"You need somewhere to work on your prototype?" Professor Heinrick questioned.

As the teacher for the Artificing class, Damion had gone to him with his request for a safe place to work. Keeping things contained in his dormitory would have been best, especially considering he was working with enchantments similar to ones found on the Mage Association testing crystals. But he could not conduct experiments in his dormitory, not without risking blowing the place up from too much or too little mana.

"Yes, professor. I have reached the point in my design at which I need to put my theories to the test."

"I can grant you access to the school's workshop. But aside from the tools, you may not make use of any of the materials."

"Not a problem. I have plenty of Light and Holy materials from the Holy Forest dungeon. I think I will be fine."

"Very well. I will show you the way," Professor Heinrick.

The professor led Damion through the school, to a floor just below the floor housing the faculty offices. When they entered the room, he was not surprised to see it filled with workbenches, tables, tools, and even large bins of various materials.

"I think this will do nicely," Damion said as he looked around the room.

"Good. If you need any help, feel free to contact me. After your submission to Professor Toole last term, I expect quite the artifact from you."

The professor's expectations aside, Damion knew he had his work cut out for him. Spellsmithing seemed to be child's play compared to making a functional artifact. He could of course do something simple, just like he had the option of creating a very simple spell last term. But he had his mind set on his core scanner. This way he could hopefully advance his quest.

Damion got to work right away and began laying out the materials he would use for his first attempt. Ideally, he wanted his artifact to be as simple as the testing crystals, where it could just send a pulse through a person's body and then project an image of them that could then be manipulated and studied. What he was starting with was more of a sandwich. Two layers of enchanted materials that would work together to scan a person and then send the image to a tablet that served as the control.

Since he already had the enchantments worked out, all Damion had to do was inscribe them onto the materials and use the bridging enchantments to connect everything together. Even though he had made ample preparation, it still took time for him to inscribe all the enchantments. After several hours of work, Damion was ready to give it a try.

"Elicia, if you would be so kind," Damion said lifting up the top of his contraption.

"Is this really safe?" Elicia questioned as she climbed into the opening.

"As safe as it can be. Besides, I'm using Holy affinity mana, it should not cause any harm."

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Once Elicia laid down in the opening, Damion lowered the top, encasing Elicia in the folds of enchanted hides. He then activated his artifact and after a brief moment, the artifact sent the results of its scan to his tablet. Damion helped Elicia out of the artifact and then took a look at the results.

The artifact had successfully scanned and mapped Elicia's body. As the two looked at the scan, Elicia was fascinated by how the insides of her body looked. Damion was equally fascinated, not so much by the muscle and tissue, he had expected those, but by the mana pathways. The scan, while not crystal clear, did show her mana pathways as well as her magic core.

When examining Elicia's magic core, Damion could see engravings on the core which he recognized as magic seals for spells. Unfortunately, the resolution of the scan was too low to be able to clearly make out the tiny glyphs for the spell. However, on the inside of her core, clear as day, sat the glyph for Wind.

Thinking back, Damion recalled the Magic System telling him that everyone else's affinity was engraved in their core, which was why they were locked to one affinity and if they had more than one, they had to balance their mana. Now that he was seeing it, he was beginning to wonder why it was so.

"I'm going to scan myself now," Damion said, handing the tablet to Elicia he then climbed into his artifact.

A short moment later, his tablet beeped, signaling that the scan was complete. Damion hopped out of his artifact, eager to see the difference between his and Elicia's scans.

The first thing the pair noticed, was Damion's mana pathways were much denser, signifying the higher quality of mana that flowed through them. The other was that inside his core was nothing, or at least no glyphs. Instead on his magic core were inscribed eight glyphs. Ice, Fire, Earth, and shadow were the clearest. Next was Holy followed by Spatial, Poison and Water. This told Damion the clarity of the glyphs, their completeness, likely was related to the Rank of his affinities.

As Elicia was looking at the scan and then remembering what hers looked like, she became a bit confused.

"Why is Wind inside my core?" Elicia asked. "At first, I thought that symbolized my affinity, and I think it probably does, but your core does not have Ice inside it. Instead, Ice and some other affinity glyphs are on the outside of your core, but on the outside of my core are my magic seals."

"We will need to do more tests to be sure," Damion told her.

Of course, Damion knew the answer. But he could not explain why yet. And that was the key to completing his quest.

"We need more people to test the artifact. Would you extend an invitation to Eugene Hill and Josephine Caplan? They are the few people in the school who would for sure let us try this on them. And for the time being, let's not share the results of my scan with anyone."

"I understand," Elicia told him before hurrying away to locate the Earth mage and his attendant.

A short time later, Elicia returned with Gene and Josephine. Both were eager to see what kind of artifact Damion had created.

"And you are sure this is safe?" Josephine questioned as Gene climbed into the artifact.

"Absolutely, we have already tried it on ourselves. Now we are just trying to get more data, to see what I can do to improve the artifact, and maybe make it a bit smaller."

"Very well, do your test."

Gene was quickly scanned along with Josephine. Both were amazed that they could see inside their bodies after both scans were completed. When they saw their mana cores exposed, and the fuzzy glyphs of their magic seals, Josephine quickly became defensive.

"Is this an artifact to steal people's magic seals?"

"No. And while it could be put to that use. I don't want it used that way. I am using it to be able to see inside a person, to possibly detect hidden injuries or flaws that can then be corrected."

"And spying on a person's magic core is just a side effect I suppose? Come Gene, we are leaving," before they left though, Josephine turned to Damion and tried to be as intimidating as possible. "Count yourself lucky the quality of your artifact is not sufficient to read magic seals yet. Otherwise, you would be looking at hefty sanctions from all the noble families."

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