“With the establishment of the Gold Standard and the Imperial Weight as universally accepted measures of commercial quantities, more esoteric methods arose from various crafts where need arose and the gold standard was used as the base for them. Alchemists for example, needed smaller units for precise calibrations of alchemical ingredients, cooks also required the same due to the similarities they had in their vocation. It is no wonder the propagation of potions and various prized foods took some time to spread through the coastal cities, let alone those in the interior. The value of potion recipes for example could not be verified if two alchemists had their own measures for the ingredients they used and the same held true for any crafter that required attention to such things. Borrowing a leaf from the establishment of the Gold Standard Weight system, they decided that it was about time smaller measures of quantities were standardized too. ”- Excerpts from Archival Records of the Merchant Guild, Antefall Calendar Year 1520.

[Eye of the Storm] was to say the least…esoteric? Abstruse? Arcane? There were just so many nuances packed into one phrase. Was it a spell or a skill? What school of magic was it? He’d been racking his head bald all morning trying to figure out how to activate the thing to no avail. Did it require a certain set of conditions for activation?

But how many conditions would he have to test before he got it right? Did it allow him to calm a storm or see the storm coming from faraway like a certain dragon? No dice… if only she was a phone call away. As for [Air Cannon] and [Chain Lightning], that was just an update that was overdue.

‘Ugh! One door opens and reveals a vestibule full of its kin,’ he grunted, miffed as he stared at his breakfast balefully as if it’d wronged him. ‘Like a matryoshka cat’

“Are you going to that?” Nora asked, eyeing his plate of omelet sandwiches which were cooling while he ruminated. He stared from the plate of properly yellowed sandwiches whose white and brown crusted edges were peeking out from the thick bread slices to the girl in maid uniform across from him. Arthur shrugged, grunted and pushed away the plate and settled for nursing his cup of lukewarm tea, grimacing at the tepid liquid.

“I could microwave the tea for you,” Nora said grinning as she eyed the omni-cooker which was in its square configuration with space on its front and back facing sides. “Who told you that it’s a microwave?”

“You of course!” she chirped

“Uh, I let that slip; it doesn’t work that way”

“What doesn’t work what way?” she asked between crescent shaped eyes, leveling a questioning stare. As she stabbed at the omelet with her fork, displacing the bread slices which she pushed onto another plate. Umbra swiped them off the table with one of her tentacular appendages. The sounds of chomping could be heard beneath the table.

‘Do cats eat bread?’

“Never mind—” he groaned. ‘I’m not doing any more thinking today. ‘I feel like I sat through ten days of college exams’

“Adventuring today?” Nora questioned.

“Er, let’s take a break a while…I’m not feeling up to it; though you can go if you want to.” He pursed his lips, blowing air up his nose.

“When it comes to getting booky, you have a streak like a certain half-elf.” She mumbled, masking her voice with nibbles of the omelet.

“Which certain sylvani?” Arthur quizzed, eyebrows arched as his hand stopped mid-motion, a finger away from picking up the old binder of parchments they found in the basement lab.

“Elena…”

“Ooh, that half-elf,” Arthur picked up the binder anyway, leafing through to the section he’d put a bookmark in.

Hot and intentionally heavy breathing that smelt of fried eggs blew past the edge of the binder. Arthur jolted back—

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!” Arthur yelped, almost stumbling off the backless kitchen stool. Nora had, surreptitiously warped onto the table. Now doe-eyed in her half elven disguise as she sat astride, with her white stockings in full display. Umbra was looking on, with a meme-worthy befuddled expression only a feline visage could portray.

‘Yea, you tell that to your mistress!’ Arthur internally shouted as he shared a look with the grimalkin.

“Honestly, Nora… what are you? Eight?!”

A very aggressive half-sulk made itself known on her face then between a pout an unintelligible response was mumbled.

“Fine, tell me…what do you want honestly?” Arthur said, magicking away the binder as he crossed his arms.

Nora slid her legs off the table and let them hang off, swinging them to and fro like a kindergartener on an idle swing.

“Elena. Needs. Something. To do. With her life.” Nora poked at Arthur’s forehead, moving closer and closer with every halting word until only the length of her palm separated their two faces.

“Seriously, that’s what you wanted to say?” Arthur exclaimed as Nora disappeared into wisps of shadow and reappeared in her seat.

“I had to catch you off-balance if I wanted you to hear me out,” she shrugged. “You didn’t follow through with an answer yesterday.”

‘Aeris breath! That’s what this is all about? Does the moon affect vampiric moods or something? —no that’s lycans.’

“Alright alright,” Arthur put up both hands in surrender,” I’ll think about it...”

“Yesss—” she squealed disappearing into the shadows

“—sss” she reappeared, voice trailing in a falling intonation.

“Huh? is there something else?

“You should do something you love too? Like for example; how far are you with the aership? I recall having an accord with the guild master.” She tilted her head as she mushed her cheek with the knuckle of her index finger.

“Dead End’s Hydra! I forgot about that—there’s something I have to do before I redraw the blueprints. Did you send the letter to the Lalilabs?” Arthur stood up, Nora nodded like a bobble head. He exited the kitchen into the hallway connecting to the drawing room, billiards and dinner room.

“Well Umbra, what do you think of our Arthur?” Nora asked her bond.

The grimalkin pawed at her muzzle and covered her eyes with the same paw and her ears flicked to and fro.

“Huh, you can’t get a read on him? Sometimes me too Umbra, me too.” A grimalkin would’ve rolled their eyes if they could.

The Lalilab’s estate was, frankly, a beautiful canvas of flora. From the ivy-wreathed gate, to the gardens bursting with a various chroma of flowers carefully curated to give the most entrancing portrayal of a thriving Eden.

Where floriculture was absent were fountains and sculptures of fae-like creatures like woodland satyrs adding an eyeful of artistry to the landscaping without coming across as too gaudy. They were made from pastel-like colored soapstone, and so lifelike were they that he expected them to start cavorting around the garden harping their lyres and blowing their flutes.

After having his horse tended to by a stable boy, a butler in coattails and hair the color of earl gray tea escorted the youth to the main house. Like Nydia, he also had the same cheekbones but was far older, perhaps the Lalilabs employed the services of a family of retainers they’d had over the years.

They passed under a trellis heavily laden with more plants which covered every inch of it, forming a green tunnel. It looked pruned down to the last leaf such that you would’ve thought it a wallpaper instead of greenery.

After passing through an ante hall with strung up paintings of what he guessed were generations of the Lalilabs, he was conveyed to the drawing room more aesthetically pleasant than his own that he had [Eidetic Memory] do some homework. Whoever had done the landscaping outside and the interior had to be the same person because he couldn’t see it any other way; the [Lady] of house Lalilab perhaps?

He didn’t have to wait long as his hostess made her way, with her maid Nydia in tow.

“Master Arthur!,” Hanna Lalilab piped up as her aquamarine eyes fell upon her guest.

“Lady Lalilab” Arthur responded as he took her dainty hand in his, and most definitely planted a kiss on her fingers. They smelt of lavender. The young lady colored in blush but she hid it well behind a fan. Her maid was doing her level best not to roll her eyes going by the way they were twitching at the corners.

“How fortuitous of you to visit.” She added, motioning for him to sit as she did as well. Her maid brought out the refreshments. “Please call me Miss Hanna in this house Master Arthur; I am not yet the [Lady] of the house.”

“Ah, My apologies Miss Hanna. And my pardons for visiting on such a short notice.” Arthur commented, as he sampled the mauve colored tea; it was deliciously infused with the taste of blueberries and…sugar? That was a first. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

“Oh, not at all; you did send word ahead so we were expecting you.”

“Your tea is delicious Miss Lalilab,”

“Oh, you should thank Nydia for that,” Hanna chimed, flattered by the compliment.

“My compliments Miss Nydia,”

“The pleasure is all mine Lord Sturmdrache” the maid nodded curtly, returning to her stoic non-presence.

“To what do we owe this visit?” Hanna inquired, delicately picking at a biscuit. Arthur tried some and again, surprise… more sugar! After being deprived of the resource, he was hit by a sudden sugar rush. Amazingly, he weathered it with nary an outward expression, his spiked heartbeat rapidly calmed as if someone flipped a switch and it returned to its steady rhythm.

‘Strange that wasn’t supposed to happen. Does [Regeneration]classify sugar as a poison too?”

Hanna must have noticed his micro expressions; a breeze for someone of her class because she asked,

“Are you okay Master Arthur? There wasn’t anything wrong with the refreshments and biscuits, were there?”

“Not at all Miss Hanna; on the contrary they have been most pleasant. Why would you ask?”

“Oh, is that so?” Hanna looked at the biscuit she had half nibbled before regarding him, “It’s just that the biscuit and tea are new products that have just come out of testing…of course they passed with flying colors” she grinned proudly.

“That is interesting Miss Hanna; I assume it’s part of your father’s work?” Arthur asked with a quirked eyebrow. “I would have thought sugar would have been hard to find?”

Hanna clapped her hands, voicing her agreement as her face brightened, “Ah, yes; father loves to come up with new things from time to time.” She giggled demurely, “Though the sugar was just a fortunate accident when father was working with fruits. He can be rather clumsy sometimes. It’s not of a marketable quantity yet, we barely got a cupful of the product from several aurums of the berries.”

Arthur’s brows arched in interest. Then he said what was on his mind, “Should you be sharing this with me Miss Hanna? About extracting the sugar from fruits I mean?”

“Hahaha, not at all Master Arthur; I’m sure father wouldn’t mind. I doubt there is an [Alchemist] of high enough level to replicate the feat. Besides, unlike other people, father always says that sharing information is the only way to spur innovation,”

‘Wow, and yet they’ve remained at the top while at it. Must have some good business sense’ Arthur mused as his eyes wandered across the drawing room. ‘Now for the meat and potatoes.’

“Miss Hanna, would it be possible to meet your father? I would very much wish to speak to him.”

“Oh so soon?” she coughed, hiding behind her fan. “I mean, of course. You are in luck, father is on his off-peak hours right now.”

Dabbing her lips with a napkin, she got up and beckoned Arthur to follow. The maid stayed behind to clear the tea set and what remained of the refreshments.

Straight from the drawing room, they walked on the main hallway, passing an atrium that had a pair of descending staircases in a C-shape connecting the ground floor to the first floor. There was a small tree with frosty needle-like leaves in the middle of the crescent, growing in a hollowed out boulder that seemed to just, blend in with the interior. The diminutive stature was reminiscent of a bonsai tree.

“A pygmy frost pine.” Hanna commented as they passed by. “Mother had it obtained to commemorate father’s success with his frost magicore for ice enchantments,” she smiled.

Arthur’s mana sense could detect the runes on the rock, some serving as containment for the wintry magic generated within the mini-habitat, while the rest were the ice enchantments at work, making a fine powdering of snow. It gave the image of a lone tree braving the wintry gales on a mountainside.

The brief walk to the basement entrance was itself a short tour that showcased the Lalilab’s interests from art, to alchemy and gardening. Finally, they descended into the basement where a large explosion impervious door stood before them.

The Lalilab patriarch’s area of operations was within the house, one basement underground in a work area the size of a basketball court.

Typical of an alchemist’s laboratory; there were round bottomed retort flasks of luminous liquid lit by magical fire bubbling over circular tripod stands, beakers of liquid reagents, stoppered test tubes containing what was unmistakably liquid mana—magicore of whichever affinity they were extracted from.

There were also barrels of both used and unused mana crystals and mana cores sorted by type. What stood out to him was the ice blue liquid in a tube which seemed to condense and mist the air around it.

It had icicles forming on its bottom suspended off the work table by a clamp stand. And much like a chemistry lab, it was made of checkered floors and white lux crystals, emplaced behind sheets of glass in place of fluorescent lighting.

Hearing footsteps, descending from the stairwell, a man with sunflower blonde hair scribbling with a magical quill stopped what he was doing and turned to face the entrance. As the blast door was opened—

“Hanna Sunshine I didn’t know we had gue—

Hanna, who is this?”

The father’s smile went from sunny skies and rainbows to stony glacier and freezing blizzard when he saw the owner of the second pair of footfalls. On his waist belt was a couple of vials glistening with magical liquids. His finger’s twitched— [Danger Sense] rang the klaxon.

‘Uh oh, I just tripped the dad alarm.’

“So you mean to tell me this strapping and nice-looking fellow is not your lover?”

“Daaad, you should get out of your lab sometimes; you are embarrassing me,” the girl colored behind the pitiful defense of her fan.

“Master Arthur is just a noble [Mage] I was acquainted with recently; it's only our second meeting.” She protested. She was not fooling anyone. Her socialite skills seemed to have taken an impromptu vacation leaving her at the mercy of second hand embarrassment on behalf of her guest.

Said guest was pretending to meticulously examine a nondescript piece of crystal sitting in a beaker of an unidentified liquid.

“That’s a piece of unaspected crystal sitting in an aqertheryl solution. I’m attempting a slow infusion of aspected mana to see if I can grow artificial Aqer crystals.”

“Oh, interesting. Cultivation of aspected mana crystals is bound to be an outstanding innovation for sure—”

Arthur pulled his gaze away from the set-up taking confident and measured strides until he was a hand span away from the [Alchemist]. His face was tranquil, like the calm after a storm.

‘How am I doing this? I should be embarrassed… [Eye of the Storm] Is that you? No response? Oh well…like a storm I should just throw him off-kilter and take control of the conversation. Definitely not Noble Etiquette 101, but Negotiation 101 should do it’

“Arthur Sturmdrache,” he said, offering a handshake whilst looking straight at the man’s eyes without coming off as intimidating even though he was a head taller than the man. He had a professional smile plastered on, practiced just for the sake of public appearances and greetings. Unbidden, his charisma was magnetic and the alchemist mellowed out, offering his own hand in return as if hypnotized.

‘Curse my growth spurt!’

“How do you do sir? I’m a big fan of your work,” he said as he shook the [Alchemist]’s hand.

“Er, Edel Lalilab—Yes, my pleasure Master Sturmdrache; I’m glad you find my work fascinating.” He responded with a smile of his own.

“To what do I owe the pleasure? I wasn’t told we had an auspicious guest,” the father sent his daughter a querying gaze.

“Uh, then I must apologies Lord Lalilab. It was on short notice and I wished to consult you about an area of work you are familiar with.”

“No harm, no harm… what can I help you with?” he enquired, adjusting his grey lab coat. Most definitely made of some leather or velum that was magically enchanted to resist spills, fires and acids from the look of things.

‘Well, let’s jump into it shall we? He seems like the scholarly type, doesn’t beat around the bush. I see where his daughter gets it from.’

“As a [Mage] enchanting is one of my interest—” ‘Let’s not put my class out there yet.’ “and am very much interested in a source of Pyr crystals that do not cause a public safety hazard just by existing; for enchantment purposes of course—”

“Mmh, go on?”

“My hypothesis is that, the volatility of Pyr crystals aka Pyrtherite lends itself in the amount of power that has been so densely packed into the mana crystal lattice. I have not read that far on its formation yet— and that is what makes its nature so explosive; an unstable source of energy. Just like fire, the physical manifestation of Pyr Mana is hard to control once its loose—”

“That is veritably, common knowledge Master Arthur—”

“But what makes Pyr crystals different from Pyr Mana cores? Is the type of Pyr different? Is it the amount that has been squeezed into an orb? Just roll with me on this Lord Lalilab?” Arthur posited with an earnest expression.

“Haah,” Edel Lalilab exhaled, sharing a momentary glance with his daughter that seemed to say ‘from whence did you get this boy?

“You ask the right question Master Arthur. I have done the experiments and analyses...this is going to be a long discussion; you might want to have a sit down for this.”

Hanna carted over a wooden chair devoid of covering. Part of lab safety regulations was keeping out any material that may contain contaminants or prove non-resilient against the materials used in the lab. The two men sat down, whilst the daughter looked on, interested in what would become of their conversation.

“First of all, my postulation on the differences between mana crystals and mana cores is this—shape. You see, an orb-shaped mana core of Aer from say, a gliding spider is less likely to break when you take a mallet to it compared to an Aer crystal of the same size. And do you know why? —”

“Because an orb distributes the force of the blow evenly? It might be that because an orb is a regular shape then it follows that it has a regular internal structure that behaves the same on any part of the surface—”

“Ah, I didn’t expect you to answer that…” Edel’s eyebrows quirked in astonishment

“My apologies for overstepping my bounds Lord Lalilab…”

“No—by all means continue. Haha, I didn’t mean it the wrong way. It’s nice to have someone who understands.”

Sitting behind Arthur, Hanna grinned at his father and blew him a raspberry before schooling her expression to impassivity.

“As I was saying, when you have a regular shape where the internal structure is constant, it is bound to behave in an expected manner. From what I have seen of regular crystals, unless they are cut, they are most likely to have irregular shapes—

Which follows that, even though the internal lattice may be the same, their exposure to external forces is different…” he tapped his chin in contemplation.

‘That’s not what I was getting at, but it’s all falling into place.’

“Perhaps, both crystals and mana cores have the same internal structure but the external structure which interacts with the outside environment affects their stability?” he raised his gaze to meet his fellow conversationalist. Edel was actually attentive.

“A similar internal structure might explain why they both store mana…but an external structure will affect the speed and potency of utilization—”

“Go on son, you got it…”

“Therefore, it follows that while mana crystals are in fact powerful sources of magic, they sacrifice stability for potency while mana cores do the opposite.”

“Bravo my boy! Well done!” Edel applauded, much like Hanna would do during a conversation to show assent or realization. “Are you sure you didn’t study gemology? I am half tempted to take you as an apprentice Master Arthur.”

“Hehe, it pleases me Lord Lalilab…”

“Ah, just do away with the formalities—gets in the way of intellectual discourse all the time; call me Mister Edel instead”

“And you may call me Arthur sir, just Arthur…” he grinned.