Post by Shepard Dagon on Apr 14, 2014 15:25:14 GMT
Taking the Initiative.
A long day at the library paid off by showing the inexpert alchemist by showing him the impressive amount of artifacts he would be able to make and turning on his imagination, taking it to new horizons.
Books about catching and lock in the energy of the user and the power of the environment, books about accessories, old civilizations, ruins and discoveries, about old technologies called magitech, and many other topics which captivated the reader whenever he’s eyes rested in their words and smelled the old rough pages with rusty ink.
A good stock pile was borrowed from there to his room in the Aeryn Guild House, where he had all the tools he needed… new for weeks… without being touched… because of the bad habit of laziness Shepard always had.
-Shepard-
Better stop slacking off and put myself in something useful… Alchemy was just there, better give it some actual use and start experimenting with that stuff, maybe I’ll end up doing something helpful.
The wolf got his books scattered all over the big table, in an order he considered usefully, and then gathered the materials he needed in order to begin with this “training”.
The first book was called “The Energy of Mana, Management and Uses” and it started with a series of rules about what must be taken into consideration when working with pure, instable mana, but the first one (which was highlighted in bold, capitalized and underlined) said “NEVER WORK WITH YOUR BARE HANDS”
Upon reading that sentence, Shepard immediately wear his gauntlets just for security, then the lecture continued with around 20 pages dedicated to the dangers of magical energies and the prevention that must be taken if one wants to handle it. The exhaustive reading almost made the alchemist forget his experiment, but the voice of Kumori telling him to get his stuff together and do what he had to echoed in his head. With renewed energies Shepard reviewed the chapter one, about the mana fragment shards, their handle, its capacity and how to make them if you had the aptitude to do so. The first paragraph of the book started simple by talking about what was the crystallization of the mana and how it was possible.
“Chapter 01: Gathering the Energy”
Mana is a potent energy that proves to be unlimited and unstable; it flows in our bodies, in the animals, creatures and everything you see around you and it’s known to be the “life force” of all that lives in the planet.
Everyone has the potential in its inside but not many are able to handle it, those who can are the ones we call sorcerers, people capable of doing magic and control the forces of the nature, unfolding and shaping it to their will.
The mana is invisible until being gathered and condensed in great amounts with a purpose, whether burn down your foes or heal your allies; such actions require extensive training and mental strength, reality is nothing more than an illusion and can be molded, which led us to the next point, the mana can be stored.
Storing mana is one ancient technique, but given the lack of registers we have from those extinct civilizations is not something we manage to do efficiently, or at least, safely enough to avoid any adverse reaction to any stimulation coming from a living organism given its lack of stability, which is why you should be wearing you alchemical gauntlets; mana fragments are pieces of active mana solidified through a crystallization process, this energy has the particular property of being able to restore itself over time, which does wonders when used as an fuel.
The process for the production of these crystals is nothing complicated, yet it requires practice and concentration, many things had to be done at the same time, so don’t be discouraged at the first attempt if you can’t do it, keep trying and you will master it in just hours.
Shepard carefully read the process, nothing very elaborated, yet if the book warned the lector there has to be something about it.
The book asked for a power source where the mana had to be extracted, as an example the book had a sorcerer doing a magical skill at the time the mana was extracted, giving the alchemist the fluid energy. This gave Shepard one idea, he had no one to help him with this, but he didn’t needed anyone also, so he took off one of the gloves and started to cast a little spherical barrier on the palm of his hand, then the difficulty augmented, the shaman started to focus in the inside of the barrier, taking the energy of the spell itself and tilting it in the inside of the barrier, which began to be filled by some kind of fluorescent blue liquid; this was possible by altering the frequency of the mana making it become a fluid, but the thing was just half way there.
Shepard took a recipient and poured the liquid there, it was specially made for that purpose so it didn’t caused any reaction, then he just tried to change again the frequency of the liquid energy, turning it slowly into an opaque crystal of glowing mana. The piece was beautiful for him, and he was able to do it at the first try just because the training he had at the energy frequency with his attack orbs.
With the guarded hand Shepard took the fragment out of the recipient and put it near to the ones he bought before in the market for a comparison, the one he made looked cleaner with less impurities, maybe because the process was more dedicated than the one that made those mass-produced, with this he had tree, enough to do something he wanted to recover since he got in the game.
After putting the parts at his fingers Shepard changed the page to the second chapter, which talked about the natural energy of the environment and how to work with it, then he opened the second book, one called “Old Artifacts” a sampler of the artifacts of magitech founded, which effect they had on those who had it and how to make one with the correct parts.
-Shepard-
Soon we will meet again my friends…
The wolf cracked his knuckles sat on his chair and began the lecture swiftly.
Word Count : 1.067
Mana Fragment Count +1
