Runes

"Harry, you should learn Runes, she said. With the speed with which you learned the Viking rune system I have no doubt that learning magic runes will be quite easy for you, she said." Doran rants as he carves runes into the chest.

"Nearly 7 hours to carve a single rune... In my past life I could carve a rune in less than two hours, the average is 3 hours so maybe Hermione was right that I'm talented at this craft. .. Hermione is always right, why deny it? I already learned that when I was 11 years old."

Engraving runes is a complicated and tedious process, the magician has to gradually form the rune with the Runer using his mana as ink. The process has to be done very slowly and each step very carefully.

Runes are not just symbols, they are magical systems in themselves, Harry Potter compared them to web pages: when you enter a web page you only see the result, you don't see the pages of code that the programmers had to write to create that web page. The same with runes, at first glance they are simple symbols that even a child could draw. But each rune has a whole magical programming system behind it that takes a long time to create.

The first rune that Harry successfully engraved took him 18 hours, with practice (and his innate talent) he was able to reduce the time to between two and four hours depending on the rune as not all of them have the same complexity.

Another thing a rune wizard must master is control over his mana, as one's magical energy is "the ink" with which runes are written. If you can't keep the mana flow stable, failure is guaranteed.

Doran has his past life memories but doesn't have the same control that he had over his mana. And there are also the factors of age and his current world. His young age, one in which his magic is developing and growing day by day, makes it very difficult to control his mana. His current world, being in magical terms more primitive and savage, exerts a pressure on the air, like a kind of gravity, that makes it even more difficult for the prince to maintain a constant flow of mana.

It took Doran 8 days to carve the necessary runes to increase the chest's carrying capacity 4 times, which is the most he can do with his current mana reserves, and shrink its size. Engraving runes requires a lot of mana, which is why Doran can't use a more advanced rune system to give the chest even more capacity. The prince spent most of the last week carving runes, and when he wasn't doing that he was meditating to increase his mana regeneration.

On the ninth day, 5 days before leaving for Sunspear, the prince filled the chest with all the items he planned to take. For the most part he took books, because although he found some secret caches of wealth from the Maesters, the prince saw no reason to take that gold as it would only take up space in his chest and for Doran books with lost or forbidden knowledge are worth much more than any amount of gold.

The prince fully agrees with the phrase: Information is power.

His business (Hogwarts Toy Company) has grown a lot in recent years, currently he is even doing business with several City-States of Essos, so he has a constant flow of gold.

Since the prince didn't spend that gold, Doran amassed nearly 20,000 golden dragons, which is nowhere near House Martell's annual income but more than enough capital to fund other projects.

The wizard also took some gadgets, including a Mage-seeker (a device that detects magic, belonging to the Holy Order) and a glass candle (a Valyrian artifact with mysterious abilities). Doran wants to analyze these gadgets and see how they work, in the case of the Mage-seeker the prince wants to find a way to neutralize them. The glass candle was found in another hidden room near the library, in that room he found several objects of Valyrian origin but to the prince's disappointment there were few books and none of them contained information that he had not already learned in his classes.

***

Doran snapped his fingers and a flame appeared on his fingertips, the flames were no bigger than of a candle but they were more than enough to light up the entire room the prince was in.

The room was square, with dark brick walls and no windows or any furniture in sight, without his fire he would have been plunged into absolute darkness as this room was designed to prevent even a single speck of light from entering.

Doran was dressed in a simple brown robe made of wool, his feet bare on the cold stone. The only object he has with him is a glass candle as dark as night, a valyrian dragonglass candle.

"The masters sure love their traditions."

The prince looks at the dark oak door with iron bands that has no handle on his side for a moment, then moves to one of the walls and sits with his back against it.

Doran Nymeros Martell was doing the night vigil, an old tradition at the Citadel in which an acolyte spends an entire night watching a glass candle trying to light it. Since magic is believed lost, the acolytes are not supposed to be able to complete their task, this is supposed to be a lesson that not everything in life can be achieved, that there are impossible things and they must accept them.

The night vigil takes place the day before an acolyte receives their links, for which the acolyte had to do many exams and tests.

All acolytes who get links must go through this tradition before receiving their chains, but not all acolytes end up taking their vowes. Every year several dozen new students enter the Citadel, only half of them manage to forge some links, and of that half less than a tenth end up becoming Maesters.

There are many jobs for educated men in this world, there are those who seek work as a scribe, others as an interpreter (if they learned languages), others as finance advisors in some company (traders are always looking for new educated employees),...

After the vigil, a ceremony is held in the Main Hall where all acolytes who have completed their studies receive their chains in front of all maesters, archmaesters, and other acolytes. A week later another ceremony is held, for those who do wish to become masters.

Currently Doran and his friends are separated in different rooms meditating, or at least that's what they are supposed to be doing.

Lewyn, Luca, Theoden and many others are sleeping hard.

Doran and Michael are the only ones who try to light the candle, while the second is not very successful because his magic is still dormant, the first got quite impressive results.

Doran, after studying his own glass candle for several days, has a pretty good understanding of how it works but hasn't had a chance to test his theories until now due to lack of time.

"Since I don't have anything better to do all night."

The prince tightened his hold on the candle and extended his will to it, inserting his mana slowly in the candle.

"ōños" The prince wished the candle to glow and said the Valyrian word for light.