Excitedly, and rightfully so, Joey walked over to the table and realised that below the ring was a yellowed note. It was a miracle such a thing remained intact, but all the writing remained legible, perhaps a description on the two rewards for completing the tier. It read,

‘The tower has been ordered to provide rewards depending on the time spent and materials used to complete each test. For the first test, there are four total rewards depending on how well you do. Completing it alone will grant the potion of focus, while finishing it in less than 12 hours of effort will reward a ring of instant strength. Using less than 100 stone bricks of the supplied amount will grant a minor dimensional flask, while achieving the prior result as well as using less than 6 hours grants the stone of mindfulness.

The additional rewards will have to be understood on your own, but the potion will be explained. As writing such runes is a mentally demanding task, it is hard to absolutely focus on a specific thing and remain calm to an extreme degree. This potion makes up for that flaw, and an alchemist would class it as a Level 1 potion. Only a Level 2, and then 3, potion can further enhance your mind. Other methods do exist though, so always be careful to seek them out.’

It was just a single page of writing, but it made him realise that talent was clearly a major consideration here.

“Just 100 bricks though? I used more than that on the first day alone… And it’s been 10 hours?” Joey’s head shook back and forth, he knew that there was absolutely no chance of him obtaining those final items. Especially the ‘dimensional flask’, as just on name alone it seemed to make up for a flaw of the cube, in that liquids could not be stored directly.

It made things clear that when he set out to start a test, he ought to thoroughly prepare. Minimal time and wastage meant so many great things. Who knew what that stone of mindfulness did, but it certainly had to be good. The tower owner ranked it above that dimensional flask!

Placing the ring onto his ring finger, he found it too large at first, easily slipped on and threatening to slide off with ease, but as soon as it neared the finger’s base it suddenly tightened slightly. The ring could still be pulled off, but shaking made it stick in place, removing any fears of it being lost. An extremely convenient feature, and he realised that it came from some additional runes drawn into the copper itself. It seemed that gemstone magic did not just focus on the stones.

As for the flaming citrine stone, it was quite a surprise that it didn’t provide a fire effect as the appearance suggested. In fact, he remembered that citrine with copper or bronze holders is a common set-up for fire attributed accessories, as the book put it.

Activating the ring could come another time though, as for now he focused on the potion once more. Another few lines below the main text clearly mattered, and his eyes narrowed along with a frown appearing whilst he read.

‘The potion of focus that I received from a friend is designed to last 100 years before expiring, but I cannot say when you will enter the tower. As such, he informed me of a simple test. Remove the cork stopper and sniff the potion, if the scent of mildew and freshly ground berries with cinnamon remains, then it is fine to drink. But if you smell that of lemons and sea salt, burn the thing immediately in the fireplace. It will destroy the smoke for you, and stop any further incidents from occurring.’

A nice and simple test. He removed the cork with ease and gave a sniff. He didn’t know how mildew smelt, but the berries and cinnamon were almost overpowering. With such a confirmation, he downed the thing in one go, waiting for the slight event to occur as it did with the weakened strength potion produced by Shalner. And thinking about it some more, he knew that some of the plants here had to be ones she looked for.

He really earned a lot from this first trip, those additional enhancements would matter so much as the magical level of his home rose.

Not long after taking the new potion, he expected some sort of similar pain and it indeed came. At first a dull throbbing throughout his head, it was as though he’d been dehydrated and something squeezed the entire top of his brain. But this passed after just a minute, and replaced itself with a sharp pain from behind his eye, an even worse headache in his opinion as the overall ache could be ignored. This just left him wincing nonstop for minutes.

However, with every moment it was clear that things changed in his surroundings.

The previously dark surroundings actually seemed a bit brighter, but he realised in further analysis that it was his sight growing more sensitive to light. Unfortunately, magical vision through darkness was still too far away.

As the pain finally ended, perhaps 5 minutes after, not only could he vaguely make out the shape of things on the opposite side of the room with his charm’s light alone, but the degree of focus multiplied. Somehow, just that single potion transformed his ability to focus from a subconscious action to a very active one he could turn on and off at will. By staring at an object, it felt as though something within him despised turning away, and in turn removed any distractions.

Even his thoughts did their best to only care for the thing he stared at. It took 5 minutes of intense gazing and thought about the potion’s effects before he realised what was happening and broke the focus it brought on.

“Amazing, it felt so natural. Wonder if any drugs could reproduce this?” He doubted it immensely, this sort of effect was far more extreme than that of anything he knew or heard of, almost like his thoughts themselves were being overwritten on instinct. Without real control it was easy to fall into a lengthy cycle of thinking and staring, something which did not benefit him in the slightest right now.

Returning downstairs once more, it was likely that his attempts would only be counted from the moment he began producing more stone pieces. After all, he made the 12 hours mark for the first test even though it’d been a few days since he found the tower, not to mention sleeping partway through.

The tower somehow knew when he worked on producing a result, but he could only guess if this function was intelligent enough to tell apart training and actual attempts.

Though, likely not was the answer.

For now, he just wanted to learn the runes required for the test and practise inscribing them on those junk results he produced. While their tips were misaligned, as these six runes went on the prism’s faces, he could still make use of them. For this, he used one of the other major tools on the table.

Unlike the extremely sharp blade which cut through stone, this one was a small, bevelled head like a miniature chisel, also with a sharp blade. He could engrave using this thing, but it would still be tough as it easily jabbed too deep into a material.

Well, he didn’t really have a choice in regard to practising. Even if the tower counted it towards his test attempt, he couldn’t suddenly become some prodigal gem smith.

Losing rewards was always painful, but he believed that ways to acquire similar things still existed!

With the charm’s weak light, he read through the same book which described the stone’s shape and cutting, then flicked a few pages later to find the six runes he needed to engrave onto it. Fortunately, this book also referenced the important one which contained the entire runic alphabet for gemstone magic, he planned on memorising every single letter in the future.

But for now just six already demanded quite a bit of work… Not to mention artistic skill.

Drawing things is hard, he never dismissed that.

But most of that trouble comes from the utter basics, drawing properly and understanding perspective could be considered two of the biggest things. And well, his body meant that the ‘drawing’ part was easy. Technique and perspective though, well, his horribly lopsided runes spoke for themselves.

The runes for this sort of magic utilised straight strokes, normally overlayed and connected at specific vertexes. A glimpse at the alphabet showed only two letters with curves in them.

Depth also played a part at higher levels of this magic, but for now he just needed to draw the runes.

If some lines are way too long, and others too short, then you can’t exactly draw anything, this is mostly common sense. Imagine writing with the Latin alphabet, but you made the wrote the letter ‘e’ such that it looked more like a ‘p’, or even worse, something completely ineligible?

That summarised the issue at a basic level, he could make the straight strokes with no problem, but mentally justifying how far each line went, and then executing it, required time and effort.

Or talent, for which he lacked when it came to art.

Still, how hard is it to teach a child to write letters by repetition? Honestly, not that hard, they probably spent more time adjusting to holding and using a pen.

In less than an hour, Joey was able to create a rune on one of a misshapen prism’s face which matched the book. More or less…

And so, he repeated the process for the second rune

Then the third and fourth, getting a proper grasp on how to use the tool and make clean strokes through the stone surface. His own focus helped immensely as even after 20 minutes of dedicated attention he felt active and ready for another session.

He couldn’t map out how the rune would look at first sight, or imagine it lying on the stone, perhaps that’s something real artists could do. But Joey absolutely felt confident in using these abilities and tools. So much so, that learning the two final runes was more a test on his memory than an actual display of skill.

He didn’t even need to think about it too much in a hyper focused state, it reached the point where exiting this focus simply couldn’t be done. Not that he realised as stone block after stone block was worn down by the abrasive wheel once more…

It took a few tries to remember the process and feel, but in just five tries he created another hexagonal diamond with off-centre, but parallel, points.

Five tries later, he already had exactly what he needed.

The properly carved stone required of this second test.

He could feel every minute movement of the arm, how the stone wore down and the edges of each facet lined up. He tried to imagine it all in his head as the stone changed shape, but this often failed as his expectations did not match reality…

Yet it eventually happened. If you cannot succeed through sheer talent, then repetition and hard work can replace that.

Ge didn’t even have the energy to celebrate, just picking up the tool with a tiny, bevelled head and practicing all six runes on a junk stone. The final rune was satisfactory, but as he flipped through the pages for the other five, he felt the engravings inadequate. Without a care for the currently two hour-long session of focus, he went back to practising the five runes.

How long had it been?

It felt like a quick burst of maybe 30 minutes?

All he did was carve 10 stones or so, and practice carving the runes…

How long could that possible take?

Maybe leaving the circlet on would be the best from now on, but he took it off along with the necklace since they distracted him far too much. Oh right! He was engraving! How was progress on that too? He should’ve been rather close. As soon as he perfected all six, a quick finishing process engraved them onto that perfect stone he carved.

And then…

Joey sat at the table smiling to himself, but that joy broke as he came to his senses. In his hand rested the carved stone with pointed tips above its centre, and on the front was one complete rune. He realised that the enjoyment of finally finishing this second test drew him from things too quickly. With five runes left to draw, he needed to quickly jump back into finishing the rest and moving on upwards.

Wasn’t he completing these tests way too fast as well?

Did everyone start a hobby and find themselves competent at it in less than 20 hours of work? He thought it took hundreds of hours to reach even a bare level of ability…

Well, these two tests might well be the equivalent of blacksmith melting down ores and producing an ingot.

Rather than idle about though, he picked up the tool and some unused junk stones to practise some more. Breaking his focus made all that previous experience felt a bit floaty, and already it seemed to escape him, the regret of not finishing when he received such a change. It was palpable.

But that did not mean he gave up, right now Joey had to continue and finish. Not that he needed the motivation.

Not when he had a stupid smile on his face.