Chapter 43: Spell crystal

"Are you sure you can make such enchantments?" Yukika asks.

"It'll be mana intensive, but I have my Kyhosa; the biggest problem will be getting the right materials."

"We would need several Domr wind pearls the size of your ice pearl," Chyzu says pointing out the issue.

"Perhaps there is another way; the Domrs make them, why can't we?" I say, an idea already forming in my mind. Crystals grow slowly, in a solution of mineral water, unlike gems that are superheated and crushed together before cooling. Mana gems are better than the Domr pearls, but only because one is more mana dense, and perhaps how it is made.

"What do you have in mind?" Tusile asks with an eyebrow raised.

"Mana crystals and gems grow with every mana storm, right? That's because of the extra abundance in mana; we can have weavers create an area of dense mana, just low enough pressure that it doesn't form mana silk."

"That doesn't explain how we are going to get so much air mana," Esofy says, her [Sense Mana] helping her contribute to the discussion despite being a warrior.

"One of my class skills lets me produce some air mana if I want to, plus the curse of my [Mana Manipulation] will make more, plus there's already a ton around I could just use manipulation to gather it in one spot."

"How long will it take? We can't afford to delay too long," Guklaro says, crossing her arms.

"I don't know, but the ship will take a few days anyway."

There was one more thing about this special crystal, I plan to grow an enchantment along with it, it should be more permanent and more powerful, but I'll save that as a surprise. The biggest problem is that we only have five weavers in the village, and using multiple people to enchant is a bad idea. No two enchanters will have exactly the same image, so multiple enchanters being used for any job is out of the question. This means I'll have to stay awake for multiple days, as will the weavers, so we will need a good night's rest before we start.

"Very well, this is the safest way, and we can use this strategy again if there are more nests found," Tusile says, giving a reluctant sigh.

Dismissed, I went home. Dad is still working on my armor, and Mom has just finished the pearl. The pearl sits in an engraved trapezoid plate meant to be riveted onto the chest of the armor.

"Earth steel is a pain to work with," Mom complains. Since earth repels water she had to use a more powerful water jet to make the engravings and designs. The metal held onto the earth pearl-like mountains coming out of the plate holding the pearl in four points.

I tell mom the plan we have for the nest and that I'll be busy for a few days.

"Make sure you play with the twins today then," Mom says. "They'll miss you so use this chance to spend time with them.

I nod and go to the playground to play the role of the tickle monster.

My sisters are playing with a ball, bouncing it between each other and some other kids. I cast an invisibility spell and let them finish the game.

"What should we play next?" A kid asks as I snuck up to them.

"Hmmm, Netball, maybe?"

"Rawr! A monster has come to eat you!" I reveal myself with my hands up and fingers out like claws.

"Kya!" The startled kids scream and I caught Yafel, reaching for her sides and viciously attacking her. Yafel giggles and laughs and squirms in my arms.

"Let go of her, monster!" Yafe says, lightly hitting me.

"Then I'll get you!" I say and captured Yafe with a swift movement, tickling her. I chase the kids around before they all ganged up on me.

"Rawr! You have slain the evil monster!" I say and play dead, letting them win. I play Netball with them after and show them a display of dancing fairies.

We all went home as it is getting dark soon. The next day I have another meeting with the elders and the village weavers.

"Alysara will explain the details, but for the overview, we plan to make make a boat that sails the skies. What we'll need is a large air crystal that Aly says we can make with your help."

I began explaining what we'll need to do. We need to keep the mana condensed at just the right pressure and that it'll probably take days of collective effort.

"Even if we make this it'll cost a lot of mana just to power the enchantment," one of the weavers says, pessimistically.

"We have plenty of people for that; besides, it only needs to fly for a few hours," Tusile says, waving the complaint off.

We are making a boat that can fly, but to save on the enchantment run time, we'll be sailing the boat normally until we get close to the nest and I'll bombard the nest with my exploding fairies, safely out of reach. Others will be handling defense in case of ranged attacks. But with my illusions, I think that won't be an issue.

There are a few complaints, but once we explained the danger everyone agreed to this job.

We gathered, out of the way, and start working. It is a struggle at first. With five people it is hard to coordinate the exact pressure needed and we ended up with a lot of weaved mana.

"Five people are too much; let's try three. This will also give us the ability to rotate out," one of the weavers suggests.

"Yeah, I thought this would be harder to maintain." I agree.

"Our skill levels are near two hundred and being boosted by classes."

I hadn't thought of that, but it does make sense that the weavers would have classes if they specialized in mana weaving.

It turns out only two others were needed, and now for the hard part. I start with my enchantment image, seeing a build-up of gravity essence; I focus on reducing gravity with the ability to be manipulated by someone, then with [Twin Minds], I cast another enchantment with air manipulation. I infuse the mana into the crystal that is growing at a languid pace, watching the full process.

I watch as the enchantments combine and form the seed. Air mana slowly, very slowly starts to form around the seeded enchantment mana. Something was off about this; the enchantment shouldn't have taken yet as there was nothing for it to take to. Worse, over-enchanting could make it unstable, yet this isn't.

I start to increase my production, watching the mana quickly take to the tiny forming crystal. I'll need more dark mana. I realize. More dark mana would help with the gravity enchantment.

"I'm going to introduce dark mana into this; we'll need it for an enchantment," I inform the rest so they know what to expect.

I watch as I produce dark mana now, letting that mix into the cloud of highly dense air mana. I still am enchanting but am increasing the speed at which I am enchanting. The backlash of the curse is helping in this case as it means more enchanted mana. The crystal greedily devours the enchantment without issue.

Something isn't right, in a good way, but that much enchanting mana in one place should have made the mana unstable. Perhaps it's because it was the seed that the mana is forming around? Or is it that the majority of the mana is the enchanting mana? I watch as a complicated crystalline matrix of mana forms and grow.

"It's growing faster than I'd thought it would." one of the weavers comments. Seeing the crystal the size of a pebble floating in the air. It had already been a few hours but I continued watching the growing puzzle in front of me.

The weavers swapped out, but I remain.

"Are you sure? You've been sitting there for a long time."

"I am needed for infusing the enchantment into the crystal," I say and continue observing the crystal.

Spell mana mixes with normal mana, preventing it from moving and locking it in place. I think the normal mana is needed to stabilize the enchantment mana. Keep it bound in place. I knew this wouldn't be what I intended, but I didn't know how it would turn out. It could be a complete waste of time and effort, or it could be exactly what we needed, or it could be something else entirely.

Soon the darkness of night came, and tiredness washes over me. But I can't sleep now; I'd have to keep feeding the crystal enchanted mana. I have a feeling that if I stop now this will all fail, so I stayed up all through the night.

The next morning is terrible; if only I could just produce the mana I needed with my core.

Why not? I asked myself. What is a spell or enchantment but mana with an identity attached to it, mana unique to a spell.

I focus on my core, it is hard to do especially after staying up all night, but by now my enchanting process for this specific enchantment is on autopilot; I just have to hold the image in the back of my mind. Once I have my core in sight I attach the image to my core; I felt it move, sliding into place with several minutes of effort but the image eventually clicked and I felt my core start producing the mana.

Unfortunately, I couldn't place two images into my core but now I have one mind freed up. Can I go to sleep with one mind and have my double maintain the second enchantment? It is worth a try.

It was easy to fall asleep. Weirdly my...conscious? Something of that nature kept me aware through my exhausted second mind. Unfortunately, my body would just have to stay awake, a good thing that I am not doing anything demanding of it.

The weavers swapped out several more times, and I gave the image of the second enchantment to my first mind to give my second a chance to rest. When night came around for a second time the crystal had grown to the size of a bowling ball.

I had now studied what was going on extensively. The crystalline structure, the makeup of the mana, everything. This crystal is not an enchanted object, it doesn't look like one; instead, it seems as if a spell locked in crystal. The normal elemental mana is tightly squeezing together now, almost like the threads of mana silk, but in the complex crystalline matrix.

My family visited me several times to see how I was doing.

"Don't worry. I learned how to rest my mind with my [Twin Minds] skill! Now I can stay awake all night and get even more stuff done!" I say with a smile.

"You still need to rest your body Aly," Mom says with a sigh and a smile.

"I know... maybe there's a skill for that?" I say, mimicking Mom.

Late afternoon on the third day the crystal has grown to half the size of me. As it had gotten larger, so too did my need to increase how much enchanted mana I was generating and was at my maximum production and tearing through my Kyhosa reserves quickly. To mark the end of the crystals' growth, Elder tusile came by to let us know the airship was done.

"We'll be done by the end of the day," I promise, checking how much mana was left in my Kyhosa.

When the last of the mana ran out I end my enchanting and raise my production on the normal air and dark mana to seal in this creation. Only a thin layer is needed; too much and it may not work as well; too little and it may degrade.

As the sun set so too did our work. I Analyzed our work.

Spell CrystalThis spell crystal can negate the effect of gravity by 70% to anything its spell is directed at. In addition, the caster can generate winds up to gale speeds.

Well, that was certainly interesting. Spell Crystal seems like a catalyst for others to use a spell without a needed skill or class. Not sure how that affects things. Can people get classes that synergize with them? Will using the spell prevent you from leveling up skills or obtaining them? Could I cast spells with them instead of [Mana Manipulation]? How does it work exactly? Not to mention this is much too large to use for practical things; is that the limitation?

I touch the spell crystal and push my mana into it, trying to cast its spell on me to make me less affected by gravity. I watch my mana course through it, running through the matrix as if they were highways, transforming to the spell mana as it did. Then the mana is redirected back to me, spreading throughout me. I felt lighter; it had worked!

"This is incredible!" One of the weavers excitedly says.

"A new invention, maybe we can make more of these!" The second shares her enthusiasm.

I was just tired, my body ached, and although my minds are rested, my body isn't.

I went to the elders, asking a passerby where I could find them at this time. They are at the pier, where construction on the airship had taken place. The boat is in its final decoration phase, where intricate and stylized fairies are being burned into the wood-like bamboo.

The Airship is wide enough for three people to sit comfortably. Instead of sticking up, the sails are off to the side, three sets for the long boat. The sails are currently folded and retracted. It folds close to the boat so it is easy to dock at the piers. The sails are made of air silk and embroidered with beauty silk and enchanted to attract wind when opened. They are made to look like my fairy's wings when fully opened and the figurehead is a fairy, with wings of beauty silk. The rudder is a set of two very short but wide sails enchanted to attract wind in their direction. When one is close and the other open it would slowly turn the airship.

Yukika is closest to me, So I walk up to her.

"The crystal is done. Although it wasn't what I intended, it's better than what I wanted."

"How so?" Yukika asks, raising an eyebrow.

"It's a spell crystal. It'll let anyone cast a strong spell through it. It'll have a stronger effect but it may cost more mana to maintain, overall it'll allow less need for mana to be used on wind spells, so maybe we won't use much more mana than we would normally have."

Yukika nods. "This boat was tricky to get right, especially the sails,"

After presenting this idea we had a long discussion on how to build this and how to defend it. In the end, we will hang water crystals to attract water attacks. The hull is made from bamboo saturated with earth mana and has earth silk tightly fitted it to. The hull is enchanted is made to repel and resist water attacks.

"What are we going to name it?" I ask.

"It's just a boat, a flying one... hopefully, but a boat nonetheless," Yukika thought for a moment before giving a name despite her argument. "Valymo"

Flight of the beautiful people. Or Fairy's Flight. Context is dependant here, but seeing the figurehead I think it's more a nod toward my fairies, which are made of beauty essence.

"Is it really essential to have three sets of sails and the back sails?" Yukika asks, clearly the sails were a point of many frustrations.

They had made it to my specifications, but they still don't understand that pitch, roll, and yaw are important in flight, as is weight distribution. The front and back sails naturally control pitch and roll, the up and down tilt, and the left or right tilt. The rudder controls yaw, the left and right turning. The middle sail can rotate to have a forward or backward drive.

One might ask why pitch control is important; that is because if too much weight is in the front or back and the sails can't compensate, the airship will tilt; weakening the other end will help counteract the extra weight by reducing lift on the other end.

"Yes, it's to help control it. You'll see once it takes flight; also, we'll need a lot of practice; controlling it won't be easy."

We'll be going over several test flights as low as we can. The hull has been reinforced, but we could still end up damaging our hard work.

"I'll send someone to get the crystal. For now, you should rest," Yukika says, noticing my tiredness.

I nod and walk back home.

"Welcome back. Did it work?" Dad asks.

"Yeah," I nod and walk to my room, dragging my tails. I slump over my bed and was out before I even knew it.