I looked into that a little — it was apparently a pretty common side effect. I decided to dig into how mana potions worked a little later. They wouldn’t offer permanent improvements like the enhancement elixirs I had tried to research before, but I knew it’d still be useful to figure out how to manufacture them.
We were heading to the dining hall when it occurred to me to ask a critical question. “Did they ever end up paying you?”
She shook her head. “I got a letter explaining that I’d get my cut in about three weeks. It’s pretty significant, though.”
“How significant is pretty significant?”
“Two hundred silver sigils.”
I let out an appreciative whistle. “I’ve never had money like that.”
She chuckled. “No kidding. I don’t think I’ve ever had a quarter of that. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with it.”
“Might I suggest investing in one of your favorite Enchanters?”
Sera let out a snort. “I’ll think about it. It does mean I can afford to have you make me a gauntlet, at least.”
“I could make you something much better than that gauntlet with two hundred silver. But it’d be smarter for me to practice on some smaller things first, so I was sort of serious about the investment.”
“I’ll think about it. For now, food.”
It was her first day back at the dining hall — I’d been bringing food back to her room while she’d been unable to make the journey — so she set into the hall with reckless abandon.
By the time we sat down, she was carrying two full trays, and I was carrying another tray for her, in addition to my own.
There was zero chance she’d be eating all this, but fortunately the dining hall did let us pack up any left overs. Which, by the look of it, would be virtually everything.
We hadn’t talked much about the fighting. She’d been pretty miserable during the recovery, so I tried to keep us focused on other topics. Now that she was back on her feet, though, I had some questions.
“That binding thing you were doing. That’s how Summoners get their new spells?”
She looked contemplative, even as she eviscerated a potato. “Sort of. The binding spell teaches my attunement how to make an inferior copy of whatever I hit with it. It’s not like having a real contract with a monster. A real contract is much more versatile.”
“So, if you can make a copy of something that easily, why don’t you have dozens of things you can summon? Wouldn’t your teachers just summon things in class for the whole class to copy?”
She shook her head. “Every binding we make takes up a little bit of our mana, for as long as we maintain the bond. If I had a whole bunch of them, I couldn’t summon anything at all, so it’s only worth it to keep a few.”
Sera paused, tearing off a piece of bread with her teeth. “We did learn a couple of basic summoning spells in class, but most of the teachers consider bindings worthless, since the monsters are so much weaker than the real thing.”
She took a breath. “Most people focus on making real contracts, since they have a similar cost in mana to bindings, but contracts give you more options. For example, if you have a contract, you can draw on the creature you’ve contracted for power without summoning them. That’s how I use my ice spells.”
I prodded at my own food, but I wasn’t nearly as hungry. “I remember you — or Teft, maybe? — saying something about summoning modified versions of things you’ve contracted?”
“Yeah. Like, if I had a real contract with an ogre, and I had some fire mana, I could summon a fire ogre.” She grinned. “A fire ogre. Now I want one.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, I get the idea. And you’re still not going to tell me what your contract is with, right?”
“Nah.”
I picked up a piece of one of her potatoes with my fork. “Well, if you’re going to be that way…”
“Hey! That’s my third favorite potato! You give it back!”
I popped it into my mouth.
Sera put a hand over her heart, giving me a lamenting expression. “Alas. It was so young.”
I chewed. “And salty.”
Sera tightened her lips. “I do want to tell you what my summoned monster is. But I can’t.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “What do you mean?”
She sighed. “It’s part of the contract. The creature is… eccentric. I’m not allowed to tell anyone I have a contract with it until it agrees that I’m ready.”
I blinked. “That seems like a pretty bad deal.”
Sera shook her head. “No, it’s a great deal. You’ll see why eventually. But in the meantime, I can’t tell you what it is.”
“Fine, fine. But it gives you ice magic in the meantime?”
She nodded. “Yeah. And some degree of control over ice magic, which is pretty useful.”
I’d noticed that when she managed to stop the karvensi’s spell in the arena, but I hadn’t realized the ability was from her contracted monster. Interesting. “So, different contracts offer different benefits, in addition to summoning. Could you contract an ogre to make yourself physically stronger?”
She made a ‘hmm’ noise. “Maybe? I’m not actually sure about that. I’ve only looked into summoned monsters that give me enhanced magical abilities, but it sounds possible, yeah.”
“Could that be how Derek was so strong?”
She lifted up a cup of juice and took a long sip. “Ahh, something that isn’t mana potion. Delicious.” After a brief moment of savoring the beverage, she continued. “Anyway, no, he’s not a Summoner.”
“But I saw him—”
“Not sure what exactly his attunement is, but it’s different. I think he stores monsters in items, then gets power from the objects. He wouldn’t tell me about it before the match, he just said he could take care of things. It was pretty frustrating.”
“Yeah, I’d be pretty frustrated if someone who I was fighting alongside didn’t tell me about all their abilities.” I gave her an exaggerated wink.
“Oh, shush, Corin. When I can summon it, you’ll be one of the first to see, okay?”
I nodded. “Acceptable.”
“If you want to see it any faster, you could make me a mana storage device…”
We spent much of the rest of the meal talking about enchanting options. All in all, it was a pleasant change of pace.
I lifted up the product of three weeks of agonizing labor — a single crystal of gray mana, still trapped within the practice shell.
I might have slightly overestimated myself when I’d planned to figure out how to make the more advanced version in a week.
Even so, I was proud of my results.
Over the following few days, I finished filling the remaining practice molds. It was considerably easier after my first success — but I still had a pretty significant problem.
I always stopped as soon as I started feeling a headache.
I knew from speaking to various Diviners that I was being overly cautious. After a cursory test of my mana levels after finishing one of the crystals, I knew I was nowhere near the point where making one was going to put me in danger.
But I remembered what had happened to Sera after the fight, and how long it had taken her to recover.
And, more importantly, I remembered what happened to my great grandfather. The story of his broken mind echoed in my thoughts every time I considered using any significant amount of mind mana. The more I tried to fight the thoughts out of my head, the more I reinforced them.
But I needed to make my attunement stronger. I was nowhere near Carnelian yet — and I was rapidly running out of time to get there. I knew I’d never make enough progress if I kept stopping at the slightest hint of discomfort.