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Last of The Fae Chapter 104: Crafting Session Pt. 1
🕑 Added 2025-01-22 23:08:21 +0000 UTCWhile Thane was prideful, he wasn't arrogant, which was an important distinction to make when considering his magical prowess. If Thane was arrogant, he would have assumed that because of the unique and potent nature of his soul, he was invincible. But he wasn't. Thane understood that while he possessed an immense amount of magical potential and ten times the mana someone his get should possess, he could still get his ass handed to him.
If Thane was a betting man, he would say that most of his teachers would give him a run for his money, but the chances of them actually winning in a death or life battle were slim. The only people that Thane saw winning against him were Snape, McGonagall, and, of course, Dumbledore himself.
The reason why Thane feared Snape and McGonagall was their involvement in the Wizarding War. They simply had more experience than Thane, an advantage that trumps almost any power imbalance.
As for Dumbledore, the old man demanded respect. He was no doubt one of the most powerful mages on the planet, but the potential extent of his knowledge of the arcane was what made Thane truly hesitant to ever face the man in direct combat.
A reality Thane had been okay with as there had never been an outcome where he and the Mage would come into conflict. But now Thane realized that Dumbledore was the equivalent of a nuclear weapon in a cold war. When politics and diplomacy fell by the wayside, arms and armor would rule. While Thane would prefer the former, he wasn't so naive and foolish to believe that the greed of those and power would jump to the latter, whether it be his budding business or when he finally founded his independent nation of Fae.
Thane needed his own equivalent of a nuke to force a stalemate for fear of mutual destruction. And there was no better candidate than himself. Thane wasn't just preparing for his fight with the Basilisk but readying himself to stand against Dumbledore and the other ancient mages around the world that would eventually come knocking. So Thane wasn't holding anything back, and his list of projects reflected that.
'Let's start simple,' Thane thought as he moved to the back of the workshop, where the tiled floor gave way to a large patch of unworked black stone surrounded by large jagged spires of rock that curved together to form a rudimentary roof. With a snap of his fingers, Thane changed his robes for a loose set of cloth pants, leaving his muscular chest naked. At the same time, Thane's appearance changed as he dropped his transformation. Silver vines spread across his dusky skin as Thane's ears elongated and his hair grew into an untamed, verdant mane.
Standing in the middle of the rocky outing, separate from the rest of the workshop, Thane levitated into the air, crossing his feet as he held out his hand and summoned his spell blade, which appeared as always in a flash.
Thane smiled as he stared at the ornate blade, "You have served me well...but I believe it is time that I move on to bigger things."
The spell blade vibrated, and Thane felt its sadness and acceptance, "Don't worry; you won't be forgotten or set aside. I believe I have found someone more suited and worthy to wield you."
With that final assurance, Thane dismissed his spell blade and summoned his storage trunk from which a breadth of items spilled out. Seeing the arrangement of components floating around him, Thane nodded once before letting his mana pour from his body and sweep over the area.
Thane inhaled as he felt every molecule fall under his control, buzzing as it felt like the Origin of all things desperate to be shaped and influenced. And influence it Thane did.
Without moving a finger, Thane infused his mana into the ground beneath him. With the sound of mountains grinding against each other, Thane began to inscribe a massive ritual circle nearly twenty feet in diameter into the stone. The individual runes were the size of handprints in order to handle the enormous amount of magic that Thane would channel into the ritual, but for that, he needed a better conduit than raw stone.
From the components floating around him, Thane gathered various ingots of precious metals before him, mostly silver and gold, but also osmium and platinum. Once all the ingots floated together in a loose cluster, Thane lightly exhaled, sending forth a plume of liquid silver flame that engulfed the metal.
The bright silver flames obscured the individual ingots from view, but Thane didn't need to see the metal. His magic gave him more information than his vision ever could. He could feel the metal react with his magical flames, imbuing the metal with mana as it was melted and purged of any impurities.
As the metal liquified, Thane used his magic to force the elements to mix, coaxing them into a stable alloy. While it may have seemed simple, the process took several hours before he could finally dismiss his flames, revealing a molten orb of metal so hot that it glowed a pure white.
Holding out his hand, Thane split the molten orb into countless streams that swirled through the air to fill in the ritual Thane had carved into the earth. As the liquid metal settled into the mold, Thane held out his other hand, which he clenched into a feast.
A firey haze rose from the pools of molten metal, which quickly cooled and hardened as Thane pulled the heat from the metal. Manifesting as a burning cloud of metallic vapors, Thane isolated the heat from its surroundings, preventing any thermal energy from escaping or the potent metallic attuned mana imbued into the vapor.
By now, Thane's body was covered in a sheen of sweat from the effort as his mana reserves strained in their limited supply. Fortunately, Thane had planned for such an event, and he held out his hand, summoning a marble-sized sphere of crystalline metal that was practically overflowing with mana.
Crushing the bead in his hand, Thane eagerly absorbed the mana into his body, revitalizing him like a cool breeze in a smothering desert. With his reserves replenished, Thane steadied himself for what would come next.
With a thought, Thane pulled another ingredient towards him, a single seed no larger than a grain of rice. It might have seemed insignificant, but Thane had spent countless days cultivating tens of thousands of plants in order to produce a single seed. Using the same process of accelerating plant growth, Thane had gone through generation after generation, ultimately doing the equivalent of several million years of natural growth. But the process was worth it, as Thane stared at the seed slowly leaking mana into its surroundings.
The amount was minuscule, statistically insignificant, almost nonexistent; trying to use it in any magical sense would have been like trying to power a city with a single AA battery. But the amount didn't matter. All Thane cared about was that he had managed to do the near impossible.
Forcing himself not to rush, Thane pulled the last of the ingredients towards him, one of which was a small knife that he used to cut open his palm.
The second item was a long rod of crystalline metal, but unlike the impure alloys Thane had created before, this one had taken on a bluish-green hue, signifying its purity. While it probably wasn't the exact same as the massive pillars Magala had managed to summon from the earth, the achievement was enough for Thane to grant this alloy of his a name finally. It didn't take long to land on the name Mithril. In addition to being able to store mana without end, the alloy was also extremely light but strong simultaneously.
Within the middle of the metal rod was a small divot the exact size and shape of the seed Thane carefully cradled with his mana. Guiding the seed into place, Thane watched as the mithril began to vibrate gently and eagerly absorbed the whisp mana from the seed.
Once the seed was secured, Thane lowered the mithril rod until it hovered just above the ground in the middle of the ritual.
Ready to bring all the components together, Thane quickly crushed another marble to refill his mana reserves before grabbing the last ingredient, a massive flask of bright red potion. Had Luna been present, she would have recognized that the flask contained the blood restorative draught she had attempted to make, though the key difference was that Thane had made a batch with one hundred percent efficiency.
Taking off the cork, Thane grabbed the flask, ready to drink the potion like it was a mug of butter beer as he prepared to pour every last drop of mana and blood in his body into the ritual below.
Failure was not an option.
