I review Misty's equipment before we leave to make sure there aren't any easy upgrades I could give her. She has a beginner spellbook with some simple spells in it, but doesn't have much in the way of offensive capability.

I have the blueprint of the frost wand that I'd memorized. I left it with Hemlock and he will probably need it when they come to perform a daring rescue after I mess with that bell. I can't count on being able to get through the lifts to escape Gleam Topside, so the stronger the B team are, the better.

I haven't practiced inlaying sigils with metal, though, only painting them with a calligraphy brush.

"I have an uncle who knows how to do that," Misty says once I tell her my idea. "If you've got a blueprint, I'm sure he'll lend a hand, especially if it's for me. I'll take you to his workshop."

Misty's Uncle Golden has a fantastic steampunk workshop in the shadow of a large warehouse. Crystal lamps illuminate a room full of cogs and wheels, bits and bobs, crystals and sigils. I want to move in. I will settle for free lessons.

As for Golden himself, he's a massive man standing almost two meters tall, with broad shoulders and a mop of blond hair that's closer to the color of his namesake than the white and silver hair I've seen on many of the Gleam locals.

Name: Golden Harrow Gleam Tiganna Race: Human | Gender: Male | Rank: Heroic | Tier: Master | Class: Adept Sigilwright Disposition: Neutral | Mood: Patient

"I'll give you lessons, but mystic flux isn't free, boy," Golden Harrow says once Misty introduces me and tells him what I have in mind. "Why don't you take your party down to the mines and get some? It'll be a good bonding delve. Nothing five strapping young Elites shouldn't be able to handle."

Misty shows us the way, leading us through suburbs and toward an incongruous hill without any buildings on or around it.

You have discovered the Ancient Mines.

Surrounded by modern-looking magitech suburbs stands a hill with a gaping entrance shored up by rickety-looking wooden beams. A sign outside reads: Ancient Mines. Please be courteous to other delvers.

We're not the only ones here, but most of the others are Basics. We're able to get into a lower branch with Elite monsters that haven't been killed yet. Because we can't have a mine without it being full of giant spiders and inexplicably aggressive bats. Killing some monsters is the trade-off for the minerals regrowing, I suppose. There's native copper growing on every wall, more than we could reasonably carry back, but we're leaving it alone until we've killed a boss.

I take the opportunity to get some Invocation practice in, not the least of which because monster bat swarms are considerably less annoying when you can disrupt them with paralysis poison or chain lightning.

We come upon a room with a Heroic spider miniboss. It gives me an opportunity to practice [Freedom of Movement] but doesn't otherwise give us much trouble. Upon killing it, we receive a chest containing a handful of coins, a tin ingot, a few weird magenta rocks that I assume are "mystic flux", and a dagger shaped like a spider claw that sticks to things.

[I'd like to hold onto that long enough to unlock Enhanced Hands (Sticky Grip),] I tell my party, poking it at a wall experimentally to see how much weight it will hold. [Too bad we don't have two of them. Someone could totally use these to climb.]

We decide one miniboss is enough for this afternoon's quick run. We've got what we came for, and we're not going to be clearing the entire huge mine complex in one day even if we were the only ones here. On the way out, we gather as much native copper as we can carry. With our arms and packs full, we return to Golden's workshop.

"Not a bad haul," Golden says, looking appraisingly over our loot. "Alright, let's start with a simple light sigil. It's no secret and you see it on every lamp. Normally, I wouldn't teach a kid so young with molten metal and sharp objects, but you're Elite so I'm sure you'll be fine. You a reincarnator, or just a prodigy?"

"Reincarnator," I say.

"Well, that makes me feel better about this, at least. What are your Wizardry and Crafting skills like?"

After sharing my skills with him and describing some of the things I've made so far, Golden begins the lesson.

Engraving tiny markings into wood isn't easy, and I mess up a few of them. My low stats from still being a child are getting in the way a bit, but skills like [Gentle Touch] help. I make several light sigils for practice, and get into a groove with my groovy grooves when [Mass Production] kicks in.

With the practice sigils ready, Golden shows me how to use the mystic flux. First, he has me grind one of the weird magenta rocks we found into powder. The inlays we're working with are small and delicate, so we don't actually need that much.

"You have [Medium Preparation], so you've already done this with sigil ink, I take it," Golden says. "The role of mystic flux is the same as whatever sap or ichor you might have used. With it, we're removing all the concepts from the copper that don't help it to cast spells, and infusing it with magic. Unlike limestone, mystic flux dissolves into aether once its job is done, so you don't need to worry about removing slag. Aim for a ratio of one part of flux per hundred. Alright, the copper's molten, go ahead and mix in the powder now."

I nod, and sprinkle the sparkly magenta dust into the molten copper, carefully stirring to make sure it's evenly distributed. With Clairvoyance, I watch the mystic flux do its job with rapt fascination.

"Silver is better for mystic inlays once you level up more, but copper is cheap enough to use for practice," Golden says.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"I have [Copper Affinity], so I'll probably still want to use copper in anything meant for myself," I say.

"Lucky for you, copper alloys well with practically anything that can melt," Golden says. "And where it doesn't, you can get by with using it for fasteners or decoration. Now that the flux has done its job, we make wire just like we would with normal copper. Do you know how to make wire yet?"

I nod.

Golden goes on, "Great, I'll leave you to that, then. I've got some other things to take care of. I'll be on the other side of the room. Yell if you've got another question or need help with something, you hear?"

Using Golden's equipment, I draw the mystic copper into wire, and then it's time to break for dinner. Unfortunately, while I'd be perfectly willing to keep working into the night, Golden is not. He promises to show me how to do sigil inlaying in the morning. I am not going to whine like a nine-year-old just because I want to do it now.

I turn in for the night at the Harrow Guest House. Before I go to bed, it's time for Necromancy practice. Without the conspicuous glowing eyes, a ghost doesn't have any way to get information about the world except for psychic senses. I have a purpose other than surveillance in mind, though, and the eyes are completely unnecessary for it. I want to be able to contact people more easily, and without magic cell phones, this is one idea I have for it.

I modify the summoning spell to skip the eyes, with the intent of using [Trace Connection] to locate Basalt and [Telepathy] to communicate with him. I use a caduceus as an extra focus to help with casting. It takes a few tries before I can manage to summon something without a visible mark on the physical world, but I don't want to chance anyone being able to see a ghost moving from place to place. Once I'm successful, a system notification appears.

Skill acquired: Necromancy (Ghostly Messenger) Description: Summon a spirit to locate and deliver a message to someone you have a connection to. The spirit is invisible and intangible, and cannot interact with the physical world. Higher levels increase the spirit's movement speed. The spell will fail if the target is too far away to reach before running out of Inspiration.

I send him to find Basalt and deliver the message of instructions on how to cast [Ghostly Messenger]. Once a ghost actually makes contact with the other, we'll be able to have a real-time conversation for as long as the spell lasts.

The Inspiration cost ramps up as the ghost gets further away, balanced out only by the dreaming body's regeneration. [Trace Connection] leads the ghost right to him, asleep at the Cloudy Draught in Mayfair. I try telepathically contacting him in his dreams, but he's dead asleep and I don't care to try to learn to delve into dreamworlds or whatever right now. I check if anyone else in the party is still awake, but they're all out cold. I suppose I'll need to wait here until morning. There's plenty of work to be done with [Text Editor], anyway.

Fortunately, my body is sleeping in and Basalt's an early riser. By the time he's stirring in the morning, I have edited my article on [Ghostly Messenger] to the point where I think a layman can understand the principles.

[Good morning, Basalt,] I tell him telepathically.

Basalt peers about in confusion before locating the invisible ghost with Clairvoyance. [New spell, I take it?]

[Yup. Here's the write-up on it I just finished. Attachment: Ghostly Messenger.txt]

Basalt scans it over as he gets ready for the morning.

[You might need to dumb that down another level or two,] Basalt comments. [I don't have a caduceus on hand, either. I suppose I could make one, though. Makes sense as a symbol to help with a messenger spell. You keep discovering new skills faster than I can learn them. At least the Clairvoyance ones are easy to practice. Did you find that girl you were looking for?]

I update him on what we got up to yesterday, at which point I sense my body starting to wake up so I decide to release the messenger spell and let myself know how it went before I run out of Inspiration.

[Ta ta for now,] I tell Basalt. [I'll keep in touch.]

Morning has come, and I practical inhale my breakfast in my excitement. After having gotten the materials ready the previous day, it's time to actually learn how to inlay.

"Morning, Drake," Golden says. "Hope you got a good night's sleep. You need to be sharp for work like this."

"I'm ready," I assure him.

"Alright. You've got your wire, good. Now, you'll want to measure the wire before cutting it and make sure that each piece fits into the engraving. Complicated sigils will probably require several little bits of wire. Don't cut corners and make good use of Search (Measurement) to get everything right. I will demonstrate one for you. Watch carefully."

I watch as Golden measures, snips, and inserts magical copper wire into one of the engraved light sigils. Once it's done, he gives it a quick test by putting vis into it, causing the entire wooden block to glow.

"For a finished item, we'd cover it in lacquer to smooth it out and ensure that the inlays don't pop out when you get into a fight," Golden says. "Let's not get into that yet, though. Your turn."

Under Golden's supervision, I copy what he did and put wire into the second engraved sigil. It takes a couple tries, but the system acknowledges my first correct light sigil with a notification window.

Congratulations! You have crafted a Fair magic item. Skill acquired: Crafting (Inlaying) Description: The ability to inlay metal into items through various techniques.

"I got it!" I exclaim.

"Well done, boy!" Golden says. "Now, what was the item you wanted to make for my niece?"

"A frost wand," I say. "I have a blueprint memorized. Seven sigils."

"A frost wand, good, good," Golden says. "A popular choice, since it's less likely to cause collateral damage. Every apprentice mage wants to set things on fire, and then gets handed a frost wand and told to master that first."

I'm pretty sure [Ghostwriter] will be good for getting around the fiddly part of working with tiny engravings, but I needed to actually unlock the skill properly first. I don't know how Golden feels about Necromancy and don't want to get kicked out of here, so I just keep at my lessons the hard way with the consolation that I'll be able to offload some of the work later.

I don't want to take forever on this, so I decide to only spend the rest of the day, and Golden agrees to just make Misty the wand himself from my blueprint if I can't get a functional version by dinnertime so as not to delay our quest. I could spend weeks here studying with Golden Harrow, but I have other things to do and places I need to be. I will get plenty of time to practice once I'm home or at school.

I start by writing out the list of sigils on a piece of paper.

Golden leans over my shoulder to read what I've written. "Do you know what those all mean?"

I shake my head. "I'm afraid not. My grandma sent me a sigil primer, but I haven't had time to read it yet. I start school next year and I've been trying to get some adventuring in this summer."

Golden nods. "Remember that while it can work to copy a sigil without understanding, you will always get a better result when you understand something and can channel that concept into the sigil while you're making it. Did you bring your book with you?"

I nod, and dig out the book from my pack.

Golden continues, "Good. See if you can look up the meanings of those sigils before you start trying to engrave them into a wand. When you're ready, here's some blank wands. My apprentice has been learning [Mass Production] and got carried away. In the meantime, I've got work to do."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.