Jas awoke, full of vim and vigor. After a quick breakfast, he set up his enchanting tools and the two helts.
He ground up one of the Water Magic Crystals, reducing it to fine dust, and carefully filled in the grooves of the first helt with the stretched single pattern of the Basic Water Enchantnt: Water Resistance template. Then, he produced so Aqua Magia, coated the entire surface of the helt, including the visor, and began the enchantnt itself.
He could tell the difference imdiately, now that he was paying attention to how the magic flowed and the enchantnt set.
The portion of the helt with the enchantnt pattern, filled with magic crystal dust, absorbed his magic first. Then, there was a conversion, a change in his magic becoming the magic affect tied to the item. Finally, the aqua magia allowed that effect to spread to the entire item, rather than just the portion where the etching and magic crystal dust was.
Jas could also tell that the enchantnt template had not been optimized for the nearly spherical shape of a helt.
When his magic flowed into the pattern and magic crystal dust, many parts of the pattern were stretched to accommodate the roundness of the helt, and those parts around the edges felt weak and tenuous as Jas enchanted, requiring more and more magic to accomplish the change for less and less effect.
Eventually, the helt flashed and the enchantnt was complete. Jas eagerly [Appraised] the helt.
[Appraisal]: Iron Visor Helt, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 16/16, Enchantnt: Water Resistance (3)]
Jas was disappointed by the low "score" his enchantnt had received. Although he wasn't entirely sure, he had at this point a suspicion that the nurical value was the strength of the enchantnt. But it made sense: the enchantnt had felt weak as he was doing it.
The Enchanter had another suspicion as well.
He put on the helt and attempted to pour magic into the helt the sa way he did with the [Reflect] enchantnt on his shield. But the helt did not accept his magic.
The Enchanter was right. He had suspected that the resistance enchantnts were passive, rather than active like [Reflect] and, if he had to guess, the Basic Dark Enchantnt: Shadow Concealnt. So rather than being a magical effect powered by the user's mana, the resistance enchantnts were more of an effect that the item now possessed.
For the final test, the Enchanter took so Pure Water and dripped it onto the helt.
It splashed and wet the helt entirely like normal.
Jas had thought that the water would bounce off vigorously and the helt would remain dry, but simply noted that the helt behaved like normal. He was still confident in the enchantnt, since it had set properly, but was unsure if it was due to the weakness of the enchantnt, for if there was so other arbitrary magical nonsense at play.
Jas paused now and checked his mana. He had used a significant portion, so he decided to take a break from enchanting until he was in top condition again for the second helt. He busied himself baking bread, smoking monster at, and even forged a woodaxe for chopping up the tree monster wood.
Several hours later, he was ready. He had used less than half the magic crystal dust on the first helt. By the ti he was done filling in all the etches on the second helt, he had used that and another three Water Magic Crystals' worth of fine dust. And for this helt, it had needed to be fine dust, because the grooves of the etches were that much smaller. Even with all his Class levels and increased Dexterity, it took complete focus for Jas to apply the dust to the pattern. And even then, on his final check, he found small grooves that he had missed applying the dust to.
Only after his third final check did Jas feel comfortable applying the Aqua Magia. By this point, he was wondering why he had taken a break at all. His mana would probably have recovered while he was applying the dust.
From the mont his Aqua Magia laden brush touched the helt, he felt a difference. Normally Aqua Magia applied like viscous paint, and was easy to spread around the item evenly. Now, the Aqua Magia felt thicker, and he had to apply more and more to the helt as the Aqua Magia left his brush and clung to the helt, or rather, the enchantnt patterns.
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Jas got his hopes up a little.
Eventually, after producing another batch of Aqua Magia, the helt was ready. Jas held his hands out over the item as normal, and poured his mana in to set the enchantnt.
But rather than a flash, the helt glowed softly. Bit by bit, Jas' mana flowed into the enchantnt, filling each magic crystal dust filled groove, flowing from one tiled pattern into the next. The drain on Jas' mana was growing heavy, but he dared not lower his hands as the enchantnt wasn't finished, and he could feel that if he stopped the enchantnt would unravel.
Longer and longer the enchantnt continued, the glow growing brighter and brighter, until finally it reached a peak of brightness like his previous enchantnts, and then instantly went dark.
The enchantnt was complete.
It was a good thing Jas had been sitting, because if he had been standing, he would have collapsed entirely. The enchantnt had taken nearly all of Jas' mana. Wearily, he [Appraised] his creation.
[Appraisal]: Iron Visor Helt, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 16/16, Enchantnt: Water Resistance (24)]
Jas goggled at the helt. That was the highest enchantnt score he'd seen yet. With a trembling hand, he poured so Pure Water on the helt.
And like an utterly ordinary, unenchanted piece of tal, water splashed off and wet the helt as normal.
"Yep," Jas said aloud, "more arbitrary magical nonsense."
Still, he had confird what he thought about the defensive enchantnt templates. Using a single pattern would work, but tiling was the way to go for stronger effects.
Although at present he had no way to actually test the effects other than [Appraisal].
That done, Jas turned to the warding stakes.
What felt like a lifeti ago, Jas had touched one of the stakes at the slave camp, and his [Template morization] skill had activated. He recalled the intrusive thought.
Interdiate Light Enchantnt: Ward? morized.
There were three issues that the Enchanter noticed.
First, was that the enchantnt was "interdiate."
Second, was that he was unsure if the enchantnt was precisely a ward. Rather, there was more going on with the enchantnt than just the ward, because he knew from experience that the enchantnt had a function for recognizing slaves as they tried to escape and alerting the slavers.
Third, and the biggest concern, was that he hadn't actually seen the pattern on the stake. Rather, he had morized the flow of magic inside the stake, and worse, the stake was part of a set that accomplished the overall effect of creating the ward and alert system.
Trying to recreate the warding stake from mory alone would have been like touching a carved pattern in stone once, weeks or months ago, and then trying to carve a perfect copy.
Thankfully, the Enchanter had several examples with him.
But the trial and error still took over a week. Or rather, Jas slept ten tis while trying to get the pattern right.
In the end, it was Jas' forging skill that provided the breakthrough. At first, he had tried to copy the pattern onto raw ingots, but the enchantnt failed over and over, consuming Light Magic Crystals. On the sixth "day," Jas had forged as perfect a replica of the stake as he could, using all the finesse he could muster, and it was on that copy of the stake that the enchantnt pattern started to hold. Barely. Still not enough to actually set an enchantnt, but enough to get a reaction out of his enchanting Skills.
On the end of the tenth day, the Enchanter completed his first Interdiate level enchantnt.
First, he [Appraised] one of the original backup warding stakes that he had never used.
[Appraisal]: Forged Iron Stake, Quality: Low, Durability: 5/5, Enchantnt: Ward? (10)]
Then, his copy.
[Appraisal]: Forged Iron Stake, Quality: Low, Durability: 5/5, Enchantnt: Ward? (1)]
Though the score was his lowest yet, it was a huge breakthrough. Because as he had enchanted the stake, Jas had felt his mana flowing through the pattern, incomplete in so parts, disjointed in others.
With another three days of refining the pattern, Jas reached a point he decided was good enough.
[Appraisal]: Forged Iron Stake, Quality: Low, Durability: 5/5, Enchantnt: Ward? (8)]
Like almost all humans, Jas a was a creature whose perception was dominated by his vision, not his sense of touch. Even less so his ability to sense magic. He was sure there were parts of the pattern that were wrong, but he lacked the resolution in his ability to sense the flow of magic in the original warding stake to determine where the pattern was wrong in the details.
Jas spent the next few days making a full four dozen copies of the warding stakes. This required a huge number of Light Magic Crystals, but the foul water passage was ever brimming with glowshrooms. He kept a hundred Crystals in reserve, just in case.
[Enchanter] Class Skill [Interdiate Elental Enchanting] has been acquired.
[Enchanter] Skill [Enchantnt Design] has reached level 3.
[Synergy] Skill [Efficient Crafting (Smithing and Enchanting)] has reached level 3.
At this point, Jas realized that even twenty Water Magic Crystals wouldn't be enough for a tiled enchantnt of his entire Green Iron Armor set, and he did want to enchant the entire set. So after another day of arborcide, and with a stockpile of over seventy Water Magic Crystals and more tree monster wood than he felt he could ever need, he prepared himself to enchant his armor.
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