Skill: [Diagnostics]

Designation: Inspection Type

A knocked down version of Appraisal. This skill is used for those who fall short of the required proficiency to be deemed an experienced crafter. Thus it finds its employ in all crafting classes that are deemed initiate, or apprentice level in terms of hierarchy. The skill evolves at higher levels into the Appraisal skill under a variety of conditions by combining with other complementary skills. Diagnostics faces the same challenges as Appraisal against Obfuscation artifacts and items.-World Compendium of Skills , The Order of Vesper, Church of Thea.

The dryad's Geas compelled the old elf to impart three things that would help Arthur find his freedom. The aura problem was out of the way...for now.

Now that he got the gist of what his aura was, and how it was related to his psyche, it was up to him to rekindle his lost memories. That was the only way to control his magical aura because at the time, it was chaotic and therefore conspicuous.

The next item he had to deal with was his class. [Magitech aercrafter]; he needed to get it consummate for his age. Else that too would raise eyebrows.

Scion of Sturmdrache was understood as hard to level, in fact not many knew about it. If you discounted the Church of Thea and long-lived individuals in the know. So that was passable.

The next lesson took place in the elf's enchanting workshop. There, the old man was completely single minded, he didn't even use his [Unity of Mind] focus boosting skill to help his would-be pupil with enchanting.

The first thing he did, much to Arthur's shock, was take his hoverboard apart using a [Deconstruct Object] skill.

Rivets, welded exterior panels, rune inscribed metal, wood and Aertherite crystal came apart. The motley of parts was suspended in mid air held by a blue haze with faint lines denoting which part went into which.

“Wha—” Arthur sputtered. “That'll take me a week to put back together,” he protested.

“Hmm, not with [Advanced Repair] it won't” Volemhir put out offhandedly. “That said, you should also learn to inscribe Obfuscation wards, or at the very least Anti-Appraisal runecraft.” he said.

“But first, your work… It is not that bad for a beginner,” Volemhir pointed out.

Arthur folded his arms and said,” said every enchanter or artificer that looked at my hoverboard.” he said under his breath.

“It is not that bad.” the old elf reiterated

“ I heard you the first time; It is not that good either, ” Arthur scowled. “ You don't have to coddle me.”

“Peace…these things take time,” he assured. “ Your runework is simple, but it covers too much space; that you even managed to make the ...what did you call your craft again?”

”Hoverboard,”

”Ah, yes, hoverboard. A great name…”

“Thanks, I guess?”

”Mmh,” Volemhir grunted. “If you're going to make more of these, you might want to save on materials without compromising on quality. The best way to do that is to compress the runes, make one rune do several things”

“A rune is a spell's composition. And spells contain several components. Nonetheless, it is impossible to write the whole spell on a panel of arcane metal such as this,” he went on, as he picked at the main rune circuit of the Azure Surfer, holding it in his hands.

“Notice that runes embody one word functions, like collect, start, or stop.” he said, pointing out Arthur's runecraft.

”However, it is possible to compress a spell matrix to make a rune,” he said. “If you have read your magical theory, which I assume you have,” he went on.

“You should know that spell matrices come in different configurations. These configurations denote Power, Direction and Intent. There is one more configuration that includes Autonomy and so forth and so forth—”

Arthur looked like he wanted to ask a question, but the elderly man shook his head

“No, that is in the area of advanced spellcraft, read up on it when you have the time.”

‘Crumb…’ Arthur swore. ‘More studying,’ he mentally pulled out his hair.

The gist of it was, from tier 0 to tier 3 magic, all spells had one or more of the aforementioned components in varying degrees.

Inasmuch as it sounded like vectors to Arthur, there were no discrete numbers. Tier 0 did not however indicate the lack of spell components, just that it was negligible at that point. Cantrips fell into that category.

What existed were approximations of infinitesimal values that were accepted as common sense to the average Erythean mage. It was thanks to the World that did all the heavy lifting otherwise magic would've been a tedium even for the most studious of mages.

With matrices, spells became either one dimensional, two dimensional, four and so on. Past the fourth dimension, the arcane started skirting on the bounds of what was physically possible. For example, Lysbringer's Skyfall which seemed to pull meteors out of nowhere fell somewhere between the fourth and fifth tiers.

Were it not for his prior knowledge, Arthur would've floundered and badly at that. His new magic tutor told him how it was possible to translate a whole complex three dimensional spell into a line or shape. And thereafter that construct could be etched onto a flat surface. They could even be circles or other shapes. It simply boggled the mind.

‘I thought runes were nonsensical squiggles with no rationality behind them.’ Arthur mentally facepalmed.

“ Even though the principles towards creation of runes remains the same, there are different paradigms of implementing runecraft,” Volemhir said with a gleam in his eyes.

“ For example, the sylvani see their magic as a song, it therefore follows that they would employ the same in the runes and enchantments”

”Are you telling me, the sylvani found a way to make sound from mana?” That explains the rhythmic hum I felt in the faerie ring.

”Ho? Correct my boy…” he cleared his throat. “Dwarven runes are, on the other hand, utilitarian, directly transposed from the spell from which they were derived. Their rune craft is the barebones upon which other races have built upon, or so I think—”

‘Programming languages my old friend,’ Arthur winced. 'Compression and transposition is just another way of saying I'm translating the language of magic into one that can be understood or executed.

I could use a notebook right about now. I feel like this is a chance of a lifetime.’ he thought as he felt [Eidetic Memory] strain under the dump of revelations. ‘Runecraft sounds like magical coding with extra steps. Yea, I coined that.’

“I might be biased. However, I will tell you for free that sylvani runecraft enables one to have less errors and some form of elegance in their work.

By transforming matrices info songs, one can catch the discordance before the rune is etched onto the material...you would feel it because it wouldn't feel right.” Volemhir said with a proud grin.

“You have a point…” Arthur agreed, looking at the rune inscribed panel of metal as it floated in front of the elf.

“Glad you understand…” his teacher smiled. “With that in mind…I think you should be able to inscribe more complex runes regardless of the size of the arcane material and broaden your repertoire of the same. The higher the tier of magic you seek to transform, the more efficient and the more powerful.”

Arthur exhaled a breath of relief. He felt that he'd learnt so much in such a short period of time.

“However, there is one more thing.” Arthur gave the elf a one arched brow, pausing mid-arm stretch.

“That medallion I gave you and I would also like to assume, the Pendant of Verwandeln as well, works on the same principles. Any good enchanter should learn to appraise, if not how an artifact works...at the very least, its origins or creator.”

Force merging skills was a thing. It was possible to force skill consolidations if they fell under the same type; much like different affinities could mesh together to form a derivative one. However, it was no easy task even as Arthur's perception of time stretched so long its passage was just a blur—that was the chronomancer's doing.

Volemhir Wintersheart, the elf, masquerading as one of his progeny was an accomplished mage of both time and ice. The latter was just his front for a persona but nonetheless, he still did it well. The life of a [Chronomancer] was no walk in the park . Even Arthur knew that; thankfully there was no breaking time or an evil twin from the future kind of thing. Eryth's reality was too hard to break.

That said, Arthur's quest to force merge [Detect Flaw] and [Diagnostics] into [Appraisal] was not something that could happen overnight. He had to get the right frame of mind and intent before the World deemed him to have earned it.

Thus, for most of his simulated time, he spent poring over his supposed teacher's creations and artifacts. Some were relics he'd collected on his travels while others were those he made himself. His other class was [Enchanter] and like the other classes he had, needless to say, they were high level.

It was during that small exercise of repeatedly trying to find out how some of the artifacts worked that he caught something that he didn't know he'd find. Not in an elven Enchanter's workshop of all places. As he was using [Diagnostics] then switching it to [Detect Flaw] that he found it . It wasn't the telecry, something that tickled at his Earth sensibilities but something, close to the dawn of Earth's Industrial revolution.

Of course the owner was amused at the misconception that because of their association with forests, elves and their sylvani offspring loathed machinery, fire and metal. That couldn't have been further from the truth.

In Volemhir Wintersheart's’s workshop, there was a small engine that converted magical heat from firestones into steam. It didn't do much. In fact, it wasn't that advanced, rather, all it did was spin a little wheel with nozzles perpendicular to its circumference like an aeolipile.

One might have found it unorthodox to have an elf like such a thing but that, Volemhir easily explained it away with one statement.

“For a mage of winter, heat is but one facet on the spectrum of my magic. Tell me Scion, did you know that the same thing you take away from water when casting ice magic is the same thing that makes water in a tea pot boil?”

Arthur realized that the man had studied thermodynamics and left it at that. Someone who had all the time in the world had the freedom to get to the bottom of things for sure. Nevertheless, he added that note to something worth looking into in future. Actually, that might have just solved his problem on how to power a hydraulics system.

He already knew what fluid to use for the system. The pump, which ordinarily would be a motor in a conventional set-up, had been a bottleneck, towards aership design. While he thought that, he also contemplated integrating the cooling system of the aership to the hydraulics via the heat exchanger.

The heat exchanger would use some of the heat to drive a steam engine. Then using a series of valves as controls, the steam would transfer steam power to the hydraulics fluid to do some mechanically repetitive tasks. One example was extending and retracting landing gear for the future aership.

As for the principles behind the telecry, unfortunately, the elf told him he'd have to find out for himself. He mentioned in passing, as he threw him a faulty telecry that perhaps it would serve as a sort of motivation because the Obfuscation runes on the thing were shot.

So Arthur had to work doubly hard to get [Appraisal]. Besides that, the elf had one more boon to give. Aura training had been the first, knowledge of rune craft and enchanting had been the second. The third was a favor that he'd have to call in when the time came for it; within reasonable bounds of course.

While time, metaphorically speaking, was fast running out for Arthur's tutoring. There were some loose ends that needed to be tied off. Fortunately, Arthur barely had to lift a finger for this; it would be all on the elf to make the problems go away. He was an Elder of the Court of Seasons after all and therefore, he rescinded the summons that'd taken Arthur to Eik'hjerte in the first place.

It was already within the realm of possibility that dragon-touched could use faerie-ways and therefore Arthur did not constitute a security threat to any city of the Aesylvania free states. Hopefully, with that he had one less race baying for his blood; Arthur was relieved.

Finally, Volemhir's parting words were to hail him once he got the telecry working as a takeaway assignment for his enchanting studies.The telecry was already attuned to his mana signature.

If Arthur was being honest, he thought the man was just doing it to spite him because of the Geas the dryad had placed on him. Something that he himself orchestrated.

The elf also relinquished his other artifacts, including his cloak, dagger and his hoverboard. The things had somehow made their way to him through the sylvani party that'd found him in the forest. At the time, Nora had no option but to go along with them because he was out of commission.

“You needn't worry about the summons, that’ll be taken care of in due time. Seeing as Eik'hjerte has recognized you, you are free to come and go as you like.”

Like the unraveling of a fever dream, after the elf's last words and also a warning not to reveal his true identity Arthur once again found himself punted through reality—back to the ambassadorial suite. A quart had barely passed, yet Arthur felt like he'd flown through several days worth of time.

”I will never get used to that,” he mumbled as he heard the sounds of Nora and the sylvani girl coming from the kitchen.

'Food!' Arthur's eyes beamed.

”You look like you haven't eaten in days.” Nora said.

'Oh you have no idea,’ Arthur left unspoken

”Wait. Where's the elder?” Szephia asked, casting her eyes about the living quarters. She set down a platter of roasted treehopper.

“Dunno” Arthur yawned as he eyed the food peculiarly. It smelt great, but... Arthur shook off his reservations , he was too hungry to care.

“He just did his disappearing act on me,” Arthur shrugged. But in his pocket, he felt the palm size indentation of a telecry. It wasn't a dream.

Dinner was a quiet affair, only punctuated by the sounds of cutlery clinking against the plates. Wooden plates, which looked like ceramics; another wonder of a magical world. Arrayed on the table were mainly sylvani staples, the aforementioned tree-hopper, just your ordinary grasshopper bumped up to chicken size. It tasted like one too.

It was served with sauteed mushrooms and sweet potatoes with a thick spicy sauce that was equally tart and sweet. So filled he was, Arthur wanted to go to sleep right away.

Before that though, there were few things that he had to get out of the way. First, the elf's words about the summons from the sylvani Arbor Watch. Arthur was too wrung out to meet another powerful personage and had enough interactions, amiable or not to last a whole week. He needed to rest...which he would for a couple days.

Also, there were two artifacts they had on their persons; Nora's Pendant of Verwandeln and Arthur's obscure medallion. The elf had let slip that both artifacts worked on the same principles, so using [Diagnostics] Arthur hoped to deduce their inner workings.

[Diagnostics] did not work on Nora's pendant; it stayed wholly inert like a mundane object and refused to give up its secrets. The youth however, knew that the answer was just at the tip of his tongue; neither girl had any idea of what the thing could do either.

As for Arthur's medallion, it was too convoluted for him to decipher with his skill. He needed [Appraisal] like yesterday.

Then, there were also traveling arrangements from Eik'hjerte. Arthur thought about using the last boon to have them ferried as close to Aldmoor as possible but Nora shot that down. It was too valuable to waste for such a thing she said. One way or another they would make it out of the Great Vale on their own

“So, what am I needed for then?” the sylvani girl scowled. Of all the people, she had to be the one who'd been taken for a joyride. And all that was thanks to her aunt's meddling. If she'd just let them go quietly Szephia wouldn't have been saddled with them in the first place.

With his internal clock a mess, Arthur found sleep coming swiftly that night. But it wasn't three days later, still sooner than he'd expected that he got a much needed reprieve.

Szephia's aunt came to get them and not a moment too late. The whole of Eik'hjerte was in uproar about the human dragon-touched who'd inadvertently gotten the tree's spirit to personally intervene, got a [Bough Warden] sent to the equivalent of the sylvani's backwater city and gained the attention of two elders from the Court of Seasons.

Well on their way out of Eik'hjerte, it was then that Arthur finally got the [Appraisal] skill and finally levelled one more time. While he’d become a level 14 [Magitech Aercrafter] he was no closer to unraveling the secrets of the telecry...or the Pendant of Verwandeln and his medallion. Only Selessia's input alerted them to the significance of the artifact.