Marilyn reached into her pouch once more, and pulled out an ordinary looking pebble. It was oddly shaped and had numerous sharp ends, just like any other pebble one might find on the ground. It was the size of a fingertip.
"This is a powerful Nexal with the ability to cause severe damage that is not easy to heal. I actually just found it within Nawia today. If I channel aether into it, I can activate it whenever I wish, much like a card. But the problem with this Nexal is that for its ability to work, I have to do damage with the Nexal itself. I'm sure you can see how that would be tough."
"You could flick it in someone's eye," Nero said jokingly. It was only with his parents that he could feel so relaxed. On his own, his guard was perpetually raised, and he never dared to relax at all, or crack such lame jokes.
"When my holiday is over, I will go back to base and apply for a high ranked artisan to turn this into a card. Although I myself am an excellent artisan as well, I am nowhere near the level required to use Nexals. This should give you some kind of idea of how difficult it is to use them."
Nero nodded.
"Come on, let's go inside and begin the lesson. Your dad will take care of tonight's watch."
With the incineration of all the vegetation complete, they returned to the resthouse. Before following them in, Edward placed a white candle in front of the resthouse door and lit it with a golden flame.
A few moments after Edward left, the golden light from the flames seemed to disappear into the darkness of the approaching night, and the entire resthouse vanished from view, as if it did not exist at all.
Inside, Marilyn and Nero saw on the floor since the resthouses' furniture was an in abysmal state. Marilyn opened one of the many bags they had brought along with them on the van, and placed a few items between her and Nero.
"Hold out your hand," she told Nero, and when he did, she took a dagger and made a small cut on his hand, extracting a single drop of blood onto a small, glass slab.
"I now have a drop of your blood. Do you think I can use this to transfer the spell model of your innate ability into a card?" she asked.
Nero hesitated for a moment, but then shook his head.
"Unlikely. There should be none of my aether in it, so even the spell model should be lacking."
"Very good. But if I do this…" she said, and then drew another drop of blood from him, yet this time he felt something latch onto his body and forcefully pull out some of his aether.
"Do you think this would work?"
This time Nero did not answer, because he could not speculate.
"The actual answer is that yes, it can work, but it's not easy. Nevertheless, you should take care never to let anyone get ahold of your blood, hair, or any body part, especially if it contains a trace of your aether. Whether they can recreate your innate card is questionable, but they can definitely create a Cursed card that specifically targets you."
"Cursed card?" Nero questioned, recalling the brief introduction his teacher had given him.
"Yes, Cursed cards. They're taboo and forbidden in Kolar, because they use curses as main ingredients. The curse actually replaces the spell model. They're very deadly, and often harm the user as well as the target, not to mention anyone else who might get caught between. They're not what we're focusing on today, however."
Marilyn took out a pinecone she had in the bag, and clearly it was being preserved using some kind of card, because there was a pink aura around it. Then she took out a few more.
"These are pine cones from a Mystic level tree near Aetherpeak. It is one of the most reliable sources for spell models in the vicinity of the city, and they're what we're going to be practising with. Over the next few days, I am going to teach you how to identify spell models, how to harvest them, and how to create cards with them.
If you can manage to learn all this in six days, then I can begin teaching you how to alter spell models. Otherwise, I can only explain things to you, and you'll have to try them out on your own.
"Both your father and I will be very busy in the future, and your own service will keep you busy as well. So we won't get another chance like this any time soon."
Nero opened his card case and took out Enhanced learning and used it.
Name: Enhanced Learning
Image: A person arduously studying.
Star rank: 0
Ability: [For a brief period enhance the user's brain, making studying temporarily easier. Can only be used once every 30 hours.]
Flavour text: "The light of civilization has been lit, and it is ours to make it brighter" - Norton Fleming
Marilyn held out one of the cones to Nero.
"Take this and channel your aether within it. Try to sense the spell model without activating it. Don't worry, the spell model for this has to do with nourishing the ground, making it more fertile, so it won't have any hazardous effects if you accidentally trigger it."
Nero closed his eyes and slowly channelled his aether within the pine cone, which was a new and unusual experience. Aether did not flow as easily into the cone as it did cards, and Nero felt a distinct resistance and loss of aether as he pushed it within the cone.
He was already used to controlling his flames, which was similar to how he controlled aether outside his body, but without a spell his aether was loose and easily dissipated.
Even so, after a while, he was able to sense that his aether touched something. Nero closed his eyes and tried to determine the shape of what he was touching, as if his aether was an additional limb. He could vaguely make out that whatever he was touching was some kind of roundish shape, but not exactly.
As he tried to sense it a little more, his aether was accidentally pushed inside of it. A significant amount of his aether was pushed into it, yet there was no reaction from whatever he was sensing, nor did the pine cone react in any way.
"I can feel it," Nero said.
"Good. Now there are two ways to trap a spell model and preserve it until it is added to a card. The first is similar to how I trapped the aether within your blood - it requires the use of another card. The other, more difficult way is to use your own aether to hold onto the spell model and preserve it, while you change the physical form of the object, making it fit to be used as an ingredient."
Nero opened his eyes and looked at his mother.
"For 0 star cards, you can simply purchase the spell model as an ingredient. Shops and artisans treat items containing spell models, converting it into a suitable form to be used in card making, and then trap it that way using a card with a preservation effect. The result is good enough, but in higher ranked cards, it reduces the star rating of cards.
"That is why higher grade artisans prefer to deal with the respective spell models themselves. It drastically increases the production time of cards, and is much harder, but the results are worth it.
"Now observe as I process the pine cone. I'll be creating a 0 star card for fertilising a small patch of land. You'll have to learn the recipe and be able to produce this card before we move on."
Nero paid close attention as his mother prepared countless ingredients.
"As you already probably know, the first step in card crafting is deciding on the base, or bottom most layer of the card. You can also purchase premade templates for the base for more common recipes, but for what we're doing today, we won't be doing something like that."
Marilyn opened a small case and used a scooper to pick out some dried dirt and sprinkled it inside a rectangular frame till it was filled with dirt. Then, using a simple ruler, she scraped off all excess dirt above the frame, forming a flat, rectangular bed of dirt, before lifting the frame as well.
"This is treated dirt formed from a mixture of regular dirt, crushed mulch made from the leaves of an Initiate level tree, dried manure, ground animal bones, all mixed and baked in an oven overnight. This will act as a base for our card. Next comes the layer that forms the aether network in the card. For that, we will be using plant sap saturated with aether dust…"