9 Magecrafting (1)

After another hour, Luca was able to move again, and after readjusting to his body's transformation, he went to find the aged mage. Upon hearing the lad enter the room, Ysmir rose to his feet fairly quickly, or at least quickly for a nearly 100-year-old man, "Kiddo, you shouldn't be moving around, you'll hurt yourself again after yesterday."

Sensing his mentor's worry over his wellbeing, Luca felt warm, and he smiled, "No worries, mentor. As long as I don't do anything more than walk around slowly, I'll be fine. I'd worry more about yourself if I were you. You might break something."

"Bah, I'll break your head open before that happens," the elderly mage scoffed, lightly knocking Luca on the head with his cane, grumbling, "I'm old, not brittle."

Rubbing the top of his head, the young lad hissed a bit in pain before asking, "Mentor, what is the date today?"

Running a hand through his beard like one would expect an old man to do, Ysmir pondered, "Today should be August 11th, 4:49 Divine. I know it's a Wednesday, it's the actual date that throws me off. The month-day calendar and the old magic sundial should still be in the town square, so you should be able to get a better answer there."

'Early August, 4:49 Divine...' According to Luca's memory, on December 14th of the same year, the first spark of all-out war between the two factions would begin. One of the smaller but quite flourishing cities of the Valarion Kingdom, Clearpine, an army of Blood Elves would massacre almost all of the 13,000 citizens and crush the sizable detached force of 2500 soldiers, all beginning with the higher-ups. As it was the first major tragedy in the new Era, and the first in nearly 300 years between the factions, its unexpected nature caused a heavy blow to the Valarion Kingdom's defensive line, which it had maintained at the forefront of the Light Faction since the last inter-faction war in 3:275 Storm, which came close to causing the extinction of the four Elf races and the Dwarves. If not for the intervention of both popes desiring the conflict to end for each to prepare for the next coming major disaster that was predicted, the Worldquake of 3:289 Storm, which saw to the entire world's surface shape change at a visible pace for nearly a decade on and off. The death toll of the Worldquake was even greater than that of the war by a wide margin, and both factions withdrew to recover indefinitely.

The Clearpine Tragedy caused a large disadvantage to the Light Faction's defensive line, which was later considered to be the first sign of the Valarion Kingdom's eventual fall, which would come in less than a decade following. Not only that, numerous geniuses were killed or captured, most notable of which was a girl who should have become one of the leading figures of the Light Faction, but was eventually twisted into little more than a shell of her former self by the Blood Elves and was let loose as both a distraction to the Light Faction and as a weapon of destruction for the Darkness Faction. It was also stated that should she have been saved or had not been at Clearpine, the girl had the highest potential to become one of the Light Faction heroes against the Demon Emperor.

By his reckoning, Luca only had 3 months to reach the second level of the Spirit Eater's Pure Path, which was given the subclass name of Warmonger, or the first level of the beast soul version, subclassed as Beastwalker. Considering Greenfield Town's location, the latter had a higher chance of success. Of course, he knew all of the maps that existed in the capital cities of the world by heart, but those only consisted of the major locations, such as the large cities, noble estates and dangerous areas. Local maps, like the ones that would show Greenfield Town and places of interest in the area, would only be possessed by the local lord, who would update it as necessary. Unless Greenfield Town or some other town became a city, the provincial capital's map wouldn't have it added. While this did make mapreading easier, it also made it difficult for numerous things such as warfare, relaying information and danger discovery.

What Luca did know was that Greenfield Town was under the jurisdiction of the Baronet Sheridan, who would possess the local maps. According to Ysmir, Luca would have to travel for a full day to reach the Sheridan family's estate on a well-worn but still rough in some places dirt road through empty grassy plains, in which lived several wild animals, mostly around Level 1-3 but traveled in groups. The great distance combined with the potential threat of being attacked by groups of wild animals made the journey risky without a sizable caravan. Only one caravan existed between the town and the estate, making a weekly journey back and forth, generally for any necessary supplies and to give updates on the town's status.

Biting his lip, Luca said, "Mentor, do you have any magic silver or items I can dismantle?"

Quirking an eyebrow at the lad, Ysmir muttered, "You know about magecrafting? You plan to make yourself a wand, right?"

"Well, yes and no. I want to craft a different weapon."

"Nonsense!" Any proper mage must have a wand. Even if it is just an enchanted stick as a replacement. A mage without a wand is like a tiger with no claws!" Ysmir was nearly spitting everywhere from his outburst. He wasn't wrong, however. After the first wandmaker, the Non-Elemental Archmage Evandar created a rune capable of performing 2 of the 3 necessary steps for casting magic (draw in mana from the world, condense it into the design of a spell formation, and then activate to release) during the mid-Heroic Era, no mage was considered complete without a wand. The reason it wasn't applied to other weapons was due to how Evandar had designed it to fit into a small baton or a staff, and he was stumped by the complexities of converting it to other items. For a mage, a wand was essential, and being without one made a mage useless in almost any situation.