The Airship III

Asd had an annoyed look on his face, when professor Mona had said she was going to be in charge of his studies, he had thought they would be having long conversations about magic and spells on the deck of the airship that was aptly named "Nameless" and then sip wine while sweaty sailors went about trying to keep them in the air. Now he had spent the past two days doing nothing but listening to 'big balls Boris' drone on and on about the complexities of engines, their different forms and the gears required to keep them spinning. There was a lot, but Boris expected Asd to start from the basics, and that was by handing him Multa tool box.

This was a box that held a variety of gears and Knick knacks that can be combined in a variety of ways to make tools or parts of a greater whole. It what master engineers use in teaching their students and apprentice. In engineering it is believed that experimentation and exploration was the best teacher. So while there will be guidance, most engineers are left to learn how things work on their own. Now this scenario was akin to Asd learning how to fly before he could even learn how to crawl. By all means he was not supposed to learn anything about engineering until he has advanced the Rune-Smith class to a Rune-Engineer class. Before he had to worry about things like gears, he had to first learn how to beat metal in a forge and make swords and stuff.

Rune engineering was a wholly advanced subject, and by the time he got to that step, he had to have learn how to make the components he would need for advanced smithing, or in this case, engineering. But professor Mona had insisted that he could skip the process and that no knowledge was useless or redundant. Which is why he being here, learning how to manipulate his mana by trying to move it around his body. last night he had finally manage to get it to happen at a steady rate while he was stationary, but now he had to master it while he was in movement, and that was hard in and out of itself when he has to listen to Boris bitch and moan about how unfair it was that only mages had access to mana interfaces/systems and classes as that would have other craftsmen a whole lot better, and the power wont all be in their hands.

It was a sore subject for Boris, but it was through that that Asd learnt and realized that the mana interface wasn't a tool that was exclusive to mages. Everyone alive has mana in their body, which means the interface can sync with them and track growth whilst also giving skills and knowledge that can help and improve daily lives. In such a world, it means a servant might grow to be strong enough to usurp the power of their masters. It would be total chaos if the mages of the world had not kept the use of the mana interface limited to just a chosen few, and only those with the potential to be mages. Asd understood why it had to be so, but Boris had a different opinion.

"If such a thing as having the mana interface free and accessible to everyone will cause an imbalance of power, then I'll say those in power don't deserve to be in power. Look at the ways of ye people them werewolves and shit. Only the strongest rule, and they thrived for it! Sure ye lot were nomads and shit but there was unity and control and prosperity in ye own ways. Ye should have set roots down though, there were all those system servers spread across the continent and none of ye ancestors thought of claiming it. If ye had done so, then there would have been a fifth major power to contend with. There pros and cons, but it's not all bad and not all good, they should just find a policy that works and all of the empires would advance even more and be even stronger. Magic should be for everybody Lion-Boy, it's the only way we can stave off destruction. And that's what the Servers are…. Magic!"

Asd didn't get this dwarf, most especially his accent. sometimes his manner of speaking would devolve into the classic mountain speak of the dwarves, his accent so thick it was hard for Asd to keep up with what he was saying. But then the biggest conundrum was his character; he came off as a typical dwarf, crass, loud, rude, boisterous. And then he was so leaned and well thought, showing traits of an incredibly deep thinker with grand aspirations about what life and reality should be, especially for the 'common man' as he so grandly put it. For the first time in his life Asd was forced to think about more than just himself or the other Weres in the world. From the look of things, it seems even the people who enslaved them are suffering under different yokes of their own, and it begs the question if there's actually anyone that's truly free in this world.

"well back to the lesson then. As I was saying, for engineers or any craftsman's as a whole, anything can be a tool or a component. For us normies without access to your precious interface and the skills and ability to mold and shape mana that comes with it, we have to rely on you bloody mages and your automated factories to make the components we need. But we can still be plenty resourceful even without the components made by mages, it's just that it would lack mana and be less than subpar when matched up to mana made or infused components.

Now the true secrets of engineering, if you want to be a good engineer… is that you must learn to blaze your own trail. There are hundreds of thousands of engineering and smithing blueprints combined out there. However, I believe you have to learn and then push the boundaries that they have set for themselves, you must not attempt to follow the path that has been placed in front of you. Ask questions a lot and experiment a lot, it will help you grow and learn more. Now the first thing you can ever learn to make in engineering is a glow ball. I'll send you the blueprints later, we're about to enter a turbulent stretch of the sky, there's a mana storm coming in three days that would last a weak. Navigation would be shit so we will be anchoring in a few hours over an old satyr forest. Those crazy goat men should be extinct by now so while we wait for the storm to pass take the time to study and get me the best glow ball your animalistic lion mind can come up with, now get out of my sight!"

Asd was all too happy to get away from Boris as he stepped out of the Dwarf's cabin, which turned out to be the ever hot and sweltering engine room. There was still quite a lot to be learnt, but Asd was willing and knew he would get all of them, especially with Gaia in his head to help him. He chuckled softly to himself as he took a step forward when all of a sudden it seemed as if the floor disappeared from underneath his feet and he stumbled forwards.

[Master You did it! You did it! You've manage to manifest mana out of your body!]

[Mana control has leveled up from mild lvl 5 to mild lvl 7!]

[Master the next step would be for you to learn how to shape the mana that's coming out of your body. and this project from Boris should be able to help, I've not been able to pull up any schematics concerning the blueprints for the glow ball. There's not much information about normal or even rune engineers in the academy's network, but I think the new project can help you. If you can shape the mana into runes, then you can get the mana scribing skill, skip the mana forging and then learn the mana infusion spell as your first 1st circle spell. And from what I can see from my memory, the infusion spell can be used for more than just rune-smithing or rune-engineering. There are practical battle applications for it, if the spell can be mastered.]

"So what you're saying is, Boris's stupid assignment would make me a better Rune-smith?"

[On the contrary master, it would make you a better Rune-Engineer and you might actually be able to create and use tools for battle and any other activity before you gain the Rune-smith class. Studying engineering might actually end up bypassing the need for the class master, you can remain a Rune-smith and still be able to make complex engineering constructs. If that is realized it means we get to keep a class slot open and available, a hidden card in case of tense situations in the future…. But it really won't be easy master.] Gaia said as Asd ducked into his room.

"Well then that means it's worth doing then, cause nothing good ever come easy."