19 – Research

The next morning after watering the bluebells, I decided to spend some time in the library. It was located on the top floor of the tower and was much brighter than the other floors. Where the central chamber was surrounded on all sides by rooms like the kitchen and the wizards’ quarters, the top floor didn’t have that buffer of rooms and extended all the way to the outer wall.

The windows reminded me of the kind they might have at old universities like Oxford or Princeton. They were divided into nine rectangular sections of water-stained glass by wooden crossbars. On the north side of the tower, the ivy nearly covered them.

I looked out of one of the eastern windows down onto the sparring ground below. The wizards were at it again, engaging in mana-enhanced hand-to-hand combat and shaking the very foundation of the tower with their brawl. A trickle of dust fell from the ceiling as Myrl sent Linli flying into the wall with a roundhouse kick.

It was high on my to-do list to learn how to physically channel mana like that, but I had more important things to look into this morning.

After my mentors had seemed so taken aback at the mention of my world inside my orb, I wanted to do some research before revealing anything more to them.

After perusing the circular library for some time, I selected a few different texts that I thought might shed some light on my situation. A History of Mana, Esoteric Cultivation Techniques, and Inner Orb Alchemy.

I picked a deep, comfortable chair next to a window, and settled in for a long read. It wasn’t long before my pipe came out and I was puffing away. I was beginning to really enjoy the ritual smoking of my pipe. This was the first time I had ever done it while reading, and the relaxed state it put me in lent itself to my study.

After several hours of poring over the ancient texts, the only references I could find to worlds within orbs were monster rifts. Scholars speculated that since monsters were not as intentional as humans when it came to forming their orbs, they accidentally filled them with the natural world by which they were surrounded. To a beast, the inner world and outer world are not as separate as they are in conscious beings. This primitive awareness, it is believed, is what forms the seeds of rifts.

This was not altogether encouraging.

Had I accidentally stumbled upon some monster cultivation technique? It didn’t seem like my spell creatures were monsters. They seemed to be something else entirely. There was also the possibility that I was forming a rift in my own core, but even if that were the case, rifts didn’t truly form until a monster died and its orb accumulated sufficient ambient mana.

I guess I just had to try not to die.

My research session left me with more questions than answers, but before I left to join the other wizards, a book caught my eye: The Art of Crafting a Staff.

My practice staff was in bad shape, and getting my own staff had become a high priority for me. I wanted to grab some coffee before I settled in with a new book, but the kitchen was all the way on the bottom floor, so I settled for another bowl of leaf.

As the blue smoke rose, I learned about choosing a wood that fit your affinity, about drying it for months by the hearth of a fire, about staining it with potions to enhance certain spells. I didn’t want to wait months for a new staff, however, there was one section of the book that suggested an alternative route.

A staff needed to be properly dried in order to fully absorb the magical stain. That’s why seasoning by hearth was recommended. It allowed for full control of the drying process. However, a branch could be found in nature that had dried naturally.

This was a riskier route. Whereas most staves were carved from fresh wood and allowed to dry, a dead branch in nature could either be rotten or brittle, depending on whether the conditions were too wet or too hot. However, if such a staff were found, its exposure to the elements generally improved the spellcasting, with the caveat that you didn’t always know what you were going to get.

Exposure to a hail storm could enhance ice spells. Burns from a wildfire could increase fire magic, as long as the burns weren’t too severe. On the other hand, contact with different animals could influence the staff in unexpected ways. That’s why most wizards chose to control the process by drying the wood themselves.

But I was impatient.

If I couldn’t find a suitable branch that had dried naturally, I’d get a fresh one and go through the drying process, but I wanted to see if I could find a naturally dried branch first. To be honest, the irregularities that arose from such staves intrigued me.

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I couldn’t find much information on woods that were good for void magic, but I noticed that something called Black Wax Wood was a very poor conductor for light magic. Since I figured void magic was pretty much on the other end of the spectrum from light magic, it might make a good choice.

And more importantly, it grew in our area.

I headed downstairs and ate a quick breakfast of pound cake and some leftover bacon the wizards had left out. It was nearing midday, and they’d probably be coming in for lunch soon.

I passed them in the courtyard as I made my way to the main gate.

“Hey, there goes Mr. Level 8!”

“Where you headed, slugger?”

“Off to devastate some more spider bosses?”

They were wiping sweat off their foreheads and grinning like madmen.

“I’m going to find myself a proper staff!” I called over my shoulder.