The next morning Azrael went straight back to work.

His experimentation with runes so far had borne fruit. Although, the amount of broken stones on his floor might have testified otherwise.

It had been a long night last night, his renewed excitement getting the better of him. This morning he’d woken up as early as he’d gone to bed late, leaving him a little deprived of sleep. It wasn’t a new feeling for him.

He’d even ignored his need for breakfast in favour of the runes. Absentmindedly, he drew a rune in the stone dust with his finger and gathered his thoughts, recalling everything that he’d discovered so far.

Stone it seemed did indeed have a natural capacitance for mana, up to specific threshold. The mana in the rune would slowly degrade the stone over time, like water slowly dripping and eroding a rock over time. At normal mana levels this was ok, the degradation happening very slowly. However, if you were to forcefully increase the amount of mana circulating it would be the equivalent of turning on a hose. The more mana, the greater the pressure, the greater the force, the greater the erosion. Eventually at the highest level it would turn into a hydro-pressure cutter. The stone would be eroded in a single instant, turned to dust and the water would no longer be restrained. The point before this he’d called the mana threshold.

It was a simple principle really. Normal mana levels would allow a rune to be sustained almost indefinitely. Exceed this threshold and the stone fractured, or crumbled to dust, as the amount of mana exceeded the amount that it could withstand. It was like overfilling something, such as a balloon – you could force it to hold more than it normally might, but too much and it broke.

Although the larger the stone, the more the stone could withstand. A larger stone, the more to erode. A larger balloon, the more water it could hold.

Capacitance scaled with size and mass, but just enlarging something was an ineffective solution. Irrespective size, stone also had a natural limit to how much mana it could transmit.

Stone’s natural capacitance and conductivity were pretty abysmal. Briefly, Azrael wondered whether metals were better mana conductors and whether magical ores such as mithril and orchalium existed in this world. If so, would they have the best capacitance and conductivity?

Wondering whether it was possible to increase a material’s strength and thereby forcefully increase its mana resistance, Azrael grabbed a nearby runeplate.

With one hand he slowly began channelling mana through the rune. Despite not being a ‘light’ rune the rune began to glow gently. He ignored it and grabbed the other side of the plate with his other hand, drawing out another thread of mana. The mental power he needed to do this was… a lot. It was like trying to walk two dogs on separate leashes, except that they were excited mastiffs. Both of them wanted to go somewhere else and he had to forcefully restrain and guide them, unless he wanted to be ripped apart.

Channelling the second stream he guided the mana into the runeplate and used it to coat the stone with mana, before slowly forcing it in. It was not unlike [Stone Shaping], except instead of pouring in water he was pouring in liquid concrete. One mana stream activated the rune, pushing light out, while the other tried to supress the used mana, forcing it to the center of the rune. To use his previous analogy the first stream of mana was water rushing through a channel, while the second was pouring cement to shore up the banks. Too little cement and the banks would be torn away. Too much and it would constrict the flow. In short, it was a precarious balancing act.

Finding the middle ground, he slowly began raising the mana levels towards the stone’s mana threshold.

The mana from the rune accelerated with the increasing mana levels, pushing outward and threatening to shatter the stone. He forced his second mana stream deeper into the stone, to counteract this force.

By now what had once been a small glow from the rune was a blindingly bright light and he was relying more on his sense of mana then actual visual sight to continue his experiment.

His first mana stream suddenly halted at the threshold, the second stream not allowing it to exceed what it could sustain. He gritted his teeth and began pouring in all of his reserves into the stone. He felt the two mana streams warring for the threshold, threatening to tear the stone apart. The threshold seemingly bend for a moment, becoming plastic, before he burst through to the other side.

In the same moment the light from the rune became excruciatingly bright, forcing him to operate truly blind. At the same time as he felt the resistance give way a new skill clicked in place. Two skills actually.

Congratulations!

For using mana to force a material past its natural limit you have gained the skill [Reinforcement].

Congratulations!

For sensing the mana around you without you usual senses you have gained the skill [Mana Sense].

[Reinforcement]

Even the lowliest twig may cut the mightiest sword.

Using mana you may reinforce something beyond its natural limit using mana.

[Mana Sense]

Those who see with eyes alone are truly blind.

You may now sense the mana in the world around you.

He read through the notifications and could immediately feel the difference. Through [Mana Sense] he could actually feel the mana in the air around him. It was still invisible, but it was like a tingle in the air, the faintest vibrato of violin. And it wasn’t just in the air. It was everywhere!

He could feel the residue of his own mana in the walls of his house and interspersed in the shattered stone dust on his desk. Eager to test out his other new skill he picked up the previous discarded stone stylus and used [Reinforcement] on it. With [Mana Sense] he could even feel his mana fill the stylus once it had left his body. Up until this point it had been guess work, where he simply tried to force in as much of his mana as he could until no more fit in. Now, he could feel the exact amount needed.

Fully reinforced he drew the stylus over a stone plate. It cut through like a knife through soft butter.

He realised he was still supplying the stylus with mana and shut it off. Immediately his progress halted, and it was once again stone against stone. [Reinforcement], it seemed, required a constant supply of mana to function. Curious he tried to channel [Reinforcement] into the tip of the stylus, isolating it to only the point. The stylus once again carved through like it was butter. Selective reinforcement, it seemed, was an option.

An image of a dragon-slaying blade appeared before his eyes. Enchanted, made of powerful metals and imbued with various runes and [Reinforcement]. He pushed the image away. Old habits die hard.

For his house, it didn’t change much either. The amount of mana he would need to use [Reinforcement] on his house would be… massive.

Runes were still his main go to for the plan. If he could enchant his house to withstand a dragon’s blow, then he would. This meant a magic shield of sorts. Azrael was hesitant about enchanting his house. What if he overloaded the runes? His house would potentially shatter, crack or collapse. It was better to build a secondary protection, such as a magic dome, like a forcefield around his property. If worst came to worst and the runes didn’t stop the whole blow, then he could always try to use [Reinforcement] on the building.

Truth be told all this was probably overkill, the dragon was unlikely to ever attack his house. But then again, if somebody else was sharing their backyard with a big-bad-meat-eating-fire-breathing-fifty-meter-red-dragon, then he was sure that they would probably want some sort of insurance that they weren’t going to wake up one morning with their house burning down and their bed on fire. On the off chance that it did attack he would at least like more of a warning then waking up next to Sera and being told that he’d just died in the night.

Actually, that raised another point. Since a dragon was an overgrown magical fire-breathing lizard, then he should probably add in a sort of mana protection or maybe mana repulsion to the shield along with the physical protection. That just raised more thoughts. How was he going to get in and out of the shield? Would it be on all the time, or would he have a sort of switch inside? What if he was gone and the dragon came while he was gone? Actually, better question, how was he planning to power it? Afterall, the amount of mana he would need to keep the thing operational was… big. Scratch that. It was several times his mana pool.

Grabbing the largest stone on his desk, he used [Stone Shaping] to turn it into a large tablet, before grabbing the stylus again and casting [Reinforcement] on it. He began writing out his list of considerations.

Eventually he was forced to stop, when his stomach growled. He put the stylus down. Looking at his uneaten breakfast from yesterday he realised that he hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours.

Rising Azrael pushed his chair back and stretched out the cramps from his legs. Getting up he went to fetch some water from the barrel outside his door. Maybe plumbing was another thing he could add. If a dragon trapped him in here, then plumbing to draw water from the lake was a must. He mentally added that onto his to-do-list. Nothing, not even a dragon was going to get in the way of him living a peaceful life.

With a smile on his face, he grabbed the kettle and opened the door.

He shut the door just as quickly as he had opened it, before slowly opening it again and peeking out.

Sleeping on his doorstep was a little girl and not just any little girl. It was the girl he’d found bound in the village.

Seeing her motionless, he carefully opened the door again and stepped over her, quickly drawing water from the barrel, before vanishing back into his cottage. He hoped she wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t his problem. It annoyed him though that she was there. He’d told the villagers specifically that no-one was meant to intrude on this side of the lake.

Setting the kettle to boil he hoped that she would leave soon. Actually, if she was dead, then she wouldn’t move. Distracting himself from the possibility of having a dead girl on his doorstep he began the mentally plan his magic barrier.