DanMachi 16

With Sofia out of the shop, it leaves only me and Mateo all alone.

"Come, let's not waste any time." He turns around and enters the back room, right through the curtains.

As I enter the room I feel the shift in the quality of mana in the air. The entire place was fully isolated from the rest of the world, thanks to the isolation runes that were engraved into the walls.

The room had filters for air, noise, and mana in the form of runes all engraved around the place.

"Is this environment necessary for enchanting?" I ask a bit confused by all of it.

"Ha! Not at all, for the work I do I need untainted Mind. So the filters are required for me." He says after a laugh then approaches one of the tables and sits down. "But you won't need that kind of stuff early on."

The table Mateo just sat down at was littered with all kinds of magical stones, plates, and other random items, from level one monster, all the way to level six. A strange bottle of blue liquid lay next to a brush, and right next to that stood a chisel made out of, what seemed to be orichalcum.

"Now lad, what do you know about Enchanting?"

"It's a process of adding magical effects to an object, by using magical ink to write runes." I explain the bare minimum I know about this world's enchanting. The one from the [Harry Potter] world was intricate but mana intense, so I never got into it. It only used an enchanting set and your mana, nothing else.

"Ehh, I've heard worse explanations." He says picking up the brush and writing a rune on a plate, the moment he completes the rune it shines brightly and melts into the plate. I focused on the whole process and noticed that he infused his mana into the still-wet rune, probably with the help of his mystery development ability, to crystallize it in place. The rune he wrote, however, was a clear copy of a descriptor rune, which had a single function to increase durability. It was mainly used in ice and earth spells, and Mateo made me realize that the enchanting and spellcasting systems of this world are heavily interwoven.

"Why do you need the chisel then?" I ask the obvious.

"There are materials that are too magic-resistant, and the rune would simply fall off of it. You need to use high-level cores for that, or you can use a chisel, engrave the rune into it and then add the ink. It all comes down to preference and how much money you want to spend." He explains. "Although the more runes you want to combine, the higher level ink mixture you need." I nod in understanding.

"So it's basically just writing down a spell with the ink mixture, and supplying it mind to crystalize the ink."

"Spell? No, no, each of these runes here, have specific meanings. No one understands them, but some combinations are well known, people experiment and find new ones all the time." He says with a smile. I rise my eyebrow at that. "Some of my combinations are trade secrets, I'll show you a few well-known ones, that won't do me any harm."

'Yeah, I'm not giving him a Runic Index...' I think, then say. "Thank you, but there is no need, I'll experiment and find my own combinations, I'm more interested in how the ink mixture is made."

"Suit yourself." He says standing up and walking over to another table. He picks up a mortar and pestle and a small level 1 magical stone. He crushes it, setting all the mana, trapped in the stone, suddenly free, and grinds it into a fine powder, then mixes the whole thing together with some water. The mixture looks identical to the one he had on his table, and it has not an ounce of mana in it.

I finally understand this world's enchantment system. The whole thing revolves around the same rune system as spells, essentially, an enchantment is a bound spell. That can be triggered anytime mana is inserted into it or if created with a gathering runic array, it can serve as a passive always active spell. These people still didn't figure out the connection between spells, rituals, and enchanting.

Now on to the mixture. The crystal after being crushed ejects all its mana into the atmosphere, then water is added to the mix, just to allow it to be easily spread, there is no other use for it. When adding mana to the newly written rune, the water evaporates and the magical mixture binds the mana into itself and recrystallizes, taking the shape of the rune in the process. You could probably just recrystallize the mixture any time you want. If I could get high-tier magical stones, and high-tech machinery, like a CNC or something similar. I could create a high-tiered spell bound to a coin or... a bullet.

Imagine firing out a bullet that on contact enlarges itself, and increases its mass, while keeping the same momentum. Yea, Newton would be freaking out. The same principle could be added to the gun. Why allow the bullet travel time, and the enemy time to dodge, when you can teleport the bullet to the destination? Magic and physics go together like a bad couple. Magic keeps beating and abusing poor Physics, but Physics just doesn't want to leave and keeps happily helping Magic. Maybe she's a masochist?

I shake my head to get out of this train of thought. How the fuck did I even get to that topic, don't even ask me...

"That's all. There is no special ingredient, you only need to be careful to make the powder really fine. The finer it is the more stable the rune is."

"Hmm, that's good to know. Thank you for your time, Mr. Rodriguez." I say and I'm about to turn.

"Oh, you're already leaving?" He says a bit shocked. "Aren't you interested in some of the basic runes?"

"Not really, I already know most of them." I say with a smile. "I'm probably the best mage in the world currently, and I'm not even boasting." He rolls his eyes at me and not believing me.

"However, I do actually have a few questions. Would it be possible to write runes into an object while blacksmithing it? Then cover the whole thing with another layer of material. And have you ever tried creating 3D runic scripts? Does inscribing the rune on an uneven plane change how it works?"

"Oh, good questions. Yes, you can add runes inside of materials, but the rune is quite fragile so you'll have to find a way for it to survive a shock from smithing."

My mind was already running through ideas of self-repairing runes, picking and depositing moisture out of the air then channeling mana through a damaged rune to fix it, it will need detection runic sequences and other components, but it is manageable.

"We do cover our runes for safety reasons, and so people don't steal our designs." He continues. "Your next question is intriguing, I've never tried it and I have no idea how would that even work."

I do and am already a step ahead of you, planning on creating a defensive array implanted into a 3D runic enchantment placed on a necklace.

"And for your last question, engraving anything onto a non-flat plane doesn't change its meaning, I even made a contraceptive ring for a guy once. You know one of those." He says pointing downwards. "The runes went on the outside in a circle. Was kind of a fun task actually." He states and looks upwards.

"Well, that you for answering my question. I should be going." I say pulling him out of his thoughts.

"Are you sure you don't need to look at any of the basic runes?" He asks and I just shake my head. He shrugs and continues. "Suite yourself. If you do get stuck somewhere you know where my shop is." He says patting my back as we exit his workshop and I head towards the door.

"Goodbye, Mr. Rodriguez, and thanks for everything."

"Your welcome, and call me Mateo."

"Alright. See you later Mateo." I wave and leave his shop.

With all that done, I [Void Step] home and start formulating plans on creating defensive equipment, mainly jewelry, that would trigger if the user is in danger. A powerful shielding spell or a healing one, similar to the one I cast on the guard in the Loki familia that Olivia dismembered. Time reversal on a larger scale would be mana expensive, but it can act as a last line of defense.

I spent the next six hours designing a defensive spell that will be attached to the enchantment. This spell didn't deserve to be called Aegis, so Svalinn, the shield that protected Earth from the Sun, was born.

[Spell: [Svalinn] learned]

Grimoire:

...

[Svalinn lvl 1]

- One-time cast spell, last until invested mana is exhausted or forcibly shut down by caster.

- Target gets surrounded by transparent hexagonal shields, blocking any incoming magical or physical damage.

- The area affected by the shield can be adjusted after activation, by investing additional mana.

- The shield is constantly rotating, and any lost hexagon is quickly regenerated using the invested mana.

- When the spell detects any harm done to its target it shifts to regeneration mode and heals the target.

- Upon detecting that the target's life is in grave danger, the spell sacrifices all of its mana in an attempt to perform a partial time reversal on the wounded area.

{Affinity: Life, Light, Time}

{Chant: Protect, Svalinn.}

When you cast the spell it forms a spherical barrier around the target of the caster. The walls of the barrier are built from Light affinity mana, which allows it to be see-through, and at the same time, form a hard light construct in the shape of hexagons.

The whole barrier is built out of thousands of these hexagons. Additionally, to prevent the weakening of one part of the barrier, when under focused fire, the whole barrier rotates, while at the same time, the frequency and direction of the rotation are not constant.

Upon losing a hexagon the spell pulls mana from its own reserves and repairs itself. The mana cost of the spell was astronomical and let's not even talk about the size of its runic script.

Multiple detection runes littered the code, some focused on the target of the spell, others on the spell itself. Multiple motion, area, buff, and other runes filled the code, and truthfully, it was one of the most complex spells I've created till now, and I was planning on engraving it into a pendant, filling it with mana, and forgetting it ever existed, until the day I get into a life and death situation and it ends up saving my life.

Thankfully, converting it into an enchanting is quite easy, you just write out its runic script with the magic ink and add some mana to crystalize it. Now, if I could still use the shrinking charm, I could just make this enchantment on a plate, then shrink it down to the size of a pendant, but because I still don't have [Rule Breaker], I'll just have to suffer through it and engrave it carefully.

I start up [Celestial Forge] but then another idea pops into my head. What if, instead of grinding up the magical stone, I simply melt it down and cast it?

So I remove a level 3 magical stone from my inventory and drop it into the already running spell. The crystal slowly starts to melt releasing a massive amount of mana. The final result leaves me with a molten glass-like substance.

"Nice. It released all of its mana when it reached its melting point, which was around 5,000 Celsius, by the looks of it." I say with a smile, and cast another instance of [Celestial Forge] and drop in an ingot of orichalcum into it. A single ingot would be enough to create about ten pendants, so while thinking about the future I remove half of the ingot from the spell and use the other half to create five pendants with intricate designs on the front and the runic sequence on the back.

[Focus] was running at full power while I was engraving, and only two mistakes were made, but those were quickly re-smelted, reshaped, and re-engraved. After being done with all five of them, I merged the two [Celestial Forge] spells and allowed the liquid magic stone to seep into the engravings, and at the end, I covered them with a layer of orichalcum to hide said engravings.

The whole process took about half an hour to complete and in the end, I was greeted by pendants half a centimeter thick and the size of a palm.

They weighed barely anything, as orichalcum was one of the lightest metals around, but at the same time, its magic conductivity was right next to gold, which was the best.

[Class: [Enchanter] unlocked.]

That notification was a surprise even for me, seems like even with all the knowledge I need the experience to unlock a specific class.

I place the newly created pendant on my palm and insert ten thousand mana into it, that's how much one cast of the spell costs, then I manually trigger the spell to activate.

A transparent spherical barrier made out of hexagons centers around me, with its pivot tied to the pendant. I take a step and it follows me, I take a [Void Step] to our garden and the spell doesn't disappear. I turn towards Olive and smile.

"Honey, would you be so kind and hit the barrier a few times?" Olivia rises her eyebrows and looks at me.

"The what now?" she asks I sigh.

"I just finished the defensive pendant, wanna help me test out its capabilities?"

"Sure. But will you be safe?" She asks while trying to poke at the barrier with her sword.

"Try not to aim for me, but the side of the barrier, and nothing will go wrong."

"This sword or should I try the new one?" she asks if she should use her practice, steel sword, or Severance.

"Yeah I don't think the barrier would hold up against Severance, so the practice sword is good enough." She nods, then takes up her sword-drawing stance, and with a swift motion her sword shatters five hexagons, but the sixth one prevails and stops the sword's momentum, while the spinning effect of the barrier flings her sword across the garden.

"Thanks, now try using [Infusion] on the sword and attacking again." I request and she goes over and picks up her blade, it starts to shine with bright orange light infused to the brim with fire mana. The next attack hits the barrier, and an explosion rattles it, destroying around twenty hexagons but not even a shockwave was felt from the inside. The pendant, however, did get a bit hotter.

"Interesting." I say while focusing on the mana in the pendant. "Okay next test, could you fire off a few icicles at the shield?" she nods, and fifteen ice spears impact, and shatter, on contact with the shield. The pendant in my hand turns even hotter.

"Okay somethings wrong, focus everything you have on destroying the shield." She looks worried but nods and infuses her sword with lightning and repeatedly slashes the barrier, making the pendant get so hot that I couldn't hold it in my hands any longer. I drop it and watch as it starts burning the grass under my feet. One last swipe from Oliva melts the pendant and the spell sizzles out of existence.

"Thanks love." I say giving the tiered swordswoman a quick kiss on the lips. Then refocus my attention on the pendant. The orichalcum melted, while all the runes stayed the same shape as they previously were. "That is not possible, the crystal has a lower melting point than the metal..." I start scratching the side of my head. "Unless the mana keeping the spell active prevents it from melting? I need to test it out quickly." I say and form a [Celestial Forge] right there. Olivia has heard about the spell, but this is her first time seeing it.

"Move back a bit love." I say with a wink.

I remove two level three magical stones from my inventory and drop them inside of the spell ramping up the temperature it melts them down instantly, releasing a tremendous amount of mana from the stone, shaking the ground and the spell at the same time.

Turning on [Focus] I manipulate the liquid crystal to form a plate, then engrave it with the runic script of [Svalinn]. The crafting process takes up about ten minutes and when done a crystalline pendant drops into my hand. Its blue color is almost reminiscent of the sky, I pour ten thousand mana into it and manually activate the spell. With a shake of the crystal, the spell comes to life, looking... A bit different than before. The almost translucent walls now adore a bluish tint and small blue lightning cracks between the hexagons.

"Strange." I turn towards my sweetheart and say. "Let's test it out again." With a nod she slashes at the shield only to be stopped at the first hexagon, cracking it, but not shattering it.

"It seems stronger, and the crystal didn't get warmer." I check the pendant in my hands. "Okay try it with spells, then with the infused attack."

"Okay." She says with a nod and fifteen ice projectiles bombard the shield leaving no visible damage at all. Seeing that she infuses her sword with fire mana and does a full-powered slash, similar to last time, but this time shattering only two hexagons and rattling her hand in the process.

"Ow." She says, massaging them "That hurt."

"Are you alright?" I ask my voice filled with concern.

"Yea. Everything is fine. I just didn't expect it to block my full-powered swing so easily."

"Okay last test, try it with Severance, but hit the side of it."

"Are you sure?" She asks and receives an affirmative nod. She takes out the deity killer sword from her inventory and does a downward swing toward the edge of the shield, cleaving right through it like a hot knife through butter. I sigh, as she puts it back into her inventory, and check on the already-fixed shield. With its current mana reserves, it could repair itself a few more times.

"Yep, that sword is overpowered." I say. "But damn, doing a crystal enchantment really empowers the whole thing so much. The most surprising thing was that the crystal didn't even heat up." I hold up the pendant and check for cracks or anything that would suggest it's damaged, but can't find anything wrong with it.

"Thanks for helping me test this out, love!" I shut down the spell and plant a kiss on Olivia's cheek.

"You're welcome." She says with a radiant smile.

I leave her to continue practicing while I head to the other side of the garden to create another crystal pendant and to make two necklaces for both of us. I might even add some design to them, do two half-hearths sound too cheesy?