It had been a few weeks since Chuck's discovery. He was finally over the stage where he thought everyone was looking at him because they knew what he had. As the paranoia faded he decided to focus on some magical knowledge that he had let fall by the wayside.

Harlo had reminded him of the conversation they first had. Now that the journal and necklace weren't consuming his free time, he used the time to practice what Harlo had told him. He knew none of the other warcraft students had this knowledge, otherwise, they would have utilized it in the sparing sessions with the mages from the army. He hadn't even seen any of those mages utilize this method.

Chuck figured it was because it was advanced, even in Harlo's field of study and not yet widely known. That suited Chuck just fine.

Chuck locked the door to the training room. Today he was only going to test a few of his common skills.

There were a dozen target dummies in the room. Some were made of straw to simulate a soft target, while others were made from wood, wrapped with hard leather. The targets sported dozens of nicks, cuts, and scorch marks from other students' practice sessions.

Chuck picked a straw target. He started to form the spell matrix for ice arrow in his mind. Now that he understood the basic spell components he was able to recognize the part that called for the mana to form into ice. Instead of allowing this Chuck forced his mind on the ambient water in the air. This didn't require changing the spell form so bypassed the restrictions on students creating their own spells. There were wards in place that could detect such actions.

Slowly Chuck watched ice grow out from his palm, in the place where the spell usually formed. It took fifteen seconds for the icicle to form. He aimed and fired off the spell. The icy projectile struck the dummy, embedding itself deeply in the center. The difference was that the ice didn't dissolve into a vapor after a few seconds.

It had worked, Chucks knowledge of how ice forms naturally had allowed him to create the spell using the natural elements instead of mana. Chuck pulled his water bag off and opened the top. He cast the spell again, only this time he poured water from the bag. The spell formed almost instantly.

So he had to take into account the amount of available moisture in the air for this spell. Chuck tested as many combinations as he could think about. Water on the floor, rain, even blood. It was faster to have open water than trying to pull it from the atmosphere, even if it was on the ground. The blood worked but it wasn't much faster than the atmosphere.

Next, he was testing with flame lance and firebolt. His goal was to recreate what he did with mana manipulation without having to pour a ton of extra mana into the spell.

Chuck knew that fire needed fuel, the faster you could burn the fuel the hotter the flame would be. Oxygen was an easy target since the air contained a good amount of it. Hydrogen would be even better if he could strip it from the atmosphere or water. It would depend on how much he could force the spell to take into account his knowledge.

Turned out it was a bit harder than he thought. Oxygen was easy producing a slight blue tip to the flame. Either his method wasn't pulling pure oxygen or the atmosphere was interfering with the flame. Pulling hydrogen from the air was slow as it only made up a tiny portion of the air. It worked though, producing a pale blue flame that was barely visible in the dim light of the room.

It took Chuck over an hour to figure out an optimum solution. He found that mixing oxygen and hydrogen together produced a bright blue flame. Most of the time was spent adjusting the mixture and figuring out how to pull more hydrogen from the atmosphere. Chuck had to exit the room after the hour because the temperature had risen in the room to uncomfortable levels from his practice.

He accomplished his goals for today, although, he would have to work on the overall speed of casting spells this way.

Chuck thought of a few other tests he would love to try. If he could make ice from water could he make ice from liquid oxygen, nitrogen, or hydrogen? He imagined if he could it would be a far more involved process. And if he could do that, could he ignite an icicle made from liquid oxygen or hydrogen?

He scribbled these notes into his journal as he walked towards the cafeteria, thinking of other tests he could run. He wanted to play with the harden skin skill but he wasn't sure how it worked. He would need a microscope to watch the spell's effects to see if it was something he could modify. He added a note to check with Harlo to see if something like that even existed in this world.

Chuck shifted his focus to his wind and earth spells. Admittedly his knowledge about these two fields was lacking. He knew about high pressure and low pressure but wasn't sure how to take advantage of that to modify the spell. Perhaps it was as simple as trying to use the normal air? He added a note to test it out.

Earth he had a few ideas about, the periodic table helped him here. Could he create a rock spear from pure diamond or tungsten? Somehow he doubted that. It would probably work similar to the other spells, pulling the elements from the area around him. Metal, steel, or iron specifically would probably be the easiest to use as it was used in weapons and armor, even simple buckles and other items. Even if he just coated the base rock with a thin layer of metal it would enhance the deadliness of the spell significantly.

He added this last note, closing his notebook and tucking it into his armor as he headed into the lunchroom.

He was in luck, Harlo was sitting at a table chatting with a few other students from his specialty. As Chuck got closer he could hear part of the conversation.

"No, I'm telling you, you can't distort the arcane circle or the spell will be unstable." one of the students said.

"I'm not talking about bending it, I said you could wrap it," Harlo replied, finger slamming into the table to make his point.

The other two shot down his theory and called him a fool before they got up and left.

"Short-sighted idiots," Chuck heard Harlo grumble.

"What was all that about?" Chuck said sitting at the table.

"Oh, hey, Chuck, nothing. We were just discussing an obscure theory of inverse logarithmic arcanum."

"Uh... ok," I responded blankly.

"It's fine, even my contemporaries don't understand my postulations. They keep saying until I can prove the theory that my words are meaningless."

"So, what happens if you prove this theory, what effect does it have on the world of magic?" I asked, taking a bite of a delicious fruit that tasted like a combination of an apple and a mango.

"It won't prove anything knew but it's more about recovering knowledge that was lost."

"Oh?"

The man looked at me with a serious expression, "are you familiar with dimensional storage items?"

I nodded, "Yes, I actually had one once," I said, forgetting that the items were super rare.

Harlo's eyes grew wide at this news. "And you sold it!" he screeched.

The mess hall went quiet as everyone turned to see who was yelling.

"Quiet down," I said, motioning for him to sit down and relax. "I didn't sell it, it was stolen from me by someone I was traveling with. He fled before anyone could catch him."

"Oh gods, I'm so sorry," Harlo replied, hands covering his mouth. "The loss must have devastated you."

"Um... not really. Before you lose your mind," I said, waving at the man to stop another outburst. "I had only just found the item and at the time had no idea of its value or rarity. Had I known, I would have taken greater care with hiding its existence."

The man seemed to visibly relax as he sat back down on the bench. "Good, good, oh right I was talking about my theory. Well since you know what a dimensional storage item is this should be a bit easier to explain. Although having one to study would have helped immensely... shame. Anyway, my theory postulates that in order to create an item like that, that you would have to somehow wrap an enchantment into itself. The problem is I can't figure out how. My colleagues think it foolish to even try as all items created today with any form of magic, like the dueling rings and shielded practice rooms can only be done using flat surfaces."

Chuck had actually wondered about that, there was very little in the way of magical weapons or armor. Most of what existed were relics of the previous age, where Grema and whoever they fought against had controlled this area. Some mages were still creating magical weapons and basic shields. The surface for the enchantment had to be flat, this made the items bulky and very utilitarian though.

Chuck had heard of some mages trying to shrink the enchantments more but the process was difficult. He figured it had more to do with the tools being used than the enchantments. This was a feudal era society after all.

"Hmm, sounds like it's not possible to render this on a curved surface. I wonder if a Mobius strip would be considered a curved surface, technically it's considered a two-dimensional shape," Chuck thought out loud.

Harlo stared at Chuck, "What's a Mobius strip?"

"Oh, hmm how to explain it. It's an infinite loop with only one side."

"That... that doesn't make any sense," Harlo retorted.

"Its probably easier if I just draw it for you."

Chuck pulled out his notebook and flipped to the back for an empty page. It took him a bit to draw the shape from memory, all the while Harlo looked on. When he finished he turned the book for Harlo to see.

"See, it loops around itself so it has only one side."

Harlo stared at the shape, dumbfounded by something so simple and yet so complex. While it didn't solve the problem of a storage item it was a step in the right direction.

"Of course, then there's the Klein bottle," Chuck said, pulling the notebook back and drawing an even more complex shape.

When he was complete Harlo knew, this had been what he had been searching for.

"Chuck, wha-... how?"

Chuck shrugged, "just something I learned about from my people, not that I could even guess at where they are on the planet. I did tell you I was found with amnesia in the wilds right?"

Harlo nodded, remembering the conversation. "This is the answer I had been looking for. With this design, I can create a storage device."

Chuck leaned forward, "wait... really?"

Had Chuck known how important something like this was perhaps he would have talked about it sooner. The problem was he didn't know what esoteric knowledge from Earth was useful here.

"Yes, it will be difficult but if you would allow me to take those designs it should be possible in the next few weeks. I will even give you the first item as a show of appreciation."

"Uh, sure. Just don't flood the market with cheap copies."

Harlo laughed, "don't worry about that. The materials alone are going to cost me fifteen gold. I have to get started on this right away. Don't worry if you don't see me for a few weeks. This little endeavor will take up most of my time."

Chuck nodded to the man as he hurried off with the pages safely tucked in his robe.

Chuck decided to check on his skills before he left for class.

Short Sword: 75/300TP to level 3

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Hide in plain sight: 20620/40000SP to level 5

Multitasking: 71560/200000SP to level 5

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Singularity: 71560/350000SP to level 1

The skills had progressed quite a bit over the two weeks. He looked at the description of the hide skill to see what changed.

Hide in plain sight: People will assume you are a trick of the light. 80% chance to remain undetected while standing or walking. 65% chance to remain undetected while running in the open. Lasts 5 minutes or until spotted.

Shoot, he forgot to ask Harlo about why some skills seemed to unlock others while most seemed not to have any advanced tiers. He would talk to the man again in a few more weeks, he could ask him then.