Ajax’s first success was short lived, the moment he could feel the new type of mana being produced he quickly disconnected the circuit. A quick reorganizational break followed where he secured that nothing will actually be drawn in by the magnet this time around he reconnected the circuit and started to focus heavily on his [Sense Mana].

The first thing Ajax noticed was that magnetic mana had a much fainter presence in his senses, it wasn’t quite as light as the space mana he felt coming off Anna’s companion but it was a middle ground between it and other mana.

The second thing Ajax picked up was that the mana infused metals were quickly running through their mana as more magnetic mana was released into the air where it would break down into ambient mana. While this might not seem like that big a deal Ajax did notice that the amount of ambient mana generated by the magnetic mana breakdown was ten to twenty times higher than the amount that the metals were losing.

As the mana kept dropping lower and lower Ajax could feel that the rate of transfer wasn’t being affected in the slightest. While with a regular batter you would have a slow drop-off in output as the charge was getting lower the circuit formed by the mana was maintaining it at a constant speed. This maintained transfer of current started to form cracks throughout the metal piece that became a magnet.

As it turned out it was the small metallic tower that made up the battery that ran out of mana first and that is where things took a big turn away from regular Earth based physics. Despite the absence of new incoming mana current still flowed through the circuit, if at a lower speed. The lack of magnetic mana being produced caused the metal sample to explode.

The power of the explosion wasn’t all that great, the shock wave generated didn’t throw away the broken chunks off metal at great speed, though it did knock the rest of the circuit including the batter off the table, it was what came next that brought with it a lot of potential.

Ajax’s [Sense Mana] felt something that felt akin to a small black hole that formed in the place where the magnet had been and it was sucking up all of the ambient mana it could. Worse yet Ajax could feel the suction force take hold of his own personal mana, it wasn’t powerful enough to actually drain him in any way but that extra pressure exacerbated his already stressed mana channels and increased the dull pain to a searing sting.

The whole process took no more than two seconds and Ajax silently cursed as he had been distracted by the increased pain, on the table however Ajax could see a small bit of metal inside the small creator the initial explosion produced. The original sample had been the size of his pointer finger, what was left was barely the size of his fingernail, despite that this remaining piece had twice as much mana infused in it than the full sized original piece.

As Ajax picked up the small new piece carefully he could sense the instability in the structure, whereas before it had been a well produce ingot this nes piece would break further into pieces even from a light tap with his hammer.

Despite the lack of immediately useful outcomes Ajax knew that with a bit of research into the topic this could lead to some very big discoveries in Blacksmithing, so much so that once he got a bit more of a handle on things Ajax planned to pass off the entire project to his father to focus on.

Ajax’s time with Balthazar showed once more as the first thing he did after examining what remained from the aftermath of the experiment was to quickly grab a piece of parchment and start to scribble down what he had observed in as much detail as possible.

Once he got to the portion on the formation of the new metal Ajax paused for several minutes where he vented by cursing the entire lineage going back a few thousand years for the stupid spies that forced him to damage his mana channels earlier in the day.

As he finished writing down a full accounting of the experiment Ajax felt a little lost on what to continue with. He had gotten a good long look at magnetic mana but unlike any of his previous instances of picking up a new mana type this one was simply being generated instead of actively channelled and used in a spell, even his Epic affinities had been picked up as he discovered them while channelling spells from their component or related affinities and not from simply observing them get created and break down.

To make matters worse Ajax wasn’t yet willing to try and channel any more mana for the day without a good reason so he decided to simply call it a day for now. The setup for all of the experiments had taken a couple of hours already and it was just about dinner time, he could pick all of this back up tomorrow after his mana channels had a chance to recover.

_________________________________________________________________________

King Gryndor P.O.V

“So the first attempt took place?” I ask one of my trusted shadows.

“It did your majesty.” the shadow confirmed.

“And he let us interrogate them even after they got something from him?” I am pleasantly surprised at this turn of events, first he willingly revealed his second Legendary skill and now this, even if it was all information we had it went a long way to showing we had built back some of the trust the nobles in Lessis had torn down.

“He did, while they didn’t bring much new information on the Baron we did manage to gather quite a bit about some other matters.” the shadow confirmed.

“Wait, there was something new on the Baron?” that was interesting, is this his way of sharing something else with me, was it something that he had just overlooked? “What was it that you found out?”

“Comparing his stats from our original information there is a disparity that is hard to account for.” the shadow continued. “It seems there are six stat points that can’t be justified.”

“Let me see that.” I say and take a side by side comparison of Ajax’s stats from the time he came to the Academy and first unlocked [Enigma] to now. “ He levelled three times, I am not seeing any disparity.”

“None of our reports show him as having used any stat potions since that time, this despite him receiving some after the tournament.” the shadow says. “It seems odd that he would use potions only on the stats he gained from levelling.”

That was a good point, this was also something that could have slipped Ajax’s mind, or maybe he had discovered a way to push his stat points further even after he spent his free points, did he only give us the first half of the method?

“Make a full report of this discrepancy and have it brought to me, after that do a thorough clearing of any other records mentioning this, furthermore nobody is to look into this any further.” This could very well be a test from him to see if we will hound him for answers, even if it isn’t he has more than earned a bit of trust from our side as well and he will share when he is ready or not, that is all there is to it. “What other information were you able to retrieve?”

“We got the identities of seven more spies that made up their unit.” the shadow says. “Sadly they were all working for the Empire.”

Damn. The Empire's view on human supremacy means that their spies will never make contact with those of any other nation, at least for those working inside our borders, those working even further out will work with some of ours at times but that means the information train will stop with this.

“We also managed to discover that the tomes on curses that were used in the previous outbreaks were brought over from the Empire.” the shadow says. “Apparently they were part of a bigger plot to smuggle them into the republic in hopes that a resurgence of curse users would break the fragile peace and restart the war. We were truly unfortunate that the nobles who intercepted the illegal transport started using them here instead of destroying them or turning them over.

I smother down a wave of frustration that rises at that piece of information. “Thank you for your report, dismissed.” I dismiss the shadow and go back to thinking of the other request that was made of me.

House Steelblade has managed to buy three of the fifthteen slots for the lesser of the Empires dungeon in the deal with the Goldmancers but they want my help with putting pressure in getting young Benedict one of the few coveted spots in their main dungeon. The problem is that doing so will remove the only person in the group that outlevels Ajax and that will strip away the already weak information protection that he will have while delving at that time. To do so after I already asked Ajax to hold back in the hopes that no information will be leaked will be quite the backtracking.