Chapter 70: 45 – Solitude

I’m done with this piece of shit. 

Not even in heaven are printers willing to work, huh? 

Amara snorted as she sorted the piles of pages. After numerous paper jams and the sudden new error on the screen, Amara finally lost her patience.

I’ll just get one of those big copy machines later. 

Once she was done Amara returned what she took from the researcher’s desk on Ramay, along with a copy of her own research. Bored out of her mind with copying and paper jams, Amara brewed a pot of tea and went back to her living room. 

Now then. Enchanting.

Picking up the books on enchanting, Amara sank into the sofa and began reading. 

‘...the amount of mana required to imbue an item depends on the item and the experience of the enchanter. The size of the item that is being imbued has the clearest correlation with the amount of mana needed, with larger items requiring more mana to be filled. More experienced enchanters are capable of imbuing an item with more mana than their inexperienced counterparts, enabling the item to channel more mana in turn. Thus, unintuitively, the mana required to fully imbue an item doesn’t decrease, but instead increases with the enchanter’s experience…’

‘...enchanting an item requires the enchanter to draw an unactivated Magic Circle, which is attached to the imbued item with the class skill Enchant. However, items are limited to what kind of enchantments they can hold, as they can’t hold an enchantment that needs more mana to invoke than the item can channel. Attempting it will result in unforseen sideffects, including but not limited to: no effect at all, the item breaking, shattering or exploding, spontaneous activation of the enchantment...’

‘...when enchanting, the enchanter needs to have twice the mana pool of the spell that is attached, as they first need to form the Magic Circle, followed by Enchant which will require the same amount of mana as the spell enchanted onto the item…’

Amara considered for a moment as she drank her tea. An idea on how to try out enchanting came to her as she looked at the cup in her hand.

Mana Sight.

Amara gathered her mana into her hand, and imagined the mana entering the material of the cup.

Imbue Mana.

Amara watched as the mana seemed to flow from her hand into the cup, gradually dyeing it blue. After a few moments the mana had covered all the material, making it all the same hue. Once the deep blue had settled evenly everywhere, the shade began fading and became paler until the cup seemed to have returned to its original colour. The class skill didn’t cancel however, and continued draining Amara’s mana even though the mana had stopped moving from her hand into the cup.

Amara immediately cancelled the class skill once she realized the cup was fully imbued and sighed. Wasteful. Oh well.

She cancelled Mana Sight, and noticed that the cup had kept a very faint blue colour after being imbued with mana before she deactivated her skill. Amara activated Mana Sight again, and took a closer look.

Is that…

She used Farsight to Snatch a magnifying glass from Earth, and took a look at the mana inside the cup. Although it was on a very small level Amara could see that the mana hadn’t settled consistently everywhere, but instead had formed a network inside the cup. 

Interesting. 

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Her curiosity sated, Amara put the magnifying glass down and cancelled Mana Sight a second time.

Now then. Let’s try enchanting it.

Drawing upon her mana again, Amara began drawing the magic circle for the Heat spell. 

Enchant. 

Amara felt a sizable chunk of her mana flow out of her, which made her conclude the enchantment worked. 

Time to test it! 

Amara excitedly poured tea into the cup, before holding it up in front of her.

Let’s see if it can heat the tea up.

Amara activated Mana Sight before she let her mana flow into the cup. She watched as the mana slowly filled the cup, and how the distorted magic circle that followed the curvature of the cup lit up.

Heat.

Amara felt how the enchantment began draining her mana, and how the magic circle on the cup activated. Yet the tea didn’t start boiling. It didn’t even steam, causing Amara to frown and increase the flow of mana into the cup.

Suddenly the cup cracked with a sharp shrill, broken shards and tea falling onto the table as the handle she was holding onto burned her. Amara dropped the remaining piece reflexively and grabbed her pained fingertips.

Divine Regeneration.

Amara sighed as the pain disappeared, leaning back as she took in the mess on the table.

I guess I should’ve expected that. The cup is enchanted, therefore it heats the cup, not what’s inside. Not directly anyway.

Lesson learned. Enchantments do exactly what it says, just like programming. There's no such thing as bugs, only features.

Maid Service.

[Ding!]