Chapter 126- Prototype (Patreon)

"Yes, Olive. My aura can see inside people; though it can't see mana directly. Is that unusual?"

"What does it look— Nevermind! I don't want to know." Olive's face contorted as she made a gagging noise and then shuddered. "From what I was taught, it's extremely unusual to perceive anything well with the aura. All I receive are dull sensations of pressure when mine comes in contact with objects around me."

"That's it? What about after accepting yourself just now? Is it any clearer?"

"Perhaps? If it is, the changes are subtle."

"Well, you’re still on the first step of the Aahmra’s training. By the end, your aura will be stronger and a lot more efficient, who knows, maybe the clarity will improve as well." Olive nodded, her eyes brimming with renewed vigor as she stood and slowly walked around the room.

“Hey, I just realized you never told me about aspects. I’m not sure it’ll be relevant to me now, but I might as well learn.”

“Oh, right. My apologies for forgetting.” Jiran waved off her apology before she continued,” An aspect is formed when your understanding of an element deepens to the point it becomes incorporated into your manabody. The exact method is a closely held secret of the emperors. As I mentioned before, it is a requirement for reaching the eighth tier. That’s about all I know on the subject.”

“Interesting, now that I know it’s possible, I’ll have to play around with it a little. Thanks, Olive.” She nodded with a pleased smile and returned to learning to move with her aura stuffed inside her body.

Jiran turned to Mayalyn, "What kind of armor do you want?" Her nose scrunched in thought as he focused on the plates of metal in his lap.

I've been putting off testing this idea since I first tried forming. We’re about to face a horde of Graymin and I can’t be everywhere at once. If I know they at least have good armor, I’ll be able to focus on other things without worrying about them. Besides, I need something to do while they're training.

"I would like it to be easy to move in while not blocking my obfuscating."

"I'll see what I can do. Will you show me the skill again?" Jiran activated Mana Omnis and energy gathered in his eyes, bringing the mana that lazily sifted around each person in the room into sharp focus. When both girls released a startled gasp, Jiran looked between them with a raised brow. "What's wrong?"

"Your eyes are glowing! Not the usual glow from molding, either. This is much more intense. Fascinating," Olive began to approach but he waved her off, uninterested in a mere cosmetic side effect of his new skill. She huffed at him before relenting and resuming her aura training.

“Pretty,” Mayalyn mumbled before activating Obfuscating. A thin layer of milky mana settled across her skin before it rippled with intent. Suddenly, everything but her clothes became invisible. The layer of mana was hard at work, adjusting constantly in an attempt to convince his eyes she was not there. He moved a hairbrush from one of the nightstands to float behind her where it vanished from regular view.

If her skill was bending light, I would still be able to see the brush. How is it working then? Is it affecting the mind of the viewer directly?

Her skill flickered and ended, bringing her back into full view. “You are becoming distracted again,” She snatched the hairbrush from the air and began combing it through her wild locks with quick, agitated motions.

“How am I supposed to make you armor that works with your skill if I don’t understand it? If we can figure out how it works, we might be able to advance the skill to fifty! Then the subskill might be able to cover your clothes too!”

“I have no intention of standing about for hours while you stare at me so intensely,” Her neck turned a touch rosy as she brushed all the harder. “Besides, we are supposed to be training my new skill, remember?”

“Right, new skill. Okay, I’ll make your armor while you practice your new skill.” Mayalyn nodded with a relieved sigh when he didn’t press her. Jiran took a second to think before giving her a few suggestions, “Try to separate the elements into different parts of your body, metal in one arm, lightning in the other. See how efficient it is to convert your mana into lightning versus metal since you know how one works much better than the other. Feel free to practice the expulsion portion of the skill on me when you’re ready. All that should give you a few skill levels.”

Mayalyn excitedly bobbed her head and then closed her eyes. One of her arms glistened with the telltale crackling sparks of lightning enhancing while the other took on a metallic sheen. Perspiration formed across her skin as she released a long, pained moan. Jiran watched the mana unsteadily flow through her as she struggled to grasp the basics of her new skill. After a few more seconds, he turned his focus toward his own task.

I was able to use forming on the wall in the hallway, so what I have in mind should be possible. Hmm, now that I don’t have the forming skill, I should call this something different. It’s basically transmutation so I’ll go with that. Transmuting breaks down one material and uses it to create another. No, that can’t be what forming does. It’s far more likely that it’s the mana itself creating the new material and the old, destroyed material, is merely being consumed as fuel. The closer that fuel is to the desired material, the more efficient the process becomes since the mana has something similar to copy.

Not sure if that’s totally accurate, but it seems right with the way that mana can turn into any element. If it can do that, then why wouldn’t it be able to form any material as well. Whatever mana is, it’s clearly a substance that’s perfect for mimicking other things.

While working through his thoughts, another part of Jiran’s brain was creating the exact mental image of what he wanted to do. With a quick yank, he pulled a chunk of old charcoal from the room's fireplace and hovered it above his hand. Two flat panels of aura squeezed and ground against the hunk of carbon, rapidly turning it to a fine powder.

What should I do about the impurities? Well, if mana can burn molecules to turn itself into a new material, it should have no issues being a filter too.

Jiran’s mana flowed around the carbon powder before sinking into it. His intent to create perfectly pure carbon was clear and the mana spent itself in a shimmer of dull light that passed across the small pile. Mayalyn and Olive shot each other a glance, followed by matching shrugs before refocusing on their own tasks. Not wanting to be wasteful, a flicker of will pulled the unspent mana from the air back into himself.

Enthralling Touch: + 1

Jiran flattened the loose powder within two panels of aura until it was shaped into a three-by-three-centimeter square. He used more aura to push all the natural dust in the air away, not wanting his experiment to become corrupted by stray particles.

Okay, the hard part. Since I don’t already have any of the material I want to make, my mana is going to have to wing it. Hopefully this isn’t too expensive.

Jiran closed his eyes, bringing every part of his brain into alignment to form the best mental image possible. He pictured the way hydrogen and oxygen chemically bond inside the body. He imagined that same bond but for carbon. His spotty memories from Earth failed to recall the exact name of the bond but it wasn’t important, only what it did and how it worked. He imagined the atoms coming together to form a honeycomb lattice. Each atom linking up with exactly three others. He forced the image to be flat, a single atom thick as he didn't want them stacking vertically, only horizontally.

Intent radiated from him, sparking within his mana which settled all across the thinly spread pile of ash. Instinctively, he understood the mana wanted to make his image into reality but wasn't strong enough yet. So he did what any good scientist would do.

More power!

He had to put a staggering five percent of his mana into the tiny three-by-three-centimeter layer in order for it to finally conform to his wishes. His breath caught as he lifted the incredibly thin, translucent material into the air. With trembling fingers, he poked and prodded it. It bent under his finger but didn’t break apart. He pulled a piece of hair from his head and pushed it against the edge of the sheet and a maniacal giggle escaped his lips as he watched the follicle be easily split in two.

“Yes!” Jiran pumped his fist in the air, his shout caused both girls to jolt. Seeing their furious glares, he rubbed the back of his head with a smile. “Sorry, sorry. I wasn’t sure if it was going to work. Just wait until I make you some armor from this stuff, you’re going to lose your minds too!”

I did it! I really did it! Mana is such a ridiculous cheat. If I make this even fifty layers thick it’s probably going to be the strongest armor ever made in the empire.

A shiver ran up his spine at the possibilities in front of him. With a euphoric glow in his eyes, he began processing the rest of the charcoal in the fireplace, going so far as to scrape it from the walls and chute. After spreading it out all around his first successful creation, he fed the dust his mana with the desire for it to form into more of the same material. As he suspected, the process was significantly more efficient since the mana had something to copy. With only a single percent of his mana, he now had a square of the material a meter long and wide.

Jiran pushed a gentle current of electricity through his finger and pressed it to the cloth. The elemental mana danced across the translucent sheet as if the two were made for each other. He tried the other elements as well and each one slid through with laughable ease.

So it won’t protect against elemental attacks but it also won’t stop someone wearing it from using coating or channeling freely. Usually, people use coating from their hands as the rest of them is covered in armor.

When Jiran tried to reshape the material into a glove, he was disappointed to discover that changing its shape was significantly more expensive than creating it.

Considering how strong the chemical bonds are holding the honeycomb structure of atoms together, I suppose it makes sense for altering it to be difficult. Fine, I’ll just have to do my best at creating it in the shape I want it in.

He cut the material into three dozen sheets, each the exact same size, and stacked them on top of each other. When he fused them together, he now had a single sheet just under four centimeters wide and tall that was exactly thirty-six atoms thick. The material was still translucent and flexible and he could still bend it, though it took considerable effort.

It’s already so strong! Five hundred layers would be much, much thinner than regular armor and impossibly strong. What have I done? Is this considered banned technology? Hopefully not. From what I read of the Maker’s notes, it was only things like engines and complex weapons and explosives. I guess I’ll leave it out for a while and see if it vanishes just to be safe.

“Hey, Olive.” When the girl’s head snapped in his direction, Jiran shot her a giddy grin. “Do you think the Duke would mind if I cleaned out all the fireplaces in the manor?”

“Cleaned out all the—” She shook her head before throwing her arms up, “Yes he would mind! That would absolutely be taken as an insult to the operation of his estate. If you would allow me, I will put in a request with Duke Reihnhardt to bring any excess charcoal to you for your… whatever that is. Are you quite sure you know what you’re doing? I’ve never seen someone forming something so unusual.” She trailed off, refusing to meet his eyes.

“Nope, I have no clue what I’m doing!” A bark of laughter and a raised hand forestalled her, “As far as I know, nobody ever managed to make this stuff before. It’s entirely unknown territory so I’m having to do a bit of guesswork. So far, the results are highly promising. I’ll go talk to the old man myself, don’t worry, I’ll be nice.”

“Wait! Let me come with—” Jiran was already gone before she could struggle two steps. Her trapped aura rebelled from the sudden movements and snapped in the other direction like a rubber band, causing her to crash to the floor with a squeal.

In the hallway, Jiran rapped on the Duke’s ever-present aura to let the man know he was coming. Surprisingly, he appeared before Jiran, popping out of a synapse of the framework a moment later. “What can I do for you, Master Mortemer?”

“I need all the charcoal you can gather. Or permission to get it myself. Oh, actually, it would be way better if you have a bunch of graphite laying around. That would be way easier to work with and save a lot of mana.” Jiran clicked his tongue at the third aura that intruded on their conversation, though he didn’t push it away.

“Is that all?” Reihnhardt’s voice turned sarcastic as he fought to keep the annoyance from his face. “You do realize that mining is illegal and only a small portion of new ore is dispersed within the entirety of the empire each year?”

“Actually, I didn’t know that. How come?”

Reihnhardt narrowed his eyes for a moment before realizing Jiran was serious; then, his voice took on a lecturing tone as he responded. “There are beasts beneath the surface that could threaten our painstakingly cultivated ecosystems. Can you imagine the devastation a single tier eight beast could unleash if it found its way into the catacombs? The empire would lose its access to tier seven beasts, possibly cutting off our ascenders forever. Therefore, mining is carefully controlled and only enacted when an appropriately high-tiered party is available to oversee the operations.”

“Don’t be a boor, little Reihny,” The third aura manifested into the form of Ravenna wearing a revealing dress with a cape draped over her missing arm. She tried to approach Jiran but a firm wall of aura stopped her in her tracks. She flashed him a predatory grin before smoothly turning to Reihnhardt as if she had never intended to go anywhere else. “I’ll pay for the expense myself. Give Master Mortemer whatever he desires. And please come directly to me for anything you need in the future, and I’ll be sure to accommodate you… thoroughly.”

If I don’t keep Mayalyn away from this woman, she’s going to kill her.

Ravenna bowed deeply and vanished in another teleportation, leaving Jiran and Reihnhardt alone in the hallway. They both released a weary sigh, though for different reasons. Before Reihnhardt spoke, two maids scurried by them with several covered platters on a pushcart.

“I would not wish to interrupt your breakfast, I’ll see to it that the charcoal is delivered with all haste. And do be wary of her, young man. You are peering over the precipice of a very steep and icy slope.”

“Not to worry, she won’t be getting anything else from me; both for her protection and mine. I appreciate the warning though. You have a minute to talk about Mayalyn’s people?”

“Of course, I was in the process of drafting them a land-grant a moment ago. If we survive this siege, I’ll send a platoon to them for protection. You never know what kind of nuisances might wish to take advantage of them.”

“Wow, that’s more than I expected. Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it, unless you happen to need an additional member for a dive into the catacombs, in which case, I hope you remember me quite fondly indeed!” Reihnhardt released a deep chuckle before vanishing into the framework.