Chapter 46 Trinket Enchantments
In a classroom with over 1000 students in the National Magic Academy of Lanthanor.
A man with a long white beard was hunched over a table on which a sword had been placed.
His hands hovered over the blade of the sword while his eyes were closed, muttering something under his breath.
Suddenly, the blade shrunk into a coin which seemed to have been heated red-hot.
As the man stopped muttering, the red-hot coin slowly became normal. Taking the coin in his hand, he squeezed it in his palm making a sword appear out of thin air.
The crowd cheered as they witnessed this sight. Many looked on with envy as he pocketed the coin and thanked the man standing next to him before addressing the crowd.
"Thank you for your applause. Like I was saying, it takes years and years of patience and dedication to become an Enchanter. Just like mages, Enchanters also have grades from 1 to 9. But, the highest Enchanter in our kingdom is only a Grade-2 Enchanter. This is because although the man has reached the level of a 7th Grade Exalted Human Mage, his skill in enchantment has not increased enough to cross the threshold to become a Grade-3 Enchanter."
"You are too polite, my friend. You are the top enchanter in the Kingdom! There is no reason to short change yourself.", said the man who had been standing to the side while the demonstration had been taking place.
The crowd went wild as they realized that the man in front of them was actually the only Grade-2 Enchanter in the Kingdom, capable of making trinkets that all Eminent Human Mages and Fighters could use.
The man simply smiled and moved to the side after bowing to the crowd who were cheering without a stop. The other man took over the podium in front and said, "That concludes the demonstration. 2nd Grade Enchanter Sellax's personal shop will open in the marketplace in 3 days. If you want to buy trinkets straight from this master's hands, do rush over to the shop. Everyone is dismissed."
The two on the stage vanished as the crowd began discussing among themselves.
"My father gave me a 100 Gold Lans when I told him Master Sellax himself is opening his shop! He told me to buy whatever trinkets I wanted!"
"I've been saving up to buy the Wallet Trinket for so long but I don't have enough money yet....when will I be able to carry everything I want using just a small pouch?"
Such discussions could be heard everywhere while a kid with very short brown hair stared pensively at the spot where the 2 had vanished.
This was Daneel. After putting out the fire in his hair with a water sphere, he had vowed to never try spell combinations again without proper precautions. His hair which had been thoroughly burned by the fire had had to be mowed into its present condition. Maria had struggled to control her laugh as she saw Daneel grumbling while she cut his hair to get rid of the burned parts.
Also, the system had alerted him that someone had turned their gaze towards him when he made the ball of thunder-fire. Daneel did not know if it was the court mage or the Grand court mage, but he could not take any risks. Practicing combination spells was officially off the agenda for him presently.
The 5 days were spent with his family and friends, with Elanev and Faxul constantly dropping by and sparring with him. Faxul was putting more and more focus than ever on improving, both as a mage and as a fighter. Such a training was typically undertaken by those who would act as vanguards for armies. Having both a strong body and a solid foundation in magic, they had the ability to fit into multiple roles both for attack and defense. The only drawback was that although the position that a pure mage or fighter could fill was fixed, they were almost always more powerful than one who trained in the path of a vanguard.
Still, there were special roles in an army that only a vanguard could fill. Although Daneel had asked the reason, Faxul never told him why he had chosen to take this path. The main advantage of this path was that Vanguards had no glaring weaknesses unlike someone who was purely a mage or a fighter. Fighters were weak in long range and mages were typically weak in short range.
Robert and Maria even treated Faxul as a second son because they loved how he always helped them whenever he could. Although he spoke little, the Anivron family loved him for his steadfast determination to do whatever he chose to the best of his ability.
Elanev always loved to spar with Daneel because he was fascinated with the powers of a Paragon. He was considered highly talented for his age, having reached the level of a 5th Stage Eminent Human at the young age of 25. Of course, this was to be expected as he possessed top grade body potential and his family was anything but poor.
In just their first spar, Daneel had defeated him by making him lose his balance and fall to the ground. Although he got up immediately, he admitted defeat after Daneel showed him how fast he could make an ice prick appear in the path of his fall.
In subsequent fights, he always stayed on his feet and never gave Daneel the chance to use his spells on him. Even spells that he targeted at the locations where Elanev would step next were dodged because of the sheer speed of reaction of an Eminent Human. This also enabled Daneel to think of more strategies for offense against fighters.
Right now, they were tied 5-5 due to Daneel resorting to cheating by using the system. He made multiple fireballs or ice pricks appear in succession using the parallel processing tool before giving Elanev no chance to dodge. Of course, he only did this to find out what his max potential was presently.
According to the system, the amount of particles he could connect to, which grew slowly with time and prolonged usage of magic, was fast reaching the threshold where he would advance to become a 1st Grade Amateur Human Mage. This would let him control at least 50% more particles right after the break through due to the unpeeling of the first layer of the pineal gland.
He had only a few Ether blocks, so he decided not to use them in this short span of time for training his body and Mageroot at the same time. He resolved to use the Energized Training Chambers in the academy to parallelly train in both and grow in power quickly.
As soon as he got back to the academy though, an announcement was made that an Enchanter would display his skills because he was advertising for his new shop in the marketplace.
Daneel had rushed to the location as he had always been interested in the art of Enchantment. Trinkets were the lifeblood of any kingdom, whether it be luxury trinkets which drove the economy or combat trinkets which armed the soldiers. Enchanters were the people who made the trinkets, sought after by all for their sheer value in making a kingdom grow.
A 1st Grade Enchanter could make trinkets for Amateur Fighters and Mages, allowing one to use them until they stepped into the Eminent Grades. Thereafter, they would have to seek 2nd Grade Enchanters for more powerful trinkets which catered to Eminent Fighters and Mages only.
Daneel had been hoping that the system could make a technique for enchantment, but there was no response even after the man was done. It seemed that he had to find a way to spectate a few more enchantments.
An announcement broke him out of his thoughts, making him chuckle with glee and rush towards the library.
"The awards for the top 3 in the First Year Assessment have been announced! Please check the notice board for more details!"