Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

“Oh, yes. We’re in agreement. In fact, it was one of the first items I invented. I was already a Citrine Mage at that point, of course, but I’m sure you’ll manage something . Eventually.”

My desire to loot Vellum’s office for all available items sharply increased.

I stretched my arms. “Of course. I’ll have to take my time to ensure my design is the best available . In the meantime, you can help me with another project. It’s a mana filtration system.”

Vellum raised an eyebrow at that. “What do you mean by that?”

“I took an alchemy class. They talked a lot about how difficult it is to make enhancement elixirs, since you go through a lot of work to purify them,” I explained.

“So, they’ve got this complicated distillation apparatus to get the mana into a pure state so people can drink it. I read up, and people have made all sorts of items for detecting the composition of the starting mana and the result — but they always use physical means to evaporate the liquid and purify it.” I didn’t have a drawing to show her for this; I was coming up with this idea on the spot. I just took out a piece of paper and slid an ink pen and inkwell over.

“I’m familiar with the concept, of course. Using mana on the base liquid just taints the result.”

“Right. But what if the mana you were putting into a vial was already in a pure state?” I started scribbling down some mind runes on the page. “We build a device that has all the types of mana stored in it in small amounts. They all self-refill. Let’s call it a glove, like the one I wear. I put it on, it senses my mana. I push mana through it via whatever process I’d normally use to liquefy my mana.”

I hadn’t figured out exactly how to do that yet. I’d read up a bit, though, and it didn’t sound that hard. Getting excited, I continued. “So, then the gauntlet detects the composition of my mana, and it adds whatever types it needs to compensate for the impurities. The result?”

I left the answer open so she could share in my enthusiasm.

Professor Vellum sighed. “Your hand explodes.”

My face went through several contortions before finally settling on unhappiness. I didn’t like my hand exploding. “What? Why?”

“I’m sure you’re thinking about that ‘opposites nullify’ tripe that Teft likes to throw around, yes? But that’s not true within an object. You let fire and ice meet inside your glove? Lose a hand.”

I grimaced, but that sounded solvable. “Okay, maybe the filtration could happen while it’s flowing out.”

“It doesn’t matter. Adding energy to the liquid isn’t going to just target the opposite component within that liquid. You’d be saturating the entire mana formula with that energy. You’ve got fire mana somewhere in the solution, so you bombard it with ice mana. The fire mana is nullified, but now you’ve got a solution that’s tainted by ice. It’s no better.”

I sighed in grudging understanding. “Okay, so I’d need to be able to inject exactly the right amount of mana into exactly the right parts of the solution without tainting anything else. That sounds hard, but possible.”

“Oh, it is. It’s just also harder than the normal distillation process .” She took a sip of her tea. “But don’t despair. It’s actually a good idea. You’re trying to improve an existing process, and that’s the core of what true enchanting looks like. You’re questioning established methods. I doubt this particular one will bear fruit in the way you proposed it, but you should keep thinking about it.

“Not here, in this meeting,” she clarified. “Study. Think about the problems in your current approach and how to solve them.”

I nodded gratefully. That was probably the most encouragement she’d ever given me. “Okay. What about for now?”

“What about for now? I’ve turned you down on three ideas. You’re done for the week. Come back next Wyddsay and have something better for me.”

“Okay.” I paused for a moment, thinking. “But before I go, I’d like to work on some items for the test, and I need funding. You’d mentioned giving me some items to work on that you could sell?”

“I haven’t forgotten our arrangement, but it seems to me like you haven’t been practicing your mind magic enough to be useful yet.”

I tensed my hands. “I’m pretty sure I can manage some basic item commissions.”

“Basic isn’t what sells, boy. But,” she relented, “I do have a few things you can work on.”

Vellum opened a drawer in her desk, withdrawing a small stack of papers. She passed them over to me. They were all intricately-written enchantment designs, many of which used runes that didn’t even resemble ones I’d seen before.

“You may start with these.”

I scratched my chin as I skimmed over the first few designs. They each had at least a half-dozen runes, many of which I didn’t recognize at all. “These look pretty… involved.”

“What were you expecting? Anything of significant value is going to take effort , Corin.”

Fair.

“How much of the sale are you taking?”

The professor grinned. “Ah, I was wondering when you’d ask. Fifty percent.”

I narrowed my eyes as I considered that. “Fifty percent of net or gross?”

She chuckled. “Well, since you thought to ask, I’ll be kind enough to say net .”

So, half of the earnings from each item was going into the void. That was rough, but if she was giving me the designs and selling the items, it was probably worth it. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to front me the materials?”

She folded her arms. “You want me to take a cut of the net gains and provide the materials? What sort of business do you take me for?”

“A very kind and helpful mentor working with a promising would-be apprentice?”

She snorted. “Your optimism warms my shriveled heart. No, I think you’ll need to figure out your own source of materials. Otherwise, I could lose money from this arrangement, depending on how much you fail.”

I chuckled. “I appreciate your boundless confidence in my abilities.”

“I’m exactly as confident as I should be. This will be simple work, but it will not be easy — especially with your mana limitations.”

That made me grimace, just as it was intended to. “I’m grateful for your help regardless.”

“But if you’re really having material problems, you should think about a better way to solve that. A longer-term method. That’s the last hint I’ll give you.”

I nodded, picking up the papers and wishing her goodbye as I left the office. I didn’t pick up on what she was suggesting immediately, but I let it swim amongst the other ideas that were gradually forming in my mind.

Vellum was a pain, but she was probably the best mentor I could have hoped for.

I had nine weeks remaining to finish as many of Vellum’s designs as possible, get rolling on our own items — if I could afford to make any — and finish any other preparation I needed for the second exam. It sounded like a lot of time on the surface, but I’d only managed to make a single Carnelian-level item in the last ten weeks, and now I wanted to make dozens of them in the same period of time.

I’d written down everything I needed to make the items for my friends. I was a long way from being able to afford any of them, but I also had no idea how much Vellum’s items were going to sell for. I’d looked at the prices of goods at a couple shops, but I hadn’t been focused on cataloguing that information, so most of what I remembered was “everything is too expensive”.