Chapter 10: Patience

Subject: Inis Location: Absence Woodland

Sometimes, traveling artisans would bring portable workbenches with them while on the road. Inis could not consider herself an artisan, even when it came to the various magical professions she occasionally borrowed skills from. Her workbench allowed her to be self-sufficient out in the wilderness.

Within her formation of tents, she assembled the glorified table up against her wagon. It was constructed from a lightweight metal alloy, deep red in color, with numerous metal arms that could be positioned to hold objects of study in place.

Inis didn’t need anything more extravagant than a large stable surface for what she was about to attempt. Her materials and tools were all arranged before her.

“That should be enough,'' Inis mumbled while looking down at her portable generator on the bottom shelf.

She dropped clusters of raw fuel mineral into a tray. Dirty yellow crystals, speckled with red flecks, slid atop the polished plate, down into the bowels of the small black cuboid generator. Once it had been fed, she sealed it and held out a hand to concentrate.

A trained mage could reach out with vira energy as an extension of mundane sensory organs. This was called “virasense”. In essence, it was the act of using an acquired feel for magical energy to observe the environment. Though not technically a spell in and of itself, it was a fundamental skill for a mage who didn’t want to “rediscover magic” each time they needed to learn a new spell. Knowledge of one spell could be transferred into mastery of another.

A mage’s virasense was never “fully mastered”, and Inis had a long way to go. The chasm that separated what a mage knew and what there was to know was an ever-expanding one. Even so, Inis believed she was sensitive enough for this task.

Spell Grouping: Parallel Branch: Veracity Category: Utility Description: These spells take small inorganic objects of a similar form as an additional input. The mage then selects one of them to act as the template. After selection, the magic acts to homogenize the varied assortment of objects, ignoring any outliers. Different spells from this grouping act on different categories of objects. Spell: Mineral Match Difficulty: Advanced Cast Type: Full Sustain Cost: Moderate Description: An incredible spell for artisans who work with minerals of many forms. This spell accepts harvested minerals of similar composition and size as an additional input. As with similar spells from the “Parallel” grouping, the mage selects one of the target mineral chunks to act as the template for the spell, and the remaining pieces are homogenized.

Through her virasense, Inis surveyed the Fexatite crystals. She selected one formation that had the best size and overall shape.

The next stage of the spell involved intense concentration. The calculation and general problem-solving procedure of the spell were so taxing that Inis wasn’t able to observe the changes taking place in real-time.

Only when the spell automatically ended was the result known to her. The generator’s chamber now contained many Fexatite crystals like the one she had chosen. There were a handful of irregular clusters, but it wouldn’t significantly affect the operation.

Inis felt a cold chill. Nearly every spell exacted this mental toll, though some more than others. In cases like with Mineral Match, additional inputs were required for the spell to work as intended. Some spells had other costs, but Inis didn’t have mastery of any of those yet. She didn’t want to. The thought was enough to make her shudder.

She activated the generator with the press of a button, moving on to the next spell.

Spell Grouping: Virawind Branch: Commutation Category: Utility Description: These spells involve the manipulation of vira energy to move air about. They are highly practical and easy to learn, with many applications. Though the Virawind is categorized as a utility spell, there are closely-related groupings in the offense and defense categories. Spell: Virawind Channel Difficulty: Intermediate Cast Type: Partial Sustain Cost: Low Description: A mage manipulates the vira energy in the air to direct it along the desired route.

Inis intended to maintain this spell for as long as she needed the generator to supply power to her equipment. It would increase output and functioning and also gave her greater control.

Again, she felt some of her vitality bleed from her body. Where that energy went, no one could tell her. Inis had asked her mentor this question once, and the face she had shown to Inis was more telling than the empty answer Inis had received. It was an expression of existential dread.

After I learn everything there is to know about the Blight, maybe I’ll look for an answer. For now, it doesn’t hinder my thought process, so long as I watch what I cast. My body recovers. It is a good trade.

Having been fed and activated, the generator started to hum a low, satisfied tone. Inis sidestepped, hovering over her selected assortment of devices. Black and gold cables connected each implement to the generator, but they wouldn’t be so greedy as to sip power before it was their turn.

The rubber coating the tubes was not the only protective measure Inis used. To keep a stable flow of power running, there were magnetized links to bind the cables to the metal struts of the portable workbench. She didn’t want the wires bunching up or flailing about where they could get damaged. Inis diligently checked them for damage. This was even more necessary because she lived out in the wilderness.

I am methodical now. I know to be...

Inis was ready.

The silver filtration cube she had selected and placed atop the workbench surface on her left was typically used for plants and sometimes fungi. Even so, Inis knew it would suit her needs. The transparent circular window invited specimens into the central compartment where they could be subjected to a custom filtration routine. Different samples required different orders of filtration. Inis’s tool used machinery for temperature filtration but needed magical assistance for other methods.

First, Inis assigned the filtration routine by sliding a silver metal plate along to the proper groove on the tool’s front panel. Then, she pressed a button to turn it on. The cube began to suck power from the generator. While it warmed up, Inis set about cutting away at the outer layer of the blightseed. As she did this, she spoke a focus recitation.

“Don’t trace a route too far ahead, or you’ll lose your footing on your present path. You can’t predict every point at which the road branches out,” Inis began.

She hadn’t written this particular recitation during her time with her mentor. Inis had drafted it after the two parted ways, kind of as a nod to one of the lessons she had always been trying to teach Inis. Inis, like many others, had the tendency to get ahead of herself.

By the end of the recitation, the blightseed was as ready as it was going to be. Inis dropped it into the open window of the device, followed by the pouch of prepared Elshen petal clippings. She didn’t know any spells that would homogenize organic matter, so it fell to her own skill. As the cuttings drifted down into the waiting compartment, raised bumps appeared on Inis’s skin. Each step brought her closer to discovery.

What Inis needed right now was heat filtration followed by high-speed rotation. She sealed the cube and held out a hand to help her concentrate on the inner workings of the device with her virasense. Then, she used two more utility spells in concert.

Spell Grouping: Virawind Branch: Commutation Category: Utility Description: These spells involve the manipulation of vira energy to move air about. They are highly practical and easy to learn, with many applications. Though the Virawind is categorized as a utility spell, there are closely-related groupings in the offense and defense categories. Spell: Virawind Drift Difficulty: Basic Cast Type: One-off Cost: Low Description: A mage manipulates the vira energy in the air to create a brief gust. Spell Grouping: Partial Stasis Branch: Commutation Category: Utility Description: Partial Stasis spells use vira energy to select and lock discrete objects in place. Different spells in the grouping work in different ways. Objects captured by Partial Stasis spells are not frozen in time, nor are they locked away from outside forces. Instead, they are suspended in a state where, depending on the spell, some external forces can reach them, but others cannot. Entire textbooks have been written about the spells in this grouping alone, detailing efforts to map the effects of different applications of each spell. Spell: Ensnaring Gaze Difficulty: Intermediate Cast Type: Partial Sustain Cost: Low Description: Ensnaring Gaze allows a mage to lock objects of a small to medium size in place for as long as the spell is in effect. The spell gets its name from the way a mage must stare at each object in kind, internally calculating the targeting specifications for each object, one at a time. The number of objects that can be trapped in this state depends on the collective mass of the objects and the forces the mage is attempting to circumvent. The more proficient a mage is, and the higher their mastery of Ensnaring Gaze, the more they can do with this underappreciated spell.

Inis began to catch petal clippings one at a time with Ensnaring Gaze. She used Drift intermittently to evenly distribute them as best she could while the cube heated to an acceptable temperature. At that threshold, it began to draw out the residual extraneous matter from the dense liquid at the blightseed’s core. The petal clippings absorbed more of the unneeded contaminants in that liquid.

It was mentally taxing to use so many spells at once. First, there was the Channel spell used to augment the generator. Then, there was Ensnaring Gaze. Precisely using Drift on top of everything else made Inis feel like she was throwing stones at a small and distant target, in the middle of a chaotic storm.

It was not pleasant.

“Yes, I did it!” Inis cheered as she was gripped by a rush of excitement.

She didn’t feel like she was the same girl who foolishly left Blueveil Magic Academy after being chastised one too many times for neglecting scientific principles. Inis wanted to call herself an accomplished young woman who had learned from her failings. She had learned that the results are of limited use without knowledge of how to reproduce them.

Each step Inis took was a part of a plan she had already made. She had spontaneously decided to put that plan into action using the talusfang’s blightseed, but she was still following the procedure.

Haste made me a waste of a person, throwing away that chance to seize an education more radiant than the three suns the Shaden cower away from. But I was the sun-spun spoiled wretch. No one to blame but me…

These thoughts were interfering with Inis’s ability to concentrate, so she once again fell back on her recitations to reign her thoughts in.

Subject: Inis Location: Absence Woodland

Inis looked down at the filtration cube, battling boredom while it finished collecting the desired blightseed liquid. She grabbed hold of a small silver lever with a black rubber handle. She slid it sideways to discard the blightseed remainder and store the filtered fluid in a vial at the cube’s base.

Clutching the vial, an impatient thought entered Inis’s mind. She felt compelled to skip the next step, believing that it might not be necessary to properly prepare the liquid for her experiment. She closed her eyes for a moment to force the thought out before inserting the vial into the second apparatus.

This next step would hopefully extract more potentially-toxic waste. When ingested commonly, a blightseed wouldn’t harm someone, but Inis wasn’t going to use this blightseed for that. She needed to try this experiment, or she wouldn’t respect her own commitment to gaining a better understanding of the Blight. She needed to perform the test as safely as possible, or she wouldn’t value her personal commitment to science.

Elshen petal oils were now mixed with the filtered blightseed liquid. Inis didn’t actually know whether it would be harmful to her body. If she reasoned through it, she didn’t see why it could harm her, but she was no medical practitioner.

Too late had Inis learned that she had thrown away a chance at learning from those with exceptional wisdom. This regret motivated her. Studiously, she learned on her own. Eagerly, she learned from others when she got the chance.

She was determined to prove that she hadn’t remained that ignorant little girl. She wanted to strangle her past self. No, she wanted to somehow force herself to take a different path, but the past was only something she could learn from, not something she could change.

Subject: Inis Location: Absence Woodland

The next apparatus was a delicate and humble setup for small-scale distillation. Inis was going to remove as much impurity in the vial of white liquid as was possible with her limited expertise and this amateur equipment.

She carefully poured the contents of the vial into a round-bottomed flask. Then, Inis turned a knob to supply heat to the glass container. Quickly, the liquid came to a boil, eventually arriving at the receiving flask.

The partially purified liquid was glowing bright white. This was an unprecedented occurrence.

When the glow subsided, the contents of the flask had settled to a glistening silver. After recovering from being stunned by the unexpected result, Inis realized that she wasn’t wearing her headset. She scrambled to find it, fill it with fresh canisters and put it on.

Briefly, Inis summarized her previous steps before she could catch up to the present.

“Filtered blightseed liquid, initially white in color, has been purified in my simple distillation setup. I- I don’t know how to explain it… but it began to glow bright white for approximately three seconds. After the glow subsided, I observe that the liquid had changed colors. It is now silver. The cause of this color change is unknown, but I notice no more visual changes. I would almost liken the resulting appearance to molten metal.”

The liquid was cool. Looking at the temperature readout, Inis decided it would be fine if she didn’t help the process along with a cooling spell. It was better to rely on the precision of technology over fickle spells, if possible.

“The liquid is now cooling. I will not use any spells to help it cool faster. I don’t believe that it will affect the result, but I must consider that the rate of temperature change could have some impact. I will refer to the temperature gauge’s logs when I replicate this experiment.”

It’s good that I don’t have to rely on a spell, but I don’t know that I can perfectly replicate this. I was so caught up in the thrill of discovery that I didn’t even bother to take proper measurements! No matter how far I’ve come, I’m still the same impatient idiot...

One didn’t need a proper understanding of thermodynamics to know how to cast spells that applied heat or cold to targets. As a result, many mages remained ignorant. To them, each spell was its own separate “black box”. They felt that all they needed to do was correctly access the spell, and then it would do what they expected. Mages like this would learn to cast a spell and considered that “mastery”. They would go no further.

Early on in her education, Inis held that ignorant perspective. Instructors scolded her and peers like her for such foolish thinking. Broad magical theory was boring. Why waste time on the abstract when she could learn more spells instead?

Other mages use magical theory to understand the links between similar spells, dramatically increasing what was known about each spell by comparing similarities.

The number of spells known to mages around the world was increasing each year. Accidental “miss-casts” were responsible for some of these discoveries, but not all of them.

Inis’s mentor had revealed to her that the world of magecraft was full of despicably prideful celebrities. These people, though intelligent, had fooled much of the world and themselves into believing that only a genius could discover a new spell. Sometimes, this perception was passed down from previous generations of mages who didn’t question their ignorance.

Specific forms of genius made it easier for one to discover a spell. Really, it was just a change in perspective that allowed someone to see the potential. Inis couldn’t correctly see it yet, but magic was less chaotic than it first appeared. Understanding other scientific disciplines would help a person understand magical theory. In this way, those with far-reaching knowledge of the world had an advantage.

Inis had taken one of her late father’s hypotheses and gone a stretch further. She believed an understanding of the Blight could be reached by applying knowledge of magical theory.

It should be safe to touch now.

She grazed the fluid’s container with the back of her hand, just in case she had been wrong. It was cold enough, so she moved on to the next step. She detached the collection flask from the distiller and put it down on her workbench. Inis unlatched a small rectangular container. Inside was an expensive tool she had never used before.

A sophisticated needle and plunger.

This was the point at which Inis exposed herself danger to feed her ambitions. Here was when she made history or died trying.

“Why is it silver?” Inis asked the empty air. “Does the blightseed’s outer shell serve some purpose that we have failed to discern? I can’t… I have to do this,” she whispered eagerly, salivating at this opportunity.