While Kennon was milling, Bev was working on his shield. It was a simple thing. And fairly easy to make. Decently thick steel. A loop of leather lined metal to hold tight. It wasn’t till she was done with the forging that she bothered thinking about the enchants to put on it.

  “Ideas Tutor?”

  It is not my job to design equipment. Only to help you finish the designs.

  “You helped with the dagger.”

  You are rapidly approaching the limits of novice. I expect more from you now. I can inform you of new enchants, but only if you ask for them. And only if they are in your capabilities.

  Bev smiled. She supposed it made some sense. Tutor’s purpose was to teach. Not do the brain work itself.

  Durability was a must. She had heard of enchants that reflected damage back. But there was no way she could make them. Or was there? She posed the question to Tutor.

  That is definitely a higher tier than you. Or even this material. But force redirection, and force absorption enchants can be done. Though at a low level.

  “Interesting, what is the difference?”

  Redirection moves the force away. Normally to another part of the object. With attached bracers it could turn some of the force into a minor crushing force on the arm. Nothing dangerous. And in doing so reduce the impact against the shield greatly.

  Absorption takes a smaller portion of the force, and turns it into unstable arcane energy to be used elsewhere. The most common in this scenario would be to use it to power the durability enchantment. Both would wear out far quicker. But there would be no need to actively power the enchantment.

  At that moment Kennon sent a thought, “absorbtion. At this rate Tutor will be having me keeping three continuous spells up at once. Less to think about in battle is a very good thing!”

  Focus is a muscle that needs exercise like any other. I wouldn’t be complaining.

  “You are literally a portion of a god! Don’t give me that.”

  Bev nearly snorted.

  “Absorption it is. Show me the runes.”

  Bev had decided. She had been thinking about it for a while. But now she knew for certain.

  Conditional runic formations were the worst!

  She couldn’t just tell the shield to absorb ten percent of all force. Because simply lifting it applied force. Gravity was a force! No, only forces of a certain intensity. Oh direction too so Kennon could push on it to move something.

  So no, she could not simply inscribe the rune "absorption" and connect it to the rune “force”. She had to run it through a mind bogglingly complex set of inscriptions. And Tutor refused to show her the next one until she understood the current one. Whether it was inscribed perfectly or not. And it used its mind reading abilities to make certain there was no confusion.

  And that meant a two hour crash course on force quantification!

  The shield was supposed to be a simple job.

  But it was done. Next would be her helmet. The good news, she knew all the runes she planned to put on the helmet. The bad news was it was the same ones from the helmet. And since protecting heads was very different from a shield the conditional runes would be different. Not enough to require a full lecture. But enough that Tutor thought it would be the perfect way to “test her knowledge.”

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  She considered simply going without a helmet.

  At least the first task was to forge the helmet. And Tutor was blessedly silent.

  It was an open faced helmet. Lined with golden tiger leather. The back of the helmet tailing down to protect the neck.

  Bev passed Tutor’s little test and was told to inspect the helmet for a surprise.

  Open faced steel helmet - helmet T1

  The helmet is the most vital piece of armor for any warrior that intends to get in close. This open face variety does not impair vision.

  This particular helmet was made by a novice smith and initiate enchanter.

  Enchantments

  Durability 1, Force absorption 1

  Initiate enchanter, was that the surprise?

  Yes! You have graduated from the lowest rung. The advice I give will be slightly less hands on now. But more rune formations are accessible!

  Oh thank the system.

  You're welcome.

  She should have expected that.

  It was a very good thing though. No one would buy armor from a novice enchanter. Not unless a master approved of it. Initiate wasn’t much better. But it was something. At least people wouldn’t think her stuff might blow up on them.

  It was well known that unless the system specified otherwise equipment from lower rank crafters was worse. And the system only specified in unique situations.

  No one would trust their life to a helmet made by a novice. They may buy it. But only if they had no other options. Even low grade armor made by masters was considered superior.

  There was still some daylight to burn, so Bev started making nails. At Kennon’s pace they would need them soon.

  If you had told Kennon a month ago that he would fell and mill three trees in a single day he would have said you were crazy.

  But he did it.

  A pile of wood large enough to build a large shed lay in their storage. He hadn’t gotten fancy and made all the planks the same exact length or width. But it would do the job.

  They would need more to make a proper house. Even a one room one. But it should only take him another day or two.

  And he learned a lot.

  Tutor dissected the telekinesis spell in excruciating detail. The targeting functions. Force projections. Elemental conversions. He was surprised the last one was even there. Telekinesis wasn’t an element. At least not a classic one.

  But apparently force counted as an element. And that meant his mana needed to be converted to it. And the conversion was a very complicated thing.

  Honestly Tutor could have talked another couple days about the spell. And since he would be using it a lot more it probably would. Despite the endless details there always seemed to be more. For instance the converter had multiple parts. Only two of wich were discussed, the one that identified it as a converter, and the part that identified it as force.

  Tutor assured him that both of those parts had parts as well. At this point he thought it was safe to assume there was a three hour lecture available on every curve. And a four hour one on every straight part.

  He was about ready to beg for less lectures, and more practice. Until Tutor told him its idea of a perfectly cast spell. The tolerance for mistakes were smaller than he could sense. Literally.

  He did get a level though.

  Arcane magic level 2 reached.

  Arcane blast unlocked.

  Arcane blast was exactly what it sounded like. A blast of pure unaspected mana. It barely even counted as a spell.

  He asked Tutor why it wasn’t the first spell unlocked. It was so simple. The answer was the first time he was actually scared by his own power.

  Arcane blast is the most inefficient offensive spell in existence. That is both its bane, boon, and terror.

  Why use arcane blast when a fire spell can do the same damage for a tenth the mana? The answer, it is impossible to block. Arcane can not be dispelled, absorbed, redirected. It is too unstable for that. All it can do is destroy. And this is its terror.

  It destroys everything. Metal, wood, flesh. Even mana and soul can be corroded away by an arcane blast of enough strength. The only way to contain it is at its inception. If an arcane blast goes off without counter forces it can literally consume the soul of its wielder.

  After hearing that, Kennon felt someone would have to be truly desperate to use this spell for anything other than practice.

  Thank you for sharing my journey. To help me walk it I have a set up. It is 20 chapters ahead and releases at the same time as the Royal Road chapters.

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