Throne of Time - Chapter 46: The Hovering Knife (Patreon)

"The value of such artificially-grown crystals shows the difficulty in attempting to mass-produce storage for mana," the professor continued. "You can see the striations here, completely different from a naturally grown crystal. Mana storage requires a medium that can transfer magic easily, and artificial crystals will leak from all sides unless sealed."

Suria listened in silence, for once not happy that the class had gone in a different direction. The woman who taught Foundations this loop mostly recited from the same scripts, but for this section deeper into the term, she had gone off on a strange tangent regarding crystals, even bringing in one that she was apparently very proud of.

So far the logic of it seemed lacking, at least as far as Suria could tell. An artificially grown crystal might leak, but mana crystals were usually encased in another substance anyway, so it shouldn't matter. Most likely she was just misunderstanding something, but unlike many professors, this woman actively hated questions, so Suria held her tongue.

"In order to make this clear," the professor told them, "you will each be growing your own mana crystals. Seed fragments can be purchased in Darmkael, and I expect you to keep in mind everything I said about selecting the appropriate grain. That's all for this class."

Many of the students grumbled as they began to separate, reinforcing Suria's gut feeling that this assignment was unreasonable. She thought back to the previous loops and remembered this section of the course being some lectures and readings about why mana storage wasn't generally a critical part of individual-scale battles. As she remembered, it came down to most conflicts ending before mages ran dry, outside of certain entrenched situations.

Part of her wanted to just ignore the assignment, yet Suria still dragged herself off campus to find what she needed. For one, simply ignoring her studies might attract attention, and for another, this loop might be her only chance to experience whatever this was. It was always possible that there would be some value in having grown a bad crystal, even if she couldn't see it.

When she reached the market, Suria was shocked to find that even the cheapest seed crystals, the kind the professor had advised them against buying, were at least 100 oss. She could afford one thanks to her stipend, but it would have been crippling in most other loops. The unfairness of it led her to stew between the different stalls until she abruptly realized that she knew the man standing beside her.

"There you are," Dsjaho-an said quietly. "Keep searching, don't look at me."

"What are you doing?" Suria whispered back. "We shouldn't be seen together."

"Darkmoon isn't monitoring the city carefully - Jeilin and I ran some tests and we're fairly sure of it. Do you know anything about what the professors are doing?"

"They don't tell me much of anything."

"Well, we're grateful that you've shielded us as much as you can."

"I wish you wouldn't talk about me at all," Suria said with a wince. "The risk of them realizing something is wrong..."

"Don't worry, I've perfected my contingency." Dsjaho-an smirked and flicked his necklace. "I tested it in the last loop and it was perfect: instant death at will. If they try to imprison me, I'll be gone before they can ask any questions. I wanted to offer you one. Not for a favor this time."

Surprised, Suria spent some time looking through the crystal shards to collect herself. She didn't like the idea, though she tried to consider whether it was just fear at wearing a device that could kill her. Having a method to quit the loop instantly certainly seemed like an advantage in theory, but...

"I'm under too much scrutiny," Suria told him. "Could you make one smaller?"

"It has to wrap around important body parts or it won't be as effective." Dsjaho-an frowned over at her. "It takes several days to make one, so maybe I'll start anyway. If you come to your senses, contact me and I can pass it along."

"How do I contact you?"

"Do you know Bub's Bobs? It's a good place to meet. We've used him in a lot of past cycles, even to acquire illegal things, and the old man has never once ratted us out."

"Alright." Suria realized that she was being surly and forced herself to smile at Dsjaho-an instead. "Congratulations on perfecting your necklace. Maybe you can show me next cycle."

"That's more reasonable." He grinned and stepped back into the crowd, then he was gone.

Doing her best to set aside the distraction, Suria purchased one of the cheapest crystals and took it back to campus. Growing a crystal could allegedly be done in variety of different ways, and she couldn't afford the expensive equipment the professor favored, so she was going to have to put something together. If she couldn't find a pentagonal inscription, she'd need to set up some kind of device.

A few days later, the next Introduction to Hazardous Naturalism class finally proved useful instead of merely interesting. Professor Abouric brought in a pile of small yellow stones, demonstrated how one could light itself on fire, then distributed them around the class.

"We're going to use these emberstones because the individual fires are relatively harmless," he explained as he passed them around. "If you fell into a quarry of emberstones, maybe you'd be seriously burned, but even all these couldn't burn down the lab. They'll serve as a good proof of concept for everything we've been studying, so consider this an examination. Any partial burns will result in a deduction from your score."

Suria dutifully followed the procedures she'd been taught, from using gloves to placing her emberstone inside a metal circle that restricted mana flow.

"Now, the essential lesson today will be using spells to control effects," the professor continued. "As soon as I get back to the front, I'll show you some inscriptions that can arrest a natural process. They're modest at the early stages, but in the proper glyph, you can seize hold of nature itself. There are legends about archmages holding back wildfires for hours that aren't just legends."

Once at the front of the class Professor Abouric began to demonstrate a variety of different inscriptions useful for stopping various processes. Some tried to interrupt a specific stage of the process, but others seemed to simply hold it back. It seemed quite odd to her, very similar to stopping time, yet it didn't feel at all like the same sort of magic to her.

"There are a lot of cases where interrupting a process is useful," Professor Abouric continued. "For example, you can be more precise with alchemy if you can bind a liquid or temperature until the exact moment it's needed. This inscription won't be worth anything for that, but when it comes to most fires, it'll stop them in their tracks."

He had been circling around the same subject for a little while now and Suria wondered if he was fishing for something in particular. Under normal circumstances, she would already have asked about the potential connection to time magic, but right now that felt too suspicious... then again, if her incipient mana sense was correct and this wasn't time magic, wouldn't avoiding that reveal knowledge that a normal student shouldn't have? Since the class was getting restless, Suria decided to just speak up and hope her instinct was right.

"How are we stopping the fire?" she asked. "It seems almost like time magic, but isn't that forbidden?"

"Actually, it would be difficult to tell the difference between these stasis spells and time magic," he answered smoothly, as if he had been waiting for that exact question. "For the record, a temporary time stop actually isn't forbidden and would be just as effective - if anything, it'd be more effective in more circumstances. But absent time magic, we have no choice but to learn a variety of stasis spells."

So had his plan been to draw the connection and hope that it somehow induced loopers to make a mistake? Suria wasn't sure that she'd been needed for that, but if she'd seemed cooperative, that was good for her. The professors hadn't called on her to do anything in particular in some time and she was worried that they might be increasingly suspicious of her.

Time magic aside, Suria did want to learn the stasis inscriptions: they could be used for something as grand as binding an opponent or as simple as keeping food hot. Based on what she had learned in her Evocation class, there would likely be strong similarities to time stop spells, if she ever learned those.

The thought made Suria fumble her stylus and very nearly set her emberstone on fire. Was she really considering trying to master such a spell? It seemed impossible: the runic requirement would likely be high, the inscriptions wouldn't be available in normal sources, and even if she managed all that, it would just draw suspicion to her. Yet somehow the idea had crept into her mind... she was trapped in here, forced to endure time magic repeatedly, so perhaps she could turn that ordeal into something useful.

In the short term, however, it was impossible, and in this specific loop it was likely suicide. Suria remained focused on the inscriptions at the front of class and had more trouble internalizing them than usual, perhaps because she was so distracted. When Professor Abouric came by her table he nodded in commiseration.

"You have the form right," he told her, "so the details will come in time."

"I'm not sure I can finish before the end of class," Suria confessed. "And I feel like I want to try the spells for moving animals, too."

"Normally I wouldn't suggest this, but you might want to try reading Flora of the Imperial Wastes." Professor Abouric leaned against the side of her table and lowered his voice. "Now, I personally thought it was a gripping read, but it might be a little dry for most. The important thing is that in her travels, the author goes over a whole range of inscriptions for stopping dangerous reactions. You can either repeat the ones I covered in class or find others you like better."

"Oh, thank you." So far Professor Abouric had recommended her three books during classes and all three of them had been very helpful. In a future loop, she'd have to take one of his courses that would be more relevant to her immediate goals, because she was sure it would be useful.

Before the end of class she managed to internalize one of the stasis inscriptions and even used it to interrupt her emberstone in the middle of its burn. She stared at the yellow stone and its frozen little flame, marveling that she had done such a thing. Unlike most spells, she could feel the natural order of the world pushing back, so she couldn't hold it for long.

Fortunately the professor saw her work and gave her full marks - an instant later Suria felt foolish for her relief, because there was so much more at stake. All her scores in the class would be wiped out when the loop reset, and she should have been more concerned about being discovered. Still, it felt good to have applied herself to a simple problem and managed to master it.

On her way out, Suria saw Xuhriha move in beside her. They'd spoken once or twice, ostensibly to exchange notes from the class, and nothing much had come from it. Something about the way Xuhriha was moving now, her skips a little too vigorous and her smile a little too wide, made Suria think that this time wouldn't be anything so mundane.

"Those inscriptions are hard," Xuhriha whined. "Did he give you a suggestion?"

"He did," Suria said with a forced smile. "I don't have the book yet, but I plan to get it from the library later today. You want to share it?"

"Yes, please. Honestly, today was not the best day for my notes..."

They headed out, chatting about the class, until they separated from the other students outside the Wyvernry. Instead of moving back across the moor, Xuhriha nudged their path into the woods, and before too long they had left all the other students behind and were standing in the graveyard again. It was eerily silent there, and if that wasn't enough, Xuhriha cast some sort of privacy spell around them.

"What is it?" Suria practically expelled the question along with her tension. "Is it really that urgent?"

"They got Dsjaho-an," Xuhriha told her sadly. "Soul-killed."