Magic tools

Savine immediately went to meet Eliseline again. She was in the Grand Chambers, her hands on one of the magic tools inside it.

"What is it?" she asked. "Was there any problem with the Vasa?"

"No," Savine shook her head. "It worked fine."

"Really? No problems at all?"

Savine pulled out the wooden box and opened it, careful not to make contact with it.

"See?" she said. "If there's any problem, then I suppose it's my enormous amount of mana."

"?"

"I thought I'd be able to put maybe 5 percent of my total mana inside it, but I feel as if it didn't even suck 1%."

Eliseline's eyes went up slightly. "Are you sure about that? Since it's your first time, you could've been mistaken."

Savine smiled. "If you don't believe me, give me a spare Vasa. I'll show it to you now."

Eliseline looked hesitant, but she pulled out a small wooden box from one of the drawers in the Grand Chambers. Feeling pleasantly surprised at the sudden extra Vasa, Savine touched it without hesitation and felt another bit of her mana seep into the Vasa. The amount was no different from the first time.

"You're right…" Eliseline murmured. "Despite you touching it, the mana I feel from you feels no less."

"At this point, it'll take me almost a year before I'm finished taming all my mana."

"Taming?" Eliseline said. "I suppose that's the right word."

"Are there are precedents of exceptional mages going directly to the Sovereignty to carve a Vasa off the Wisdomtree."

Eliseline's eyes turned cold.

"Wisdomtree? You mean the Divine Tree? Who did you hear that from?"

Savine only clasped her hands together and closed her eyes briefly.

"God."

"…"

"Regardless, I'm guessing it's impossible for us to get more Vasas, right?"

"Yes…"

"Well, whatever. Things will work out. I've actually come for another matter. I need some locals to be my handservants. Do you know anyone capable?"

"As a noble priest, you can choose among the commoner priests to work for you," Eliseline said. "But currently, I'm afraid there aren't any of those left. Currently, most of us have resorted to hire people from outside the temple."

"So I should find them myself?"

"Yes. There's a place called the Servants Association near the south end of the noble district. You can go there."

"Thanks," Savine nodded. "Oh, if there are any smaller magic tools that need working, I can fill it up if you want."

"You can control your mana? Already?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

'Ugh, when is she going to accept the facts?' Savine sighed.

Seeing Savine's eyes, Eliseline picked up a small magic tool and gave it to her. It was shaped like a metal orb with a handle and a button on top, except one side was open and filled with mirrors. Its inside wasn't visible, but Savine knew that there was an empty space connected to the open side, with runes etched around it.

"This tool can store mana and create light when needed. But you need to set it up correctly."

It was something akin to a flashlight, except it used mana instead of electricity. Since the former could act as a replacement for all sorts of energies, it wasn't that wrong to say that the flashlight operated on magical electricity.

From a glance, Savine could tell how it operated. Basically, it was a tool that recorded a spell and maintained it that way. All kinds of spells could be contained inside it, and this device in particular was designed to emit light. But she still played dumb and asked innocently.

"How should I set it up properly?"

"Take out your Vasa. Make sure you don't allow the Vasa to absorb your untamed mana. Only let the tamed mana enter it, or else it's going to explode. After that, touch the magic tool with your Vasa and let the mana seep into it."

Savine was already on it.

"It's filled."

"Now imagine your mana turning into a ray of sunlight. Or maybe a brightly-lit, but not hotly burning fire."

Savine's eyebrows went up. A pleasant surprise came to her.

'So they do use the scientific method…' she marveled. 'But they don't seem to realize how exactly things work.'

Savine used up most of her tamed mana and ordered the mana to first turn into a thin strand of brass inside the device. She then heated it up to 1000 degrees and created a vacuum around it. The brass naturally lit up under the extreme heat but due to the lack of oxygen, it couldn't burn.

She had created a lamp, basically.

This state was recorded by the magic tool and it could recreate it immediately with the push of a button as long as there was mana inside it.

Eliseline stared at the device in awe. She took it from Savine's hands and inspected it fervently.

"How is it burning so brightly?"

"It should burn for much longer as well," Savine added.

A brightly burning but not hot fire was too much leaning towards the imagination side of things. Thus it cost more mana to maintain. The ray of light wasn't something plausible either. There needed to be a source of light, not just light itself.

Both options leaned on the imagination side of things, so it required more mana.

Despite being a form of energy that could literally change forms and imitate other energies, mana loved to follow the natural laws of things. Even though it had the ability to completely break physical laws, it preferred not to.

"Ah, be careful to not burn your hands," Savine said. "Maybe wrap a cloth around the handle."

Without saying anything else, Savine left Eliseline and headed for the Service Industry Association.

While outside, she held her Vasa in her hands, allowing it to absorb the mana in the air. Since she put all her tamed mana inside the magic tool, she had to recharge.

The Vasa was very useful for that, since if it absorbed mana from the air, it automatically tamed it for her. Its absorption powers were much stronger than Savine's own mana absorbing organ, since it was made of wisdomwood, one of the greediest materials in all the worlds.

Two hours later, she would be full again.