Laurence nudged a helmet from the carefully-organized collection of items he'd set up across one half of the treasure room. He'd grown more and more adept at grabbing, holding, and moving things with his feet, such that it almost felt natural now.

More complex spell forms remained beyond his ability, since his toes didn't have the same range of motion and flexibility as his fingers. He'd reluctantly given up on his plans to convert his entire spell arsenal into things he could foot-cast - but, then again, a battlemage balancing on one foot to draw spells would be a bit of a vulnerability in a combat situation.

Instead, he'd moved to focusing on items.

It wasn't the helmet itself that was important, rather, it was the tracing upon it. It wasn't connected to a power stone of any description, so Laurence had never seen it in action.

What he had seen was the shape of the tracing before. Or, very nearly. It closely matched his mental sketch of the power array Bradley wore. One of the three sections, at any rate.

He'd not seen the healer recently, so he couldn't be sure, but he'd be wiling to put money on it - if he had any money to bet, or anyone to bet against. Most armor had protection type tracings by default, while most weapons had more aggressive ones. The more items Ken brought him, the closer he was coming to a general comprehension of tracery and its purposes.

This protective tracing channeled the energy of whatever power stone it was connected to, then used that as a template for what to resist. It was a fascinating process which Laurence wished he could observe in action. But field testing magic items was rather difficult when unable to hold a weapon or cast anything not traced into an item.

Laurence had considered creating some manner of shoulder-mounted cannon, strapping a manabow to his useless arms oriented forward so he could at least be a mobile turret of sorts, or making a very aggressive hat, but it would require more dexterity than he currently possessed. While he was growing more adept at moving and carrying things with his feet, he wasn't close to the sort of necessary skill to pull off a custom creation like what he envisioned.

Life goals. He could always create a personal headcannon later.

Laurence crouched down to compare the tracing on the helmet to a similar one on a small round shield, noting the way the curving patterns were different between the two items. While otherwise identical, the section on the helmet's curve had a distinctly jagged shape to it, while that on the shield was smooth and straight.

This added yet another data point to his growing theories about volume and depth in spellcasting, and showed that he was definitely missing more than just speed in making his foot-drawn spells functional. He was beginning to think his form had been entirely off from the start. Perhaps even why the spells were unstable.

Back to the drawing board.

He flipped the shield, examining the internal socket for the power stone to be inserted - very few of the items came with power stones - and mentally copied the path of the tracing into his working system document.

The document itself had stabilized over the days of constant use, no longer infringed upon by the random nonsense of the system. By now it came up promptly and cleanly when summoned, and responded to Laurence's thoughts with enough speed and clarity that he began to wonder if losing access to his notebooks might have been a good thing. It wasn't the same, but it didn't break his flow of thoughts like trying to find the right page in the right notebook sometimes did.

Flicking back through the sprawling and constantly expanding file, he jumped to the section about protective enchantments and added in the helmet's tracing and that on the shield, cross-referencing them against the copies of similar powers on other items.

Together, they painted a fairly clear picture. Mana constructs had to be designed with three dimensions in mind. Simply placing a flat decal over an item would not suffice, since the pattern the mana then followed would be completely different from the same decal being wrapped around a cylinder. Spells oriented universally, not locally.

Combining a tracing with an item, then, must be an involved process, rather than something simply 'plug and play'. He trusted the system would help with that process, much as it helped with spellcasting. When he'd learned Sear, there was no long slow adaptation period, he simply knew the chant and gestures necessary to cast it, and could do so at will.

Doing the same thing in reverse, without any guidance? No wonder he'd failed. He didn't know a fraction of what he'd need to convert spells from somatic to drawn.

It did make him wonder about the nature of spells, if they were distinct from item enchantments or if they could be incorporated. He could imprint a spell on a wand, staff, or book; why couldn't he imprint it on a helmet or a sword? Was the material important? Was it something he had to learn as a separate skill?

He didn't have time to chase after it at the moment, but it was something to consider for the future. He took notes on his thoughts and a few directions of future study, then returned to the task at hand.

Ken took away the items Laurence was done with, dropping off some new ones. Laurence asked after Bradley, and Ken promised to send him down when he had a free moment. Laurence nodded thanks and returned to his studying.

He imprinted a staff with Sear, the process coming to him as naturally as spellcasting, but then he found himself staring at the finished item beneath his foot and not remembering how or what he'd done. He couldn't have carved the spell formations onto the dark wood of the staff, it would have taken a lot more time than he'd taken and a lot more precision than he could hope to attain. And he hadn't made or applied a tracing. So what had he done?

He kicked another staff out from the pile, intent on replicating his feat but paying more attention this time.

The system fought him, the process insisting it had to hurry, Laurence deliberately holding it back so he could watch. As a result, he failed three times to successfully initiate the process, until he finally gave in and performed it at full speed.

He thought he caught a flicker of something, but the system control was too complete when following its pattern. He stilled his mind, calmed himself, focused deeply, and grabbed another blank staff from the pile. Close attention to every moment. There. Something...

Another. Again.

Instinct pulled him through the process, guiding his mana out into the item and through it in seconds, tugging at the spots where the pattern needed to go, forcing the physical to yield to the mystical imperative.

Then it was done, and Laurence stared down at the finished product with a feeling of awe completely unrelated to the project's outcome.

Mana could be directed. Mana could be controlled. Not just inside the body, or where it exited, but afterward as well.

He'd been thinking of it like a substance he expelled, like blowing air. You gave it initial momentum and then it relied on pathways to guide it after that. Sure you could grab a spell's tether and shift its course, but that was like pulling a string attached to a moving object to adjust its path.

But this... this process had been done purely, entirely, by his mana working independently, externally. Imprinting highly detailed patterns into an item he was only just touching.

The level of precision and control exhibited staggered him. If he could do this...

He'd be able to spellcast. He'd be able to wordlessly cast any spell he knew without making a single gesture. He just needed to figure out how to replicate the kind of control the system displayed effortlessly.

If he'd had use of his hands, he'd have cracked his knuckles. As it was, he mentally flipped to a new section of his system document and started writing. "Operation Subtle Sorcerer, Day 1."

Bradley came by some time later, as requested, but Laurence was so immersed in his new tangent that he barely acknowledged the healer's presence. He looked him over just long enough to copy the tracery on his robe into the document, then waved him away with hardly a word.

He was getting closer. He knew it.

He could now mimic the tracings on his robe, activating the ability on his own without the tracery that held it. Casting it as a spell was mana-prohibitive and required a headache-inducing amount of focus, but it worked. The ability to make spell versions of any item was a groundbreaking revelation that, had Laurence been any less focused on his goals, would have sent him down a research path of obsessive study. But items were good at what they did, and required a tiny fraction of the mana casting it as a standalone spell cost.

No, Laurence's focus remained on his own spells. He'd given up on converting them into flat diagrams, but as three dimensional casting models? There was potential there. There was an answer there. A promise.

It would be slower, and it would cost more mana. He'd have to replicate multiple inputs simultaneously, to imitate the somatic and vocal components independently and force them to interact in the same way.

Or... he could cheat. After all, he could still chant. If he could simply imitate the gestures, he could continue to use vocalizations to fulfill the verbal component.

It took days of feverish concentration, interrupted only by the few-minute rests dedicated to swallowing a mana, stamina, or occasional health potion to keep himself going, but in the end his determination and focus were enough.

"AIR BLADE!" Laurence all but sang the spell's incantation, power humming across his skin as the spell flashed into being, rustling his robes and blurring the air as barely-visible power sliced into the far wall, sending several of his carefully-sorted items scattering.

He didn't even care.

"Gust!"

Wind blasted out in a whirlwind, slamming the disrupted items into the far wall with a resounding clatter.

"Sear,"

This one... didn't work. He was less familiar with his lone fire spell than with the two wind spells, and adjusting it for handless casting was proving to be considerably more challenging.

Gust and Air Blade at least shared some core concepts, even if the specific applications were distinct. Both made wind sharp, both shoved it out away from you. One in a close-area burst cone, and one in a long-range single blade, but still. Once he cracked one, the other came close behind.

Sear was entirely different. Targeting a distant area and activating there, imprinting it with ongoing fire damage to anyone who entered it. But he'd already proven his concept was viable.

Laurence being Laurence, he wasn't satisfied with what he'd accomplished. He wanted a full voiceless gestureless version, and he knew he could get it. All it would take was more practice and more study.

Laurence's eyes burned and he blinked rapidly, wishing he could rub them. His eyelid itched terribly. Scowling at the irritant, he tried first to use his shoulder - to minimal effect, as he couldn't twist it to the right angle, then eventually wound up in an awkward pretzel position, rubbing his eye against his knee in an effort to dislodge whatever was irritating it.

Which, naturally, was when Ken returned to check on him.

"Practicing flexibility?"

Laurence hastily untangled himself and sat up straight. "Practicing spellcasting."

Ken grinned at the obvious pride in Laurence's voice. "Will you be ready to join us soon, then?"

Though his heart tightened at the thought of entering combat again, of facing loss and death again, of remembering the people he'd lost -- just thinking about it made it hard to breathe -- Laurence had reclaimed his passion and would not be deterred.

Maybe he'd be able to heal his arms one day, maybe not. But either way, Laurence Skystrider was going to make his mark on the world as its foremost wizard and peerless master of the arcane. For himself, for the memory of Xander, and to restore the honor of his guild.

And right now... he wasn't ever going to get a better place to safely regain his levels than this. Ken may be completely insane, but he was undeniably strong. On the other hand, Laurence was done throwing his lot in with people who would ignore his counsel and try to push him into things none of them could handle.

Laurence smiled back grimly. "Yes, I think I will. But only on a few conditions."