Aether Engineering

Chapter 11

Maston Academy

The Town of Maston in the Candis East District

On the second day, classes quickly pushed all other thoughts from Myles’ mind. In her morning combat training session, Primrose surprised them all by introducing them to evocation, one of the basic techniques that any arcaner could use.

Evocation was just as difficult for Myles as delving had been initially. Unfortunately, Silas couldn’t give Myles a shortcut here. Evocation required pulling pure mana directly from one’s aether well out into the real world. After nearly an hour of instruction, one of Primrose’s constantly changing analogies finally clicked and Myles remembered what he had done while imbuing the rune with mana.

Myles tried reaching for that inexplicable direction again. He visualized his mana as energy then tried to move it there. After repeating the same thing several times in different directions, Myles finally felt the familiar sensation of an impossible direction opening up and he used that sensation to move his mana out of his body.

Myles could barely see the effect of his evocation floating as a blur in the air and it wasn’t even able to resist a nudge from his finger, but it was there. Myles had evoked pure mana!

Primrose gave little time for Myles to celebrate, quickly giving Myles a set of exercises to perform. The exercises were the same as the first day, he had to perform the first four steps of the core arcaner’s way of the fist. Primrose wasn’t one to give easy assignments though, Myles was supposed to use evocation in specific ways to cover any openings and generally improve his defenses while going through the steps.

By the time they transitioned into Primrose’s aether usage class, Myles was completely exhausted. Just like the day before, they spent the entire class delving, but it soon became clear that simply delving in class was not nearly enough.

Primrose walked around eyeing each of their expressions to make sure they were focused. “Aether well size is the most important way you can improve in the early stages of being an arcaner. By the time you all leave for your first mission, I want you to have hundreds of mana points in your wells.” Primrose stopped in front of each of them and gave them a pile of aurik leaves. “Eat these while you’re delving. They won’t have much impact, but every little bit helps.”

By the time they had finished, Myles felt like he had accomplished something. The improvements in his delving process he had made combined with the supply of roots brought his aether well’s capacity to somewhere between 29 and 31 units of mana. That reminded Myles that he wanted to ask how he could measure mana precisely.

Primrose turned; left eyebrow raised as Myles made his way over. He was struck once again by how strongly she was attuned to her surroundings. He remembered what that young noble had called her—the white tiger—Myles wasn’t sure where that moniker came from, but he couldn’t help but feel that there was more to her than a humble military instructor.

“Was there something I can help you with?” Primrose raised her teacup to her lips.

Myles had initially thought that the tea was just something to be used as a demonstration, but she had a cup by her side every time he had seen her since.

“Aurik leaf tea,” Primrose explained as she saw his gaze. “Even I will take every bit of extra mana I can get.”

Myles nodded. She was certainly committed to those leaves if nothing else. “You said that each leaf has exactly one unit of mana in it right?”

Primrose frowned. “Not exactly. The aurik leaves don’t have any mana in them, but something in their composition targets the membrane of the aether space. The leaves…erode what we refer to as one unit of mana from your aether membrane which allows for one more unit of mana to flow into the space left behind.”

That made sense. If Myles thought about the leaves as something of an automatic form of delving, that meant they had some kind of…energy in them that wore away the aether space, but it didn’t explain how he could measure the mana he was evoking. “I’ve been wondering, is there any way to accurately measure units of mana?”

Primrose looked conflicted for a moment. She took a few more sips of tea as she considered. “There are actually several methods to do exactly what you ask, but they all require aspects of the aether space that we will not cover until next month.” She set her tea down carefully on the ground. The bottom of the cup sizzled as she set it down. It seemed like it was just as hot as it had been on that first day. “It would be unwise of you to try any of these methods before you are ready. It is easier than you may think to deal permanent damage to your aether space.”

Myles decided he would have to postpone those thoughts for now. As a blacksmith, Myles had quickly learned that you had to be forceful sometimes to learn advanced techniques. If this was the job shop, he was used to, he would have found a way to learn the secret, but this wasn’t a job shop, so, he would wait…for now.

Myles met up with Silas, Mercy, and Jane for lunch. They spent some time exchanging tips and notes about their classes. The others, and Jane in particular, were interested in hearing about his conversation with Primrose.

After lunch, Myles and Jane went to their aether engineering class. This time they did not get out of the class early.

Professor Hazel seemed like he was somehow able to watch over everyone at once and managed to have each group working on something entirely different.

Myles and Jane were challenged to work on one of the theories they had come up with to make their batteries useful. Professor Hazel had smiled when they had mentioned creating a device that could use fresh batteries for sustained high mana actions.

They quickly found out that was his show of approving a new project. If he didn’t approve of an idea he wouldn’t react, but if he smiled, you could expect him to be back in five minutes asking about your project again.

Myles had no idea how the man could seemingly be wherever he needed to be at any given time, but he was grateful for it. It meant that their project grew far faster than they could have hoped otherwise. He refused to give them any answers, instead, he would point them to their aether index, before giving them a quick lecture on something completely unrelated to their current project.

For example, as they were trying and largely failing to match up a series of activation runes to initiate a transfer of mana into their contraption, Professor Hazel had pointed out the index’s entry on ray-crystals, describing their many uses with mana batteries for energy type mana.

Myles got excited for a bit about their potential. He was especially interested in their unique physical properties—he had never been trusted to smith a ray-crystal part—nobody at his old job shop had. The topic was interesting, but then Myles realized that they did not have access to either energy type mana or ray-crystals. Still, Jane had somehow managed to latch onto one key element of the mini lecture where the professor had mentioned a few activation runes and their potential structure.

By the time the day was over they had managed to accomplish very little beyond creating a few odds and ends meant for designs they had long since discarded.

The rest of the first week passed in much the same routine. Drills on the first four steps of the core arcaner’s way of the fist made the group more and more exhausted each day. For all their effort, they had only very rarely received Primrose’s approval for even a single move.

Once they finished with the combat training they moved on to more delving. They may have complained about the long hours spent sitting still and focusing all their energy inward, but they were too tired for that.

After a short break for lunch, Myles and Jane continued working on their project under Professor Hazel’s constant gaze. Myles was frustrated that they hadn’t been able to produce a functional prototype yet. He was beginning to realize just how challenging aether engineering could truly be.

For her part, Jane had proven to be a much bigger asset than Myles had originally imagined. She was able to quickly take up the smithing part of the job, and she even proved to have a much more skilled hand when it came to inscribing runes into the forged metal. She claimed that the skill was similar to carving wood, something she had learned from her father. Myles was skeptical about that, but he was happy for her talent. If a rune was even slightly off, it would fail to function, and they would have to start from scratch again.