Combining the Three Crafts

Time seemed to pass quickly after Jien started thinking over his crafting project. Before he knew it half a year had passed and his progress had been made in leaps and bounds. He had spent his days in what seemed like an endless cycle of ever increasingly difficult training under the hands of his mentors and practicing all three of the arcane professions in an attempt to prepare him for both his time in the academy and also his attempt to bring his project to fruition.

During this time Jien had put the absorption of of more books to the side and focused almost solely on his experiments. He had also made great headway in advancing his change to the fencing style even without the addition that he planned to add. He could now control his blade decently with wind spells even when in combat. Though he still couldn't get a single strike in on his mentors they had been sure to praise his advances. Emily especially praised him significantly regarding this, partially to try and convince him to drop the idea of adding a living weapon to the style and instead rely only on the arcane arts, but mostly for his constant efforts and drastic improvements.

Despite Emily's praises and indirect attempts to redirect his addition to the fencing art Jien continued to experiment with alchemy, formations and arcane blacksmithing in hopes of success in his idea. At first this was simply Jien using some of the easier to acquire ingredients and practicing extracting essences, completing basic testing as described by the alchemy guide. Finally when he felt comfortable he began working on the concept of both splicing basic materials in preparation for his final experiment. Meanwhile using his spliced materials and those he used to practice extracting essence of to create a few very basic salves for different purposes. Of these he stored the most successful in the spacial satchel his father had gifted him to ensure that he would have supplies if needed.

He also began to experiment with a variety of formations both from the book he was gifted and from the knowledge that both Emily and Mark had from their time at the academy and after. He tested a number of simple formations with the general purpose of getting used to the art and science of it before he turned his focus towards testing what formations were compatible with plant life. He chose to experiment on a variety of different plants but never wasted the main ingredients that Runa had gathered for him.

During this span of time Jien ensured that the plants grew well. He did spend a bit of his time at first to focus on how best to take care of and nurture the Serpent Vine, Creeping Moss and Magic Mandrake. By this stage taking care of them had become a habit. He would come back from his training, water and care for the different plants while being careful not to get hurt given that two of the three plants were considered carnivorous. He would then focus on his experiments before sleeping and starting all over again.

On top of the alchemy and formations practice he would also work on experimenting with arcane blacksmithing. He worked on practicing how to fold formations into the blacksmithing process as well as the shaping of the final product. For the blacksmithing practice he would always use the red clay at first before switching to basic plant life close to the end of the half year. He needed to first learn about the shaping process and then needed to adapt it as best he could to use plants since his final experiment would require this.

The adaptation of the process to work on plants was by far the hardest of all of the experiments. This was something that he had partially expected after finding out that as far as he and those close to him were aware, humans had not figured out how to forge using plants as the material.

The original arcane blacksmithing formation he had used was much to harsh for his purpose. It could shape something like heated iron into a shape he wanted but plants were a lot more delicate than that. To make up for this he began looking through his knowledge first to find examples of very delicate materials and then focusing on the formations used to forge with said materials. 

This led him through a process of elimination until he found a material that was the equivalent of a very flexible type of wood, even though it was a type of ore. After testing with this formation for a few weeks he had attempted it with some simple plants and found that it was only a touch too harsh for most plants. He knew that Serpent Vine and the other plants for his experiment were known to be sturdier than most but he still didn't wish to risk it.

After he found the formation he focused most of his practice on formations for some time, focusing on the components in their creation and trying to pick apart the forging formation to determine how to manipulate even more fragile materials. Though the process was time intensive and difficult given that he didn't have anyone but the guide books to guide him in his efforts he eventually found the proper combinations of adjustments. This was a surprise to everyone, especially Emily, who at this point though wanting to support her student was practically begging for a roadblock to stop Jiens' attempts.

Much to Emily's concern Jien soon found himself feeling confident to at least give it an attempt. This was something that would be a new area of expertise if it worked but Jien also wasn't holding his breath. He knew that he was trying to scale a mountain that was likely many years beyond his level of experience but also knew that he wouldn't grow if he didn't at least give it an attempt.