Mined Games chapter 20

I groaned as I walked into the Basic Hammering class. Weeks of training, constant practice, absurd amounts of money and so many crystals I was counting them in my dreams. I was now halfway into the first circle of Apprentice rank, and the going was only getting slower. I needed to find higher tier crystals, but that was going to be a long term issue. For now, I was at least keeping up with everyone else, so I wasn’t too worried.

Catching the usual glares, I decided to sit next to someone I knew, so I grabbed a chair next to Cecily. I nodded as I sat down. “Hey there.” I ran through a bunch of possible ice breakers, but couldn’t come up with anything, so I just left it at that.

Cecily raised an eyebrow at me. “Hello.” She said politely. “Are you prepared for our first attempt at proper hammering?” Her voice was cool, but it pretty much always was. She wasn’t being standoffish or distant, she just didn’t emote much. Weirdly it made her more approachable to me, given the emoting I got from most people was so negative.

“Yeah, I’ve tried it before, but I get the feeling I wasn’t doing it right.” Knowing what I did about lattices and spell structures in items, I was pretty sure my previous attempts had been the wrong direction. Though maybe not, I could have just been doing things the easy way given the mana had been injected directly by the forge.

Forming the lattices before you injected the mana was important to shaping the enchantment on the magic tool, so chances were good the machine had just been saturating the metal with a battery enchantment based on the structure of the crystal I’d used.

Resonance between the mana in the item and the material depended on dozens of factors, which was the basis of hammering. I had kind of a head start here because I’d attempted plenty of magic tools, even if I’d never gotten close to accomplishing the goal. I had a good feel for what kind of mana required what kind of hammering style, though things like material obviously made a huge difference.

Cecily and I chatted for a while, talking over how our other classes had been going. I mentioned her sister, and I could have sworn she rolled her eyes at the comment, but it happened too fast for me to be sure. Finally, someone familiar entered. Tanya.

The tanned muscular woman was wearing the same baggy pants, leather apron, tank top and gloves as last time. As she approached the front of the classroom, where a forge was already burning, she flicked a hand to get her hammer out and then slammed it down on the table of a pair of guys she was passing.

They nearly jumped out of their skins, and her amber eyes bored into them. “Next time it’s your skulls.” Finishing her journey to the front of the class she turned around. “Some of you are wealthy. Some of you are politically powerful. Most of you are neither, but have parents that are. I don’t care.”

The pair of boys glared at her in a mix of fear and outrage, but wisely didn’t speak up. One of them was Colin Royce, who was part of a middling clan in Edgebank, but the other was Dalton Rouder. The Rouder clan was one of the largest in the city, and one of the most powerful outside the direct nobility. Dalton was ALSO one of the people who glared hardest at me, so it was amusing to see him squirm.

When no one responded to her declaration, Tanya nodded. “Oh good. There’s usually some moron who runs their mouth after I say that and I have to cave someone’s skull in. Nonlethally of course, I never kill students in the first class. Now then, who knows what hammering is? How it works?”

Cecily raised a hand, and Tanya nodded. The redhead look almost nervous (for her) as she answered. “It’s…the act of using physical force as a means to resonate your mana with the mana inside of a material?”

Tanya gave a pleased nod. “Exactly. It’s not complicated as a concept, even if it definitely IS complicated in execution. This is important for several reasons. Resonance of different kinds is needed for different metals, different mana, different spell structures even. Now this isn’t dependant on speed or tempo exactly, but IS informed by it. Certain hammering techniques are better suited to certain types of mana. They work for other types, but it requires greater control and precision with your mana internally.”

I raised a hand. “So…you’re saying that hammering can help simplify certain types of spell structures?”

She nodded. “Exactly. Hammering of a certain type increases rate of saturation with certain types of mana. Or decreases it. You can slow down saturation as well, to give yourself more time to shape the lattices. Speed is only useful when paired with technique.”

Turning around, her hammer vanished as she walked up to the black shiny wall behind the forge and started to trace out a few words. “Most people make the mistake of thinking that hammering before and after reaching Caster rank are too different to be important to each other. One is used to shape existing mana, and one only works for injecting your own. Can anyone tell me why that’s wrong?”

The blonde girl from Mana Control class, who I learned was named Laura, raised her hand cautiously. She seemed fascinated by magic theory and leaned more toward the brainy side of mana usage than the practical smithing from what I’d seen. “We’re shaping the lattices that make up the spell structure. Even at Caster rank we need those to make the spell that the magic tool executes.”

“Exactly.” Grinned Tanya. “The lattices that you create with the resonance from your hammering provides the shape of the spell that the existing mana inside the material has to flow into. Complexity and Stability are important factors in this because the density of the mana in the material can be extremely variable. Mana control is KEY for hammering. Which is why we waited to have this class until you’d have several days to work on yours.”

It made sense. The structure of the mana would create the necessary crystalline structure when resonated with the metal. Energy wanted to be crystalline, and the heat allowed the metal to become malleable with the resonance carried the energy in the form we wanted it into the metal, changing the thermal energy in the material to the mana structure necessary, which would shape the crystalline structure in the metal.

The rest of the lesson was interesting, but ultimately pretty mundane. She showed us a bunch of hammering techniques suited to different mana types, though we stuck with steel for the material. I recognized lots of elements from my own forging lessons and found it fascinating to see how learning from the tutorial had given me a firm foundation in which strikes and tempos to use for different manas.

I couldn’t wait to try it out again in the future, though I needed to figure out how to change the mana structure of the mana as it was input. The forge had to have a function for that, it wouldn’t make any sense to build a machine that could only make enchantments out of already condensed crystals.

Tanya was enthusiastic about my talent, singing my praises as I picked up the hammering techniques nearly instantly, and comparing it to my extreme competence with Form. Even most Master Smiths weren’t as skilled with Form as I was, which was flattering, but it also made my relatively low ability with Mana Control that much more jarring.

She didn’t seem worried, saying that even if my control was lacking I just needed to practice hard, and that I was already ahead in the other two aspects of smithing. I noted some of the glares getting more pointed as she hovered near me when we did our demonstrations on the forge (after dry runs on the tables she picked the best students to do demonstrations), especially Dalton.

By the time the lesson ended, Cecily was the only person who didn’t seem annoyed, having been watching closely and asking me questions about my process, and when I left, I was surprised not at all to find Dalton waiting outside.

“You know.” He said as I stepped out. “I don’t like having to talk to you. I assumed after you got word of my little talk with your roommate you would keep your head down. You disgust me, but even I’m not willing to start trouble with your backer for no reason. But this isn’t a place for you, abomination, it’s a place for us. Keep getting in the way and I’ll be forced to take…steps.”

I stared at him. “Did you…hit your head as a child?” I asked in confusion? His nostrils flared, but I kept going. “Because I have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about. I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what it is about me you don’t like, and I don’t really care. Stay out of my face, of I’ll take…steps, of my own. And I’ll take them all over your snide little face.”

Probably not the most diplomatic solution, but I was pissed. I was confused, and hurt, and people were treating me like trash even after I fixed what I’d thought was the reason for my alienation and it made me so angry I could spit.

Dalton opened his mouth, looking ready to bite my head off, but a voice cut in. “You know.” Said Alec, from behind us in the hallway. “I could have sworn I told you to stay away from my roommate when I brushed off your little threat.”

The aristocratic brown haired boy’s mouth snapped shut. Dalton turned to glare at my roommate, his dark brown eyes almost beady above his patrician nose. “You’re going to side with…that? Over us? I know you’re here on a scholarship, but I didn’t expect you to turn on your own kind.”

Alec just sneered. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to put me into groups that contain you. I don’t want to share a hair color with you, much less an affiliation, so try not to remind me about it.”

Dalton looked offended as hell, but he was still smart enough not to take a swing at a second year. Alec could cast ACTUAL spells, and Dalton was still a first year Apprentice. That fight had no suspense and it wouldn’t be close. “Fine, associate with the filth, but don’t come crying to me when you find yourself…implicated.”

With that ominous proclamation he turned and stalked away. I saw him joined by a trio of other guys at the corner, hangers on that had been waiting for him. Alex turned to look at me with concern. “You ok? What the hell was that about? He wasn’t quite that…direct, before. There aren’t a lot of things I can think of that would elicit that reaction.”

I shook my head. “No. I have no clue, but I think it’s about time I find out.” Something about me was different than other people. Something a select few residents of Edgebank knew about, something they didn’t speak of, but were more than willing to hold against me.

If we were talking about things I might not know, there was only one person to ask. Only one person who had been around my whole life and could tell me what the hell was going on. I hadn’t talked to my dad since our last fight, but it seemed like that was going to need to change. If I was going to keep myself safe I needed all the information. I guessed it was time to go home.