The only thing that had not been expected by either Tekla or Hidrss was Isyd’s presence. Unfortunately, at his urging, the Ravasz insisted Isyd be there. Meeting the Tutor’s eyes, Isyd could guess that Hidrss wasn’t too happy that he had been forced to break his ban from the Atelier for 1 st Year — not once but twice, and for the same Pupil. Tekla also appeared quite peeved at seeing him, though Isyd was less certain about her reasons.

Truth be told, they could have well met anywhere else than the Atelier; the Academy wasn’t running out of empty rooms. But Isyd had insisted that they meet in the Atelier just to annoy Hidrss. It was petty, but it didn’t stop Isyd from being smug about it.

“What’s the meaning of this, Ravasz?” Tekla snapped. “Let us be done with this already! Our time is precious!”

Wordlessly, Julya pulled a bundle out of her satchel and began unwrapping the linen, revealing the Ingraced Blysht. Hidrss immediately sat up, eyes wide.

“So, it was true…” he muttered in awe.

“Is this what you had promised?” Tekla asked. “So, you have succeeded in the end…”

“We have not,” Julya said. “Isyd Wybrany had. He is the one who brought this Ingraced Blysht to us.”

Tekla let out a harsh laugh. “This is no time for jokes, Mrs Ravasz.”

“It is not a joke. This is indeed the Ingraced Blysht we promised you. It was the subject of our research for the past month but, as you know, we had hit a dead-end. That is until Isyd offered the Blysht. He succeeded where we have failed.”

“This is impossible!” Tekla said crossly. “How could he succeed where two Arcanysta have failed for months? He’s of the 1 st Opening!”

Hidrss was also frowning at Isyd, but he didn’t say anything yet.

“Is it why you insisted for him to be here? Is the Atelier a joke to you, Mrs Ravasz?”

“We have nothing to gain lying about this!” Norran said. The man was clearly getting annoyed by the woman’s attitude.

“Explain this to me once again,” Hidrss finally said in a soft voice. “Your research, I mean.”

Norran cleared his throat. “Well, the Blysht is a crystal that naturally occurs alongside halite crystals; we suspect that the two crystals have the same generation process. If usually useless, it was noted on several occasions that the Blysht would emit sometimes an iridescent light of its own and only briefly. It is by studying this phenomenon that my wife and I first discovered that it usually occurs in a situation with a high Grace Concentration, but first, we only thought it to be a simple coincidence; after all, mining involved the use of a lot of [Arcanes]. From that, we studied the physical properties of the Blysht such as its crystalline structure and its interactions with light in hope of repeating the phenomenon, but with no success.

“In last resort, we experimented with the Grace. The crystal responded as we expected, but the readings began to deviate from the theory at a high Concentration of Grace — we notice the first deviations in the Grace sensitivity around the 9 th Opening. You can have a look at our first report for more details on that. Anyway, Julya was the one to notice that past the 12 th Opening, the Blysht began acting like a spring: the Grace Concentration would not increase linearly anymore and at the same time the Grave sensitivity of the Blysht would spike. From those observations, we came up with the theory that maybe the Blysht could be used to store the Holy Grace. We hypothesized that under certain conditions and after a certain threshold, the Grace present in the environment is absorbed by the lattice structure of the Blysht and rearranges it. The only thing left for us to do was to test this theory. We had to Ingrace the Blysht and observe the change in the crystalline structure. Unfortunately, this was revealed to be easier said than done. That is until Isyd over there presented us with a successful sample. We had the Ingraced Blysht for only one day so we were limited to the amount of testing on what we could do and there are still many things we have to figure out. We will need more time before we can give you a complete report. I wish I could give you more explanation but—”

“I can explain the rest if you want,” Isyd stepped in.

All the heads turned toward him as he stood up. Norran smiled at him and nodded.

“This is ridiculous!” Tekla spat.

“Let us hear what he has to say, Dumnchory,” Hidrss said.

Isyd approached the table and picked up the Blysht. “The comparison to a spring is a useful one, but I think that a better analogy is to think of the Blysht absorbing the Grace like a sponge absorbing water.”

“Did you just compare the Holy Grace with water?” Tekla drawled. “This is a childish analogy!”

“It is not. Water is everywhere. Grace is everywhere. I think that the analogy makes sense and is a powerful tool to make sense of our situation. The lattice of the Blysht is deformed by the Grace like a sponge is deformed as it absorbs water. It is possible to expel the water by applying an opposite deformation on the sponge and similarly, it would be possible to expel the Grace from the Blysht.”

Tekla was about to say something, but Hidrss spoke first. “I assume that it is not as simple as putting the crystal in a high Grace Concentration environment. How did you Ingrace the Blysht?”

“By a [Storing Hex] I came up with.”

“The Opening?”

“12 th.”

Hidrss raised an eyebrow at that.

“You cannot have cast a 12 th Opening [Hex]!” Tekla spat.

“I can,” Isyd said. “I have. I can do it once again in front of you right now.”

“It is hard to believe, but not entirely impossible,” Hidrss mused. “Many Artysta have stumbled into the Balance of a [Spell] by sheer luck. Our field is full of serendipities, after all...”

The Tutor shifted on his seat then finally got up and picked up a rubber ball laying on his desk. He then began strolling along the room.

“So, you managed to get the Grace in...” he said to Isyd. “How do you get it out?”

“By applying the Negative Sequence of the [Storing Hex],” Isyd said without missing a beat.

“The Negative Sequence is not a subject of the first semester of a 1 st Year. How do you know about it, Young Isyd?”

“I have read it in a book. I spend a lot of time in the Library.”

“We can help him with figuring that out once we’re resumed our experiments,” Julya stepped in.

But Hidrss did not look at her. His eyes were solely focused on the Young Pupil.

“What would be the Coefficient of Restitution?”

“Well... that’s something we still need to calculate...” Norran began.

“Around 80%, I’d venture,” Isyd said.

Tekla scoffed. “Now, this is just absurd! Pure gold, the most sensitive element we know, has only a Coefficient of 50%!”

“Well, you didn’t know about the Blysht now, did you?” Isyd retorted.

“Is there anything to motivate your guess, Young Isyd?” Hidrss asked.

Isyd could hardly say that it had heard the number thrown around back in old Ziemia, so he lied instead. “It’s just a hopeful estimate. I feel like there’s nothing quite like the Blysht and I am confident that we could reach such a high Coefficient of Restitution by refining my [Storing Hex].”

“I see... I have one last question for you, Young Isyd,” Hidrss said. “Why should I invest time and money in this research?”

Isyd presented the shining crystal for all to see. He met the Tutor’s green eyes.

“The Blysht is the next step in exploring the Arts. It is the Holy Grace made solid and held in the palm of the hand. The possibilities ahead of us are endless because now, in addition to manipulating the Grace, Artysta can store it. For too long, we stared at the sun, yearning for its warmth. Now, we have harnessed fire and made warmth our own.”

Silence fell on the room, silence that even Tekla did not dare break. All the eyes were turned to Hidrss, which in turn was watching Isyd attentively.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, a wide smile broke on his face. “All right! I’m convinced!”

Tekla jumped from her seat. “Tutor, this is ridiculous! The things they’re saying...”

“I am intrigued by what they’re promising, Tekla, and I intend to see the end of it. The Blysht...” his voice trailed off, his eyes glazed over as his mind wandered to all the possibilities this new discovery entailed.

The Ravasz had also risen from their seat in excitement and were clasping each other hands. Julya’s eyes were wet with unshed tears but her smile was wide as she hugged her husband who was laughing out of relief. Even Isyd smiled as he watched Naeht making spins of celebration around the room.

Tekla was visibly fuming and all her attention was focused on Isyd. If a look could kill, Isyd would have been dead ten times over.

“Norran, Julya, I now put you in charge of a Commission to study the Blysht,” Hidrss declared. “Your research is open to full funding from the Atelier as a lead project. You are now Arcanysta employed by the Academy and you must answer to me directly. We can discuss later the details of the contract. How does that sound to you?”

The Ravasz exchanged a glance between them. “It is wonderful, but...” Julya began.

“The thing is that...” Norran continued. “We made a promise with Isyd here. He made three demands, in exchange for the Ingraced Blysht. I am honouring one of them by asking that you allow Isyd Wybrany to enter the Atelier and work alongside us in studying the Blysht.”

Tekla’s eyes almost bulged out of her skull. “Preposterous! How dare he make demands ! He’s just a Pupil of the 1 st Opening!”

Hidrss turned to Isyd, an intrigued look on his face. “Three demands? What were they, Young Isyd?”

Isyd, not backing down, began enumerating them on his fingers. “Firstly, I want to be recognized as the one who came up with the [Storing Hex]. Secondly, I want to be granted full access to the Atelier, despite being of the 1 st Opening. Lastly, I want to own the intellectual property of this [Storing Hex].”

From the corner of his eyes, Isyd could see the Ravasz shift where they stood. It was also their first time hearing Isyd’s last demand and they were uneased by it. Asking for an Intellectual License on a [Spell], and more specifically on an [Arcane], meant that Isyd would have a significant voice in every decision involving the use and distribution of his [Storing Hex]. It was perhaps pushing it too far.

“Out of curiosity, what would you do if I refused these ridiculous demands of yours?” Hidrss asked.

“I would take the Ingraced Blysht and leave the Academy. The Atelier will lose the monopoly on this new technology and the chance to research it. I’m sure that other Arcanysta in the Commonwealth will be interested in my offer...”

Isyd and Hidrss stared at one another for long seconds, none of them backing down.

Finally, Isyd let out a cheeky smile and Hidrss laughed.

“Hell no!” the Tutor said, brushing his hair out of his face. “All right, Young Isyd, I accept your demands!”

“Tutor, you can’t!” Tekla protested. “The Atelier’s policy...”

“Isyd Wybrany has proven that he was an exception to the rules, Dumnchory,” Hidrss said, waving her protest away. He turned to the Ravasz. “Now that his case is sorted out, do you accept my proposal?”

“Gladly!” Norran exclaimed, excited. “We can start as soon as you want!”

“Let us sign the necessary papers, first,” Julya said, more reserved. “Plus, I must point out that we ran out of Blysht to experiment on. We need to seek more first.”

Isyd’s smile grew even larger. He opened one side of his darkveil and pulled out a small pillowcase that clinked with the sounds of crystals inside.

“Well... I suppose then that the Atelier will be interested in what I can offer...”