The Parmigi Highlands lied to the southwest of Evernight Kingdom and was connected with the Goman Kingdom. Due to its extreme average altitude of 3,500 meters and above, very few people visited this place often. It was a commonly agreed forbidden ground for all except for several native tribes.
This day, a giant figure which shined with great brilliance swept past the clear blue sky above the highlands.
The figure had a strange shape. On the first look, it appeared neither as a life form, nor a solid object. Overall, it was a vast and flat, transparent crystal with lines and strings contained within. The object looked like ice… or rather, it was ice.
Because when a highland eagle happened to fly by, the animal turned into a stiff ice statue and fell to the ground.
The reason why the ice could be confused with a creature was that this giant shape about 20 meters wide possessed a pair of wings on its sides, also transparent. The wings looked like swan wings. With each flip, some glimmering ice shards would fall off.
Strong sunlight on the highlands pierced through the winged ice, giving it an even brighter look.
On top of the ice, several mysterious-looking wizards covered in white robes rested with their eyes closed. The freezing aura released by the ice did not seem to affect them at all, apart from coating the figures in faint mist.
If someone looked closely, they would notice that each of these white-robed figures had a crescent moon behind his or her back, frozen in solid ice.
…
The Month of Blossom had reached its latter half. After struggling with a damaged spirit for half a month, the negative effect of the magic backfiring finally vanished from Angor.
Without waiting any longer, he immediately began to study the spells he planned.
The first spells to learn were the basic Tooling spells: Thaw and Condense. According to Angor’s notes as well as his schedule, there were two essential conditions for him to go for the top level of Sky Tower: an alchemy weapon, and a complete combination of defensive spells.
Learning a combination should not be a problem. He only needed time to get used to them. However, Angor was not confident in his plan of creating an alchemy weapon. He was about to attempt to merge the technologies from two civilizations together, and he did not know what could happen.
More importantly, Angor was not even sure if he could enter the field of alchemy at all. All his plans would be for no good if he could not even become an apprentice alchemist first.
This was why Angor immediately put his full attention on the first step: learning Thaw spell.
This spell was the first challenge for all apprentice alchemists.
The fundamental of Thaw spell was to create a large amount of heat by affixing mana and fire element for a long time. After that, to use the cantrip model to limit the affected area of the spell so as not to hurt the caster.
The principle of this spell worked in the opposite way compared to the cantrips in three major arts. Here, its model was used to restrict the heat of the spell instead of creating the spell.
Angor took out a paper full of data and formulas he noted down. These were data for creating the cantrip model he worked out when he was still suffering from the effects of magic backfiring on him.
After memorizing several critical coordinates for the model, Angor closed his eyes to meditate.
His mind space had returned to its clear state. The “lollipop” he created before stood alone in the chaos. Meanwhile, the singular point slowly rotated and drew primal mana.
Without minding the singular point, Angor released some purified mana from his mana pool and began constructing the model of Thaw.
With the help of the Axes of the Universe to locate the coordinates, he only spent several seconds on creating the cantrip model.
The finished model did not show any traces of abnormality. It hung in the mind space stably without crumbling or shocking its surrounding area like last time.
Angor channeled the model to his fingertips and still did not find anything. No supernatural energy appeared.
“A rock-solid model. The spell’s integrity remains even in the air,” Angor thought to himself.
Since the model did not have any problem, Angor began to “preheat” it.
Simply put, affixing mana and fire element meant one should release mana from his or her body and “rub” the mana with the fire element floating in the air.
It sounded simple, and only a small amount of mana was spent. But in practice, this process required great patience and precise control over one’s mana flow, which was difficult to achieve for ordinary apprentice wizards.
Patience meant the caster had to pump out mana continuously and preheat the designated area slowly. The time required for this step depended on how much fire element existed in the air. In an area with a rich amount of fire element, the preheating process would only take several minutes. But if there was poor fire element presence… maybe several hours or more.
For most apprentices, patience was not a big issue.
Precise control, on the other hand, was the most difficult step for learning Thaw, and the reason why many apprentices were unable to study alchemy.
When preheating something, a wizard had to provide mana from his or her body from start to end. Mana was spent slowly, but mana flow had to be kept at a steady pace.
A tiny change in mana flow, whether it was a bit more or a bit less, would cause the preheat step to fail.
Such careful control was an impossible task for most apprentices.
…
Angor was now attempting this step by releasing mana from his body.
Affixing his mana with fire element outside proved to be quite easy for him. However, he could only hold on for two seconds before messing it up. Like every other apprentice who failed this step, Angor could not keep his mana output stable.
For the second attempt, Angor carefully pumped his mana as slowly as he could while maintaining a high level of concentration. This time, he managed to keep up the spell for… three seconds.
The third, the fourth… and the tenth attempt. His best record was four seconds. Two seconds on average.
Even in somewhere with great fire element resource in the air, the preheat step still required at least two minutes. Now, he was stuck at four seconds.
Angor quickly felt depressed. Was he not talented to study alchemy after all?
His mana was almost spent and so was his motivation. Angor gave up on further attempts and closed his eyes to recover.
Five hours passed quickly.
The meditation restored his mana as well as his mood.
He realized that failure was always something expected to happen. Nothing could be achieved so easily. He would keep going. If he could not keep his mana flow stable after too many tries, he would consider himself not talented enough to learn alchemy.
His mana pool was now filled. Angor took out some ration to sate his stomach while thinking about how to control his mana flow.
It required more than being careful. In his previous attempts, Angor was almost exhausted trying to focus his mind, and he still could not do a perfect job.
Human bodies had their limits. So could he find help from elsewhere?
When he considered finding help from elsewhere to control the flow speed of something, the first thing that came to Angor’s mind was to use a pipe or straw. Something like those could always control water flow.
But… he could not possibly plug a straw into his mindspace. Besides, could mana even flow through a straw?
Pipe… flow speed…
Angor muttered his idea and thought about many choices in his mind. Suddenly, a pattern drawn by broken lines caught his attention.
“That’s it! I can’t plug something from outside, but I can make one inside!” Angor was excited about his discovery. “I can do it with the Axes of the Universe!”
Axes of the Universe was the ultimate result after Angor had mastered thirty-six-dimensional locator.
It divided his mind space into a collection of countless broken lines. Every spot of the mindspace could be represented using a coordinate on the axes. Angor could construct a tunnel precisely by using the axes as measuring standards to control his mana flow!
He eagerly tried out his new idea.
After several hours, a tunnel measured by the axes came into being. It connected Angor’s mana pool with the outside world.
Angor took a deep breath and began to draw out the mana while carefully preventing the mana from flowing out of the tunnel.
Two seconds, three… nineteen, twenty.
The process was disturbed after twenty seconds.
Angor did not show any frustration upon the failure this time. He knew he just solved the mana flow problem. The increased duration of his attempt just proved it.
Unlike before, the amount in his mana flow was fine this time. It failed because of a change in flowing speed.
If he managed to keep the amount of mana flow and speed steady, there would be no more problems.
He spent some time to learn how to maintain the speed of mana flow.
When he could keep both amount and speed at a fixed pace, Angor initiated another preheat attempt.
Two seconds, three seconds… nineteen, twenty… seventy… ninety…
He botched it again after two minutes.
This time, it did not have anything to do with his controlling skills. It was just that… he burned his fingers.
While focusing on how to control his mana flow, Angor forgot that he had to keep the effect range of the spell within the cantrip model or he would get burnt sooner or later.
…
The third day into the second half of Month of Blossom.
Angor carried the cooking stove from his kitchen down to his basement.
He lit a fire.
Heat waves warmed up the air in the basement.
Angor sat beside the stove and began to meditate. Half an hour later, he tried reaching out his spirit like feelers to sense the fire element around him.
The area centered around the stove now contained several times more fire element than before.
Once he was prepared, Angor stood up and moved to a pile of wooden boxes in the basement. They contained all the cheap materials he bought from Prome’s Alchemy Shop.
Angor picked out a black metal block with faint red patches on it.
Earth Fiend Bronze, one of the materials he stocked up most—a block of Blood Bronze fused with the blood of Earth Fiends, a most common type of Blood Bronze.
Items crafted using Earth Fiend Bronze greatly improved hardness and wear-resistance. The items also had a small probability of gaining additional effects.
Angor carried the Earth Fiend Bronze block to the stove.
He constructed the model for Thaw spell and released mana to fuse it with the fire element in the air slowly.
Angor could sense extreme heat contained in the model at the tips of his fingers. With the model to restrict it, the heat did not leak out this time.
Next, he placed the Earth Fiend Bronze inside the area of Thaw.
Slowly, the metal melted…