I also had the handful of crystals that Jin had given me as payment for my help with his own enchantments. I’d used a couple on the enchantments for my room, though. My remaining resources from Jin consisted of two medium gray crystals, three lesser gray crystals, one medium mind crystal, and one medium transference crystal.
I picked up a few crystals at Lars’ place and asked him about their costs, bought one, and then made myself a list of his costs for future reference.
Lesser (Class 1) Gray — 3 Silver
Lesser (Class 1) Other — 4 Silver
Medium (Class 2) Gray — 12 Silver
Medium (Class 2) Other — 16 Silver
Greater (Class 3) Gray — 120 Silver
Greater (Class 3) Other — 160 Silver
Superior (Class 4) — Varies by type, quoted me 600 Silver for a Class 4 Transference crystal
The classification numbers apparently were more important than the actual physical size — more powerful crystals were denser with mana, not necessarily larger. Most people still used terms like “lesser” and “greater” for short-hand, but as an Enchanter, I’d need to pay closer attention to the technical classifications as I got more experienced.
There were at least six classes of gems, but apparently anything more powerful than Class 3 was extraordinarily rare. From the prices, I sincerely doubted I’d be working with anything higher than Class 2 in the immediate future.
I found it deeply ironic that our attunements were named after types of gems, but these magical gems weren’t. I guessed it was probably because of color confusion. A Class 1 gem might be blue if it contained water mana, so calling it a “mana carnelian” would be confusing.
The one I decided to pick up was a medium transference crystal. Almost every enchantment I’d found would require at least two crystals of the same type, and I was leaning toward a transference enchantment. I managed to barter him down to 9 sigils, leaving me with a single coin to my name.
When that was done, I went to the Divinatory and asked them to identify the large crystal Professor Orden had given me.
The answer was...unexpected.
“That’s a Class 2 universal mana core.”
I blinked. “Universal? You mean gray?”
The Diviner shook his head. “Nope. Universal. It’s much rarer. You can channel any kind of mana into it and it’ll change into a crystal of that type. Don’t waste that thing, it’s rare; only a few of the strongest monsters in the tower have universal cores. How’d you get it?”
“Uh... gift from a teacher.”
“Wow. That teacher must really like you. Those things are expensive.”
Huh.
I didn’t really know what to make of that. I bid the Diviner goodbye and headed back to my room.
Having a universal core vastly broadened my options — if I was willing to use it immediately. No wonder Professor Orden already thought she’d given me enough resources. This crystal itself was worth at least as much as one of the greater crystals in the shop, and probably vastly more, due to its flexibility.
I could only change it into a few types of things myself, but for something like this, I’d be willing to put in the effort to ask a friend to shift it to a different type.
What could I accomplish with a single Class 2 mana core of any type I wanted?
Shuffling though my books, I came up with a pretty simple answer: nothing more than I could have made before.
Using Class 2 cores was at least Carnelian-level, possibly higher. Attempting a Carnelian-level enchantment at my skill level had a huge possibility of failure — which would cost me the crystal — and possibly a disastrous backlash if I made a bad enough mistake.
I tucked the crystal away in the relative safety of a secret compartment in the bottom of the wooden crate where I kept my laundry.
While putting the crystal away in there, I found my other hidden item, the flask of water from the attunement chamber. I hadn’t forgotten about it exactly, but I also hadn’t done anything with it as quickly as I had planned.
I turned on my attunement to look at the flask. The water inside still glowed a bright, ice-blue hue under my vision. The same hue, in fact, that I saw on my own attunement if I looked in the mirror while it was active.
I’d promised myself I’d do something to preserve the water in there, but I’d procrastinated on it pretty severely. Grudgingly, I spent most of the day studying enchantments to preserve potions. Fortunately, I was able to find a few that only required gray mana.
I marked the flask’s exterior with ink, the easiest way to make a rune on something made of leather. Then I spent the evening putting two quick enchantments on the flask. One to preserve the liquid, and the second being a simple shield sigil like I was using on my walls. I didn’t want a stray arrow puncturing the thing.
I was getting to the point where I had a lot of enchantments to maintain. None of the enchantments I’d made thus far were the permanent, self-sustaining kind — those were too expensive. Even the items I was making for Jin would have to be recharged, but he seemed confident he could get them refilled without people asking too many questions. I didn’t ask how.
I ran into Sera while I was shopping for supplies for my permanent enchantment.
She fell into step by my side, walking with me to the shop. “You sign up for a team for the practicals yet?”
How does everyone know about these other than me? “No. I wasn’t even aware we had teams.”
Sera paused in her step, staring at me for a second. “Seriously? I was wondering why you hadn’t asked me to join you, and I was feeling a little left out... but you didn’t even know?”
I shook my head. “Is this in one of our thousands of school documents somewhere?”
I had read those. Or skimmed them. Skimmed most of them. Parts.
The first few pages, at least.
“Yes, but they’ve also been all over the newspapers. And they’re the only thing half the students have been talking about for weeks!”
Oh, talking to people. That’s a thing I should do again sometime.
“Right,” I said sheepishly. “What’s the deal?”
“Teams of five, to get ready for the first tower incursion.” Her reply was instant. “I’ve got Patrick on my team already.”