The Torch that Ignites the Stars (Arcane Ascension Book 3)

by Andrew Rowe

  I was surprised at how similar that sounded to my own thought process on the subject. The latent rune hypothesis was what I’d been leaning toward. I was beginning to think of attunements as being more like a collection of enchantments in general, based on how many different conditional functions they seemed to have. “And the second?”

  “Seiryu.” That was all she said, but I nodded regardless.

  “She was your first contract, and we were in the Serpent Spire when it happened. You think she might have been watching us and done something to your attunement to help you?”

  Sera nodded. “Might have been watching, or she might have just sensed the influx of mana through our connection and reacted to that.”

  “Well, I suppose that would be much more difficult to replicate than simply activating an inactive rune...”

  “Corin.”

  “Hm?”

  Sera leaned closer. “Are you trying to force your attunement to ascend? You saw what happened to me.”

  “I think that was more about the method than the process of ascending itself. It can’t be that bad in every case.”

  Sera’s expression shifted. Not to angry, like I might have expected, but to show something very different — worry. “Please, don’t tinker with trying to ascend your attunement until you have a better idea of what you’re doing. As bad as what I went through was, I got lucky. And we don’t even know what an ascended Enchanter attunement would do. It might not even be useful.”

  “I wasn’t necessarily thinking of ascending my Enchanter attunement. And if I break my other one, I might be able to...”

  “Corin. Don’t be reckless. Please.” She was pleading now, so I nodded in acquiescence.

  “Okay. I’ll be careful, I promise. Just research for now.”

  I was mostly telling the truth.

  ***

  I worked on exactly what I’d discussed with Sera for the first few days of the train ride.

  I replaced the shield sigil I’d given Tristan. I upgraded the ones everyone else was carrying to the same standard as my own.

  That meant heavier shielding, health regeneration, and mana regeneration functions for all of us. They took considerable work, but we had plenty of time during the train ride.

  There was one major factor that made working on the items more frustrating than it should have been — my rate of mana regeneration.

  While we were on the train, I was recovering mana much more slowly than usual. I’d known this would happen, but it was more extreme than I’d expected.

  The reason was simple — attunements drew mana from the environment to recharge mana, just like most of my items did. In areas with lower mana saturation, my mana would recover more slowly.

  In Valia, recovering my mana had taken about an hour if I drained it completely. On the train, it took me close to ten hours to recover my entire mana pool on my own.

  Once I had a mana regeneration item again, that helped — but not as much as it should have. The mana regeneration item also drew mana from the environment, and it had the exact same problem. The mana regeneration items generally recovered one mana per minute — instead, on the train, they were getting about one mana back every ten minutes.

  That meant that I was limited to working on a project or two each day, rather than several. I cheated a little by using multiple mana regeneration sigils once I’d built them, but even with that advantage, I was working much more slowly than usual.

  After I’d finished the mana regeneration items, I replaced the broken runes on Keras’ necklace and added some shield functions to it, like Sera had recommended. Keras looked mildly embarrassed, but he was thankful.

  I didn’t quite get to researching enhancement elixirs or making necklaces for everyone else at that point, though, because I got distracted.

  I had another idea.

  ***

  On the evening of day five of the train ride, I visited Keras in his cabin.

  “Keras, I’d like for you to help me make infinite money.”

  The swordsman laughed. “What’s your latest scheme, Corin?”

  I both looked and felt mildly offended. “It’s not a scheme, exactly. I don’t scheme...wait, do I? Is that how I come across?”

  “Maybe a little.” He shrugged a shoulder. “But I say that with all affection. I’ve been known to have a few schemes for getting powerful in a hurry, too. Maybe not quite as many when I was your age.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I just kind of skipped past it. “...Anyway, idea. So, you can modify the properties of metal, yes?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged a shoulder.

  “And that doesn’t count as an enchantment? I mean, it doesn’t use up some of your spirit, like what you were doing with Bright Reflection?”

  “Nope. I can do that without a problem.”

  “Okay, good.” I nodded. “When I had you separate some of the metal from coins before, we talked about having you turn the coins into a different material. You said you didn’t know what it would do to the mana capacity of the material. Do you think you could improve the mana capacity of a metal deliberately?”

  He pondered that for a moment. “Tricky. I don’t know. I can’t actually sense mana enchantment capacity. My magic works completely differently. Changing shape, or mass, or color — those I can sense, and I can make the alteration intuitively.”

  “What if you tried to make some changes, and then I used a device or spell to test the mana capacity of the resulting material?”

  He considered that, then shook his head. “That’s a good way to see if I did something right, but it doesn’t help me initiate the process. At the moment, it’s like you’re asking me to cast a spell I don’t have the mana type for. Or, at least, a mana type I’ve never used, and can’t sense.”

  That was a pretty big problem. I thought about it for a mute. “What if I cast a spell on you that allowed you to sense mana the way I do?”

  He blinked. “Can you do that?”

  “No. I mean, not now. My current version of the Detect Aura spell is designed to be self-only, and it doesn’t determine material capacity on its own, anyway. I was speaking more hypothetically: I could research a spell for that purpose. I’m sure they exist. Even if one doesn’t, I could probably make one.”

  Keras pondered that. “I can’t make any promises that it would work.”

  “That’s fine. It’ll be a useful spell for me to learn even if we can’t get the capacity increases to function.”

  “Good.” Keras hesitated, then spoke again. “Another thing, before you go.”

  “Hm?”

  “You’re going to want to start working on a replacement for that box.”

  I took a deep breath. “You’re taking it when we get off the train?”

  If he wanted to, it wasn’t like there was anything I could do to stop him. I doubted the entire nation of Valia could keep the box from him if he decided he wanted it.

  “Not that soon. But when it’s fully recharged, I’m going to need to use that charge. And then you’re probably going to have to give up the box.”

  I understood what he meant. “You’re going to use the box to summon Wrynn Jaden and give it back to her.”

  “Got it in one.”

  I nodded slowly. That wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t actually the worst thing in the world, either. Now that I knew Tristan’s situation, summoning him with the box was no longer a good idea. I was grateful that I’d found him and talked to him before trying it, given that summoning him out of the spire with the box might have inadvertently killed him.

  I still wanted to have the box to summon him eventually, or summon someone else in an emergency...and honestly, just to store my stuff.

  But it wasn’t mine. It never had been.

  It belonged to Wrynn Jaden, and in truth, I was interested to meet her. I couldn’t rely solely on Keras forever, and if I was lucky, maybe helping to summon Wrynn from wherever she was located would earn me the grat
itude of someone else on Keras’ level.

  She also was known to be a pre-attunement era sorcerer, so maybe she could teach us other magic...that’d be an exciting prospect.

  “Okay. I’ll get to work on another box soon.”

  I added it to my list. I had some other projects that I needed to work on first, but making a reasonable copy would be an interesting challenge for the future.

  ***

  Day seven of the train ride.

  After Keras finished telling us his story for the day, I went and found Cecily in the room she was sharing with Sera. Sera was still spending time with the others, so Cecily was alone in there at the time.

  “Oh, uh, Corin. Hey.” She waved for me to come in, so I did. She shut the door behind me. “Please, sit. I’m sorry I don’t have any tea or anything to offer you.”

  I laughed. “We’re on a train, Cecily. I don’t expect you to play host.”

  “Sorry. It’s just what I’m used to.” She sat across from me and straightened her skirt. “Is there something, ah, you wanted to talk about?”

  I nodded. “Batteries.”

  She blinked. “...Batteries?”

  “They’re devices for mana storage. I think Caelford is working on some non-magical variants for electrical devices, too, but I’m not as familiar with that variety.”

  Cecily snorted. “I know what batteries are, Corin. But mana batteries aren’t usually very useful at our attunement level. There’s too much mana lost when you try to take it out and move it somewhere else. They’re inefficient. And you can’t give them to someone else to recharge their mana, because of the impurity...oh. You can purify mana. You want to make purified mana batteries, so people can recharge their mana faster?”

  “Actually, no. That is a good idea, though, and maybe I should...” I shook my head. “Let’s put that on the list. You were right about one thing — my Arbiter attunement changes everything in regard to batteries.”

  She seemed to follow my line of thinking. “You can move mana very rapidly, too. Have you tried measuring your efficiency percentages?”

  I shook my head. “No. But I’d imagine it has to be pretty high.”

  “I concur.” Cecily reached up and adjusted her glasses. “We’ll get some actual measurements later. In the meantime, however, I believe I understand the core concept of your project. With batteries, built-in purification, and rapid mana movement, you could store enough mana to potentially charge larger runes than you could ordinarily charge with your mana pool alone. Is that the intent?”

  I was surprised and a little delighted that she could follow my logic so easily. “Right.”

  “And why would you need my help? You’re capable of making capacity runes on your own, and we have all the same mana types.”

  “A few things. My books are missing some smaller capacity rune increments, and I figured you might have copies of some other ones.”

  “Potentially...go on.”

  I nodded. “Ordinarily, two Enchanters at our level can’t work together to fill a rune because of a combination of control and speed problems, but in our case...”

  “Ah. You want me to fill a rune part way, consuming most of my mana pool, and then you will fill the rest. Effectively, we could fill up a capacity rune that contains both of our mana totals, rather than just yours. Understood.” She nodded agreeably.

  “R—right.” I paused, taking a breath. She was almost too fast at catching what I meant. “Beyond that, just having another Enchanter to check my work would be helpful. And if we can succeed with a basic battery, I have some ideas on how we could work together on some even larger projects.”

  “Such as?” She tilted her head, looking curious.

  “Using several small batteries to make larger batteries.”

  Her eyes widened for a moment. “That’s...possible, I think. We wouldn’t be able to go too large, though. If, for example, you wanted to make a Citrine-level battery, we’d have to be able to make a Citrine-level shell for the two of us to move the mana into. Then, we’d have to be able to move all the mana from the small batteries into the large one before the shell destabilized in order to properly complete the rune. Hold on, let me do some math.”

  We did some math.

  And then, with more than a little excitement, we got to work.

  ***

  Our first mana battery was an easy enough project.

  From there, we made three more.

  After that? Bandits found the train on day nine.

  I already told you all about my side of the Blackstone Bandits attack. Now, let’s talk about what happened after that.

  ***

  Day ten of the train ride.

  I decided that I’d underestimated how horrifically dangerous everyday life was going to be, and that I needed to pause my work on batteries in favor of something more immediately practical.

  Given that we seemed to have a pattern of running into threats that were well beyond what we could handle in a direct fight, I chose to focus on a time-honored tradition — running away.

  “Sera, can I get you to help me with a few enchantments?”

  She smirked. “Sure, but it’ll cost you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, sure. You can have all my remaining silver.” I opened my coin purse and tipped it over. “All zero of it.”

  “Pfft. You’ll get more eventually.” Then she paused, raising an eyebrow at me. “Wait, how are you that broke? You definitely had more than that when we came on the train. Did those bandits shake you down or something?”

  I waved a hand. “No, nothing like that. I gave it all to Keras.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess ‘gave’ is kind of a misleading term.” I reached into my larger bag and pulled out the Jaden Box. “Retrieve blank sigil 1.”

  A silvery disc appeared in my hand. I handed it to Sera.

  “Oh! You had him do the silver purifying thing to make more sigils.”

  “Yep. Only had enough coins for ten of those and four of them are batteries now.”

  Sera nodded, then slipped the silver disc into her pocket. “Okay, what did you need?”

  I folded my arms. “Hey, I wasn’t giving—”

  “Fine, fine.” She pulled the disc back out. “Gotta compensate me for my labor somehow, though.”

  “I make you things! Constantly!”

  Sera gave a slow nod. “Admittedly, yes. Very well, you drive a hard bargain, Corin. I will help you in exchange for you making me something at my request.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s what you wanted from the beginning, isn’t it? You have an enchantment you want in mind.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. You first — what are we working on?”

  I unpinned my shield sigil, then showed her a set of new engravings on it.

  “Am I supposed to recognize those?”

  “Sorry. They’re the same ones on my circlet. And, more frequently found on—”

  “Jump bells. You want to upgrade our shield sigils with teleportation functions.”

  I nodded. “Very, very basic jump bells. From a practical standpoint, we’re better off using them as escape bells for the moment — the range is too short to be practical for anything else, and they won’t function outside of high mana density areas. I plan to upgrade them to full jump bell status later, but we don’t have the crystals or the mana to manage that for six sigils before we get to Caelford. And they’re still going to require setting up an anchor in advance, so the utility won’t be fantastic...but I think they’re a good precaution.”

  “Won’t adding a function like that exceed the capacity of these disc things? Don’t they already have three functions?”

  “They’re fine. Pure silver can handle a lot, and all of our current enchantments are low level. Eventually, if we want things like Sunstone or Citrine level versions of the sigils, I’m going to need to split the enchantments into multiple items or get something with an even higher capacity than silver...but for now, we’r
e okay.”

  Sera nodded. “Okay. I’ll help.”

  “What did you want in exchange?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll figure it out eventually.”

  “You want an open-ended favor? That’s kind of dubious, Sera.”

  She fluttered her eyelashes at me. “Don’t you trust your dear, sweet sister, Corin?”

  “You’re obnoxious.”

  She snorted. “Fine. You win. I want you to try to build something that lets me connect to Ceris.”

  “Connect?” I blinked. “You mean like my mana strings?”

  She shook her head. “No, more like one of my contracts.”

  “That’s...I don’t even know if that’s possible.”

  “I think it is. You actually gave me the idea when we were talking about null contracts earlier. I was thinking about how in Keras’ story, he made a bond with a weapon — I think that’s probably very similar to how Summoner contracts work. But Keras isn’t a Summoner. The sword initiated the contract, not him.”

  I pondered that. “Hm. Dawnbringer is an intelligent weapon, that’s a little different from just an ordinary magical item.”

  “Sure, but she’d still have to have a spell or function of some kind for initiating a bond, right?”

  “I see where you’re going with that, but even if I figured out how to emulate that function on a separate item, I don’t know how it would actually work.”

  She patted me on the arm. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Is it a deal or not?”

  “Fine, fine. It’s a deal.”

  There’d never really been any question about if I’d accept. Sera was mostly teasing me with the whole thing...and more importantly, she’d given me an idea for a line of research that I wanted to do anyway.

  After all, she wasn’t the only one with a powerful magical sword that might be able to form a bond with a wielder.

  ***

  I visited Keras after that. “Hey. Question for you.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Please don’t tell me it’s another money-making scheme.”