Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

“Wouldn’t hurt anything.” I handed out the last one, which Jin eyed dubiously. “They’re self-recharging shield sigils. Higher capacity than the class-issued ones, and if they’re drained, they’ll refill completely in about an hour. You can still recharge them manually, but you won’t need to unless it’s an emergency.”

Marissa blinked. “Wouldn’t something like that be super expensive?”

I grinned. “If you had to buy them, sure. Fortunately, aside from the metal, I made everything I needed myself. They’re not much more complicated than a standard shield sigil — just a few extra runes to make them recharge automatically.”

Jin scratched at his chin, turning the phoenix over in his hands. “Useful. I wasn’t aware you had reached the point of making Carnelian-level items en masse.”

I chuckled. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten your list. In fact, I managed to get to one of your higher priority ones that I couldn’t make before.” I dug through the pouch on my side, withdrawing a monocle on a chain.

This one had been the toughest project yet — in part because of the amount of mental mana it required, and in part because I had to borrow a Shadow to test if it worked. Took three attempts to get everything working right, but it’d been worth it.

I handed it to him gingerly — I wasn’t going to risk tossing something so easily breakable.

In retrospect, maybe I should have thrown a resilience enhancement on it, too.

Jin lifted the monocle over an eye, frowned, and looked at his right arm.

Which promptly vanished.

I blinked, and I heard a few gasps from the others. We’d seen plenty of magic before, but Jin rarely showed off his capabilities in public.

Is he showing us a bit more trust, or is he just doing this as another step in obfuscating his real attunement?

I could ask him about it, but that might get him to retreat back into keeping everything to himself. If he’s a Spider, he probably can’t tell us anything more than he already has without losing points.

His arm reappeared a moment later. “Acceptable,” he pronounced. From the tiny curve of his mouth, though, I could see that I’d pleased him.

Patrick nudged me. “You going to share what that was with the rest of the class?”

“True Seeing,” Jin explained. “It sees through illusions and deceptions.”

“Mm.” I raised a finger. “Not quite True Seeing, unfortunately. That’s a higher level version of the same effect. But it generally functions the way you described — it just won’t work on extremely high level illusions.”

Jin gave a curt nod. “Of course. Thank you.”

“You got it.” I turned to Marissa next. “Your turn, Mara.”

She blinked. “You actually got me something? I, uh, there’s no way I can repay you for any of this…”

I laughed, startling her. “You’re a part of the team, Marissa. This is my contribution.” I looked around to the rest of the group. “Something we all need to be clear about — I’m not going to be able to pull the same kind of weight within the tests as the rest of you. Preparation is my strength. Sure, I’ll contribute ideas and muscle once we’re in there, but as you all get better with your attunements, the gulf in our abilities is only going to grow.”

I folded my hands together. “Best thing you can do to thank me? Use these. Both within the tests and outside them. And if they don’t work the way you want them to? Let me know. I can make adjustments, or hand the item to someone else and make you something different.”

I took out a plain copper bracelet and passed it over to Marissa. “If it makes you feel any better, this was the simplest item of the bunch. One of my favorites, though.”

She accepted the bracelet, turning it over in her hands. “What’s it do?”

“If it detects you sending mana through your arm, it sends more. It’s a standard design for Guardians, nothing fancy. Won’t interfere with your abilities — it just makes them stronger.”

Marissa snapped the bracelet on, grinning. “Means a lot that you ‘membered what I wanted. Can’t wait to hit something and see how these work.”

“Figured you would like them.” More digging through my bag before I produced a leather glove. “Ah, Sera. Yours.” I tossed it to her.

She caught it with narrowed eyes. “This is a House Cadence symbol.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I kind of had that made for you.” I winked at her.

She took a deep breath. “I…don’t think I’m—”

“I never gave you a proper gift to welcome you into the family. But you’re family, and it’s about time I started treating you that way.”

She slipped off the blank glove she’d been wearing, trying the new one on. “It’s…a little big.”

I chuckled. “I didn’t know your exact size, so I had to guess. You’ll grow into it.”

“I’m seventeen, Corin. I don’t think my hands are growing that much more.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “We can get it tailored. That’s not the enchanted part.”

More digging through the bag, until I produced a metal bracer, which I passed to Sera. “I was going to make you a demi-gauntlet like mine, until I realized that would cover the house symbol. You should be able to strap this over the glove without a problem.”

“This what we talked about before?” She inspected the runes on the surface, then started strapping it on over the glove.

“Yup. See the bottom rune? The one that looks kind of like a guy with horns?”

“That looks nothing like a guy with horns, Corin.”

“Okay, but you see what I mean. I’m not an artist.”

“Thank the goddess for that small kindness.”

I raised three fingers in a rude gesture. “Anyway, if you want to use the bracer, touch that with your other hand and channel just a little bit of mana into it. Like what you’d do with a dueling cane. That primes it, and it’ll use the full mana reserve next time you try to summon something.”

She nodded. “How much did you manage to store in there?”

“One hundred and twenty mana.”

Sera blinked rapidly. “I didn’t think you even had that much.”

I lifted my necklace, showing off the “46/46” displayed on it. I’d gotten much stronger over the last three weeks of rapidly making items, but still nowhere near the mana held in that device. “I don’t. I cheated — there are four separate storage runes in there, each with 30 mana in them.”

“That’s still more than I thought you could do in one session.”

I tapped the necklace to my right hand, changing the display to “58/58”. “I couldn’t charge that much if it was mental mana, but the mana stored in those is gray. I charged them from my hand.”

Jin gave me a quizzical look. “Why do you have more mana in your hand than your attunement?”

Oh, right, I hadn’t told everyone about that.

“Paralyzing fear. Nothing for you to worry about.” I tapped the necklace to my forehead again, setting it back to monitor my mind. I got nervous any time it wasn’t actively doing that.

Jin raised a hand to his lips, looking like he wanted to say something more, but he remained silent.

Then Sera hugged me. “Thanks, Corin.”

Humancontacttoomuch .

I patted her awkwardly on the back, suppressing a shudder. It’s just Sera , I told myself. Hugging Sera is fine. She’s safe. You’re safe.

Comforting her when she was injured had been easier because I had initiated it myself. I still wasn’t good at handling other people touching me . It was easier with Sera than anyone else, but she’d surprised me. I probably would have panicked less if I had a chance to brace myself.