, in between the first item and the second.”
“Oh, to make the spell stronger? Yeah, that actually seems pretty doable. But would just throwing extra mana into a summoning spell actually do anything useful?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Summoned monsters are really good at shaping mana for their own uses. Remember that karvensi I summoned?”
“Sure.” I frowned. “Now that you mention it, he was casting a lot of spells.”
“And spells I couldn’t provide the mana for. I don’t have lightning or fire mana. Summoning spells use transference, air, and gray mana. He got the mana that was left over from the spell after I finished summoning him - and he reshaped it himself. If I’d given him more mana to work with, he could have done more with it.”
Huh. “That reminds me — wasn’t he using some of the same spells you were, but without incantations?”
“Yeah. Using incantations for broad-area spells seem to primarily be a human limitation — monsters shape their magic naturally, so they generally don’t need them.”
That was interesting. Could I figure out a way to set things up for a human to distribute mana across a broad area without incantations like a monster could?
One more research project for the long list.
“Okay, yeah. I think we can make a spell-enhancement item work. In fact, I could probably make something similar for Patrick if I can afford it.”
She frowned when I said Patrick’s name. That was not a good sign.
I continued, “Anyway, do you want me to spend everything you gave me on the one item, or try to save some for additional items?”
“Gimme the strongest thing you can make. We can always make more items later. I’d rather have one really good item that isn’t going to be replaced when you get stronger in a few months.”
I agreed with her logic. “Okay. Do you want something that’s self-recharging or something we have to manually refill?”
She raised an eyebrow. “What’s the advantage of the latter?”
“Half as many runes for me to make, so I don’t have to buy as many crystals. That means I can buy a bigger crystal to give it a larger mana capacity.”
“Got it. Go with that, then.”
“You sure? That means you’ll probably only be able to use it once per test. If even that — recharging something we make with a big crystal is going to be hard.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’d rather have a strong emergency measure.”
“Okay. What mana type do you want?”
That one took her a minute of consideration. “Gray. As much as I want to say ice, it’d be too hard to recharge, and less generally useful.”
I didn’t quite understand her hesitation. “Wouldn’t gray work for anything?”
She shook her head. “For any summoning spell, yes. But not for my normal offensive ice spells, and I might want to hit something with a really powerful ice storm, rather than call on a summoned monster. I can convert gray mana, of course, but that’s inefficient.”
“Oh, that makes sense. Maybe if this ends up working we can make you an ice one eventually.”
“I’d like that, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. I’m not that rich.”
I grinned. “Not yet. Okay, let’s settle on this one as my next project, but I wanted to discuss some of these other ideas for the future...”
The rest of the conversation was much more pleasant, but I knew that I had a lot more work to do before she was going to truly trust me again.
Chapter XVI — Testing Phase Two
Professor Meltlake floated, rather than stood, in front of the class when I arrived and took my seat. She was only about four feet above the ground, but it was both noticeable and impressive. She sat on the air like a cushion with no clear gestures or words to maintain the spell.
Given what I recalled of Meltlake’s previous lectures, I suspected the effortless manipulation of mana was a calculated move on her part. While Teft preferred direct confrontations for shock and awe, Meltlake liked to draw us in with little casual uses of magic that brought out our curiosity.
At an otherwise unremarkable moment — one I suspected to be the precise moment an unseen clock ticked to the starting time of our class — Meltlake lifted her head and glanced around the classroom, her lips twisting almost imperceptibly downward.
That muted displeasure was an uncomfortable pressure for me, even though I suspected it was directed at those students who were still sitting down. Or worse, those few that remained absent.
“Students, attention.”
We turned our gaze toward her, conversations silencing in an instant. If we had a military salute, we probably would have given one, but we weren’t quite at that point in our training yet.
If I handled things right, I’d never get to that point. I had no intention of joining the military. Not for traditional service, at least. I couldn’t afford to. I knew it was extremely unlikely that I’d make it to the top of the tower before graduating. Most stories of successful climbers indicated that they took decades to reach the top — and success stories were rare.