By the middle of the fifth week of classes, Jin had delivered the materials for the first set of items he’d requested, as well as a handful of small crystals for me to use for my own experiments.
That handful of crystals would have cost, by my estimates, about eight times more than my meager stipend up to that point in the year. I was pretty pleased.
The enchanting itself, however, was a lot of work.
Having an attunement on a part of my body that I wasn’t willing to use made everything inefficient. Channeling the mana from a single small crystal into a rune only took me a few minutes, but it also drained some of the mana in my own hand, which was used to facilitate the transfer. That meant I needed to wait hours between each enchantment, just to recuperate the mana I was using.
Since my attunement was linked to my mind, that mana would have regenerated much faster — about four to five times faster, according to my books. But the more I thought about the possible side effects, the more I worried the harm I could cause if I did anything wrong.
It was the end of my fifth week when I finished my first enchantment, a copy of the standard university shield sigil, etched into the inside of my room’s door. I’d need to recharge it periodically, but it felt amazing to power a rune myself for the first time and see it flicker to life.
I was working magic. For the first time, I felt like my attunement was real, something to be proud of. I basked in that for a little while, even as my hand throbbed from the effort of moving the last bit of mana into the runes.
It was great finally having that simple defense in place, but it also made me think about how many other defenses were missing.
I had a lot of work to do.
Patrick and I were on our way to dueling class when I noticed something unusual. I stared at the machine blankly for a moment, not quite processing what I was seeing.
“Is that… an automobile?” I pointed at it as I spoke, and Patrick turned his head.
“Oh, wow. I’ve never seen one!”
We both walked a little closer to the horseless carriage, which was a simple open-roofed design. It was parked at the moment, and there was already a growing crowd of other students standing around it. It would have been easy to mistake for a normal carriage that simply didn’t have horses attached if it wasn’t for the metallic pipe jutting upward from a box on the rear.
We approached in spite of being dangerously close to being late to class. It was just too interesting to miss.
“…and this one’s engine is powered by a combination of three types of mana, primarily motion. Unfortunately, the operating drain is too fast for it to refill itself, so we have to periodically refill the mana chamber. We use liquid mana for this model, but they have a few crystal-run models in Caelford.”
The speaker was a tall, black-skinned gentleman with an attractive suit and wide-brimmed hat. He was leaning back against the vehicle, near the wheel. From his accent and skin, I assumed he was a Caelford native, which also helped to explain how he had the wondrous vehicle.
The Caelish were famous for their mechanical achievements, including inventing trains nearly a century ago, and more recently these automobiles. I’d heard stories that they even had ships that could sail through the skies… I was interested in seeing one someday.
How’d he get the automobile all the way here? Did he drive across the continent?
I’d never heard of anyone making the trek all the way from Caelford in a small vehicle like this. The broken lands between Caelford and Valia were inhospitable at best, and rarely traversed before the advent of the railway. Maybe he was an inventor and constructed one here?
I tried to get close enough to the engine area to inspect the runes, but there were too many other students in the way.
The speaker laughed. “I wasn’t expecting this much attention. You kids have good eyes. If you like what you see, I’d start saving up now. I’ll be bringing the first ones to market around the time you graduate. And if you want a slice of the profits, I am looking to hire a few extra hands…”
I blinked. He was going to be selling automobiles? That seemed like a positively decadent product. A vehicle that ran on liquid mana had to cost an exorbitant amount to both build and maintain. Still, I had to acknowledge that it sounded like a smart strategy if he could build them himself. The wealthy would probably bid extraordinary sums to be among the first few Valian citizens to own one. It would be a symbol of success, and my fellow nobles loved those.
He started handing out trade cards to some of the students. Those were yet another rarity, here in Valia. I’d seen a handful of them in my life, but printing them was too expensive to be worthwhile for most small scale merchants.
I took one and glanced at it. Most of the card was text, but it was accompanied by a colored image — another sign of great expense — of the gentleman himself holding a stylized key.
Aloras Corrington
Corrington Carriages
All models and varieties available
Early orders for our unique mana-carriages available — inquire at our office!
Offices at 12 Edinger Lane in Beaufort
I didn’t recognize the address, but Beaufort was the name of the city right outside of the academy. That helped explain why he was marketing his business right here. A number of the students and professors would be wealthy. If he was the first person producing automobiles in Valia, he stood to make a tremendous profit.
Corrington? That name sounds familiar somehow…
I marked his name down on a list of people I’d consider working for if I needed to make some money during my second year. A “mana engine” undoubtedly would require Enchanters to work on it, so I’d probably be a good candidate for one of the assistants he was looking for. He’d probably need alchemists to make fuel, too… Learning how to do that would be useful.
I was still daydreaming about how I’d go about making an engine from scratch when we arrived at dueling class. Fortunately, Lord Teft arrived even later than we did.
Unfortunately, he was also carrying a large unlabeled box. Teft had toned down his antics from directly assaulting students down to merely pairing us up for progressively stranger forms of practice, but from his smirk, I could tell this was probably going to be worse than usual.
Teft lowered the box, dropping it the last few inches for a heavy ‘thud’.
“Today’s lesson is one of the most critical things you will ever learn.”
Right, just like every other lesson. Got it.
Teft sat on top of the box, folding one leg over the other. “By now, unless you’re particularly daft, you’ve picked up on the fact that the world has a large number of different types of mana, and each attunement only has access to a few. In a duel, you need to understand how to properly counter any type of magic you encounter.” He thrummed his fingers on the box, scanning the class as he spoke.
“In most cases, your best solution when a spell is hurtling at you is to get out of the way. This is not always practical, however, especially in enclosed spaces or for particularly quick spells. Thus, it is important to know how to counter them. There is a simple rule that I expect you to commit to memory: ‘Like deflects like, opposites nullify.’”