“Do you have files?” Jerome asked when the topic of ivory replacement materials for Contingency came up.

  “I’m not sure what paper or abrasive rods have to do with anything,” I admitted.

  Jerome shook his head. “Scans of you. Three dimensional files. Finding someone with carving skills could be a pain in the neck, but finding someone with a 3d printer isn’t that hard. I don’t have one, obviously,” he said. “But you have the money to try to get some custom prints.”

  I frowned. “I’m not sure plastic is a sufficient substitute for ivory. It’s kind of… cheap. In all meanings of the word.” I didn’t have to actually spend a lot of money, but good materials were usually expensive. Even if there was less competition for magely materials in this world, they could be used for other things.

  “Your suit is made of plastic,” Jerome said. “Probably. At least in part. Lots of plastic is cheap junk, but not all of it. There are some pretty high quality resins out there. And it would solve two tasks at once, the material and the shape.”

  Midnight sighed. “I should have thought of that. We could have gotten replicas back on Celmoth! We could get ourselves scanned there too.”

  “And then we spend a week or two getting the paperwork done for bringing materials from Celmoth.” I shook my head. “I suppose we can do it if nothing else works, but asking Extra for a special exemption might be too much. It might be good for you to use materials from your homeworld though.”

  “... Do you think that matters?” Midnight asked.

  “I sure hope not,” I said. “But Sir Kalman could probably get me the materials, so carving them here might be all we need. But I like his idea,” I gestured to Jerome. “Do you think smaller would be cheaper?”

  “Depends on how detailed you want it to be.”

  “I also want it to be sturdy.”

  “Better materials will mostly help with that. What size are you thinking?”

  I pondered for a few moments. “It needs to fit in a coat pocket without being too obvious. I don’t think carrying it around in Storage would be functional, and suddenly carrying around a bag would be suspicious.”

  Ultimately, I would be carrying the little statue, a couple mana crystals, and my baggies of mixed diamond dust and granite. My pockets would already be getting pretty full. But those were all things I needed immediate access to. The majority of the extra materials for Stoneskin would stay in storage, but I might need a few casts at a time.

  -----

  With plans in place to make Contingency work, drawing upon Brigade resources for the necessary components seemed reasonable. I didn’t happen to know anyone who printed stuff, so at the very least I expected the Power Brigade to be able to recommend someone who could be discreet. There weren’t a whole ton of orcs on Earth aside from those working for Doomsday, but there were a few from other worlds and some other similar enough aliens. Maintaining some anonymity for the sake of those I interacted with was the intention. But I didn’t always want to be using Disguise magic, so there were limits.

  While there, I got my lab results from Old Shock. His poofy hair resembled what people thought a mad scientist should look like, but he was a lot more sedate than Vilhelmiina. He also worked exclusively for the Power Brigade so it was easier to get some of his time.

  “It’s carbonaceous,” he said.

  I sighed. “So it is just coal.”

  “Not even close. This guy is the remains of a meteorite. Just a little guy that fell from the heavens.”

  “Expensive?” I asked.

  “Nah. Except, maybe to collectors. None of the materials are valuable, but it’s not the proportions we would see on Earth.”

  “Hmm. Wanna buy it?”

  He chuckled. “I already have all the info I’d want.” He pulled it out of his pocket- contained in a little baggy- and handed it to me. “Anyway, it’s not coal so Santa’s not too mad at you for messing with dimensions.”

  “... Who determines that anyway? Is it public perception?”

  Old Shock shrugged. “Some mix of public and self perception, maybe. Even some more popular villains sometimes get coal, but that might be because everyone knows they’re a villain? If that makes sense.”

  “Sounds like you don’t know.”

  “I really don’t. And I doubt anyone else does either.”

  I took the baggy. “Is it bad to touch?”

  “It’s just better for us not to contaminate things. Besides, last time you brought something it was a cursed tome.”

  “Pretty sure it was just warded.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “How nice people are being or how much on purpose it is.”

  -----

  Midnight was speaking with the fabrication division while I dealt with Old Shock. “They said it should be fairly easy to make something. It can be done by the end of the day if we get scanned quickly, though the materials might not be great.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “You think it will work without high quality materials?”

  “It doesn’t cost much to try, does it?” Midnight pointed out. “So how did your thing go?”

  “It’s coalish. Meteorite from… somewhere.”

  “Oh. Do you need that for the Meteor Swarm spell?”

  “Uh, no. Why would I?”

  “Why wouldn’t you? I don’t even know how you can tell what stuff needs these things.”

  “I just remember. Maybe I can get a copy of stuff from Sir Kalman.”

  Midnight thought for a few moments. “That might be useful. But seriously, how do you learn that stuff? Divination magic?”

  “... Trial and error?”

  “So people just realized they couldn’t use certain spells? Then they had very specific things and they worked.”

  Now that he mentioned it… “That does sound wildly implausible, doesn’t it? But people have had a long time to figure things out.”

  “How long?” Midnight asked.

  “Many elven generations. I don’t know how many thousands of years.”

  “Let’s say that’s how it works,” Midnight suggested. “Why do people know how to use every spell? Why would you know? Certainly some of the people who found spells that needed material components wouldn’t share.”

  “Other people would find out eventually, right?” I said, mainly to convince myself.

  “Not necessarily everything,” Midnight said. “Unless mages tend to lie in huge piles of obscure ingredients, trying to cast spells and then picking through for what disappeared when it finally works.”

  “Well, it’s probably general families of things. Sometimes generic gemstones work.”

  “Or?”

  I sighed. “I already have too many facets of magic to explore.”

  “Sounds like you need to include other people, then. What are your apprentices for otherwise? But we can already test some of this. Like Stoneskin.”

  “I guess we have to now.”

  -----

  We moved to a training room, because it was irresponsible to cast unknown magic out in the halls. Fortunately, the Power Brigade had plenty of them available as long as you didn’t need special considerations. We just needed a durable enough room just in case something went weird.

  What was I expecting to happen when I cast Stoneskin without material components? That was a good question that I was going to have to answer after taking all of the bits out of my pockets. “Empty yours as well, Midnight.”

  He didn’t carry much, but what he did have was basically fused into his suit. It kept it well protected, and when he needed it a slit would open up to allow him to pull things out. Moldable supermaterials were neat.

  Leaving the materials on the far side of the chamber should be good enough. After that, I began to gather mana for Stoneskin.

  Exactly what I thought was going to happen did happen. Which was to say, nothing. It simply refused to form into a spell. I had enough control to reabsorb the mana instead of letting it disperse into the environment, but the results were disappointing. “Well, that didn’t work.”

  “What were you trying to get out of it?” Midnight asked.

  “The usual effects of Stoneskin. If this is going to go anywhere… do you think the material components make things cheaper?”

  “Cheaper or stronger,” Midnight shrugged. “I’m not sure which.”

  Mana was fundamental to the level of the spell, so unless some spells were naturally more expensive than they should be it would be weird to be able to learn it for the normal amount of points if this was ‘cheaper’. So without material components it would have to be weaker.

  I had come to understand that some portion of magic was actually shaped by the image one had. There were still fundamental limits to the spells, but they weren’t always exactly the same like I had been taught, even with the same upgrades and mana input. If I pictured something too weak, would I break things? Probably not.

  Normally spells came most easily when I didn’t think about them too much, but I tried that the second time and it just wasted mana. Maybe my subconscious was fighting me. Finally, the third attempt I focused on creating some form of Stoneskin no matter what. Surprisingly, it worked.

  I took off my glove to look at my hand. I could feel the spell had taken effect on my body, as the feeling of my clothes was kind of numb. I could see my skin had taken on the color and texture of granite as expected for the spell. It might have been less though? I could see some more green poking through. “Can you scratch me here?” I asked, holding my hand down so Midnight could see one of the patches.

  He extended his claws without protest, scraping his nails across my skin. It made a particularly scratchy sound, but it didn’t feel any different on the greener parts. “Interesting,” he said. “It’s lacking some cosmetic completeness, but it clearly still works. I’d bet it’s weaker.”

  “We need to check to see if I used something from across the room,” I said. “I intended not to, but… you know.”

  They looked right, but that was where my mass sensing goggles came in. I honestly didn’t use them enough for a gift from a tech super. Maybe if my abilities had gone in another direction I would need them to help me figure out how far I would fling people with Telekinesis. It was actually somewhat tempting to get that anyway, if I could get a mastery combined with Mage’s Reach or something.

  Anyway, the baggies were all the same weight as they should have been- to within tolerances- so it didn’t seem any had been used from them. Unless it had taken a very tiny bit from all of them.

  “So now what?” Midnight asked.

  “Now I need someone to punch me.”

  -----

  Stoneskin was considerably weaker without the material components. How much? I had literally no idea. Without a machine that hit accurately and repeatedly with specific levels of power- which might be a thing that Power Brigade needed- I couldn’t quite tell. Worse. Enough worse that the material component was definitely worth it when using industrial diamonds. Especially since mana was my most regular issue.

  Not that I expected to be able to infinitely bend the laws of reality. People could only do so much magic at once, after all. Maybe I had just reached too high too early, and if I’d taken my time and slowly grown to a higher level I would feel better about it.

  But also, even if I was level 100 I could probably only drop like 5 Meteor Swarms, which simply wasn’t enough.

  Well, not me. A normal person. As I was now, I might be able to sneak in one more as I was somewhere around twenty to thirty percent mana higher than ‘natural’. As if I even knew what was natural anymore. I also didn’t know what it meant that I could do stuff without material components. Was that normal, or was it actually mastery of some form to be able to do that?

  And seriously, how did people know what material components to use? Maybe I should try Divination Magic.