Chapter 06 : Purification and Stabilization

He took three entire days to Nikolaï to completely sealed the “leak” of his Ether, as he had decided to call them. He had focused most of his energy on it but also did some physical exercises to maintain his body.

Nikolaï was on his way to the open market with a small part of his savings. He was looking for an Attraction Stone. It was an object that attracted ambient elementium and really eased meditation for beginners. Even the basic ones were pretty expensive but Nikolaï hoped that the timing was going to help him procure one for a good price.

The exam period was over so, between the one who had to leave the Tower and the one who had needed cash to postpone the exam, the market was flowing with more resell talismans than usual. Some talismans were too precious to have their prices affected by their numbers but Attraction Stone were common tools in a Tower.

The funny thing was that Towers all have their own bubble economy. The prices inside had their own logic. In Dzürkül, where alchemy was widely practice, some compounds were really cheap compare to their price outside. The opposite was true too but the most shocking was how none-arcanic product could be affordable inside the Tower. Even some luxury items could be found at low prices.

Anyway, Nikolaï successfully found what he was looking for. A basic Attraction Stone. Advanced models were made to attract only one kind of elementium but this kind of things didn’t work well on Nikolaï.

In order to raise their power Aspirant had to absorb elementium in the ether inside their body. By doing so they would force-fill their Ether, pushing their vessel to expand gradually. There were different ways to do so but all types of Meditation were based on this concept.

The problem was that elementium and Ether had not the same property so if an Aspirant or even an Arcanist was going beyond what his vessel could “digest” he would suffer from Elementium poisoning. Depending on the elementium the effects were different but they all lead to illness and a crippling condition if abused.

To avoid that every Aspirant had his affinities tested after successfully awoke his Ether. Everyone affinity was unique but, most of the time, people had one or two affinities above the others. The repartition of it was always proportional, so no one could have a high affinity for multiple elementiums. This affinity was a good way to know what Arcane was fitting the Aspirants better but most importantly it was telling them at what elementium they were more sensitive.

An Aspirant with a high affinity with earth elementium would have a higher tolerance to it so he could absorbed more quantity of it before suffer from poisoning. That’s why Attraction Stones with a specific elementium could be more effective.

Problem was, Nikolaï was one of the case where he didn’t have a dominating affinity. His one with air elementium was just a bit above the rest but not enough to have a real impact. Nikolaï affinities were in that order : Air, Water, Earth, Fire and Metal. The last three were barely different from each other.

What would be perfect for Nikolaï was an even more advanced model with a Purification spell on it but it was way beyond what he could afford.

Nikolaï went back to the room that he was barely leaving these days. He got ready to meditate and placed the stone between his legs. He knew that regular meditation was going to ask too much time to rise back to his former self but during the last 3 days, when he was rebuilding his Ether, he had an idea.

Being able to see his Ether allowed him to understand better how to wield it and that was what going to help him realised his idea. He activated the stone and his Third Eye. The elementium was starting to regroup around him and he extended his Ether from his hands like a thread.

The elementiums were gathered in bubbles and Nikolaï touched them with his thread of Ether. He was doing that to test their nature. Nikolaï didn’t have affinities but during his time here, he learned how to identify the type of elementium he absorbed when it entered in contact with his Ether. It was harder to do it outside of his body, his vessel, but not impossible. Anyway, he was doing so in order to perform Purification.

Purification was an artificial method that created a neutral elementium. It was a temporary state that existed naturally but was a very discrete phenomenon, most of the time. It appeared through Stabilisation and the first time he had been observed by an Arcanist was during a volcanic explosion on an island.

The magma filled with a lot of fire elementium at met the see, filled with water elementium. The Arcanist had theorized the existence of a third energy when two opposite and equal energy collide. It’s only years after that two others Arcanists successfully reproduced the experiment in a laboratory and figured out that there was no third energy. The collision forced the two particles of elementium to neutralize themselves, losing some of their property temporary but creating two equal “neutral elementium”. This discovery led to the creation of new kinds of spells and Arcanes.

During his time at Dzürkül Nikolaï had studied the phenomenon in the hope to find a solution to his lack of affinity. The best he could do at that time was alternate with different Attraction Stone to counter the lingering effect of poisoning.

Today Nikolaï was trying something way more subtle. After testing few bubbles he found what he was looking for, fire elementium and water elementium. He focused on them and used his thread of Ether to pressure them together.

The two elementiums wasn’t meant to blend together but that’s not was Nikolaï was trying to do. He was putting pressure on them, refining the charge in them and when he was confident they were equal he used his thread to puncture the two pockets of energy.

The two pressured energy found a way to go and both discharged themselves in the Ether thread. While doing so they neutralize each other properties but their charges were remaining. Before this temporary state ended, Nikolaï absorbed the neutral elementium in his Ether.

A smile formed on his face, he had successfully stabilized two elementium and absorbed them.

“_ Let’s continue.” Said Nikolaï before focusing back on his task.

***

Several days later, Nikolaï was observing his progress and had still trouble believing it. He had raised his power to what it was a year ago, before he had formed his first Rune and became an Aspirant of the 1st Circle.

The Stabilisation allowed him to meditate for a long period because neutral elementium didn’t create poisonings effects. Of course Nikolaï meditation technique was not as flawless as if he was only absorbing neutral elementium but it’s still allowed him to progress in leaps and bounds.

During those past days, he became more and more familiar with the Stabilisation process but not just that. It was becoming more natural to him to use the active state of his Third Eye. It was indirectly because of that that he had made so much progress.

Before the Third Eye, Nikolaï had to rely on his sensations when trying to manipulate his Ether. Now even if his sensations didn’t progress he had another sense to check if what he was trying to do was working. By observing he understood better how to wield Ether and gained confidence in his current level of sensation.

Controlling their Ether was the basic for Aspirants but it was something that they usually has to learn blinded. Their sensation needed to be refined by years of practice. Nikolaï still had to do that but he could also saw his errors and successes more clearly than others.

Nikolaï looked around him, the ambient elementium was sparse in his room because he was consuming it at an impressive rhythm. He decided to limit his meditation session for after dusk starting now. It was the way to make the best of it and it allowed him to used the rest of his time for something else.

Now that his Ether was more stable he autorised himself to use spells again. He joined hands, forming a circle between his fingers and focused on casting. There were 3 steps when casting a spell. Visualisation, which consisted of pictured the proper Sigil in your mind. Projection, which was creating the Sigil with Ether, and finally Activation. Which used the Ether and elementium needed to create the spell.

Nikolaï executed the tree steps and cast Spectral Hand. A right hand resembling that of Nikolaï appeared out of thin air. It was ghostly white and on its back was printed, in a darker hue, the same Sigil used by Nikolaï. Controlled by him the hand started to fly around, grabbed a book on his desk and put it back in his chest. The movements had been rather smooth and Nikolaï was pretty pleased by the spell he had spent a long time mastering.

Once the spell had been activated the casting Sigil had disappeared but it was still required to maintain a link between the caster and the spell. Nikolaï left hand was still forming half of a circle and was perfectly still, close to his chest. It was with it that he maintained the Ether connection as he was using his right one to control the spectral hand. A more competent and powerful Arcanist wouldn’t need to use any hand to do it. He could have just maintaining the link and piloting the spell with his mind only but Nikolaï was not at that point, yet.

The passive state of the Third Eye allowed Nikolaï to see some kind of halo around the hand but not a lot much. It made him even more curious to reveal the spell. Spectral Hand being his most familiar spell he was confident that he could maintain it while activating his the power of his eyes if the conditions were right.

He activated his Third Eye before the spell went out of power and crumbled but it was his pride that crumbled when the state of his Spectral Hand was revealed to his sight. They were at least 10 leaks all over it and Nikolaï wondered how the spell could work with so much unstable ether inside it. He made the hand flew in front of him and put his right hand on the back of it. By directly touching the Sigil imprinted on it he could alter slightly the spell. He tried to stabilise the spell, correcting it by tweaking the Sigil but what was he tried to do put too much pressure on it and the hand collapsed.

Nikolaï did not accept defeat so easily. He decided to cast Spectral Hand again but this time while maintaining the active state of Third Eye. It took him two tries to succeed had done both simultaneously but he did it.

As he was casting he didn’t try to correct the errors but focused on identifying them. He used his “wacky” hand to grabbed a thin book from his chest and brought it to him. It was a spellbook that he knew almost by heart and which talked about Spectral Hand only. Spellbook often contained only one or two spells in them because of the amount of information inside them.

The instruction on how to cast it, the Sigil required and the amount of elementium was all contained in the first two pages of the book. The next pages described the most basic errors to avoid and how to fix them. The more you progressed in the book the more specific the errors were described and the more complex the fixing could be.

When Nikolaï had consulted a spellbook for the first time, years ago, he had realised how difficult it was to learn one. It was not something you learned in a few days but months. Nikolaï knew only 2 real spells and it was not that low for people on his level. That’s why learning a spell could not be random. It was so time consuming that it requires some kind of planning, a strategy.

Nikolaï had a wide interest in the Impalpable Arcane so in order to familiarise in it he had learned theory but also one of its level 0 spell : Spectral Hand. It was not as impressive as a fireball but its usefulness was more broad.

By looking throw his book Nikolaï found some of the mistakes he had made and tried to figure out how to fix them. He cast the spell 3 more times while, each time correcting his execution, but he only identified half of the issues and was still not convinced by the result. He decided to try one last time for today, his ether was running low, except that this time he put his book away. He took a leap of faith in his eyes and decided to ignore the extra instructions. He formed the Sigil and slowed the Projection to watch it carefully. He fixed what he could see as it went and finally cast the all spell.

The result was unparalleled. The hand wasn’t pale anymore but almost transparent. Nikolaï tried to make it flew and its control was instantaneous. He tested different things and when the spell eventually ended Nikolaï conclude that the stability of the spell had increased his control on it but also its strength.

Nikolaï stayed silent for a moment, thinking. To have the same level of input about his spell he should have spent hours and hours of practice in a bath elementium witch would have cost him a fortune. In one afternoon Nikolaï had made more progress than in 6 months of trial and error.

This fact made his head spin and filled with hope and dream. His life goal was to go beyond Aspirant of the 3rd Circle, to become an Arcanist by reaching the 4th Circle and for the first time in years he thought it was possible. Maybe even further !

“_ Master Arcanist Orwood.” Whispered Nikolaï before bursting in a laugh.

Maybe he shouldn’t dream too big when he wasn’t even an true Aspirant. Right now he was more like an aspiring Aspirant.

In any case, Nikolaï was feeling hopeful and it felt great. Being out of energy and pretty famished Nikolaï got up and left his room. He was walking in direction of the dining hall and didn’t bring his crotches, he didn’t need them anymore.

On his way he passed next to two bulletin boards and stopped. The first one was for the lecture that people could register for. Aspirants were free to choose which one they want to attend, depending on their current level and as long as they pay their price. The payment was not in money or at least not directly. Students were given education credit every month under the form of small tokens. It was the currency used to sign up for lectures.

For a complete beginner the amount given monthly could be enough to follow what he need to start studying Arcane. Basic theory, introduction to meditation, Ether awakening … many beginner lectures were very affordable and technically covered by the monthly credits. In reality, lectures were not the same at direct tutoring and every Aspirant had to take support classes to get real result.

Those support class were done by professors or sometimes higher Aspirants and they cost more token and even direct money. In fact, the trade of token was so known that it couldn’t be considered a black market, more like a grey one.

Anyway Nikolaï didn’t pay attention to the first board. He was not going to take a class before a while and was saving his few tokens for a maybe more advanced lecture in the future. However, he looked at the second bulletin board with more details.

It was displaying the Tower missions and Nikolaï searched for one with decent pay and limited risks. Almost all of them were about collecting resources in the gardens and they didn’t just offer money but also tokens.

In a way there was a certain beauty in the way things were organized. The Tower relied on the fact that people were gathering resources to supply its demands and in exchange, it gives them the extra credit they needed to advance in their study. Aspirants were playing an active role in the Tower operating and benefited from it.

On paper, it seems good but in reality that meant that untrained and unprepared people were forced to perform tasks in dangerous areas. Accidents were common and deaths not that rare.

Nikolaï tried to not think about that. He was nobody and there was nothing he could do about the way things were done. Right now he was worried about his finance and found a doable mission for a bit of money that would help him.

After going to the register office and took a mission he went to the open market before dinner. He was looking for equipment. There was not just apothecary in the market but also all kind of merchants.

At the second store, Nikolaï found what he was looking for : a short sword. He had never been a really good sword fighter but the way he had been educate allow him to judge widely the quality of the sword. Even with its tilt broken the short sword was well made and properly balanced.

He took out the 1 silver pound asked for the sword without arguing. Outside the Tower, it would have cost ten times that. It was the way in Towers, the prices were affected by the population inside and the access to other kinds of goods filled with Arcanic power.

As he was ready to leave, Nikolaï sight fell on something cover by dust behind the merchant.

“_ Is that a Forgerune press ?” Asked Nikolaï.

“_ Hum? Yes, it is. I have also old runic coins if you want.”

Nikolaï didn’t respond with words but moved a step closer to the counter between the two of them. The merchant took a small box from under it and opened it. It contained cylindrical pieces of metal and Nikolaï could see all kind of elementium inside them. Runic coins, as they were called, were made a certain way in order to house elementium more easily. The quality depends on the alloys and the making process.

Nikolaï took one and rub it on his finger, pretending to test it even if his Third Eye had already told him everything he needed to know.

“_ How much ?” Asked Nikolaï.

“_ For the press and the coins ? One gold each.”

“_ You are not serious. The coins are tainted, I will have to treat them before being able to use them and I will be lucky if I salvage half of them from it. Although the press seemed to have seen better days.”

“_ It’s just dust, it works as good as the day I receive it.”

The merchant took the press for its shelves and put it next to the coin. Nikolaï started to inspect it and noted that it was in a rather good state. The press was made of a clamp with circular extremities where you could slide different kind of stamps. The press came with a small box of basic stamp and unengraved ones.

“_ How about 1 gold and 2 silver ?” Offered Nikolaï.

“_ 1 and 6”.

“_ Come on. It’s the occasion for you to get rid of them. Since how many months you had it ? 1 gold and 4 silver.”

The merchant was thinking. He was not making a lot of benefices but it was better than losing money by throwing away when he would have to clean his stock. He was not happy about it but he accepted Nikolaï offer.

Nikolaï left the shop with a lot less money that he should have spent but with a bright smile. Since he had his Third Eye he always look for practical application and his last discovery had gave him a new idea. One very useful to make money.