Chapter 58: Enchanting

  In his left hand, the pale gemstone pulsed with inner light softly, the energy inside it calling to him. The calling was not with words, but with an eerie sort of resonance. It was like a note vibrating in harmony with his spirit.

  “All right,” he said aloud, “show me how this works.”

  “You’ll want to prepare the surface first,” Obby’s voice hummed in his mind, but it sounded as though it came from somewhere near his left shoulder. It was something new Obby was doing that unsettled Alex. The consciousness in the little rock was still invisible but yet ever-present in the back of his thoughts. “Then use the parchment to transfer a minor binding glyph. The pattern’s simple enough. Even your shaky hands should manage.”

  He pulled out a small scrap of parchment from his pack and quickly sketched the glyph Obby had projected into his vision. It looked like two concentric spirals interlinked by sharp branching lines, somewhere between a circuit diagram and ancient arcane runes.

  He reached over to position the bracer’s leather surface and gently pressed the parchment against it. The lines glowed faintly before searing into the material with a soft hisss! He flinched from the heat, but it faded quickly, leaving the leather with slightly receded lines burnt into the surface.

  “Good, now, press that slurry we made earlier fully into the lines. The mixture of aether crystal and the herbs.” Obby felt like he had switched to his other shoulder, close to his ear, hovering, like a creepy gym teacher.

  Alex did as he was told, picking up the mortar and scooping out a finger full of the white goop, he began filling in the newly formed lines. He had thought Obby was pranking him when he talked him through how to make the mixture, as he was beginning felt like an Alchemist rather than an Enchanter.

  The notification he received even proved his theory right.

  “A lot of the magical skills tend to be related. Big shot enchanters usually aren’t making the materials for their [Glyphcraft]. Instead, they pay a dedicated alchemist for it to ensure the highest quality. You don’t have that option right now.”

  “ Right now,” Alex muttered as he carefully filled in the lines. “If it saves coin, I don’t care about having to crush up some herbs.”

  “You say that now, we’ll see.”

  Filling in every line and then cleaning up the mistakes he made was boring, but quick. He was done within minutes and he looked at the bracer with a smile, impressed with himself.

  “Now the gemstone. Place it just above the primary core slot. One inch spacing. ”

  He nodded and fitted the gem into the shallow groove just above the first embedded gemstone, the moment it slotted into place, a rush of warmth flooded up his arm. His vision blurred as information spiked into his brain. He was shown measurements, absorption ratios, and connection pathways, all swirling in his thoughts. He blinked rapidly, steadying himself.

  “Did not expect it to feel like… that.”

  “Synchronization always stings the first time. Like putting a new limb where there wasn’t one,” Obby said with far too much amusement. “Congratulations, you just completed your first ever true enchantment. All that information swimming in your head is The System giving feedback on your creation. You should know exactly how that enchantment works.”

  And he did know.

  He shook his head, already adjusting to the change the new sense had awakened in him, an intuitive awareness of aetheric flow, not just in himself but in the bracer on his arm. The System’s interpretation of his item’s new effect.

  His mind shifted gears. “So the new crystal is even better than the first one.” Alex said. “It can hold… three times the amount of energy? That’s crazy high.”

  “You’re not looking at it correctly.” Obby gave a mental sigh. “That second crystal is Adept Tier. It can hold Adept quality aether, not just basic Mortal Tier aether. There is a quality difference, the potency between the two just isn’t the same. Now, you can’t actually store Adept Tier energy into the gem, since you don’t have access to any. Even if you did, your body probably wouldn’t be able to currently handle it and you’d just hurt yourself. I’d say it would would destroy your core, if you still had one. ”

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  “Haha,” Alex covered the embedded gems with the leather flap of his bracer and tied it down. “What next?” He reached for another blank crystal from his backpack, the smaller ones he had scavenged from the mine tunnels. None of them were Adept Tier, but they still hummed in tune with the ambient energy around him.

  “Now, you learn to etch spells into aether crystals. We’ll need them for a distraction, or even just to have options. ”

  “You want me to carve a spell into the crystal itself?” Alex asked.

  “Etch, not carve,” Obby corrected. “Enchanting crystals directly is a much more delicate process. Carving would be far too crude. You’re not trying to break it. That, and you will be embedding a pattern into the inner aether lattice, not the surface. The crystal’s structure is like a spiderweb woven out of magic. Push too hard, and you shatter it. Push too shallow, and the glyph won't bind. ”

  He winced. “So… precision work. Awesome.”

  Obby chuckled darkly. “Welcome to true glyphcrafting.”

  He bounced the crystal from one palm to the other, letting its smooth surface roll across his fingers before he sat cross-legged and pulled out the etching tool once more, a thin stylus of copper and powdered flux bound together with spider silk resin. Obby claimed the silk gave it ‘spiritual sensitivity.’ He thought it sounded made up, but it did glow faintly when held near a crystal.

  “What spell should I try?”

  “Start with what you know best,” Obby said. “Like your [Flare] spell. Medium energy cost, straightforward effect. We’ll store it in the crystal, so it activates when you direct a small pulse of energy into the glyph. Think of it like priming a rune-bomb.”

  “Wow. That doesn’t sound ominous at all.”

  He pulled out a blank slate of parchment and began sketching. [Flare] had a distinct energy pattern that he wove from his aether whenever he cast the spell, and each spell appeared to have it unique pattern, as his [Wave Shield] spell had a different one entirely. He had to analyze that energy pattern and translate it to glyphs.

  It took trial and error, a fair bit of parchment and some cursing, but Alex eventually had a working diagram. It was a combination of heat glyphs, light runes, and a directed burst marker, all simplified from his combat version of the spell.

  Obby had spent some time during their previous lessons in showing him how to break down spell formulas into modular parts. He didn’t understand why at the time, but he did now, as apparently that was how someone learned to cast a spell when not using a Spell Tome. Tomes, which Obby called “The cheaters way to pretending they know how to cast magic spells.”

  Alex didn’t really care either way, he just wanted the knowledge. Now, for this particular diagram it was about compressing them into a permanent rune string.

  “Good,” Obby said as Alex finished the sketch. “Now, etch that into the crystal, but mirror-reversed. ”

  “Wait, what?”

  “You heard me.”

  He groaned but obeyed, holding the crystal in a pair of clamp pliers between a piece of soft leather, leaning close and began tracing the pattern backward. His stylus’ tip glowed faintly as it sank into the magical structure.

  It was like drawing on invisible layers beneath the surface. His eyes ached from the strain, and more than once the stylus jittered from a spasm in his hand which caused the crystal to crack or even shatter entirely. When this would happen, he would curse and throw the broken crystal off into the forest before grabbing a new one and began to start all over.

  But eventually, the glyph was done.

  The moment the final line connected, the entire crystal lit up like a torch. A wave of System feedback entered Alex’s mind and he knew he had finally succeeded.

  Alex let out a tense breath and pulled up his notifications.

  “I did it.”

  “You did,” Obby said with the tone of a proud but exhausted parent. “And without frying your face. Impressive.”

  He held the crystal up, watching the faint light swirl inside the etched runes. “So I could hide this somewhere. Set it to trigger with a burst of aether, or even a physical trigger glyph?”

  “Yes. And, if you get advanced enough, you could design traps, delayed blasts, even defensive enchantments that trigger automatically. Welcome to real magic, Alex. Not just shouting words and throwing sparks. ”

  He grinned, now understanding why Obby had insisted on all the careful theory work and fundamentals before this. Glyphcrafting wasn’t flashy or showy, but it had strategy to it, potential forethought was key. It took a lot of work, but it was worth it, and best of all, it it let him plan ahead.

  Pocketing the newly enchanted crystal, he already began forming new ideas. One crystal wasn’t actually as strong as his spell if he cast it himself. But, a crystal could shake a tunnel, and two might bring a group of kobolds down. A handful could be embedded around a camp as tripwire flashbangs if singular, or collapse a cavern if he had enough of them.

  This wasn’t just about him playing with skills and formulas, and patterns. With this new capability, he was engineering magic in this strange world. And engineering was something he understood from back on Earth.

  “I’ve got work to do,” Alex said, eyes glinting.

  Obby’s laughter echoed in his mind.