With Iris out of his hair and his library privileges returned, Lucius had spiraled back into his usual book worm antics. Over the years, he had continued to read numerous texts from all the major schools of mana based combat.

  He spent most of his time reading magical tomes, knowing his father had no shortage of knowledge in the realm of swordsmanship. He was set to receive personal training from his father upon his 10th birthday.

  Unlike swordsmanship, magecraft was an art in which Lucius would receive no guidance. Studying more than one school at a time was unheard of, and as a swordsman, his father would never approve of his endeavor into the realm of spellcraft.

  Yet with only 2 years remaining before his formal training as a swordsman began, Lucius began to grow anxious. He knew he would have less and less time to study magic. And if core lock truly turned out to be irreversible, he risked stunting his potential as a swordsman.

  In the 2 short years since he had gained the ability to read, he had already advanced his knowledge of magecraft to an intermediate degree.

  Of course he had been careful not to actually practice any spells, in an effort to avoid core lock. But his theoretical understanding of the craft would have made him at least a 3rd grade mage.

  Mages and swordsmen were graded under a tier based system. Although not entirely accurate, It was meant as a way to quantify the strength of disciples of either school. In theory, this meant that a 3rd grade mage was roughly on equal footing with a 3rd grade swordsmen.

  In reality however, any number of complex variables could lead to defeat or victory in a real battle. But despite its imperfect nature, the system had remained in use for hundreds of years.

  It was by no means a definitive quantification of one’s strength, yet it was still the most accurate system contrived to date.

  Conveniently, the system tended to align with the layers of one’s core. For example, a mage or swordsman with 4 layers to their core, could reasonably be expected to achieve the title of grade 4. However, merely having 4 layers to one’s core would not grant them the rank automatically.

  Grades could only be granted by an official certified by either the Mage’s Association or Swordsman’s Association, both of which were under the direct oversight of the Altorian Royal family.

  However, soon after achieving a 3rd grade understanding of spellcraft, Lucius hit a wall. The mages association would only allow grimoires containing grade 3 spells and below to circulate publicly.

  Of course nobles could gain access to such tomes with the right connections, but being a poorly connected house of swordsmen, it was doubtful the Ironsides had any such texts.

  The only other way to legally gain access to 4th grade grimoires and above, was to enroll in one of the many Royally accredited Academies across the Altorian Kingdom.

  Yet for now, it meant that Lucius's knowledge of magic could only grow laterally. It wasn’t long till he had exhausted the Ironside's collection of magical tomes.

  At first, he cursed the Ironside name, for their pathetic collection of grimoires. But upon further consideration, he had considered himself lucky that his father had bothered to collect any grimoires at all.

  Having moved on to other subjects, another year had passed before he knew it. And as he turned 9, he realized he was running out of time. Having spent 3 years of his life holed up in the Ironside library, he had exhausted all sources of knowledge he had considered useful.

  Yet none of them seemed to provide even a clue to solving the mystery of the spellblade. He had tried numerous strategies, employing mana in strange and bizarre ways. He drained his mana core, then flooded it, in an effort to observe any changes.

  But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t reliably control the color of his mana. On the rare occasions that he dared to cast a spell or perform a sword mana art, he would observe the same process every time. It wasn’t that the core would release mana with a blue hue when casting, but rather the channeling technique of a mage would only grab such hues, allowing the rest to go to waste.

  It was a ground breaking discovery that he had made, but it only diagnosed the issue, offering no solution. The reason core lock would develop was merely a result of selective mana usage.

  Swordsmen techniques drew upon the red hues of mana released by the core, letting the rest go to waste, and mages did the same for the blue hues.

  It was only natural that the core would adapt to suit its host, providing both mages and swordsmen with only their preferred type of mana.

  Yet even armed with a deeper understanding of the phenomena, Lucius found himself no closer to the answer he seeked. It was clear that the mana core had the ability to affect the mana which it released, but it seemed to do so without conscious control.

  Exhausted and demoralised, Lucius dragged himself down the stairs and to the families dining hall. It was tradition that the family would eat together whenever his father was home, and for once Lucius didn’t mind.

  His eyes had started to strain and his stomach growled at him. A nice warm meal prepared by the best chef in the Ironside Barony was just what he needed to relax.

  Lucius entered, last to arrive as usual. He dragged his feet to his seat at the end of the table. The long table was far too large for a party of 3, but it was meant for dinner parties as much as family dinners.

  Lucius sat down across from his mother and next to his father, who was seated at the head of the table. His mother and father tried to engage in small talk with him, but Lucius shrugged them off with one word answers.

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  In an academic slump, he didn’t really feel like chatting. The only thing that interested him was the juicy steak which he had begun to poke at with his fork.

  His head rested on his hand as he slouched over the slab of meat. The juices oozed out with every poke of the fork.

  In a bout of laziness, Lucius's hand slipped and he missed the steak, striking the plate with his fork. A high pitched ding rang out as the china reverberated, drawing the eyes of his parents.

  “Quit playing with your food dear, you know better than that.” Elena scolded him.

  But Lucius was not listening, stuck in a trance brought on by the sound ringing in his ear. He struck the plate again, this time intentionally. Once again the sound rang out and Lucius received another scolding.

  Ignoring the words of his mother, he moved to strike his water glass next. It rang out much the same as his plate had yet with a much deeper tone.

  Lucius's eyes shot open in shock. How could he have been so stupid. It was something even a grade schooler back on earth would have known, but he hadn’t even considered the applications.

  It wasn’t the change in pitch that surprised him though, that much anybody could have predicted. It was a sudden remembrance of the phenomena that left him feeling stupid.

  He had spent years studying all the new world had to offer him, but nothing could solve the riddle. Yet with only an elementary understanding from earth, the answer he had been looking for became clear as day.

  Just like how the high pitch of his plate was a result of the high frequency sound waves it released, the same was true of the low pitch rumble that his drinking glass emitted when full of water.

  Yet sound was not the only phenomena composed of waves. Light too could be split into colors depending on its frequency and wavelength.

  Lucius wondered if the answer really could have been so simple. If red light was indicative of low frequency light waves and blue light was a result of high frequency waves, how could the same not be true for mana?

  At the sudden realization, Lucius returned to reality and began scarfing down his meal, to the dismay of his parents. With a sigh, Elena wondered where she had gone wrong, and why her son had suddenly forgotten all manners.

  Lucius didn’t care however, the sooner he finished his meal, the sooner he could be excused. Armed with newfound knowledge and motivation, he was eager to begin experimenting again.

  If he could only just find a way to modify the frequency of his mana, his dream of becoming a spellblade was no longer a pipe dream.

  Lucius ate with such fury it would have put any pig to shame. When he had finished, he wasted no time excusing himself from the dinner table and sprinting up the stairs.

  He rounded the corner at the top of the long staircase, and bolted to his room, locking his door behind him. He took a seat on his bed, sitting meditatively like he had done so many times before.

  His eyes closed and his mana sense heightened. Lucius’s chest grew warm as he drew mana from his core. It whizzed out in a swirl of colors as he played with it.

  Calling back to his memories from earth, he desperately tried to remember how to modulate the frequency.

  He had learned long ago that mana control was an artform, not a science. Exerting one’s will upon mana was an exercise in imagination, not calculation.

  If he couldn’t visualize the compression and expansion of the mana waves, no amount of effort would amount to any change.

  Lucius thought back to his elementary school days. Recalling what he had seen long ago when he was still Mark, a name that now seemed so foreign to him.

  Diagrams filled his head, as he analyzed every element of the wave. The wavelength, the amplitude, the frequency. He noted every trough and peak, studying every inch of the waves from his memory.

  Only when he was certain that he recalled all he could, did he release the memory. Having gathered all he could, he peered into the mana he still had in his mind’s grasp.

  At first it appeared cloudy, like a rainbow mist swirling in his grasp. Yet as he examined it closer, looking for the macroscopic properties of waves, the massive blur had become more defined.

  Red. Green. Blue. A cacophony of colors battled ferociously, their clashing wavelengths resulting in constructive and destructive interference. Some waves grew rapidly, others were snuffed out quickly.

  Despite the rapid change in the state of the mana, no energy seemed to be lost. It was as if Lucius had opened his eyes for the first time, everything became clear.

  The many questions that had lingered in his mind, snapped into place like a puzzle piece. Core lock, mana types, mana transformation, every phenomenon began to make sense.

  Lucius had long since diagnosed the problem with spellblades. Now he was not only certain of its cause, but also how to fix it.

  He compressed his mana, squeezing not only the mana, but the waves that composed it. The mana struggled, haphazardly clashing.

  Yet even so, as he condensed the mass of mana, its colors gradually shifted colder. By the time he had all but squeezed the life from it, the swirling hues had collapsed into a solid, uniform blue.

  The mana was as pure as an expert mage’s, devoid of the deviant streaks that plagued novices. Lucius began casting, eager to test its effectiveness.

  A magic circle manifested in front of him. A blue flame as pure as the mana itself rose from its center, surprising Lucius.

  It was like every other spell he had cast before except it wasn’t. As if all resistance to the process had been removed. The mana flowed like a calm water, the spell manifesting as cleanly as its creator had imagined it.

  To Lucius the results were clear. Not only could the technique be used to modulate the frequency of mana. but it could also purify the mana itself, achieving a purity that he had only seen from someone like his father.

  Like the mana of an aged core that had been locked for decades, there were few noticeable impurities.

  Lucius wasted little time in attempting to reverse the process, stretching the mana out into a deep red hue like that of his father’s.

  Sure enough, the technique worked both ways. Lucius froze, unable to move from excitement. He would finally be able to practice both schools, no longer fearing the effects of core lock.

  He wasted no time rushing through his repertoire, attempting every safe spell he could think of. A great relief washed over him as his many years of studying magic had begun to pay off.

  Yet even in triumph, not all was good news. While the new mana modulation technique appeared perfect at first, it had one glaring flaw.

  No matter how hard he looked at it, the process was slow. By itself, it only took Lucius a few seconds to complete.

  However, core locked swordsman and mages had no need to refine their mana, drawing it straight from their core. While the difference was only a few seconds, it could easily be the difference between life and death in a real battle.

  Yet even still, Lucius did not let the realization ruin his moment of joy. He still had 1 year left to solve the problem, and no one to stop him.

  Or so he thought...