Alex sighed. Nearly a month had passed in the academy and it was as easy as she'd thought it would be. This system of magic was overly contrived in her opinion, just an extrapolation on what she'd already learned. Amistad mages with their grand theories and eccentricities paired well enough with the more blunt and pragmatic approach taken by the colleges though. If one was able to cut through all of the bullshit.

Easy made it boring. Still, she did her best to make a dominant showing among her fellow students, becoming quite popular in the evocation class. Many of them were fools and sycophants, hoping to cling to the coattails of the talented to secure their future. Some of the talented did just that, finding more average students and indebting them, brokering deals and discussing employment contracts. Haran wasn't beloved in a place like this due to their vicious restrictions on magic, but many of them seemed to think it was 'cool'.

The way a child might ask a soldier or arbiter if they'd ever 'killed anyone before'. Ultimately, that's what college mages were. They had professors and artisans and academics of their own, but the vast majority of them were trained to enforce law. It wasn't a nightmare of a life. At times, most mages in Haran lived as comfortably as nobles, but they had little freedom in the event that they hailed from a more common household. Some people liked the regimented life, regular meals, access to amenities. To have a purpose, sometimes a little restriction was worth the peace of mind.

Alex, with her father being a count, was free of near all restriction. The mark covering her left hand was mostly a formality. Though it was known that the templars would hunt her without mercy if she got out of hand, no matter who she was.

Where's Tyr? He hadn't attended class for weeks, mysteriously absent. Granted, she had been avoiding him after learning of the black book. Astal had said Jartor didn't care, indicating that he had given it to Tyr himself, but she was still concerned. All she could do is shrug, hoping that he hadn't given up or dropped out. Another disappointment to add onto all the others, she almost pitied him for the briefest moment before remembering how irritating he was.

“See class, if you've read my book – you'll know I'm not your average evoker. In fact, perhaps a bit controversial of me, the separation of schools is – in my opinion – a waste of both time and potentially overlooked talent.” Their professor and the head of the battlemage workshop, Kael Emberwind, was an arrogant man. Perhaps he had earned it. He was, after all, one of the youngest archmages to emerge out of the rabble in Amistad. “It's an understanding of how you access the energy source known as mana. Evokers pull it from within and without through the a magic circle. It gives them a faster casting speed than many other trees, but they tend to rely on spells of a more singular element or purpose. Conjurers however...”

Conjurers pulled it from elsewhere, using only what mana was necessary within themselves to set the funnel and collect the energy. From 'the gods', or the elemental spheres. Sometimes, they'd use gems capable of holding mana to supplement their reserved, but anyone could do that. In truth, a real and experienced battlemage should know how to do both. A 'wizard', one who had an intermediate skill in at least three schools, for example, using artifacts to supplement their access. In terms of the Harani colleges, a mage was mage – there was little need to put the hundreds of titles present in Amistad on each and every goon in a robe.

Enchanters almost universally pulled mana from external sources around them as well. Typically, that being other people who consent to the influence. Allowing them to generate fairly massive waves of mana without popping like balloons. Weaving their spells with others and using it efficiently. Ten minutes of great speed for twenty minutes of exhaustion, for example. Enchantment and transmutation both had side effects to justify their benefit. Otherwise, a single spell might deplete even the more impressive mages.

At the end of the day, Alex did learn something new. That the schools were really and truly just a guide and primer toward finding those methods of mana manipulation that suited students best. The system was far from perfect, but it was superior in some ways to the colleges. Some academics considered abolishing the system of the schools entirely and redesigning it from the ground up, though. Every generation, somebody would come along and spend their life trying to reinvent the wheel. There wasn't much to 'achieve' anymore, and everyone wanted their piece of the pie even if they had to lie their way toward it.

Once one had come to a sufficient point in their education, those of talent would step beyond the system and begin to approach things their own way. Tweaking things here and there as they became more able to fine tune their grasp on mana. Creating personal spells and techniques that weren't freely shared. Ancient families had their own such process, Alex's included. Rare phenomena of magic that were not found in tomes available to the public. Lightning magic had, before string theory, been one of these things. Considered a gift one was born to, before science had proved that a combination of air and earth, or air and fire, could create the same phenomena.

Alex had been told once, by Gideon himself, her father, that he'd been betrothed to her mother specifically to create strong mages. And they had, competent children, it was too bad the personality of her brothers left so much to be desired. Birth and education went hand in hand, and everyone knew it. Not all people were born equal, but through their understanding of how their unique bodies worked, people could reach beyond what their heritage might tell them. Or... Something like that. Reach for the stars! She thought it was ridiculous.

She jotted down a few notes before collecting her thing and leaving at the sound of the bell. Some tried to follow, with a few young lords showing some curiosity toward her marital status before being firmly rebuffed. She had never planned to marry, it didn't matter who or how impressive their daddies were. Except for Tyr. Jartor was about as impressive as it gets, though she was shocked to learn that her father had practically begged him to betroth Alex and the prince so long ago. It wasn't so bad. Tyr let her do what she wanted and that was important. He'd changed too much, though. Now they were nothing to one another.

If anything, at least the food is good. Alex been excited beyond measure to attend the academy, even if she'd refused to show it. Only to find that it was stuffy and boring. Practical demonstrations were far too rare. It's only been about a month. Maybe it'll get better.

She sat in the cafeteria, a work of art in terms of magical artifice. It always amazed her how common dimensional gates were in this nation. In Haran, they were rare, every city was equipped with a series of interconnected wards that made warping inside impossible. Some areas were equipped with broad spectrum monitors, and anyone attempting to use any form of spatial magic better have a good explanation, or they'd find themselves very dead.

They didn't even teach it in the colleges, possessing only a handful of gates throughout the entire nation – and Varia was the same in this regard. With no apparent explanation as to why, considering the incredible convenience. Days or weeks of travel could be avoided if those old fogies pulled their heads out of their dark places.

“This potato soup is... Very potato...y...?” Astrid tried her best, but there was no fixing the awkwardness. They were stuck together, defacto. Alex liked them enough, it wasn't that she hated them by any means and might even regard them as friends, but... They didn't have the chemistry one might expect of 'sisters'. It was odd. Once they'd begun to avoid Tyr and he'd similarly separated himself from their company, always skulking about with prince Iscari, it had gotten even worse.

In a way, it was like they'd lost a 'common enemy' and no longer had the perspective necessary to maintain that as their main topic of discussion. It was almost sad, thinking that Tyr had been the glue that stuck them all together. If only their apparent dislike of him. As of late, their meals had been near silent, or Alex focusing on her food while Sigi and Astrid talked about this or that among themselves.

“Alex.”

“Hmm?” She looked up, straight into Sigi's blue-green-gray eyes. Like seafoam, she had nice eyes. And despite her attempts to appear a man by her manner of dress, she was a beautiful woman with curves that would make near anyone jealous.

“You know, you do not have to sit with us. We've discussed it. I understand that you're doing your duty as our sister, but you don't have to force it.” Astrid and Sigi were roommates, whereas Alex had been placed with one – before the girl had broken down one night for no reason at all. She'd left, and Alex lived alone, something that suited her just fine. “You are very popular here, why don't you go make other friends?”

“Why don't you?” Alex scoffed. Although, she understood perfectly why.

“Everyone seems to hate us because we are Oresundian.” Astrid looked downcast, incapable of making friends even after a month at the academy. It was like this back in Haran, too, but rather because she was part of the royal family than anything else, so people tended to avoid them. That was Tyr's fault, due to his violent tendencies, but here – she couldn't blame it on him anymore. The only people who didn't look at them with disgust had a far leerier look in their eyes. “The boys stopped making rude comments lately, but they still stare, and the girls are even worse.”

“I don't mind it.” Sigi shrugged. “Even the men here are frail and tiny, it's incredible. I'd always considered southerners weak, but this is something else.” Eighteen years old, still growing, and Sigi stood taller than most every student. Only a handful of the human professors were taller than her. Mages weren't typically keen on the idea of physical exertion in a place like this, rendering most of them skinnier than their peers. What with the heavy and prolonged use of mana utilizing the metabolism just as much as physical exercise without the gains, it wasn't surprising. Most everyone was scrawny.

The only exceptions were battlemages and other students training toward more physical vocation. Knights and smiths, usually.

An average Harani male would stand between five foot six to five foot eight. Six foot was tall, and beyond that made you a giant. Here in Amistad, they were shorter by nearly two inches. Eighteen year old boys and men that stood only five and a half feet tall, forcing them to crane their neck up at all the women, not just Sigi.

“It's not their fault that they were born short.” Alex looked about, observing just what Sigi had been referring to. They obviously had different preferences. She'd always looked for bright eyes, a white smile, and a healthy body – but not a muscular one. Height was irrelevant, and it was well known that taller men tended to experience infirmities later in life due to the strain on their body, requiring all manner of magical and herbal treatments on their backs and joints. Gideon was tall by standard, but Alex stood above him. Her mother was taller, she didn't understand the preference for long legged men. Tyr had been much shorter than her in their youth, and she'd liked him considerably more back then.

Astrid chuckled. Alex was the shortest among them, standing five foot eight flat footed. With the wedge heeled boots common among the colleges, designed for all environments, it raised that height by another two inches. She had a point, that Sigi. They stuck out like a sore thumb, but at least Alex was a real and registered mage with experience, giving her an air of experience and seniority.

“Hey Alex.” A lanky boy of a similar height to the woman he was addressing walked by, beaming with a set of perfect teeth. Not sore on the eyes, either, with long sandy blond hair and a chiseled face that looked slightly off considering his wiry body. She blushed and waved at him awkwardly, acting in a way that Astrid and Sigi had never seen from her. Always she was so cool, confident, and composed. When she wasn't, she was downright rude. Especially toward the men, until now.

“Alex...” Astrid, the stickler for proper etiquette reproached her. They were all women, come of age – they knew what a look like that meant, and it wasn't proper.

“It's fine.” Alex frowned, composing herself before clearing her throat. “He's just a friend. Garth is a third year student in the enhancement workshop that TA's for us from time to time. He's very kind, and patient.” And handsome. And talented. One of the preeminent scholars on the newly revisited psychic school of study.

“That's all well and good.” Sigi leveled a fork at her. “But we have a duty, whether you like it or not. I don't get you, he's not that bad. If you want to go do... Those things...” She was blushing now, as confident as she was in the martial, Sigi had never touched nor been touched by a man before unless that man was punching her in the face or vice versa. Naturally, she jumped to an absurd conclusion. “You should get your marriage ann—”

“Don't, Sigi.” Alex hissed. “You think I haven't thought of that? My father would disown me before the words even left my mouth. Go ask Tyr, or hells – Ragnar and Jartor what they think about an annulment.” She said this, but she was tired of it. Every time someone mentioned that she was a wife like she owed that man anything it made her irrationally angry. Even in the colleges, it was hard to find anyone who treated her as an equal, or spoke truthfully to her. She'd come to accept it, for a time, before he'd gotten yet further on her nerves, and now a black book... He was putting them all at risk, for what? His greed and his ego? She felt trapped and on edge. At least here only a select few people knew who she was. Goldmane was Goldmane, a well known name, but calling herself 'Alex' rather than her given name 'Alexis' seemed to convince people she was a different person. And it was... Nice.

“It's boring without him around.” Astrid said after the two had calmed down. She stared wistfully at what remained of her sauced noodles, wishing they had something better to do. Academia suited her, but it was even more boring here than it was in the palace with all of the lectures and tedium. On her part, maybe it was good that had happened. It'd give her something to talk about, but Alex didn't seem interested in that. Garth? Tyr was a beautiful man, more handsome than anyone she'd ever seen before, and he wasn't... That bad. Right?

“Yep.” Sigi agreed with a sigh, pulling steel iron gray hair back into a tail. “Not a single person has agreed to fight me without magic since we've come here. It's ridiculous, forcing me to spar against training dummies. I do like learning new things, though. My advisor had me enter late into a magical engineering workshop and I am really enjoying it.”

“Not boring. More like peaceful, but maybe you're right. I do wonder what he's doing?”

–

“Shit!” Tyr cursed. Abaddon had the flattest look he had ever seen plastered on his face, and Valkan had both of his hands over his face in exasperation. “Two weeks, and it's amounted to...” Tyr waved his hands emphatically at the circular burn mark left on the scorched workbench. “To this!? I don't have all the time in the world to keep doing at it, nor the patience!”

He had taken better to this style of forging than the other, that was true enough. Unfortunately, it hadn't met with success. More failure, smashing fingers or having holes shot through him by hot metal shooting from the shattered remains of artifacts. Had he not the ability to heal from all wounds, Tyr would've experienced a lot more than just pain.

“Calm yourself.” Abaddon huffed at the accusatory glance shot at him by Tyr as if to say that it was his fault. Truthfully, the boy had made tremendous progress. He'd refined his mana output to an acceptable level and was approaching perfect balance at a terrifying rate. Talented? Perhaps not, he was no prodigy, but the work ethic was worth noting. An obsessive hunger to overcome any perceived lack of talent was present in everything he did. In two weeks, with no prior experience, the prince had reached a post-apprentice level of skill in runesmithing.

Tyr was dull, but he was becoming sharper by the day. Considering he was a primus, maybe this was normal, but for a human Tyr had a near eidetic memory. Everything he learned was absorbed, processed, and acted on with precision. Dual problems presented themselves, though. First, there was the rough calligraphy. Second, while he was close to balancing his mana with his world energy, it required far finer control. That handicap, again.

If one did not understand the underlying concepts of a thing, something they'd never find in books, it might be impossible without years of meditation. Another reason why humans had adapted to a much more process centric form of magic. Tyr's emotions were out of sorts, and Abaddon had never wanted to be a teacher let alone a psychiatrist.

“Explain to me what you're doing wrong. We'll start there.”

“It's the metal, it's too... Imperfect.” Tyr's reply was succinct. Cascading failures in the solidifying metal would send the product, attempting to unleash the mana. This form of enchantment, whatever it was, was predicated on the internal. Runes on the surface only acted as supports outlining the internal structure of the energy imbued within the ring. One bubble, one minute warp in a single rune and it would all explode.

“Valkan?” Abaddon turned to his colleague. It was still early, and he had been confident of the possible solution for days now, only waiting for the child to come to the same conclusion himself. “What do you think?”

Valkan shrugged. He was of a similar opinion. Human magic could be taught through theory and an outline of the various steps. This magic, however... He wasn't sure, but he knew that Tyr was close to understanding it. He just didn't quite 'get' that his emotions had a part to play as well.

“You're right that the metal is imperfect. The silver is not pure enough. Your forging is just fine, but any impurity in the metal can cause a catastrophic failure once met by the collected energy. If you were playing with mithril or orichalcum, you'd have succeeded perhaps three times out of five times. With that being said, what's the solution?”

“To go get some mithril or orichalcum.” Tyr had seen it, he just didn't know how to articulate it. Poor quality silver would always be poor quality silver, it'd take an alchemist to purify it beyond what their forges were capable of – and he didn't know any metallurgy experts off the top of his head... “Or... Use an alchemist to refine the silver?”

“It's not a bad idea.” Abaddon nodded. “You're on the right track, but considering what you know of the properties of silver – why might this not work?”

Tyr pondered, the gears in his mind spinning. “It's too soft?” There was a kinetic component to this enchanting and it would cause the pure mana flowing through an artifact to push outwards. Eventually imploding as soon as an impurity split any one of the hundreds of mana channels pulsing through the material.

“Let's say that is the answer for the time being. How do you fix this?”

“Buy some mithril...” This was the easiest solution. The problem was that it wasn't so easy to come by without certain connections. All known mithril veins were monopolized. Even had Haran possessed a vein, they'd have a great deal of difficulty mining it. Before it was refined, it was chemically active and capable of turning a mine shaft into a subterranean grave. It wasn't as simple as finding some and taking a pickaxe to it.

“You could use mithril, if you were made of money. But a kilo of mithril, if you could even find it at the price, would be at least a thousand thousand credits. Do you have that kind of money? I don't. Orichalcum comes at a similar price but it wouldn't serve as a proper material for this kind of artifact.”

Tyr shook his head. Four thousand gold wasn't quite that much after all. Not in the land of the cheap, home of the capitalist miser. There was a reason why even wealthy nobles might only have one mithril heirloom in their entire household. And a crafted weapon of the material would cost many times the base value of the ingot used to forge it. “I could alloy it...?”

“Yes, you could.” Abaddon considered his own pile of recently forged artifacts and frowned. All garbage, at least from his perspective. Or rather, they were just normal. Master-crafts in terms of human artifice, but he'd lost his artistry after all these years. So many spent asleep, and he felt like he might return to his slumber any day now. “With what, though?”

“Gold?”

“Alloyed electrum is certainly a more versatile – but it won't work.”

No, he's right, it's still too soft. I can't use anything that'll alloy into something too brittle either, or it'll lack the flexibility necessary for my enchantment to take root.

“Astral silver?”

“Unless you want to try your hand at traveling to Aelas, it's not feasible.”

“Sterling?”

“Won't hold the energy properly without an induction catalyst. Copper conducts, but it does a poor job of storing.”

This continued for a long while before Tyr surrendered. He knew all about the metals he'd been working with, but that didn't matter. There hadn't been much time to brush up on his metallurgy while being forced to learn forging, blacksmithing, and a new enchanting language from scratch.

“Manatite alloy.” Valkan threw him a bone. “What is it?”

“A manatite alloy is the combination of any nonreactive metal and purified mana crystals via induction smelting.” Tyr repeated word for word what he had heard when asking what the purplish metal Valkan had been forging a lightning rod of.

Valkan chuckled, rubbing his massive hands together energetically. “You have some memory. And what would you alloy it with?”

“Not just silver... I'm assuming silver doesn't have the capacity to achieve resonance with the mana crystals necessary to expedite the enchantment?” It was a guess, but a correct one, earning an appraising nod from Abaddon. “Then in that case, what if I alloyed silver and titanium? I don't know at what percentage to do it though, I still have too much to learn.”

Every time he turned toward one goal, nine more seemed to crop up in his face.

“Let's go with that. Eighty silver, fifteen titanium, five percent mana crystal to start. It's a bit brittle, but if you can keep the form stable while it's hot and soft...” It was worth a shot. An alloy that did not, exist, not as far as Abaddon knew. He'd been aiming for quicksilver, an alloy of silver and only a small amount of mithril – one of the more common alloys for the construction of more advanced, compact artifacts.

In Tyr's ignorance, he might be looking in the right direction. Looking in a direction that Abaddon had forgotten, creativity borne of the unfamiliar. Guesswork, perhaps, but it did work.

“Titanium?” Valkan snorted. “You know as well as we do that titanium doesn't hold mana, it conducts it even worse than steel.” Titanium was hard and light, but it had anti-magic properties as many other metals did. Not enough to be useful in that regard, but enough to make it a disagreeable material for enchanting.

“True.” Tyr raised a finger. “But if I use a metal that is low in carbon, it won't cause any problems with the silver. And if I catalyze it with rubinite flux, I'll be able to purify it further during the induction after the manatite is added.”

Valkan frowned. He didn't like the sudden change in the boys tone, but he was right. It was such a stupid idea that it was almost brilliant. A high grade titanium alloy would possess all of the properties he needed, while allowing the reactive manatite within the mixture of otherwise nonreactive materials to...

Would they cause new bonds? Or a malleable crystalline structure? Valkan, for the first time in a long time, was lost. He just didn't know.

The problem was sourcing the materials. Rubinite was common enough, and could be found both in the workshop and in any self respecting alchemy shop. It wasn't typically used in forging, but it could be. Using such a highly reactive chemical catalyst mostly used for explosive was an interesting idea.

It felt like years had passed in this place, and finally, Tyr could see the light at the end of the tunnel. He was ecstatic, turning his frown upside down and beaming up at Abaddon.

As for the latter, he held his chin as he often did when in deep thought. “Valkan, do we have any blue mana crystals?”

“I do not.” Valkan shook his head. “Good point.”

Mana crystals weren't graded by the color, but rather the potency of the mana they held. Every possible color of the light spectrum was possible in mana crystals, except for black – though that was the absence of light so it made sense. Typically related to their color appropriate element, what with blue being found near ice and water, growing organically. There were mana crystals bereft of an element that could be infused through an osmosis-esque process, but that took time.

To react with rubinite, they'd need blue crystals – the purer the better. The problem was that the water attuned crystals found in a landlocked place like Amistad would be too dull to get the right reaction. Raw mana crystals would shatter when a foreign spell was placed on them. They couldn't be stored in a dimensional artifact, and running them through a gate was hit or miss.

Until they were cut and refined, one was required to transport them overland. Perhaps Abaddon could find them in a nearby market, or go hunting for them elsewhere – but this was a lesson, and Tyr was not capable of dimensional magic. It would not help the boy if everything came so easy.

One could purify, refine, or even recharge them through a variety of means – but it could take weeks, or months. They explained this, but Tyr didn't want to wait that long. Before he knew it, he was thrown out of the forge hall and told not to return until he'd sourced them himself.

Yet more time he'd spend out of class, his first 'work study'. One supposed to be overseen by ones academic advisor... Abaddon, his own, refused to come – stating that it'd be a 'good educational opportunity'. Tyr wasn't so sure of that.

One question solved, and four problems remained. Namely, the four people he'd have to bring on this 'expedition' to get the permission necessary to enter a nearby dungeon.

“Wait, why can't you just warp me in there?” Eerily, the forge hall was already empty, both professors making their way elsewhere.