“Wow, you’re early.” Matilda tied up her desk with frenetisme as Nido entered the Enchanter’s Guild.

“Well, what can I say? I’m not much of a sleeper.” Nido approached her using his staff like a cane. “I also want to maximize my work time.”

“I can appreciate having someone who wants to work. The last enchanter we had here came one day and left.” She sighed. “Either way, follow me to the workshop.”

“After you.” The young man toyed with the enchanted pebble while she followed his boss.

The workshop was big, unlike the guild’s hall. It resembled more an alchemy lab than an enchanter’s workshop, except that it lacked tens of glass flasks. Hundreds of tools were hanging the wall, perfectly ordered by size and type. It was almost artistic the arrangement of the tools. The kind it would give a perfectionist a boner.

Nido whistled in excitement. “Nice set up. Too much wood in walls though, you never know when things are going to blow up.”

“Why would something blow up?” Matilda asked in confusion. “We don’t have anything volatile here.”

“Wait you don’t have forges? Nor furnaces? And alchemical regents?” It was Nido’s time to be confused.

“No, no, and some.”

“Oh, I understand. You pay for separate components, right?” The old enchanter was disappointed by that fact. He had made his tower to be self-sufficient. He was instructed in tens of fields in order to make the best enchantments from zero.

“You don’t?”

“No.” He noticed he was acting strange now. “Er, my master taught me blacksmithing and glassmaking to make better items. You know, “If you know the ingredients, you know the work” kind of thing.”

“I can get behind that school of thought, but my master, the guild master, always told me to focus into making the best enchantments possible. There are plenty of crafters out there with more level than I in the end.”

Don’t you worry they won’t accept your commission? The old enchanter kept it to himself. That was a thing that only happened to him. Everything was because of the divines, of course.

“Well, what must I do to earn my share?” Nido laid his hands on the workshop counter. “Do I have to enchant some rings? A warrior wants an even greater sword? Tell me.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you won’t need to enchant combat items today.” Matilda left some documents on the table. “Yesterday a noble ordered a dozen enchanter lights, and while I would be able to complete the order by myself by afternoon, I want you to do them.”

“Alright.” Nido agreed.

“I know it can bo- Wait you want to do it?” The enchantress exclaimed in surprise.

“Sure, whatever it takes me to get paid.” There were no ulterior reasons. Well, besides obtaining information about the Arcane Records.

“But enchanting common items don’t give as much experience as combat items. Are you sure?”

“Matilda, I’m here for the money. Experience I can obtain whenever I lack.” Besides the fact that I’m an objectively better enchanter than you. “I will do my job without complaining.”

“Woah, it feels weird to have this type of discipline here.” Her surprised visage humored the old man. “Not even the guild master wants do such jobs without a push before.”

“That doesn’t sound like someone who should be in charge here.” Nido commented.

“He typically does the more well-standing jobs, the ones I can’t even start. So it’s up to me to do such minor commissions to get paid.”

“I wouldn’t call a dozen enchanter lights a minor commission.” Unless the design of the lights has changed over time, those things are relatively complex. And I know, because I created them.

“I’ve got bigger commissions than that. This is minor, trust me. This just are some replacement lights, not a whole new lighting system.” Matilda handled Nido the commission document. “Anyways, do you know how to make enchanter lights.”

“I do, but I would like a refresher.” Nido explained. “My master was rather unorthodox, so I fear my way of making enchanter lights can vary from the Enchanter’s Guild standards.”

“Unorthodox? Nido, enchanter lights are one of the most basic and unmovable things of the entire field of enchanting.”

“Then this might help you imagine how outside the box my master was.” Nido used the least offensive words possible, because in the end, he was talking of himself.

“I guess I can enchant one, but you must do the rest, alright?”

“As clear as water, ma’am.” Nido did a military salute.

Matilda snorted. “Stop being that formal, it creeps me.” She laughed to herself. “Open the drawer at your left and take out one of the glass balls please.”

Nido complied and got the item. The drawer was stashed with tens of the glass spheres needed to make enchanter lights. They had clearly ordered from a glassmaker. No one such a bulk if they could make them themselves in the first place.

“Here are the mana batteries,” Matilda pointed at a drawer at her right, “when you need to grab them.” She then took one. “There aren’t many, so you may need to craft some. You do know how to make mana batteries, right?”

“Yes, this one look like a standard one.” Nido inspected the one Matilda took out.

The mana battery was an iron slate with some runes inscribed. Mainly for mana storage and mana gathering. They were simple as they only had one purpose. The bulb itself was a separate entity.

“Be sure to pay attention, I’m only going to make this a single time.” Nido nodded. “I’m going to start, so don’t make any noise.”

Before starting though, Matilda grabbed a handful of tools from the wall. They were more than she needed for assembling the light, but Nido noticed she also grabbed the ones to make the mana batteries in advance.

Enchanter lights were composed of two primary items, a cylindrical metal slate, and a glass ball with a circular cut at the bottom. The final product was easy to imagine as it was world’s easiest puzzle. The mana batteries would absorb the mana at the surroundings and store it inside. Then the mana would transfer towards the glass sphere which would light itself up. Glass doesn’t do this naturally though, and it’s necessary to inscribe it with runes before.

Basically, the enchanter only needed to put the runes on the iron cylinder and the glass ball, and they would have an enchanter light. A simple concept for a simple item.

Whilst it was a rather basic necessity, it had its complications. A plethora of runes were needed to make the item work. Mana gathering, mana storage, mana transferring, illumination, activation, and depending on the work, a failsafe.

Engraving the glass was the most difficult part of the process as the material was infamously known for its fragility. One mistake and the whole ball would be useless. That’s why enchanter preferred to work with wood and metals, as they were more resistant than glass and easier to mold than stone.

Matilda used a specialized needle that wrote as easy as if it was chalk. The calligraphy was beautiful, yet the screeching sound off the glass made the situation tense and uncomfortable. The sound was obnoxious and gave creeps, but the duo of experienced enchanters ignored it completely. Scratching glass will always end with this result, so they got used to it.

Small oscillations in the ether occurred as she slowly infused mana while she wrote. It was an undetectably small quantity of mana, small enough than the enchanter could only see it through his enhanced reading of the ether. The runes formed a chain along the sphere’s circumference. The pattern formed by them had a floral connotation. Runes alike roots and flowers.

The whole inscription progress took her half an hour of pure unadulterated concentration. Nido had also concentrated so much that he forgot to breath for more a third of that time. He quickly filled his lungs with air as to not raise any suspicion for his lack of breathing.

“And… done.” Matilda exhaled a huge puff of air. Her forehead was trickling with sweat. “Do you got all that?”

“Not really, could you repeat it?” Matilda looked at him with the most violent deadpanned gaze that was humanly possible. “I’m joking, I’m joking. No need to get this angry.” Nido calmed her down. “Yeah, this type of enchanter lantern while not standard, is within my knowledge. The runes are also simple, and the juxtaposition between them is, honestly, a work of art.”

“So, you’ll have no problem doing eleven more of them?” Matilda asked as she wiped off the sweat with a towel.

“Not at all.” He replied confidently. “It will take a lot of time, specially depending on the quantity of extra batteries I need to craft, but it will be easy. Though you should rest now at the counter, Matilda.” Nido told her. “I’ve noticed you have been extra careful in order to instruct me. I can take of this.”

“You seem confident enough, and I have seen your craft yesterday, I believe you won’t have any problems.” The enchantress stretched her arms, which look like they were numb from the job. “I’ll be in the counter if you need me.” Then she left the workshop.

“Alright, let’s get down to business.” Nido cracked his fingers and grabbed a new glass sphere.

Surprisingly enough, the whole commission didn’t take him a lot of time. He had expected a lot more time since he had spent a lot of time without doing normal enchanting and feared his skills had rusted. Besides the items he did yesterday, the most recent item he crafted was the portal back to the physical plane.

He had needed to craft five extra mana batteries, but because the metal foundation was easier to work than the brittle glass, it only took him five minutes each. Nido had finished the eleven enchanter lights without a rest. The Tenet of Immortality prevented him to fatigue. Mental fatigue was a whole other matter, yet he had lived long enough to work four hours in a row without getting bored.

Matilda hadn’t lied, he hadn’t won a single level in Enchanter even when he had enchanted eleven items and the disappointingly bad wooden ring had given him at least a single level. But he did obtain another thing.

You have reached level 2 on Voidborn! +5 Constitution, +1 Attunement!

“The fuck?” The enchanter exclaimed as he saw the Records alert. “Six attribute points? That’s double the quantity I got with Enchanter.” He thought to ask Matilda about it for a second, but quickly discarded it. His class was classified as Unique for a reason. “Ah, alright. I have just duplicated by health pool and regeneration with a single level up. Is this normal? Is this a thing that happens with Racial Classes?”

As someone once said, information is power. And currently, the greatest enchanter found himself powerless before the unknown.

“It also increased my mana a tiny bit, but damn that’s a huge increase to my health. I now regenerate half thousand health per minute. Is that a lot, though?”

Nido spent a few minutes toying with his Status, but quickly became bored. There wasn’t much to work with. Maybe when he reached the level ten milestone with the Voidborn class it would be different.

“I should work with the bard’s commission. I still got, like, all day remaining? Hmm… I’ll need some materials to make the item, though. A pebble won’t be enough. I should ask Matilda if she has some spare materials, I can make something nice with these tools.”