My workshop was ready to be populated with the most important magical devices a thaumaturge needed. A crucible, an alchemical furnace and an infusion altar. There were more ways to create new gadgets or modify others but those were primarily a luxury. A special manipulator to improve or adjust the effects of foci and a golem forge. I was sure there were some other things but none I needed right now.

The cave I had dug out could only be entered with my [Eldritch Shift] or if one was small enough to fit through the hole. Nymph probably could get in but she would have trouble scaling the steep cliff. No, that was wrong. She probably could grow some kind of magical beanstalk to bring her up.

From the entrance, the room extended three metres to the left and ten to the right. It was about three metres tall, just enough to fit an alchemical furnace with four alembics. Those went on the left. I had left shelves in the stone wall for my jars but I might end up digging them deeper into the wall and adding stairs for the golems. Not now, though. For fuel, I decided to go with the quick way of simply taking some wood from the valleys around. It should suffice for my current task. Later, I wanted to get some proper coal or maybe even the alchemically upgraded version: alumentum. Heating the crucible was not necessary, for now, but I still placed it on the plate right next to the alchemical furnace. That made me think, maybe I could generate enough heat with a similar artefact for it. I did not have the brass on me to try. I should really get to it. The crafting process I wanted to attempt was not easy.

The infusion altar was somewhat prepared. I had the pedestals placed in a clean circle, a set of twelve. This time, I only needed seven spots for the wand core and then later, three for the caps. The extra places were just in case. I probably would need them down the line. In the centre, the final pedestal stood, surrounded by the four pillars. They pointed straight up. I had not yet activated the runic matrix. Said item was placed on the ground nearby. The cube made of cubes would float with a little bit of vis poured into it, which was just what I needed. I placed it in between the tips of the pillars and picked up some of my salis mundus. The glittering magic dust was thrown over the matrix and pillars and with a sound of reality cracking as if someone had smacked the window a little too hard, the pillars bent to the middle. The matrix started spinning slowly. I could give it a little push to change direction but the speed would stabilize quickly.

Now, I was ready. Almost. The infusion process required a bunch of essentia. Energy, aura and magic were needed for both the caps and the wand core, with a bit of every primal aspect for the latter as well. The best way to get the magic essentia was by burning shards. Greatwood or silverwood might work as well but I did not have any on hand. Burning the shard would also let me get all primal aspects. I only needed to get some from every node nearby. The small ones were enough for this process, though I needed a lot more than if I used what the Thaumonomicon called ‘normal size’. That left aura and energy. Two aspects somewhat difficult to come by. Energy was most easily accessed from coal. Something I could easily buy from the dwarves though it would take me another two days to get to Borsdown and back. I already spent one to get here from the goblins and would need another to fly back. The placement of my workshop was great for the long-term but right now I regretted being this out of the way. Even just stealing some coal from the orks would make this much easier.

I decided to try something different. My control over vis was incredible precise compared to what others did. I hoped to combine some fire and order vis into energy and force it into the alchemical furnace to burn into essentia. That called for another pile of fire crystals. Aura was… more difficult. It was a combination of magic and void. Not impossible but the more complicated aspects could easily break down. But there was something that could help me. My shadows. They held the aspect of darkness, mostly, but there was also a little bit of perditio, sensus and auram within them. If I was right, forming potentia within my body and then guiding it into the end of a shadow tendril to burn would automatically create some auram essentia as a side.

With that settled, I flew out to collect all the crystals I needed. I would burn just enough to reach the amount of magic essentia I needed, starting with water and fire, and then use what I had within myself and burn it on the end of a shadow tendril.

The first real challenge was igniting the wood. Or course, I had not thought about freshly cut logs still being wet and burning very badly. I carefully split them with a cone of shadows and pulled the heating plate out from underneath the crucible. Using that was good enough to dry the fuel within an hour.

Finally ready to go, I double-checked the arcane alembics and the pipes filling up the three jars standing next to the furnace. Everything looked good and connected. I piled a bunch of dry wood into the bottom chamber of the furnace and filled the bowl above with the first few water crystals. A small piece of tinder was placed halfway on top of the heating plate and I pushed it to get as hot as possible. After a few minutes, the wood caught fire and I lit the alchemical furnace. I turned to a pile of paper near the entrance and noted ‘buy flint and steel’ just below ‘get coal’ and ‘check golems’.

Watching the furnace slowly melt down the vis crystals was rather satisfying. The pure essence rose as a soft vapour into the exhaust above. From there, my magical senses were able to see it slowly turn into liquid essentia which then flowed through the pipes into the jars. I would need two jars full of magic which took about half an hour of waiting. That also satisfied my needs for water, fire, earth and order. Destruction and air were my strongest personal aspects and I started my experiment of burning them in a shadow tendril. At first, I only got darkness and a little bit of aura and sense essentia. Managing to push the vis into the shadow before it burned was difficult. After an hour of practice, I had two full jars of darkness and a half-filled each of aura and sense. Finally, the first bits of air showed up. It took another half hour to get enough air and destruction. The last bit was energy essentia. It was not much more difficult than what I had done before but to get enough took another three hours. That was at least enough to almost fill my needs for aura as well.

Soon after, I was ready to get started on infusion. I had made enough essentia for two wands, only stopping because I had no more crystals in stock. My storage was not big enough to fit the resources for three silverwood wands.

I placed all the items for the wand core on the pedestals. On normal-sized vis shard for each primal. They were as pure as I could get them from single aspected nodes. Then, the primal core on a seventh pedestal. Symmetry was important for the stability of the altar but with seven I could not make it perfect. I still did my best, placing the opposing aspects as far away from each other as possible. There was one empty pedestal between each crystal with the exception of one where the primal core went. The inert silverwood wand core occupied the centre pedestal.

Usually, a thaumaturge was supposed to activate the infusion with a wand but I simple pushed my will through a tendril of shadows. The same sound I had heard when activating the altar once again split reality. It quickly abated but never completely dissipated. The runic matrix sped up over a few seconds to a much higher rotation speed. Once it was stable again, I sensed it demand the needed essentia. The runes started glowing more intensely, their shine lighting the cave as if searching for what it desired. After a few moments, a soft tendril of purple formed from one of the jars. It had found the jars and was draining the magic essentia. I carefully observed, making my way around the altar to see if anything went wrong. The amount of energy necessary for this infusion made it one of the less stable ones. Anything could go wrong at any time.

Just as I thought that, a crackling shot of purple lightning ran through the air. It touched the ceiling and disappeared, leaving behind a small black line on the stone. I hoped none of those would hit me.

Soon, the magic essentia was all pulled in and replaced by a pink tendril of energy. Aura, this time. After another minute, I started to get bored. Another crack of lightning occasionally shot out of the matrix but they all kept above my head. The pedestals were a little taller than I was as well so I mostly had to watch out for the items placed on top. If one of them got hit, I might have to replace it.

After the aura essentia, it was time for the primals. These went by rather quickly, only a little bit needed for the wand core. Finally, the last bit started. A light blue tendril of energy essence flowed into the matrix. Once everything was in there, the cube was nearly bursting with power. At once, it surged into the inert wand core and the item started to float. Then, a tiny bit of every primal aspect found the respective shard sitting on a pedestal while the aura shot to the primal core. At once, the items lifted off their pedestals. One by one, they started to dissolve, the tiny particles of reality shooting into the wand core together with the rest of the magic surrounding it. For about twenty seconds, I sat there, staring. I tried to parse what the magic was doing with the item with no luck. It was far too complex for me to even begin to understand. Then, it was over. The wand core dropped onto the pedestal brimming with power. Only to my magical senses, though. My normal ones found nothing different about the item.

With the first step done, I continued to the thaumium. The bars sat ready to be shaped in a neat pile. I picked one up and filled it with metal vis. Once I had a grip of the item’s ethereal part, I poured in a little bit of the aspect of change. I had created this from order and destruction back when I played with my soul. That sounded a little weird in hindsight. No matter, I had access to the magic I needed. And I found I made far too much thaumium. From the single bar, I was able to make two inert wand caps. I had twice what I needed. I shrugged. More was never bad.

The wand caps needed to be infused with some salis mundus. I placed three small piles of the magical dust on one pedestal each and a cap in the centre. Once again activating the altar, I watched the crafting process more closely. This time I was less concerned about safety. It was supposed to be far more stable. Still, what was actually happening eluded my senses. The magic just… worked. Maybe something happened in the Empty? That, or my senses were not good enough to see what was actually going on. The runic matrix was truly a mystery.

The caps were crafted without much of an issue. Now, I only had to combine them. This was more of a standard process. I needed some of each primal vis to pour into the items while holding them together. The caps would automatically bind to the wand and allow for it to channel those energies. I stopped in my tracks. Would it be possible to make a wand core attuned to a compound aspect and store that specific energy? It seemed reasonable. But then, it would be much less useful. Having access to all primals meant one could create a focus using any aspect. It would then be able to drain and combine the energy as needed. Yes, someone had put real thought into this item. I would not play around with weird things. At least not without having easier access to the expensive resources. I still wrote down my idea. I also noted to find a way for making more vis crystals without waiting for them to naturally grow.

Finally, my wand was finished. Someone had taken inspiration from Chinese novels and called it ‘Thaumium Bossed Silverwood Wand’ in the Thaumonomicon. It was a wand. A good one but just a wand. As I inspected my new tool, a system notification sprang into my focus.

~ding~ Congratulations! For making an advanced magical item for the first time, you gain experience! Extra experience awarded for adjusting the process to your means!

~ding~ You have reached level 36. Attribute Points allocated. 4 Attribute Points awarded.

Huh. That was a lot of levels. For just one item? Granted, it was made from silverwood and thaumium. Two rather uncommon materials. And I had adjusted the process to better fit my methods. Still, those were some good gains! I checked my Status. Something I had not done in a while.

Species: Sgiathan Dorcha Owl (adult)

Age: 0

Name: Fio

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy, Beast Core (unique)

Level: 36

Class: [Assassin lvl 60], -

Strength: 25

Constitution: 20

Dexterity: 28

Perception: 26

Intelligence: 44

Wisdom: 45

AP: 0

Skills:

Racial:

Utility: [Owl Senses lvl 6], [Preening lvl 4], [Owl Stomach lvl 6], [Sgiathan Dorcha lvl 5]

Offensive: [Solid Grip lvl 4], [Intimidating Screech lvl 4], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 7], [Aerial Combat lvl 4]

General:

[Maths lvl 4], [Hidden Identify lvl 5]

Assassin:

[Sneak lvl 6], [Surprise Attack lvl 4], [Mingling lvl 5], [Eldritch Shift lvl 6], [Winged Death lvl 4]

My Constitution had finally reached 20 points, no doubt because of today. I also gained a point in Strength and Dexterity. My free points were evenly split between Wisdom and Intelligence. They were getting quite high. My age still sat at a fat zero. That should change soon. Spring was around the corner and I would have my first birthday. Maybe I should check more often as to not miss it? Looking through, I could try to Breakthrough some of my level fours. [Winged Death] and [Surprise Attack] both seemed very useful for what was to come. Unless the orks had given up already. I doubted it. First, though, I had to move that node. Looking at the entry in my Thaumonomicon, that might be more difficult than I thought.