Azrael sat at his desk, tapping a stone rune plate with the stylus. The events of today had surprised him.

Alena had pestered him to let her fight something. He gave in. It was the outcome however that was unexpected. He’d intended to capture a boar, and let her have the final hit, so that she could get use to the fact that she would be taking a life. Sure, he’d expected hesitation from the girl, but ultimately, he’d thought that she would do it. Afterall, they lived in a medieval world. The way of the hunt was a way of life.

Instead, the hunt had ended with her apathetic mask breaking and her crying her heart out. He understood the hesitation. He used to be like that. It was just that from the way that she acted it was sometimes hard to remember that she was barely over 13 or so years of age.

Instead of teaching her how to dissect the creature like he’d originally intended he’d cancelled lessons for the day and decided to give her the next day off as well.

Dipping into the rune library quickly, he corrected a part of the rune structure before him, linking a ‘mana’ to a ‘transference’ rune. It was a new prototype for an ambient mana accumulator.

The idea was that it would draw in mana from the surroundings to feed the rest of the rune structure. The problem was that it still needed mana to help draw in mana. Feeding it with a bit of his own mana he felt the rune structure begin to draw in the mana from the room, due to [Mana Sense].

A moment later the ‘light’ rune that he’d linked to the rune structure lit up. He cut off his mana and watched as the rune structure continued to draw in the ambient mana. Eventually though it flickered and guttered out. He put the plate back on the table.

In theory if he could place enough mana accumulators throughout his structure it could sustain itself longer, maybe indefinitely, so long as nothing overly serious happened. Either that, or if the ambient mana level was higher; both were possibilities.

What he was lacking though were proper materials. Stone was only so good for rune carving. Organic materials, such as wood he’d found were even worse in terms of mana transference and capacitance, although they didn’t deteriorate as fast as stone did.

The deterioration problem of stone could temporarily be solved with enough mass, at least for the foreseeable future. In the end the biggest problem of the whole thing was transference and capacitance.

With a stationary barrier that was always ‘on’ transference wasn’t really an issue. He didn’t need to suddenly channel a large amount of mana in a short amount of time. It was the capacitance that gave him the largest headache.

All the accumulated ambient mana that was drawn in was immediately charged into the general mana flow of the rune structures, as there was no way to store it. Anything that wasn’t used was simply lost and wasted, dispersing back into the ambient mana. It would eventually be reabsorbed into the rune structure, but at a mana cost, only for it to be lost again. It was a waste of energy and efficiency. If only he could find a material that could store or generate more mana on its own, like a…

…

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HE WAS SUCH AN IDIOT!!!

Azrael rushed outside, running to the edge of the clearing, where the boar was bleeding out. Grabbing a stone off the ground he quickly used stone shaping to turn it into a blade, before casting [Reinforcement] on it. Getting his hands bloody he managed to dig out a small purple crystal – a mana stone.

Wiping his hands on the nearby grass he rushed back inside, altering the rune structure he’d just used.

Embedding the mana stone into the plate itself, he reformed the structure around it. Then, tracing the rune path with his mana he felt the entire thing activate. Light spilled forth and this time stayed on. He fist bumped the sky. There was no feeling like success.

The ambient mana that was gathered was rerouted into the mana stone, where it was simultaneously used to power the ‘light’ rune and to gather more mana. Anything not used was stored until it was needed. Stone being stone meant that there was still mana being lost due to the material, but the efficiency had greatly improved. It wouldn’t last indefinitely, but certainly a long time, which was OK. The mana that he needed to power a ‘light’ rune was relatively low. If he one day managed to find a material with better capacitance, he could theoretically build a magical perpetual motion machine.

Leaning back on his chair, Azrael tipped onto the back legs and marvelled at his work. He’d effectively created a working magic lamp. His only complaint was that in order for it to start working he needed to trace out the path with his mana first, before it activated. While that was fine for a small rune structure like his lamp, he was worried that he wouldn’t have enough to finish tracing something larger, like his barrier, before he ran out of mana.

Maybe there was something that he could use instead. Magic wire? He’d probably need metal for that. It stood to reason that the purer something was the better it conducted mana. Actually, that raised an interesting thought. How did metals compare to stone in terms of mana and enchanting? So far it had all been speculation on his part.

He added that onto his to-do-list, along with getting more mana crystals. The villagers probably had plenty from all the beasts he’d hunted and let them dissect. He balked at the thought of having to go to the village. Maybe he could send Alena tomorrow. It would probably be good for her to spend a day in the village again.

He frowned as he had another thought. What if the villagers didn’t give her the mana crystals, because she was just a little girl? He’d probably have to go into the village in the morning and pick them up. He sighed. It was a good trade off though. Since Alena was going to be in the village for her day off, if he got the crystals, it would be a whole day with no training. Just him and his project. That sounded like a good plan.

Removing the mana crystal from the plate he formed a small jar with [Stone Shaping] in which to keep it in. Placing the tablet atop of the rest of his experiments he took one last look at them before washing his bloody hands and turning in to bed. He was going get those mana stones and finish the stone circle tomorrow.