Later that week the three young Magic Warriors were once again practicing in the training yard of Eona’s house. Desmond was practicing spear forms while Derek was showing Garrett how to get the most out of using a large maul he had taken a liking to. Garrett was perspiring greatly as he practiced this incredibly heavy weapon. As the reset potions were taking more and more effect, Garrett’s prodigious strength was flagging.

Derek could tell that his friend was frustrated and in great physical discomfort. The reset potions Garrett had been given worked in a very sinister manner. They deconstructed the imbiber’s schema one level at a time, freeing all assigned essence from the person and weakening them one level a day.

There was a beneficial side effect to this as the scouring of the essence from the individual would reform their bodies and minds and enhance their basic attributes dramatically. This was why these were called Elite Body Reformation Potions. Potions similar to these were used to reset the attributes on loyal tier zero retainers to allow them to grow into true elites. The more essence removed, the higher the bonus it provides. It would enable those tier zero soldiers to level back up again and grow much stronger than they were when they achieved level ten the first time.

This potion was beneficial as well for young people who had achieved many levels but needed a reset to acquire more powerful schemas. In exchange for the temporary weakness of having lost all of their levels and the discomfort and pain of having their essence drained away from them, they are granted an incredible initial enhancement that would provide a foundation for very powerful schemas. Similar to the schemas for the tier zero elites these schemas would have much higher essence conversion rates.

But, taking a potion such as this came at a large disadvantage as the user would be back to level zero of tier zero with much fewer years to break through to first tier. Similarly, while the new schemas would provide much higher essence conversions, sometimes up to one hundred percent, the potion’s most detrimental side effect was that until the imbiber reached a level higher than the level they were at when they took it, they would find it a lot harder to gain essence, as the remainder of the potion naturally repelled essence. It generally took twice as much effort to progress back through the previously lost levels.

Derek used a status spell on his friend. He saw that Garrett was only first level of tier zero now. He saw that the supplemental potions his friend had taken had stimulated his Titan’s Blood enhancement, and that it had already started to bolster Garrett’s body, strength, fire, and earth attributes. He also saw the impressive effect of the Elite Body Reformation Potions. While his friend’s attributes were much lower than they had been, that gnarly schema was almost gone and in its wake was a very strong foundation.

Derek thought things over before he made a decision. He clapped his friend on the shoulder before speaking to him, “Garrett, when we get back to the dorm, I have a gift for you.”

Garrett looked at him, “What is it? It’s not a girl is it? Ronelle won’t like that.”

Derek couldn’t help but laugh, this friend of his was a simple guy. He never over thought things and often came to some strange conclusions. “Haha, no, why are you thinking about girls? If you have time to think about girls, you have time to think about practice! Get up, we have one hundred more swings of the maul before you are done today!”

Derek reached deep into his memories of the years of training under Ovid and he worked his friend until he collapsed and could not swing his maul anymore. Derek and Desmond used this moment to ruthlessly tease their friend. Smiling the three boys went in for dinner and later returned to their dorm with Tristan in tow.

As they settled down to do some homework Derek brought over one of the chests he had gotten from Arbitrator Nolan. He opened it and showed it to Garrett. His big friend furrowed his brow as he looked at it. He could tell it was a powerful resource from the mana coming off of it, but he couldn’t tell what it is. Frowning, he looked at Derek, “What kind of beet is this? It looks rather potent. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful but I don’t even know what it is or what I should do with it.”

Derek smiled and clarified the situation for his friend, describing the thousand year Volcano’s Son root and its properties. He told Garrett to wait until his schema had been fully stripped away by the potion tomorrow before consuming this rare root. Garrett attempted to refuse the gift but when Derek explained that he was too strong to use the Volcano’s Son he chose to accept it. The oversized man started to choke up when Derek offered it to him. He hugged his good friend and said, “Thank you, you have done so much for me lately. You are a really good friend.”

Derek could only smile at that and pat his friend on the shoulder comfortingly. After a few hours the four of them finished their studies before shutting out the lights and going to bed. Garrett could not sleep and he lay on his bed contemplating recent events for a while. It was already early in the morning before he finally fell asleep.

The next day, Garrett took the last of the Elite Body Reformation Potions that had been made for him and by the end of the day the last of the essence in his body had been pushed out. Now he had no schema and no essence within him. Even then, he was quite physically strong. Taking Derek’s advice he ate the thousand year Volcano’s Son root that he had been given and he felt his body regain even more of its original strength. The root even helped to further awaken his bloodline.

Later when he went to Eona’s place for dinner, he was pulled aside by the alchemists, Runic Schema designers, and Mages that had been working on his reset. He was scrutinized by over twenty high and middle ranking members of House Windreach before they all sighed with satisfaction. This young man was guaranteed to rise in the future, he was already much stronger than most tier ones and he had not even had his schema inscribed yet.

They gave Garrett two days of rest before his schema would be implanted and during that time his family came to visit them. Having been instructed to relax so that he could be in his best physical and mental state, he took his father and mother, as well as his two sisters and brother down to the nice park on the west side of the inner city. They all enjoyed the views of the harbor and the rest of the city from the overwatches there.

After a carefree two days, Garrett was as ready as he could be. He was nervous, but at the same time expectant. His dorm mates, his girlfriend and his family were all there to support him. They brought him into a medium sized chamber. In this place there were rows of benches for observers around the edges. Further in, there were over a dozen locations for the people working on the schema, their assistants, and some mages. In the middle of the room was where he was supposed to sit.

His friends and family all sat on the edges of the room. He was pleased to see Priest Cnut and Disciple Ander sitting in the room as well. As he approached the center of the room, Derek’s mother smiled at him and told him to remove his shirt. Garrett had done this before and knew that the majority of the schema would be imprinted on his chest.

As he took his shirt off he heard Ronelle snicker and it caused him to blush. The small girl was very good at tweaking his nose. This caused many of the older women to laugh before Dean Charlotte’s pleased voice cut in, “Ok everyone let’s take our positions.”

As the people began taking positions, Garrett finally noticed that the floor had inscriptions on it. He quickly realized that he was sitting inside of an array. He gasped as the last time he got a schema, the man had created no such array. Interested, he watched where the people went.

Six high tier mages from House Windreach took up positions on the outer ring of the array, they stood at the apexes of a six pointed star. The positions they stood at were between an inner and outer circle and there was a runic script in the ring the circles made with these mages. Garrett knew many runes from his rune smithing and he could tell that these runes were intended to conserve mana and direct it inwards so it could be used inside the formation. Inside each point of the star were more runes which were intended to guide and refine the mana provided by the mages.

There were six more stations inside the star. Three were intended for the schema inscribers, and three were for their assistants. Garrett glanced around, noticing that the inscribers were Derek’s Mother, Eona, who was sitting behind him, Charlotte, the Dean of the Magic Schema College to his left and front, and an old male instructor from the Magic Schema College whose name he couldn’t place right now. To either side of Eona were two more instructors from the Magic Schema College and in front of him was Eona’s apprentice, Alicia.

When he glanced at her, she beamed at him. He could tell how excited she was to participate in this. Garrett also saw excitement in the eyes of all of the others participating as well. At this moment he couldn’t help but be excited as well.

Soon the mages began to pour their mana into the array. As he felt the thick mana washing over him, he sensed mana being injected into him from behind and heard Eona’s voice, “Garrett, listen to my voice. Slow your breathing and calm your nerves. Count down from one hundred. One hundred, ninety nine, ninety eight, ninety seven, ninety six ...”

Derek watched the process as his mother’s water mana and soothing voice lulled his friend into an anesthetic trance. Shortly thereafter, she took control of the strong mana gathered inside of the formation and began using it to imprint a new schema into his friend. She started by spreading tendrils of mana through the blood veins to all of the parts of his body. This would enable the essence to flow into the body and reinforce it later. She then connected the roots to a bud in the center of his chest, between his sternum and backbone.

Derek saw the intricate lines start to form and watched in fascination as the golden mana began forming that wonderful mandala that he had seen in the design. As of now, even the leaves were wrapped around the bud and nothing had opened and the stem below that led to the mana pool and catch was very small. He saw that both the mana pool and catch appeared deflated as well. They both appeared to rest in the area of the diaphragm.

Derek knew that this schema was not a physical object. There was no way to touch it physically. It took magic to craft, modify, and destroy these. He had heard that some barbarians used physical tattoos for schema but he had never once seen one. He watched in awe as his mother continued to work on it, placing layer on layer of magic within the schema and enabling it to support many levels from the beginning.

He was surprised to see that she had been able to do most of the work, with the other two inscribers only providing insight as she worked. The three assistants didn’t even have to do anything. After three hours, Garrett’s new schema had been completed and Derek couldn’t help but feel pride in his mother for her great work. He doubted that even his own schema could match her latest work.

The other instructors all had fanatical looks on their eyes as they recorded the success of Eona’s work. They knew that news of this new schema design would shock their peers. Between Garrett and Derek’s Schemas, Eona had more than enough proof of the validity of her dissertation all those years ago. This proof, along with the essays she had written to defend her original dissertation, would put the Windreach Academy at least two generations ahead of the other Academies on the western side of the continent. History had been made this day.

Slowly, the mages powered down the array, and Eona removed the anesthetic from Garrett. As the boy woke he felt no changes to his body, but he saw from the excited looks of the people around him that the inscription had worked. He knew that at this moment, his life had been changed for the better, he just didn’t know how much.

Garrett Smith-

Previous Classes-

None

Permanent Enhancements-

Elite Body Reformation: +5 Strength, +10 Body, +5 Agility, +5 Mind

Thousand Year Volcano's Son Root: +2 Strength, +2 Body, +5 Fire, +5 Earth

Awakening Titan's Blood: +5 Strength, +5 Body, +2 Agility, +2 Mind, +5 Fire, +5 Earth, 2x Essence: Strength, Body, Fire, Earth