376 Air atronach

Bloodbinding was not a new concept from another world or anything as this world also used it in several ways as well. The vaults at Gringotts for example are bound to a bloodline via this method the first time a new member of the bloodline wants access to them. That was the truth of the inheritance test at Gringotts , not only was it to determine ones bloodline but also to allow the goblins to make a new key to the vaults. That key was bound to the person who underwent the test thanks to this.-

It was also used to bind certain artifacts to oneself as well as to cast spells of some kinds. Nick would have loved to be able to use natural gems to create his atronachs but his wealth was vast , not limitless. He needed hundreds of various types of gems all the size of his pinky nail in order to create the atronach army. While the gems didn't need to be pure for the magic to still work purity was a factor in the starting power of the atronachs. Magically grown gems were less than ideal but better than the horrendous price that natural gems would cost.-

At the moment Nick only had the few natural gems he had retrieved from the room of requirement that had chips or cracks all along them. Thankfully the forge couldn't care less about the flaws of the gems beyond purity and would use them just as well as the others. Nicks best gem though was a diamond the size of an egg that was flawlessly cut and natural to boot. He could use this to create an extremely powerful air atronach with the forge and had been soaking in his blood since he got it a earlier this year.-

Air atronachs were rare types of atronachs on Nirn that unlike the closely related storm atronachs were made of many large tan rocks with swirl patterns that held up their stony bodies. It may even be better to describe wind atronachs as stone atronachs instead but their elemental alignment was purely wind based so that was what they were called. The base form of the rocks alignment was similar to a person in that they tended to have a humanoid face wide torso and two arms. Air atronachs however had no legs and floated in the air to move about.--

The terrifying thing about them however was that not only were they "born" with a sword in each hand that they could use to great and terrible effect but they could also grow more arms and swords with age and power up to a maximum of six alongside three "heads". Even more terrifying is that they can "eat" other atronachs to gain their elemental powers and alignment. Nick wanted an air atronach very badly to complete his thundering warrior plan. With this diamond and the atronach forge up and running he would soon get that opportunity.-

Still with him now needing to wait yet another month for the mana concentration to reach acceptable levels on the island Nick returned to Hogwarts. April proved fairly calm as the Daily prophet stopped publishing articles on Grindelwalds activities. The real problem came in the form of the professors cramming as much of the years knowledge into the students heads for the up coming exams. For Nick this involved him needing to drastically slow his own progress to tutor his friends in what they should know. It came as little surprise that he was best at teaching transfiguration and DADA but even his tutoring on the other subjects was pretty good.-

He was perhaps not the best of teachers in those other subjects but he certainly had a better grasp on them then almost any other student in the school. The only thing he struggled with was practical herbology but he had long since given up any hope in that subject. Sure he could have made a enchantment that forced the plants to ignore him or something of the sort but it honestly seemed like a pointless thing to do when he could just have someone else take care of it for him like Neville who was a prodigy in herbology.-

despite this calm period however Nick grew more and more anxious as the end of the month approached as the date of the ritual was coming up. May first or Beltane if preferred was bound to be a momentous occasion for Nick as his mana reserves were going to get a massive boost. He had already set up the ritual circle in the green house of the manor and merely needed to wait for the apportioned time to undergo the ritual.