Fragments of Mana [Crafting/Solo/Closed]

[Trill]

Trill hadn’t taken a good deal of time investigating his crafting subclass of Alchemist. He originally thought, as conventional wisdom would have, that it would be potions and such, as it was in most games. This, unfortunately, wasn’t the case. It was closer to that of the Artificer classes of some of the other games that he had taken a look at but never joined. The creation of magical artifacts.

He really didn’t know where to get started and he didn’t have access to the forums and such for a step by step guide, since he was now ‘inside’ of the game. Now, though, he had to learn by experimentation, testing theories and working as any real crafter working from relative scratch would be.

Not too much was known by him about the magical crafts, creating items from materials was pretty common but there were very few crafts actually available in the menu and required many materials that he had as of yet not acquired.

The easiest of these materials, was the creation of Mana Fragments, as they required the smallest amount of time and gave a decent amount of experience for the class. It was better than nothing at least.

So, he decided to sit down and open the crafting menu, glancing over the descriptions of the crafting process from the help menu. There wasn’t all that much that he could do, though given that this was a pretty common part of crafting and the lowest level craft, he thought that it wouldn’t be as hard as some of the higher level crafts might be.

The general concept of the Mana Fragment was a materialized form of Mana, MP Power, that could be used to recharge a portion of one’s MP pool or be used in crafting to create artifacts. They weren’t nearly as efficient as a potion to create the same effect, and were extremely volatile as they exploded when touched by any being with Mana, meaning that they would have to be created and stored very carefully.

This was at least a good starting point for his learning and he closed out of the menu with a swipe of his hand. There was very little that he could do at the very start but experiment, thankfully, he found a relatively secluded place in the Alchemist’s Shop where they allowed other adventurers to start to learn their subclass skills.

Mana Fragment completed.

( WC: 400, Total WC: 400 )

[Trill]

The area that he had rented for a few gold for the learning of his crafting in the Alchemist’s Shop was dark, dank, and not very well lit. There was not much in the form of materials or tools for the specific creation of Mana Fragments. It just required a good deal of focus and channeling your own mana power into the creation of a solid object. The help file did go through the needed steps to do so, focusing one’s mind to be able to concentrate the mana into a solid form, if not a stable one. There was more information about the creation of more stable ones, but it required the merging of already created mana fragments and channeling one’s energy into the creation of a more stable form, generally more powerful and store-able in a better way.

Trill sat down on the high bench-chair and looked down at his hands for a moment before rolling his shoulders and trying to relax his body as he also started to focus his mind. He didn’t have much practice at focusing his mind quite in this manner. Though he was really good at his studies, he was somewhat easily distracted. It was only his parents’ focus on making sure that he got through all of his studies and making sure he understood everything better than the base material would suggest. Days and weeks of combined experimentation with the maths and sciences, though there was very little to do with the arts, English, or other studies that were based more on history and not fields of thought. He was pretty well used to experimentation, though he was somewhat wary about stepping into the new field of something that he knew very little about. What could he possibly do if he really screwed something up and blew up the building, or at least the room with himself in it. There were probably some sorts of protections on the building to prevent this sort of thing from happening, but since he hadn’t been ‘killed’ yet, the second hand knowledge that if you die, you revive in the Cathedral, wasn’t all that reassuring.

He sighed and went back to focusing his energy, holding his hands out about a foot apart, palms facing each other, fingers curled slightly as he focused his energy into them and then out to meet in the middle to start to congeal into a crystal.

Mana Fragment completed.
( WC: 406, Total WC: 806 )

[Trill]

The creation of the crystal was something that was almost awe inspiring. This world was quite amazing with the freeness of magic and the abilities that could be cone with the creation of items. He didn’t know all that much about the creation of such things when he started, but with a little time and focus, knowledge was gained where there was none before. Understanding was something that helped him quite a bit and there was nothing that could stop him. He felt power as though there was nothing that could stop him. But that was just the illusion that the world created to keep people interested, this was but a small thing that didn’t mean anything in the great scheme of things.

It took several minutes of focus to finish the creation of the crystal, draining about five percent of his MP in the creation as it drained his power with very little efficiency instead of being able to create them with very little power. Five percent was quite a bit of his power and it even made him sweat a bit as he focused entirely on the creation of the Mana Fragment. Little by little, the crystal formed, being a bluish green in color and created by his own power. Maybe the color had something to do with his personality or something to do with the particular skills of his class. He hadn’t met with any of the other Alchemists to do comparing of notes, so this was just some theorizing. It could just be the color that all Mana Fragments were due to the color of the mana pushed into it.

He was happy though as the creation finished with a ‘ding’ of the crafting timer. That was something that he wasn’t used to and almost startled to the point where his concentration dropped and almost dropped the Mana Fragment from his concentration. When it was finished though, he didn’t have any idea of how to move it over to the slotted crate that he had brought along. He couldn’t physically touch it, at least with his hands. He looked around the room for a moment, curious if there was tongs or something that would allow him to move the crystal without touching it with his own skin. Fortunately, there was a pair of old rusted iron tongs nearby. But if he moved to get it, he’d drop the crystal.

Mana Fragment completed.
( WC: 403, Total WC: 1,209 )

[Trill]

Trill carefully stood up and moved over to the workbench that as relatively close, keeping his focus on making the crystal float between his hands before he could very carefully allow it to settle on the top of the table. Sweat trickled down his brow and ran down the side of his face. He was quite worried about losing his first crystal to a stupid mistake that would have been avoided if he had so much as thought about what would have to be done after the creation. He hadn’t prepared as he thought he should have, but the creation of his first crystal was a success. Thankfully, there was very little to do now but store it away and keep it safe until he had a use for it in the future. Nothing was going to keep him from doing exactly what he needed to do to mass produce these things. They seemed to be required to create any of the other items for the Alchemist subclass, and it would be a shame for him to have to pay for them instead of investing his own time and energy into their creation.

The twenty-five gold that he was saving with the creation of each of these definitely added up, especially when he was trying to create quite a few so that he could easily craft what was required to make some of the more notorious items. Though, after this, he thought that he would attempt to start the merging of the crystals into the creation of the more stable units that he had the recipe to. This was something that he had set his mind into and wanted to be able to carry several around without having to worry about the creation of more crystals, even if the creation of crystals were a natural side effect of creating other Alchemical devices.

Very carefully, he took up the tongs and picked up the Mana Fragment with them. Moving it over to the slatted crate and sliding it into one of the slots carefully. There were several slots in the container, and he wanted to fill all of them before he had finished for the day. A simple 4x5 slotted box wouldn’t be too difficult to fill in single day, though that was about all that he could do in a single day. If each took five percent of his mana, then he could only make a total of twenty in a single day with significant effort, unless, of course, he had mana potions available, which at this moment, he did not.

Mana Fragment completed.
( WC: 432, Total WC: 1,641 )

[Trill]

Trill thought that might be a good investment if he was going to do this on a repeated basis. Especially if he was going to be doing this on his own without assistance quite a bit. The enchanter was pretty well known for being able to manipulate mana and use it in a relatively efficient way, though that didn’t transfer over to the crafting skills completely. Even the race that he had chosen, the Race of Rituals, had greater benefits for casting spells, but that just increased his mana pool and efficiency in combat as well as lowering his health.

Maybe he should do a bit more research into the combinations that he had chosen, but now wasn’t the time for that. Working the same thing over and over would allow progressive work to create things in a more efficient manner. That was what he would have to do until he could make Mana Fragments in his sleep. That alone wouldn’t be quite enough to make his mana reduction almost zero, but he would at least be able to reduce the cost of creating each crystal from five percent to maybe two or three percent per crystal. Of course, this would lower as well as he increased his main class’s level.

Well, not much to do now on that particular subject but get back to work. So he decided to do just that. He moved the chair over to the workbench where he could focus on the crystal and get it set down easily without worrying about dropping it and the tongs were set aside carefully aside on the workbench with the crate nearby so that he could move it when he was complete. Now that the preparations were complete for the most part, all he had left to do was create the crystals.

He closed his eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath then letting it back out slowly. Opening his eyes, he put his hands apart, palms facing each other once again as he started to focus on the creation of another crystal. The mana streams were the same as before, as was the pull on his mana pool.

Mana Fragment completed.
( WC: 363, Total WC: 2,004 )

[Trill]

Trill focused his will entirely on the creation of the blue-green crystal. The Mana Fragment formed slowly but surely as his attention was completely on it. If there was an explosion in the same room, he possibly wouldn’t have noticed. Well, he probably would have, and blown up the crystal as he turned to investigate it and accidentally touched it. But since there were no other distractions in the room besides his own thoughts, that wouldn’t be any sort of issue. At least not for now. Once again, sweat was trickling down from his brow, not quite getting in his eyes but at least getting his robe a bit wet.

He’d never done anything that required quite as much effort as these were requiring. Even the hard tests that his parents had, as well as the cram study sessions, weren’t as focused and persevering as the effort that he had to put into this specific task. If this took this much effort and drained the mana from his pool as well as the energy from his body and mind, what would the actual creation of the alchemical items, called Magitech, do? Even if he didn’t have to have the same exact focus to be able to craft such items, as the simplest of the items being an artifact that used the crystal as a form of storing energy and changing particular statistics.

That would be something else that he would have to think into soon, but now was not the time to lose focus. He needed to complete all of these stones that he was working on. All of the focus that he had, focused into a simple crystal that was extremely volatile and would explode if the merest of his attention was pulled away.

His face was almost completely streaming with sweat this time as the faint ding of the crafting timer went off, and he panted softly as he stopped pushing energy into the Mana Fragment as it was finished. He wasn’t sure if it was supposed to require this much effort, but he was still a beginning crafter and wouldn’t be able to do much at all if he couldn’t even do this. He wasn’t particularly weak willed, though he wasn’t quite used to the environment that he was currently in, where every single thing that you did required some force of will.

Mana Fragment completed.
( WC: 397, Total WC: 2,401 )

[Trill]

Magic was one thing that he was getting used to working with, though he was always learning something new here and there about the ways that magic worked in this world. The first spell that he had learn did little more than create blue strands of magic that kept an opponent from advancing for a few seconds. Maybe enough to cast another spell if he had one, which he didn’t, yet.

Crafting, on the other hand, was something completely different than casting a predetermined spell. Something that could be more difficult or more simple, depending on the person and type of craft and the amount of skill that someone had in that sort of thing. He might miss it if he ever returned to the real world. He’d miss the magic that he had been able to cast to be able to solve his real world problems. That could be a problem if he got too used to this world, maybe he could be an actor, or just get plopped into some sort of asylum specifically designed for those that had been stuck inside of Elder Tale. The psychologists would be quite interested in what the people were thinking, and in the world that was known as it was, would be considered crazy and irrelevant. At least, Alchemists wouldn’t be able to do the same things as they would in the game world.

Trill carefully moved the crystal that he had just formed, with the tongs, over to the slatted box and placed it in the slot next to the previous Mana Fragment. Two down, a lot more to go, maybe ten percent as ten percent of his mana had been reduced. He’d always been rather good at math, but this was something that he wasn’t exactly spectacular in. Yet.

Once again, he focused his attention on the creation of a Mana Fragment, twitching his brow slightly as he tried to find a way to make the effort quite a bit more efficient. Maybe he would be able to slow the trickle of his mana into it and maybe focus it into certain parts so he wasn’t using quite as much mana.

He sighed, putting his hands apart as before, and started the slow trickle of energy, starting off slow and the timer was quite a bit slower than he had worked with before. He kept part of his attention on that part as his attention was keeping that trickle of energy slow and steady. Monitoring his mana as each single drop of his MP went into the crystal. He wasn’t good at keeping logs of statistics even when he was studying them, but this was something that he wasn’t quite used to. Keeping track of everything as well as doing the craft itself was a lot more complicated that he thought it would be. It was difficult, though the experimentation was something that he would have to focus on if he was going to be more efficient than before.

Mana Fragment completed.
( WC: 500, Total WC: 2,901 )

[Trill]

It was getting to be a bit easier than before. It didn’t seem to be as straining as it was the first couple times and the slower push of energy didn’t do as much to drain his mana as the creation of the Mana Fragment called upon. The effort wasn’t significantly less, but maybe reduced his mana cost to four percent instead of five percent. That would at least allow him to create his crystals with more efficiency.

The effort was just pushing him to where he was starting to strain before when the crafting timer dinged. He let out a sigh and looked over the Mana Fragment that he had formed. It didn’t look any different than those that he had formed before. It looked a bit better, in fact, with the little bit of expended mana but gaining the same result. Five percent of his mana or four percent, it really didn’t matter in the long view, but maybe he could reduce the mana even more before he had to do something drastic and make significant changes.

Trill took the tongs up and moved the crystal over to the slatted box to fill the third slot. Not much was required to keep the fragments safe for transport. Just the touch of skin on the magical artifice would be an issue and cause the crystal to explode, as stated before. Maybe this was the same procedure as was used with Nitroglycerin, but he had never paid enough attention in chemistry to be able to have any sort of use in that. But this at least would be just as useful, though it could be used as something possibly weaponized.

That gave him an idea for something later on, especially since he had notes of highly unstable mana cores that had been developed by someone else. That would be of good use if he ever wanted to create a weapon of some sort. Perhaps.

He nodded and settled back on the bench, shifting his weight to get settled and as comfortable as he possibly could be on the hard wood, and placed his hands apart as he started to slowly channel his mana into the creation of another crystal.

Mana Fragment completed.
( WC: 369, Total WC: 3,270 )

[Trill]

Trill focused entirely on the strands of energy as they swirled about and created the crystal, small crystals forming and swelling with the power, glowing with a blue green light that was signaled from his own mana source. He was idly curious about what the color of his mana signified, but that wasn’t a pressing matter at this point in time. The growth of the crystals was what was interesting him. The simple effort of pressing mana into a compressed form created crystals, this could be useful in an application as well. He wasn’t proficient in attack magic as much as utility, and that would most likely assist him in the creation of utility based Magitech.

He curled his fingers slightly, a slight cramp forming in them as he kept them in the same position for the extended period of time and the channeling of energies was something that was more that interesting but causing the muscles of his hands and fingers to twitch.

Sweat trickled down his face as he did his best to keep his hands still and keep the mana channeling down into the crystal, eyes flicking momentarily towards his MP bar and the crafting timer. He wasn’t all that confident that he could reduce the crafting cost more than he had before, little effort was required to create the crystals themselves, at least from an experienced Alchemist. But there wasn’t much that could be done to try to reduce the cost to almost nothing. He could have cost a spell or two for what he has spent to create the crystals that he had already done, some fourteen percent down from where he had started in the day and working on his fourth crystal.

Simple, yet complicated, the task itself was fairly straightforward. Yet, there were quite a few other working tasks available that required much more ‘effort’ and were more complicated, but didn’t do much more than create a substitute or something of the sort.

The crafting timer went off with a tantalizing ding and a shudder went through his body as he stopped channeling mana into the crystal and allowed it to settle onto the workbench. He reached up and wiped his forehead with his sleeve before moving his hands to his front and rubbing them back and forth and kneading the muscles inside of them to help loosen and relax them. Maybe it was time to take a break from his work and maybe take some notes.

Mana Fragment completed.
( WC: 414, Total WC: 3,684 )

[Trill]

After placing the fourth crystal into the slatted box in the fourth slot, he pulled a notepad out of his pocket and started writing notes. He wasn’t a scribe, but taking his own notes was something that was allowed, as long as he wasn’t copying stuff or creating official documents.

First off, was noting that slowing the flow of energy and focusing on the creation of the crystal as it grew instead of just forcing energy into it was much more efficient.

Second, was that his own crystals were a blue green color and that he wanted to check out people from other classes to figure out if their energy changed the colors of the crystal based on the color of their own energy.

Third, was that he would most likely be able to focus on the utility value of the Magitech, instead of using them as a pure destructive force.

Fourth, was that he thought he might find some destructive value of the Unstable Mana Cores that were creatable by the combination of a couple Mana Fragments, which in their own right were already quite unstable.

Those were the notes that the had already thought about, but he tapped the pen against his chin for a moment as he let out a sigh, trying to think of anything else that would be useful to look into from what he had learned today.

He jotted down the crafting time and the actual numbers of his mana use per crystal, allowing him to keep some sort of log if nothing else in all of the work, but his notes weren’t any sort of organized at the moment. Someone did say in his mind that people that were disorganized were really smart, just didn’t keep thing organized because it took too much time.

He set the pen and paper aside after a moment, then placed his hands apart again as he started to create another Mana Fragment.

Mana Fragment completed.
( WC: 325, Total WC: 4,009 )

[Trill]

Completed 10 Posts, claiming 10 Mana Fragments from Posts. (Total: 20 Mana Fragments)