Chương 31: 1.2.09 - The Answer is 42

The summer sky was lit by orange streaks as the sun began to rise on the horizon. It was a little past dawn, and most of the shops should be open or would be opening soon. I had brought the cloak and mask that Garrick had bought for me when I visited the black market the last time. While Garrick chased down leads for Void Iron, I had decided to make the best use of my time by preparing the enchantment design for my contraption.

I had to find an alley in town before putting on the mask and cloak, as the guards at the gates would likely not let someone in without any form of identification. The district I was heading to also had bakeries and restaurants along the same row, which filled the street with the smell of baked bread and roast meat as they got ready to open. I stopped in front of Kessel's Books, looking at the sign displayed outside. Hessa sure opens early. It had been almost two years since I was last here.

I would need to somehow deepen my voice so that she would not recognize me. Let's hope that she would not put two and two together with my increased height and mask. I opened the door and stepped in, the sound of the bell chime over the door alerting Hessa to my presence. The smell of paper bound by old leather covers remained unchanged from the last time I was here.

"Oh my, I don't usually get customers that early. Hi welcome, are you looking for something specific or just browsing?" Hessa got up from behind the counter and approached me. I saw her place a book down beside a cup of hot beverage. I probably intruded on her morning reading time, considering most days people don't come in that early.

"Do you have any books on advanced application of enchanting?" I croaked, trying to change my usual voice.

"What's wrong with your voice? Si... sir?" Hessa hesitated, not sure if I was a man or woman.

"Sir is fine. Too much drinking and shouting at the tavern last night" I gave a likely excuse.

"Ah yes, the crowd does get rowdy sometimes. Back to your request, yes I believe I do have something" She reached over one of the shelves and pulled a tome out." Applied Rune Topology, (Second Edition), I have not read this one myself as I'm not an enchanter and this is too advanced for me. But it should have more advanced runes, including advanced applications and material compatibility""Do you have anything else?" I croaked again.

"I also have Principles of Enchanting but that's just an introductory book. I don't carry that many I'm afraid, considering there aren't any enchanters in town""I'll take it then, how much would it be?" I croaked, finding it difficult to keep this frog voice up.

"1 small gold and 1 large silver" Hessa said without pausing a beat. My hand stilled at my purse at the mention of the price. The new books quoted last time were only around 30 small silvers each. This is almost four times the price! I screamed internally. I contemplated haggling but I figured the previous price was probably quoted at cost considering Marta's presence. Additionally, this was a more advanced book so I suppose the premium pricing was fair.

I took a deep breath and took out the two coins to pass to Hessa. While I had the coins, the book along with the Void Iron would probably deplete most of my savings. If I survived this, I would need to get back to hunting soon. Besides not wanting to croak again, another reason I decided not to haggle was to return the favor Hessa did for me the last time I was here. Paying full price for the book hardly seemed like a fair trade but it was all I could do.

"Would you like me to wrap it?" Hessa asked. I just shook my head, and pointed to my throat.

"Ah right, your voice. Here you go then. Thank you." she passed the book to me and opened the door for me. I had both the enchanting books laid out in front of me, along with the Fundamentals of Spellcraft, as some of the runes in spell casting were also used in enchanting. I was trying to work out what combination of enchantment would potentially help me get around the evaluation orb. It would have been great if I knew what runes were used on the slave collar, but I could probably guess at its function.

There were likely two main functions: First was likely some form of control function, or the ability to exert punishment on the subject if they disobeyed the owner of the collar. The second was likely the ability to suppress the person's core, judging from what Garrick had shared about slave collars being one method to get around the evaluation orb. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I could practically ignore the first part, and just focus on the second part of the slave collar function. I would need to actually study the properties of the Void Iron to know how it and the Storm Steel could potentially work together to suppress my mana core. I spent the next two days sketching various designs across empty sections of the new book. I could not really confirm or eliminate any yet but I drew up what would likely work, and those within my capabilities.

There were some runes that required specific mana types and my guess was the slave collar didn't use those considering they were affinity attuned. Garrick delivered the Void Iron on the third day, directly to the orphanage. Considering the time sensitivity of this matter, it seemed that he had elected to come directly. He had handed the package to Marta, letting her know that it was for me.

Marta did not open the package, but she seemed to be able to guess what the material was based on her reaction before she handed it to me.

"Ash dear, whatever it is you're doing, just promise me you won't put yourself in danger. You can still leave." Marta sat me down in the kitchen later that night. She had the bundle beside her.

"I know what I'm doing, trust me." I paused.

"I know you overheard me and Thal in the kitchen that day" I said it as a fact, not an accusation. Marta stilled at the mention of that.

"I'm staying for the evaluation" She just slid the small bundle across the table and left it at that. I had dozens of enchantment rune sketches ready based on my own hypothesis, but time was running out. Considering I had less than two weeks until the Royal Inspector came, I needed to narrow down the designs that I could test. I studied the small ingot laid out in front of me. Void Iron was an interesting name — I had speculated about its properties based on its name but seeing it in action was something else.

I tried channeling mana through it initially but it just dispersed it on contact. It appeared as an empty void in my Electro Perception so I had initially thought it had insulating properties like the clay from Geomyre ant mound. But instead of insulation, it was closer to nullification. Any spell I threw at it was just dispersed. It seemed to neutralize any spells and just break them down to neutral atmospheric mana. At least that's what I thought as I had no means of detecting ambient mana levels.

The slave collars probably took advantage of this nullification property to either suppress or drain the mana core. I looked at the list of enchantment designs I had and started scratching out some of them. Even if I was flush with coin, more Void Iron would not help. As the material could not take hold of mana, my guess was that all the enchantment was placed on the affinity material, which was Storm Steel in my case — and that I had limited supply of.

I had thought about the design of this suppression device and I could not make it a collar as it would be too obvious. Additionally, since I doubted my design could be compared to those of master enchanters, I needed it placed as close to my core as possible. The design I ended up with was two plates — one made of Void Iron, and the other made of Storm Steel. They would be held together by leather straps and then secured to my chest.

That way I could hide it under my shirt, which would be less obvious than a collar around my neck. I still had to pick which designs to test as I was short on both time and Storm Steel. Time being a limiting factor as I had to inscribe all the runes on the Storm Steel plates myself. And I could only do it in batches of 12, which was the number of Storm Steel plates I had after I had melted them down from the ingots.

Once I had inscribed it and tested the various designs, I would have to melt them down and cast them into plates, wait for it to cool, then start over. I looked at the list of designs I had, which was still more than twenty after I eliminated the rest based on the properties of Void Iron.

"Well no better time to start than the present, as the saying goes." I took the first plate I had and got to work. I had probably overestimated my own genius, as over the last week or so, I had tested more than forty designs. I started out with 23 but none of them worked. Unlike the straightforward step up and storage runes I had used for Mark I, these were a lot more complex. After exhausting all 23 initial designs, I had to go back to the drawing board and come up with more variations.

What I had thought was the bottleneck, which was inscribing the runes, was not the bottleneck at all. My increased bulk, coupled with my Yellow core gave me a lot more strength and stamina which made the scribing process a lot faster. Some of the designs did seem to have some effect on my core but they were weak and only mildly annoyed me. I took note of those and either combined those designs together, or made variations of it.

I was inscribing design number 42, and I had two days left before the inspector arrived. This design was a combination of Bind, Tether, Compress, Cascade supported by a few other auxiliary runes and Processor runes. Assuming the contraption worked as intended, it was supposed to tether to my core and then bind it. It would simultaneously compress the mana within to make it more sluggish, and cascade the mana outwards from my core to the Storm Steel plate.

After which the Storm Steel would expel the mana towards the side where it was attached to the Void Iron. The Void Iron should nullify the mana's inherent property, and subsequently disperse it to become normal atmospheric mana. I got up from the desk and rolled my shoulder as I finished the last inscription. I could feel something settle into the enchantment as I finished it. As I stretched my neck, my eyes landed on the pile of Storm Steel plates with failed enchantments sitting in the corner of my work bench.

These would need to be melted down again before they could be used. I retrieved the Void Iron plate sitting in one corner. I had made some slight modifications to the cast in the last few days since I had to wait for the Storm Steel to cool anyway. The Void Iron plate now had a square indentation that would allow one of the Storm Steel plates to sit in the middle nicely. I placed the Storm Steel plate in the recess and heard it click into place.

This was it, with two days left, I did not have enough time to come up with new designs, smelt the used plates, and reinscribe enchantments. I held my breath as I placed the contraption over my sternum, waiting for the enchantment to take effect. Author Note: This is the work of Josh Shoniix. This work of fiction will only be published on Royal Road and Space Battle for free. If you're reading this on another site or paid through Google Books, this work has been stolen.