Aether Engineering

Chapter 68

Maston Academy

The Town of Maston in the Candis East District

In the morning, Myles trained in martial combat. He drilled the new steps of the core arcaner’s way of the fist under Primrose’s watchful eyes, slowly improving his form. In between sets, he sparred either with one of his dormmates, Reah, or one of the varied artificial monsters Primrose puppeteered with earth mana.

Halfway to lunch, they moved to that barren hall and trained their use of wind mana. Day after day, they ran through a maze of obstacles blindfolded, each day a new maze with new traps and tricks. Reah and Dresden would sneak up on them in and out of class, manipulating their wind mana to make it harder for the dormmates to detect them, and giving them a light tap on their shoulder, the only sign they had ever been there.

In the afternoon, Myles and Jane worked on the shuriken construct. Myles had been so proud when Professor Hazel had approved the design and given them permission to build the thing. He loved the process. The long hours spent at the forge held more meaning to him now than they ever had before. That was good because the design they built demanded a harsh timeline. The sheer number of runes they had to etch into the metal was daunting, and each one had to be perfect.

In the evening, Myles delved with a fervor. He desperately wanted more wind mana. Practice with it was invigorating, and the bigger his aether well, the more he could spare to sense his surroundings.

It was only in the deepest part of the night that Myles had time to further his second channel, but he pushed hard to make the most of that time. Having lightning mana ready to evoke from his aether space, even a little bit, would give him an offensive option he had been missing in his previous missions.

About a week passed before the routine was broken by Primrose walking into their training hall with a piping hot cup of tea cradled in her hands. Usually, she’d put the tea down to start on drilling the group, but today, she waved a hand behind her.

A board of earth mana appeared in the air. With a slow but deliberate movement of her hand, she evoked writing onto the board with another mana type—some darker looking mineral maybe. Myles watched the words as they appeared and spelled out: small unit combat tactics.

Primrose gave her tea a brief sip, sighing in appreciation. “You will all be working together for the upcoming mission, so, I think it is about time we go over some basic tactics that can be employed with a few extra hands. Notably,” Primrose turned to the board again, scrawling out two new lines, “scouting and dragging.”

Myles stretched his body, sore after so many consecutive days of training. Scouting seemed like a straightforward enough concept, but he had no idea what dragging could mean.

Another board appeared beside the first with an additional wave of Primrose’s hand. On it, she evoked six dots of that odd mana type she was using for writing. “There are two basic forms of scouting that are typically used. The first is the use of wind mana.” Primrose drew a circle around the six dots. “This is primarily a defensive tactic meant to provide some additional knowledge of a group’s surroundings. You should think of this as a bubble of sorts, its effective at preventing most ambushes, but provides little else of value.”

Silas, looking at the board, shook his head. “Wouldn’t it be more effective to make the bubble inconsistent with some areas more concentrated than others.”

Myles recognized that as a basic anti-stealth option. Manipulating another’s wind mana to avoid detection was a difficult feat, but as Reah, Dresden, and Primrose had proven, skilled arcaners could accomplish it. The simplest way to counter that was to evoke your wind mana in an unpredictable pattern.

Primrose gave a slight smile. “You’re thinking the right way but using that method for long tends to require constant concentration. Over a long journey, that can be draining.” Primrose drew a smaller circle inside the first. “The easier method to achieve this is to have multiple layers of wind mana evoked by different people. It provides much the same effect as using an abnormal pattern but is much easier to maintain.”

The whole group nodded along. This was just a new way of thinking about using their wind mana.

Primrose raised a finger, and two of the dots on the board began moving around. Myles looked on with jealousy. Manipulation seemed like such a useful ability. He couldn’t wait until he had delved deep enough to make use of it himself.

“The other method of scouting is more proactive and involves sending small groups, usually of two ahead to discern the whereabouts of particularly troublesome monsters and other information of interest. This allows the main group to choose an optimal path.”

Primrose drew another pair of circles around the two dots, and Myles along with the rest of the group nodded their understanding, needing no further discussion about why those circles were needed.

Primrose paused for a minute to drink her tea again and let everyone process the information. If Myles had his guess, they would start practicing maintaining the multiple layers of wind mana needed in addition to their other skills in their regular training sessions.

The tea found its way back onto the ground and a third board appeared beside the first two. Primrose didn’t even bother waving her hand this time. Again, six dots appeared on the board, this time, all the way to the lefthand side.

“Dragging is a process used to conserve mana.” Primrose pointed to the middle of the board, and two caricatures of ogren popped up. “If you run into a pack of ogren, what would your first instinct be?”

“To fight them.” It was a simple choice, ogren were much faster than any of them were, so there was no running away.

Primrose nodded. “Correct, but what I would propose is that not all of you are likely to be needed to fight off a pack of ogren—anymore at least.”

Myles grimaced, it really hadn’t been that long since a pack of ogren had done some serious damage to him and Silas.

Primrose moved her hand and two of the dots moved towards the ogren. With a snap of her fingers, the caricatures vanished. “Dragging involves having only a select few members of a unit take care of any fights that may occur, allowing the others to remain fresh in the event that a larger threat emerges that requires more strength to deal with. This same principle means that even in missions that may require greater skill, or more mana to accomplish, weaker arcaners will always be an asset.”

Myles nodded. It made sense. He had wondered for some time why the average provincial soldier wasn’t given the same training as them. This was part of the answer, but Myles knew at least one other part of that came down to aether constructs. It didn’t take any special strength to use an aether construct, so, it made sense they sent new recruits on with only a little martial training and the ability to commute mana to protect themselves.

The lesson ended there, and Myles found himself back to practicing forms again. He sparred with Kate and Reah for a long slice of the morning as well before the whole group moved on to their training in wind mana. In an unexpected twist, Primrose led the group outside the gates of Maston, into the rolling hills of the voidlands.

As he expected, the group was paired up into duos and instructed to practice the method of scouting Primrose had mentioned before. Myles paired up with Silas, and they set about evoking their wind mana. It was a struggle. They were both used to evoking a sphere of wind mana around them, so, the part that Myles started on, creating a sphere around their immediate vicinity was simple enough. It was Silas who had the hard part, evoking mana over a wider area while leaving a hole in the middle where Myles was covering.

Dresden gave them insightful pointers here and there paired with a few light jests and a bit of teasing. By the time he and Silas were able to evoke and maintain the scouting sphere, and reliably maintain it, they both had smiles on their faces. Dresden felt like something of a big brother, he reminded Myles of some of his older friends at the job shop. Of course, that feeling was somewhat ruined when he blindfolded them, moved a distance away and started lobbing rocks at them from every angle.

With their improvement from delving, Myles and Silas were able to maintain their scouting sphere for about half an hour. Considering it only took about an hour for his mana wells to refill, that was already good enough for their full group of six to keep a scouting sphere up at all times so long as they kept to a steady rotation.

Once they arrived back in Maston, the group grabbed lunch as usual. On the way, Silas and Mercy gave them a rundown of what they should expect from the area their bandit quarry was known to inhabit. Apparently, the towns beyond Hydrabridge, in the center of the province, were small and sparse, largely focusing on being self-sufficient, though they did supply some food to the few military outposts stationed along the twin mountain ranges—collectively called the scar—that cut through the heart of the province.

Kate and Seth added to that, remarking on how monsters regularly ventured out from the scar, and providing a list of monsters that they should be on the lookout for.

The moment lunch finished, Myles and Jane made a dash for their aether forge. Much of the construct had already been forged, but there were still plenty of tasks to be done. Myles focused on carefully reheating the construct in the aether forge and engraving additional runes onto its surface. Jane focused on her work with the handle.

Getting the wooden casing for the handle right had proven a challenge just as Myles had expected, but this was where Jane’s background came into effect. The speed and skill with which she carved was awe-inspiring, and Myles could see the dedication her father must have had to the craft, and the effort he must have put into teaching her.

By the end of their session, they were finally able to fit the disparate pieces of the handle together. Myles and Jane gave each other a resounding high five as they watched her wooden casing interact with the springs he had forged, causing the basium bars they had worked hard to engrave with to move in and out.

That moment of celebration was short-lived as Myles realized the next step would be coating the springs and casing in grease to prevent any mana from escaping the construct. He really did not like that grease. It was made largely from melted monster fat and smelled absolutely vile. He had worked with more than he had ever wanted in the job shop, but what had to be done had to be done.

That night, Myles made another breakthrough. His channel to his new mana well had finally reached a sufficient length. Now, he just had to delve a converter, and he could finally start working on his lightning mana well.

Myles wanted to push on after that, but he had already pushed too hard. He collapsed back into his bed and was asleep in moments.

He slept so deeply that night that he didn’t hear the pained voice of his friend who slept one floor below. Not that he could have. She had evoked nearly all her considerable reserves of pure mana, sealing the walls and ceilings of her room. She silently fought alone in a delving trance, knocking tendrils of aethereal black and red flame aside with sheer willpower, keeping them from finding the cracks in her mana space that had only grown and expanded since she was young. As she did so, the wound in her shoulder seeped, and she was forced to change the bandage once again.