Chapter 8

Maston Academy

The Town of Maston in the Candis East District

Myles found himself in what was by far the most traditional lecture he had found since he had arrived at the academy. That wasn’t saying too much though. Already tired from his sprint across campus, Myles was bent over and panting as he took in the room he had just stepped into. While there was a blackboard at one end of the room, that could also be said for every other wall.

“What are those?” Jane asked between her heavy breaths.

It took Myles a moment to realize what she was talking about, but when he did, he nearly burst into laughter. The room was filled with aether forges similar to the one he had used to use at work. Myles found it ironic that he had noticed the blackboards before he had even acknowledged the huge forges.

As Myles was explaining about aether forges to Jane, their attention was drawn to the large blackboard at the end of the room, and the man who stood by it, quietly writing his name. Professor Hazel it read.

Myles’ best description of Professor Hazel was that he appeared to be a gentleman in every way stereotypically possible. If Myles had walked into one of the more pretentious universities in Verith, this is the type of person he would have expected to see. The man wore finely tuned spectacles and held himself with such a sense of self-importance that Myles found himself envying the man’s confidence.

“Ahem ahem.” Professor Hazel pushed his spectacles up with one finger. “My name is Professor Hazel. I am an experienced academic with a wealth of experience teaching at the Gralence institute in Verith. You may have noticed the devices around you?” When several of the students nodded, confirming that they had indeed seen the enormous, unmissable aether forges, Professor Hazel continued with his introduction, pushing his spectacles up again. “Those are devices called aether forges. Over the course of the next year, you will be sweating over them for half a day, every day, including today. If you understand then please grab your partner and go to one of the forges. There will be instructions for you there.”

So much for a traditional lecture then. Jane grabbed Myles’ arm and dragged him towards the nearest aether forge. Myles looked at it carefully and then nodded in approval. Not all of the forges in the room were the same. Some of the forges were new and had additional features installed into them. Others—like the forge they had claimed—were older. They lacked the extra bells and whistles that the newer forges had, but in Myles’ opinion that was a good thing. All you really needed was the basics. Anything beyond a flame and an anvil was simply a distraction.

The forge had been supplied with two tables and a blackboard. On one of the tables sat two books. The first was an instruction guide to the aether forge. Myles ignored that one—he didn’t need it. The other book was far more interesting. It was a large volume with lettering on its cover declaring it to be the aether index. This was more interesting, but Myles set it aside as well. Beneath the second book was a simple note.

There are two books left for you corresponding to the two sides of aether engineering. The first is the mundane. Knowing how to make objects that physically interact with each other is essential to engineering of any kind, and aether engineering is no exception. You should thoroughly familiarize yourself with how to operate an aether forge as it is an essential tool for performing the mundane aspect of aether engineering.

The second side of aether engineering is the aether part. Every material in existence has two properties called mana capacity and mana flow. These properties are further specified for specific mana types. The second book, the aether index includes the values of these properties for all common materials as well as depictions of the runes that will guide the mana in these materials.

Your task for the day is to create the simplest possible aether construct using the simplest known material. Create a pure mana storage construct using the first of the eight common metals, basium.

Myles handed the note to Jane when he had finished reading it. Myles wasn’t concerned about forging basium. There was no metal that he had worked with more, but the aether part had him concerned. Myles remembered how difficult it was to move his mana within his own aether space and shuddered to think of how difficult it would be to put it into a metal object.

As Jane finished reading and looked up from the note, she asked Myles to help her with the aether forge. They agreed that it would be faster for him to teach her than for them to wait around until she finished the entire manual.

Myles walked over to the forge, feeling in his element. “There are two main components to an aether forge.” Myles pointed to a lever on the side of the cylindrical forge. “The heat is controlled by this lever. The heat you use depends heavily on the metal that you’re working with. You use the opening here to heat the metal.” Myles moved to the front of the forge where there was a protrusion in the shape of an anvil. “Once the metal is hot enough, you use a hammer to hit it into the right shape on this.”

Jane nodded. “Do you have any idea how the aether part of it works?”

Myles shook his head as he walked over to where he had set the aether index down. “This is probably the key to that.”

The two of them looked through the book for a while before they found the basic information they needed. The book was broken up into two sections. One of the sections discussed various materials and their aether properties and the other discussed runes and how to implement them by carving them into the materials.

Myles wasn’t entirely clear on what the runes did, but they decided to flip to the properties of Basium anyway.

Myles had heard of the eight basic metals before. The term referred to the eight metals that could be easily obtained from the natural materials in the province. It was actually a rare occasion when someone in his old job shop had the opportunity to work with any metals outside of those eight.

Unfortunately, Myles was clueless as to what mana capacity and mana flow might indicate. It didn’t help that the numbers given to the properties had been given no units either. The mana type ratios were even more confusing, but they probably weren’t as big of a deal since Myles only had access to pure mana anyway.

“What do say we backtrack and read the introduction?”

Myles decided to give in. He was eager to jump into things, but it was clear that he would need to get his bearings first.

It was Jane who figured out the mystery to the mana capacity and flow. As it turned out, the capacity and flow properties determined how mana was stored and moved in an object. Myles had already guessed at that, but the real revelation was the units used. It seemed that instead of using an actual unit, the properties were using efficacy growth delimiters.

Myles would have liked to claim that he knew exactly what that meant, but Jane had to explain it to him. Apparently, there was no true limit to either the capacity or flow of mana through any given material. That said, some materials were better suited to holding mana while others were better suited to transferring it.

There was a chart that showed how the whole thing worked. Myles looked back at the capacity value for basium and noted that it was stated as 100. Taking that into account, the first efficacy delimiter was set at 100 units of mana. Before that point, the metal was perfectly efficient at holding the mana. After 100 units were stored in it though, some efficiency was lost such that when additional mana was added, most but not all mana would be stored in the metal.

The odd thing was that while the efficiency decreased at a constant rate over the delimitations, the value of each delimiter seemed to increase exponentially. Neither Myles nor Jane could figure out the pattern that was at play though. There was clearly a function that was at work behind the scenes, but it was difficult to figure out how it worked, and it didn’t seem to be anywhere in the book either.

After they were done pondering the table, Jane looked over the book. “So…we should be alright to begin right?”

“I think so, I’m not too confident about this whole delimiter thing, but unless you did a lot better in class earlier than I did, we don’t even have 100 mana in between the two of us.” Myles tapped the book. “We didn’t see any details about the whole mana type ratio thing, but considering the values are set to 1 for pure mana, I think its safe to say that the default would work here.”

Jane nodded along. “I’m more concerned about how we add mana to the metal. Theory is all well and good, but it won’t matter if we can’t add any mana.” Jane looked thoughtful for a second. “I actually had trouble keeping track of how much mana I gained earlier, but I think I only ended up at about five or six units of mana.”

Myles grinned. “I think I’m somewhere close to that too. Would the method to add mana to the metal have to do with runes? I know the book mentioned that runes are what govern the mana in the metal.”

Jane began flipping through the index to find basic runes. They quickly found a storage rune that seemed simple enough. The book advised that it was easier to use the rune if the metal was actually forged into that shape, but it could be simply carved into the metal to get the same effect although it would require more adept mana manipulation to interact with.

The two of them decided to smith the basium they had been provided with into the rune. Neither of them was exactly confident in their ability to manipulate mana yet. Jane volunteered to do the smithing work herself to get some practice. Myles agreed. He figured that they would probably be working together for a while and it was best to get Jane up to speed with smithing sooner rather than later.

Even with Myles’ guidance, the process took way longer than if Myles had just done it himself. Nevertheless, they were both satisfied with their product, and looking around the room, they seemed to be significantly further ahead than many of the other groups. Myles smiled to himself. It seemed that his hard work at the job shop had paid off.

When they had finished, and the metal had cooled down, they set it on their workstation and began discussing. Myles was nervous about whether their mana might interact if they both put mana into the same object, so he eventually decided to quickly make a second metal rune so they could both try.

A few minutes later, the two of them held their hands over their respective runes. The book had claimed that there would be little to do, but Myles was still nervous. Glancing over, Myles saw that Jane seemed to be just as nervous as he was. “On three?”

Jane nodded and they started to count down together.

“Three”

“Two”

“One”

Myles put his hand on his rune as Jane did the same. Just as the book had told him to do, Myles closed his eyes and focused on the mana well in his aether-space. This time when he saw that pinprick of light, he felt that he could move it in an entirely different direction. It was a difficult sensation to explain. It felt like a direction that shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t up, down, left, or right, but something else entirely.

Myles focused on that direction and pushed his mana. Instantly, he felt all his mana leave him. An instant after that happened, an odd sensation came from his hand and he jerked it away from the metal. A second later, Myles put his hand back on it and felt nothing, but he somehow knew that it had worked. He had imbued the metal with his mana. Granted, the metal was only storing his mana, it couldn’t actually do anything with it, but it was still a first step.

When Myles looked over, he found Jane beaming excitedly back at him. It was a good feeling. Myles had wanted to become an aether engineer for a long time, and now he had finally started.