Chapter 25: The Difference Between Mana and Qi

Alex opened the door to the forge to see Gavannon working as usual. Strangely, littered around the room were swords like the one he made yesterday. They were everywhere. They covered the bench and work table, they were even on the ground. There must have been nearly twenty swords. Most of them had already been enchanted. There were four that were not enchanted yet. They sat on the work table.

The smith did not acknowledge Alex's return. Alex went about the room gathering the discarded swords. Each one of their enchantments were slightly different. Alex could not understand what those differences meant yet, but he did know enough to be able to tell that no two of them would provide the same exact effect. All of them were still a fire enchantment though.

By the time that Alex was able to find a home for all of the swords, except the four on the table, Gavannon was just finishing with his work on another sword.

The smith stood, and with a stretch walked to the work table and placed the newly finished sword next to the other four.

"It is good to see you back." The smiths attitude seemed to be slightly different than the night before. Alex just figured he was in a good mood. But as he looked into the smiths eyes, he realized that shouldn't be the case.

His eyes were red and glossy. Between this and all of the swords, it was apparent that the smith did not sleep last night.

"Thank you Master Smith." Alex, had a tone of somber respect.

A look of pure anger washed over the smiths face. "You will address me as we had talked about yesterday!" Alex was honestly horrified. The smith noticed and calmed down. "Look, I do not need a lackey. Nor do I need someone who cares about sophistry or titles. I am a smith! You are an enchanter! That is all we are when we are here! Do you understand me?" The smith couldn't completely keep the anger from his voice as he spoke.

"Yes smith!" Alex, felt like he finally understood the smith a little.

"Good." Alex swore he saw a smile tug at the corners of his mouth for a moment. "Now, do you still have the book from last night?"

"Yes." He handed the notebook to Gavannon.

Gavannon took the book and added a few more enchantment schematics to it. Along with descriptions of what the runes did. The new information was even more detailed than the last.

"Take your time with these five blades. Your goal is to get them all enchanted by the end of the day. Use the lightning enchantment along with the other three that I have added just now, to do the first four. For the fifth, you may enchant it with whatever you like." After giving his instruction Gavannon left the forge.

The enchantments that the smith had just added were much more difficult than the others in the book. The difficulty wouldn't only be in the mana requirement, even the design of the runes and their interactions were more difficult.

The new enchantments were; a shadow enchantment, a strange ice enchantment, and a wind enchantment. The shadow and wind enchantments were pretty straight forward for the most part. The shadow enchantment would spread darkness around the entire weapon making it invisible in darkness. The wind enchantment would use a pair of trigger runes in the grip to allow the user to speed up or slow down the blade. But Alex couldn't understand what the ice enchantment was doing. It was many times more complex than the others. It even seemed to use elements of the other two in its composition.

He decided to leave the ice enchantment for last.

Alex first made the lightning enchantment. Because it was composed almost exactly the same as the fire enchantment, he was able to finish it faster. The only difference was the use of lightning runes in place of the fire ones. Alex finished it in only two hours. He still had another three hours before lunch.

He decided to make the shadow sword next. It was very similar in design. It had a few more runes that needed to be made, and a more intricate linkage system, but it was not too different.

The design was exactly the same up until after the mana dispersion rune. Now, instead of linking it to seven transfiguring runes along the blade, he instead had to link it to twelve transfiguring runes that were dispersed along the entire sword. These runes then needed to be linked to twelve area of affect runes, that in turn were linked to the shadow rune situated at the center of each area of affect rune. It was much more complex than before. This was also Alex's first time creating a rune nested inside another rune.

Sweat soaked Alex's clothes as he walked to the dinning hall. He looked even worse than Red and Tom did yesterday at dinner.

It had taken every single ounce of concentration and qi that Alex could muster to finish the shadow short sword.

As always, Alex was the last to arrive.

Tom, Red, and Eveline were talking merrily when he approached the table. 'Looks like they had a better day today.' Alex thought as he sat down.

In fact they had a wonderful morning. After spending an hour in the library dealing with Charles' lackeys obstructions, they were given a reprieve. For some reason, the students who had been giving Tom a hard time at the green house came to the library.

At first Tom was apprehensive, but it became quickly evident that they were here to bother someone else. As luck would have it, they were here to bother the other group of lackeys. At first it started as simple pranks and irritation, but it quickly grew into a fight.

After the first few blows landed, someone knocked over a table full of books. Both groups were promptly kicked out of the library for a month.

So, it was easy to see why they were in a good mood.

After filling him in, even Alex got a good laugh at their expense.

"Alex, check this out." Eveline cut in after the laughter died down.

He accepted a notebook from her and saw that it was full of sketches of runes. It included all of their relevant information, such as depth, relative size, and so on. The only thing it was missing was a description of the effects.

"These are the runes we are helping professor Keller research. We think they are all supplementary runes of some type." She clarified.

Supplementary runes were ones that had no direct elemental or mechanical effect. Runes like the dispersion and transfiguration runes were of this type.

"That is interesting. Any luck on figuring out what they do?"

"Not a chance." Tom shrugged. "I am convinced that we are just here so that Keller doesn't have to read through all of the books." No one denied it. He was probably right after all.

"Well, get as far as you can. At least now you should get all of the rewards." Alex shook his head as he continued to eat.

"I know what that rune does. But you can't tell them." Eluril said.

Alex nearly choked on his lunch. After coughing up a roasted carrot he turned to stare at Eluril in surprise.

"Are you okay?" Tom asked.

"I am fine. Don't worry about it." He waved off Tom without even looking at him. Alex was still staring at Eluril.

"Explain why I shouldn't share the information. If I don't agree with your decision, you might as well not tell me." He trusted Eluril's judgment, but he also trusted his friends. Not to mention they had agreed to cooperate.

"Okay. If you insist. Simply put, they cant use it, and it would draw more questions than you want to answer." Eluril explained.

"Why would it draw questions?"

"Because that rune can only operate with qi." Eluril daintily slicing her steak with her claws this whole time. Not even looking at Alex.

"I thought you said it didn't matter if I used qi or mana to make enchantments?" Concern was evident in his tone.

"No, what I said was you will have no problem using qi in place of mana. I never said mana could do everything qi can." She clarified as cut another tiny piece of steak and ate it with all the grace of a princess.

"Why can't mana use the rune you recognize?"

"Because, it manipulates your qi and automatically attaches it's self to the rune next to it. In effect it turns you into the power source of the enchantment, and it allows for you to change or upgrade the enchantment. I have yet to see an enchantment that requires the mana of the user to operate. Why would anyone even use such a rune? There is no difference between the mana in people, and the mana around them." Eluril explained.