Wanemyre didn't miss the envious glares, reverting immediately to her old self. She slammed her hand on a desk, producing a deafening sound and drawing the students' attention on her.
"Instead of wasting your time staring at him, mind your own task. You, up there." She pointed to a red haired girl, sitting a couple of desks behind Lith.
"I said to be delicate with the leaves. Keep up like that and they will crumple." To her defence, she was just clenching her hands in frustration. The problem was she had completely forgotten what she was doing.
"As for you." Wanemyre pointed to a slim boy sitting right in front of her.
"You don't change your water often enough. That way you are not cleaning the Frost Dew, just moving the dirt from one spot to another."
The two students rushed to correct the situation according to the Professor's instructions.
"I'd like to tell you to keep your cool, that this isn't a competition, but it damn is. Once you graduate, or even better if you graduate, who do you think will buy the creations of a nameless Forgemaster? No one but friends, relatives, and the Mage Association.
The Association will not purchase from you just to provide you some pocket money, but to evaluate the quality of your work and establish its market value. So if you start losing your head while you are still in the academy, you'd better change your specialization."
Wanemyre gave them a few seconds to ponder on her words.
"Since you have decided on your own to take a break, I'll explain now how to treat the flower. Be sure to pay attention, because I will not repeat myself." Under her fierce gaze, the students gently placed their flowers on the silk cloth, like it was a priceless gem.
"Smart move. The flower needs even more care. You can't touch it at all or drench it in the water. You need to drip lukewarm water on each petal, stopping as soon as the external frost layer does not form anymore.
Use too much water and you'll melt the petal, too little and the impurities will not be removed." She used Lith's flower to show them the method.
"Start from the innermost petals and then move towards the outer ones, otherwise the dirt dripping from the center will easily ruin your work."
After three water droplets, Wanemyre stopped dripping the petal, letting it dry. Just a few seconds later, the class could see that one of the petals seemed to have grown longer, emitting a stronger glow.
Wanemyre gave the flower back to Lith.
"Keep up the good work, but don't get conceited. I accepted this job because I want to nurture my future competitors. Without a proper challenge, being a Forgemaster is too boring for me. Don't let me down." She patted his head like he was a dog.
– "Charming as usual." Lith thought. "I doubt even a gold digger could stand her for long. She makes Phloria appear like a delicate flower. If she really is in love, then I'll bark like a dog."
"I'll take that bet." Solus replied before he could change his mind. –
Lith did as instructed, cleaning the petals from the inside out. Once cleansed they became crystal clear, absorbing the humidity from the air and adding it to their mass before their temperature dropped again.
– "Interesting. This flower is actually made of water frozen by the mana stored into the stem, leaves, and roots. It must be incredibly delicate if even common impurities affect its growth to this extent."
"Yeah, but don't you think it's kind of cruel?" Solus shivered a bit.
"I mean, it's actually growing under your care. The pseudo core keeps becoming bigger and more complex. I don't know how to feel about sacrificing it for our gain."
"Well, it's not really alive. It has a mana flow but almost no life force. Even if it was alive, my family raises animals just to turn them into money and food. I hunt and kill for a living. It's no big deal as long as you don't hurt others for no reason."–
This time Lith was careful not to be too fast. Not because he was afraid to show his skills but rather to take his time and carefully study the procedure to better be able to repeat it in the future.
Once again Wanemyre was an enthusiast of his results.
"Marvelous! You managed to develop the rest of the petals at the same rate as the one I cleansed."
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" Lith blurted out.
"Of course it is. You remind me of my days as a student."
– "Yeah, too bad you were really twelve at the time and only used your talent, while I have many years of experience in cleansing impurities much smaller than these ones."
"Quit whining and take the compliment." Solus scolded him.
"She acknowledged the results of your hard work. Being hardworking is a talent too!"
"Now you are talking like a shounen manga."–
They would have kept bickering, but Wanemyre had drawn on a stone table a magic circle like Lith had never seen before. It consisted of two concentric circles, with runes in-between, and a six pointed star resembling Silverwing's Hexagram enclosed in the smaller circle.
"Since everyone is about to finish the second step, let's all take a break so I can give you a demonstration of today's spell." Wanemyre took Lith's Frost Dew, placing it in the middle of the magic circle alongside a longsword of excellent quality.
Wanemyre ordered Lith and the red haired girl to charge the magic circle, so they took place on the opposite sides of the desk and chanted the Forgemaster spell in unison.
To fill the space within the circle with pure non elemental mana they had to repeat it several times. Wanemyre allowed them to stop only when the runes turned from blue to white hot, marking the circle reaching its maximum capacity.
The energy inside clashed with the magical boundaries, triggering several sparks that grew in intensity until they resembled lightning bolts.
Only then Wanemyre stepped forward, casting in succession the several Forgemaster spells the procedure required. Despite her being just a fake mage, Lith would always be awed by her ability to weave so many enchantments together.
Whenever he saw Wanemyre at work, bending mana and matter at her will, he could not help but wonder if that was how a goddess would appear while creating new worlds.
One by one, the runes between the circles rose in the air, revolving at increasing speed while the sword and the Frost Dew floated in the middle of the circle. The runes absorbed the surrounding mana, forming a flaming energy sphere.
The blazing mana scorched the flower, that left behind a bright blue sphere. Like twin suns, the two energy masses started revolving one around the other, with the sword as their fulcrum.
Wanemyre kept chanting, bringing them closer and closer, until with a final spell she made them become one and fused them with the sword. The blade fell on the table, hot enough to cut through the stone like it was butter.
A second later a blue glow radiated around the sword, allowing Wanemyre to pick it up without risks.
"That wasn't supposed to happen." She sighed while pointing at the destroyed table.
"The silver lining is that it means that Lith's flower's purity was outstanding. This sword will fetch me enough to cover for the table and this lesson's Frost Dew flowers."
"Can I touch it?" Lith was eager to check how the pseudo core of such item looked like.
"Sure, but do not imprint it. Otherwise you'll have to pay."
Lith used Invigoration, looking at the pseudo core with eyes filled with marvel. While the mana pathways weren't much different from the ones he was able to create, the pseudo core was a revelation.
There were actually two of them, overlapping each other almost perfectly.
– "They got it all wrong!" Lith was flabbergasted.
"The ingredients don't restore the balance by simply countering the elemental energies during the enchanting process, they actually pass their pseudo cores. This means that multiple enchantments require multiple pseudo cores coexisting in the same item."–
Lith was still studying the phenomenon, pondering if a living body could hold multiple cores too, when Invigoration suddenly stopped working. Wanemyre had taken the sword back.
"You must really love swords to get so lost in thought by simply holding one."
"You are right, sorry." Lith realized he had spaced out for over a minute.
"Go back to your seat and rest. You'll need all your strength before attempting the spell on your own." She ruffled his hair, making him feel like a dog again.
"You used my Frost Dew." Lith was confused.
"How am I supposed to perform the spell without one?"
"Don't worry, I got it covered." She handed him a Frost Dew emitting such a faint glow to seem just a cheap knock off of the one Wanemyre had consumed.
"Why do you give me that funny look?" She scolded Lith.
"It would have been a crime against magic to let such a perfectly purified natural treasure go to waste during a test run. No one will miss this one, instead."
Lith had many things to say, but was smart enough to keep them for himself. Wanemyre was an excellent Professor and their relationship was good. There was no reason to ruin everything over a single ingredient.
After a few minutes, the students completed the second step and were ready to try out the new magic circle. Wanemyre took away properly cleansed Frost Dews from a few other students too, assigning them points accordingly to the purity level reached, before replacing them with mediocre counterparts.
The ones that did a poor job could keep their flowers, making them grit their teeth with frustration.
Wanemyre handed out to each student an unremarkable iron dagger that couldn't be worth more than a silver coin. Clearly, she wasn't expecting them to succeed.
For a good reason, though.
"Don't worry if you fail. In my experience, infusing elemental properties is much harder than Forgemastering a neutral item. It takes a few tries to handle so many spells and two kinds of energies at once. Only special talents, like me, succeed at the first try."
She puffed her chest with pride, making her ample bosom stand out even more.
– "Thank heavens with her personality she has zero charm, otherwise I would have a new crush already."– Lith thought.
One after the other, his classmates tried and failed. Most botched the procedure during the last steps, making the dagger shatter like glass. Only a few managed to screw up during the initial steps, losing their chanting rhythm and receiving extra homework as punishment.
Having helped the Professor earlier, Lith and the red headed girl were last, to give them time to rest.
Remembering so many magic words and hand signs was hard. Even if he had them stored in Soluspedia, his hands couldn't afford to stumble, his tongue to stutter or miss even a single accent.
That was why every time a student performed their experiment, Lith would chant alongside them, using that time to practice rather than to relax. When Lith's turn came, he was ready. He had even used Invigoration to be at peak condition.
The words rolled off Lith's tongue, his hands moved non stop forming signs and magic seals. Controlling the energy flows was definitely the easiest part for him. With true magic he was used to weaving even six elements at a time, manipulating just two of them was child play, allowing him to focus on the rest of the incantation.
During the last spell, the red and blue sphere clashed violently compared to Wanemyre's execution, emitting a blinding light when they attempted to fuse with the dagger.
"Another failure." Wanemyre sighed. "Too bad, that was really close. Twenty points for an excellent first attempt."
Then the dagger fell on the table, piercing through it until only the hilt was visible.
"Good gods, I was wrong. It's a success!" Wanemyre hugged Lith too close for his comfort, kissing his forehead with excitement.
"Finally a promising rival!"
"I did it." Was all that Lith managed to say. He was so used to failure that success was the most shocking thing that could happen to him.
– "I told you so! You do have talent."– Solus rejoiced.
Wanemyre took the dagger out of the stone table, holding it like it was a treasure.
"Who cares about the sword, this is much more important." Wanemyre took out from her dimensional amulet a golden liquid, inscribing on the surface of the blade Lith's name, the date, and her name before handing it to him.
"Raise that twenty points to fifty. It's no attempt, it's a success." She screamed almost deafening the clerk on the other side of the communication amulet.
