Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

“So, if you can make a copy of something that easily, why don’t you have dozens of things you can summon? Wouldn’t your teachers just summon things in class for the whole class to copy?”

She shook her head. “Every binding we make takes up a little bit of our mana, for as long as we maintain the bond. If I had a whole bunch of them, I couldn’t summon anything at all, so it’s only worth it to keep a few.”

Sera paused, tearing off a piece of bread with her teeth. “We did learn a couple of basic summoning spells in class, but most of the teachers consider bindings worthless, since the monsters are so much weaker than the real thing.”

She took a breath. “Most people focus on making real contracts, since they have a similar cost in mana to bindings, but contracts give you more options. For example, if you have a contract, you can draw on the creature you’ve contracted for power without summoning them. That’s how I use my ice spells.”

I prodded at my own food, but I wasn’t nearly as hungry. “I remember you — or Teft, maybe? — saying something about summoning modified versions of things you’ve contracted?”

“Yeah. Like, if I had a real contract with an ogre, and I had some fire mana, I could summon a fire ogre .” She grinned. “A fire ogre. Now I want one.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, I get the idea. And you’re still not going to tell me what your contract is with, right?”

“Nah.”

I picked up a piece of one of her potatoes with my fork. “Well, if you’re going to be that way…”

“Hey! That’s my third favorite potato! You give it back!”

I popped it into my mouth.

Sera put a hand over her heart, giving me a lamenting expression. “Alas. It was so young.”

I chewed. “And salty.”

Sera tightened her lips. “I do want to tell you what my summoned monster is. But I can’t.”

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

She sighed. “It’s part of the contract. The creature is… eccentric. I’m not allowed to tell anyone I have a contract with it until it agrees that I’m ready.”

I blinked. “That seems like a pretty bad deal.”

Sera shook her head. “No, it’s a great deal. You’ll see why eventually. But in the meantime, I can’t tell you what it is.”

“Fine, fine. But it gives you ice magic in the meantime?”

She nodded. “Yeah. And some degree of control over ice magic, which is pretty useful.”

I’d noticed that when she managed to stop the karvensi’s spell in the arena, but I hadn’t realized the ability was from her contracted monster. Interesting. “So, different contracts offer different benefits, in addition to summoning. Could you contract an ogre to make yourself physically stronger?”

She made a ‘hmm’ noise. “Maybe? I’m not actually sure about that. I’ve only looked into summoned monsters that give me enhanced magical abilities, but it sounds possible, yeah.”

“Could that be how Derek was so strong?”

She lifted up a cup of juice and took a long sip. “Ahh, something that isn’t mana potion. Delicious.” After a brief moment of savoring the beverage, she continued. “Anyway, no, he’s not a Summoner.”

“But I saw him—”

“Not sure what exactly his attunement is, but it’s different. I think he stores monsters in items, then gets power from the objects. He wouldn’t tell me about it before the match, he just said he could take care of things. It was pretty frustrating.”

“Yeah, I’d be pretty frustrated if someone who I was fighting alongside didn’t tell me about all their abilities.” I gave her an exaggerated wink.

“Oh, shush, Corin. When I can summon it, you’ll be one of the first to see, okay?”

I nodded. “Acceptable.”

“If you want to see it any faster, you could make me a mana storage device…”

We spent much of the rest of the meal talking about enchanting options. All in all, it was a pleasant change of pace.

I lifted up the product of three weeks of agonizing labor — a single crystal of gray mana, still trapped within the practice shell.

I might have slightly overestimated myself when I’d planned to figure out how to make the more advanced version in a week.

Even so, I was proud of my results.

Over the following few days, I finished filling the remaining practice molds. It was considerably easier after my first success — but I still had a pretty significant problem.

I always stopped as soon as I started feeling a headache.

I knew from speaking to various Diviners that I was being overly cautious. After a cursory test of my mana levels after finishing one of the crystals, I knew I was nowhere near the point where making one was going to put me in danger.

But I remembered what had happened to Sera after the fight, and how long it had taken her to recover.

And, more importantly, I remembered what happened to my great grandfather. The story of his broken mind echoed in my thoughts every time I considered using any significant amount of mind mana. The more I tried to fight the thoughts out of my head, the more I reinforced them.

But I needed to make my attunement stronger. I was nowhere near Carnelian yet — and I was rapidly running out of time to get there. I knew I’d never make enough progress if I kept stopping at the slightest hint of discomfort.

And that was why, if I couldn’t scour the fear from my mind, I needed to beat it through other means.

I needed to outsmart it.

And with that goal in mind, I began my next project.

I handed the four completed crystals over to Vellum.

“Oh, you’re still enrolled here? I thought you might have dropped out from shame a couple weeks ago, since these took you so long.”

I grinned. “Sorry to disappoint you, professor. I do have other things to keep me busy.”

That was about seventy percent an excuse, but a fraction of truth was good enough to keep the smile on my face.

She just shook her head. “And I suppose you’ll be wanting the mana out of these?”

“Yeah, and I’d like to see the extraction process, if you don’t mind.”

“Very well.” She nodded, laying out the crystals in a line on the table. She opened a drawer, reached in to withdraw something…

…and hit the first crystal in the line with a hammer.

The quartz casing exploded, chips flying everywhere.

As I gawked, Vellum took a deep breath, and then smashed the next one.

And the next. And the next.

At least the mana crystals themselves remained intact.

“Ah, much better.” She set the hammer down on the table amidst the quartz powder and debris.

I stared blankly. “I…thought you said I wasn’t supposed to damage the casing?”

“Of course not, dear. I enjoy doing it myself far too much to let you do it. Let an old woman bask in one of her few remaining joys in life, hmm?”

I sighed, taking a seat in the chair across from her. She was obviously having a little fun at my expense, but that was tolerable as long as I got the results.

I reached across the table and began to retrieve my hard-earned crystals. “Of course, professor. I would never want to deprive you of such simple pleasures. You wouldn’t happen to have any more practice crystals that I could use?”

“Oh, no, that was the last batch. You can buy them at some of the supply stores on campus, though. They’re cheap or I never would have given you any.”

“Right.” I rubbed my forehead, feeling the grit of powdered quartz dust that had stuck on my fingers when I picked up the mana crystals. “I’ll keep working on those, but I do have another question in the meantime.”