Okay this chapter had to go through rewrites galore before I was happy with it. To once again answer lordrednight's question yes there are other capstones. But for the most part they're just substitutions for what diamonds are used for. But some of the other possible ones aren't used for reason or don't exist. As for the name of Jack's world... there's no official name for it. There are names that various religions from his world give it one but no deciding ones. These things will be visited later. Also the magical crops minecraft mod make an appearance in the story. Other mods both magical and technological will pop up from time to timein the story. That's it for qustions now on with the show.
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Speech
Thoughts
Spells/chants
Spirits speech
Spirits thought
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Colbert had only left for maybe 10 minutes but when got back Jack had already made alot of additions to the workshop. Some additions made sense like tools and the like being placed in different areas and clothing placed on his bed. But that doesn't account for the shear amount of objects nor the large constucts! Sure magic could have been used to help build those but his 1 bag should not have able to fit all the materials. He shook his head and filed hits thought under things he needed to ask him about and began truly taking stock of the changes.
He could see his alchemy table had lot of new equipment, phiales, jars, and a large cauldron. The jars and phiales are placed to the left side of the table. Next to them on the wall is piece of parchment with the picture of a door on it. Now that he looked closer he could see that most of the jars and phials had labels with a single symbole to, what he asumed, marked the contents. To the right was the cauldron filled what looked like water. Underneth it was a stone patch with a bowl shaped indentation for a absent heat source.
In the back right corner was what looked like a strange alter. A squared pedestal was surrounded by a circular sigil with triangular rune etched stone collumns at the edges that went up to about head height to him before they curved downward and toward it. Each totem sat accross from one another at each side of the pedestal. Each collumn tapered into a point and had different color crystal on the end. The colors were red, blue, green, and brown. But what was interesting was the stone rod that floated between them. Each end of the rod had either a quartz crystal or a black quartz crystal on the ends. Between the collumns were more pedestals. Colbert wondered what its purpose was as he turn to see what was on the back wall.
In the center was the worktable that he had brought in, but now it had various tools hanging on small hooks over it. He recognized the hammers but not the others. A open chest sat on the right side of the table. In it he could see gears, nails, springs, and various other metal pieces. On the left saw 2 closed chests, Next to them he saw another piece of parchment with a door on it. Next to that another a piece had a set of stairs leading downwards. In the far left corner was Jack's bed with his bag sitting on top.
Finally on the left side of the room, between the door to the storage room on the right and the washroom on the left, sat a large square construction. Its sides were made out of a dark colored brick and an obsidian frame. It was 7 feet tall and 7 feet wide. On the stone close to where it met the obsidian he runes lining it on all sides. In the front was a set of iron bars with a gap in the middle. Through the bars he could see it was filled with flames and every now and then he thought he could see a form moving around inside. He was standing in front of it looking inside when Jack walked out of the storage room holding a bag.
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Jack had finished placing his extra building supplies in spare crates and organizing them while keeping what he still needed when he saw Colbert looking at the infernal furnace. He walked up to him and explanied " It's called the infernal furnace. Inside is a bound lesser fire spirit. If you put any kind of ore in through the top it will turn it into ingots and spits them out the front. It takes away the before it spits them out so they don't damage anything." He turns to right corner and says "That over there is the arcane infuser. It lives up to it's name can do things such as enchanting to making certain objects. It requires different types of vis nearby and different objects and substances on the pedestals." Turning back to him " I still need to make 3 more thing before we can talk about a couple of addition that would be beneficial." Hebegan to walk outside "I'll just be a minute. But If come with I can answer some questions your bound to have."
Colbert followed him. his first question was "Did you say you bound a fire spirit!? How did you manage that? I thought they were too powerful that."
"Actually only greater spirits and above can't be controled. Regular fire can be coviniced or forced to aid you if you're strong enough. Lesser fire spririts can easily controled because they're weak and don't really have any intellegence."
Colbert seemed thoughtful for a moment. "How did you even build that in such a short time? I was only gone 10 minutes."
Jack hold up his hand for them to stop. Then while stepping away he says "Like this." He takes out his wand and places the foci Equal Trade on the end and uses it to draw a circle in the ground around him. After that he steps out of the circle and taps 4 points around that. The spots he touched glowed along with a bag on his side before the ground was replaced with stone. Then he removed the foci and pulled out 12 stone pieces and 4 quartz crystals. He place 1 of the stone pieces in the center of 1 of the points before stepping back slightly and tapping the piece. The piece enlarged till it was as wide as he is and came up to about waist height. He repeated this 2 more times with stone pieces and once more with a crystal. When finished the crystal topped totem was a head taller then him.
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Colbert watched him proceed to the other point and repeat this with interest. He has seen earth mages make stone structures before but they were usually very rough in apperance. Exception being square class mages but only if they took their time. But he has never seen them make stone grow! "How did you do that? How did you make those things grow like that?"
"It just returned to their normal size. You dont have something like that?"
"No. No we do not. Is this that nexus you told us about? The one that take power from the sun?"
"Yes it is." he says matter a factly. After was finished with the totems he began drawing a large sigil in the center. "One I'm done with this one I'll make the one for the moon before we settle down and talk about some additions we need to make and some extra suplies we're going need over a snack."
"What kind of additions are we talking about? I'm only allowed so much land for this workshop."
"Don't worry. It's just 2 small additions. 1 Is for storage of vis and other a place for smeltry/forge. The biggest addition being an underground farm."
Colbert could only look at him in confusion. An underground farm? Sure with magic you can accerate a plant's growth and allow such a thing but the plant must be in fertile ground and have sunlight,water, fresh air for it to work. Jack must have saw his confusion.
"I can make few things that can insure their growth underground. If yor're wondering why such a thing is necessary it's because some of these plants require special care to grow properly. They are required to make certain potions and other substances that are substatutions for others. Also there are the ore plants that, as their name implies, grow various ores."
Now this left Colbert stunned. Plants that grow ore like fruit. He's never heard of such a thing. While he was thinking this Jack finished the sigil. The crystals began to glow along with the sigil that began to also rotate. Jack stood up and moved a short distance way and repeated what he did with the first nexus only with black quartz crystals. As he did so told Colbert about Louise coming over later seeking to either figure out what's wrong with her magic or learn his. Colbert only asked that they did it away from the workshop. He hoped they discovered the problem with Louise's magic but didn't want the the workshop destroyed to do it.
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As I finished making the moon nexus went back inside with Colbert. He said he had already asked for some food to be brought to them soon. While we waited I asked him about the countries around here. Though the explanation was a bit long winded he got the gist of what each country was about. Romalia was a religious country with alot of sway with the others. Galia mostly keeps to itself but the king is a bit unpredictible. Albion is in the middle of civil war that the crown is losing to the rebal group called the Reconquestia.. Albion is hostile to Tristian both because of its alliance with the almost by now defunct crown and because it's a weak target compared to the others. Tristian has alway been a small and weak country that relied on deals and alliances to exist. Currently the princess is supposed marry the king of Germania's son to assure an alliance between the 2 countries. The Reconquta's goal to unite the all the countries through war just to fight a war with the elves, who have proven to be far more powerful then them is was foolhardy.
As they were talking Siesta came in some simple sandwiches and tea. She was happy to see him but couldn't stay long because it was a busy day. As she left Louise came in and sat down.
"Hello Louise. I want to ask some questions about what happens when cast. When cast different spells is there any differnce in the explosions? For instance an explosion caused by a fire spell could be more destuctive whlie a wind spell is just loud."
Louise seemed to think for a moment. "I haven't really noticed any difference but I was really focused on that."
"Hmm. Well that we'll just have something to test then. By the way is there any particular subject of my magic that you wish to learn? Thaumaturgy is broken up into 4 areas. The first is Thaumcraft which is the the study, use, and distilation of the various aspects into vis casting spells, and other tasks. Next is Alchemy which is something you already study in school but with a much wider range with a much wider scope with the addition of vis. Then there's Artifice Making which is the creation of magical items and enchanments. Lastly there's Golomancy which is once again something you already know about but with a few differences such as golems being capable of doy a specific task or job without supervision. Each of these fields can be specialized in to greater effect but it's a good idea to get a feel for all of them before you decide. After we get the headmaster's permission we'll start in the morning with tests on your magic. Then we'll do some basic of Thaumcraft until you get the hang of that. It shouldn't be a problem because we'll start with learning about the different aspects first. After that we begin learning some alchemy before having lunch. We can't start on artfice making or golomancy in depth until we get a handle on your magic though. I guess we just go back to tests on your magic. For now I'll go to the headmaster and see about getting you permission to skip your classes and about being able to make some expansions on the workshop. But first I believe we should see about our guests.'"
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Tabitha was suprised she was spotted. She was being very careful too. But then again Kirchie wasn't being that stealthy. They glanced at each other and walked inside.
"Tabitha!? Kirchie!?" Louise exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
"Curious." was all Tabitha said.
"After that amazing duel in which you cast such a powerful fire spell without say a spell we just had to meet you!" gushed Kirchie. She batted her eyes at him "Being a fire mage myself I espicially had to meet such a handsome man such as yourself."
Of course Louise didn't like her tone and made her displeasure known. After stopping their fight Jack explained his magic and a little about his world and went a little more in depth into what each subject. We got to alchemy it really peaked her interest.
"From what I heard you make mostly make health potions and a few other things using alchemy. But we have expanded on that subject and are to create potions that make you immune to fire and heat, allow you to breathe underwater, even cure any illness."
"Any illness?" Tabitha said becoming alittle hopefull. You see what she hasn't told anyone not even Kirche was that she was technically a princess, her real name being Charlotte Helene Orleans de Gallia, but her title had pretty much been stolen from her by her uncle Joseph. After her father, the king, died he atempted to poison her but poisoned her mother, the queen, instead when she purposely drank it instead. The poison drove her completly insane and with her like that and and Tabitha much too young Joseph became king. Once he accended the throne he and other high ranking nobles decided to, instead of killing her out right, send her out extreamly dangerous missions so she would die in a way that wouldn,t look like they usurped the throne. Although she survived time and time again she realized that is only a matter of time before she made a mistake and died or they decided to juct kill her. If that Jack could actually make a potion to cure her mother then Joseph would have to give up the throne. But she knew he wouldn't and would rather start civil war and stay in power. Once she got her mother back the both of them could either run away our fight to get their country back.
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Louise was also intersted in this cure all potion for her older sister Cattleya. You see she was born with an illness that left her with a weak body and over all poor health. She always the kindest to her and really everyone. She did have another older sister named Eleonore who was very strict with her but she could tell she really cared. Her parents on the other hand she really didn't know. But with Jacks help she could possibly cure her sister and finally be able to use magic.
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Kirche found Jack very intersting. He's from another world, has a different kind of magic, and this ... technology talked about wasn' t bad either, and to top it off he was handsome. He much better than that old fart they're trying to marry her off to back home. If he starts to teach this magic to everyone and introduce technology then things were going to get real interesting it Tristain soon. She was wondering what she would do once she finished school. She didn't want to go home and be married to a man more twice her age but she really didn't have anywhere else to go. But with a whole new branch of magic and maybe technology being taught then maybe she can delay getting back home for a bit longer.
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We he confirmed Tabitha's question he was surprised by both of them also requesting he teach them. He had only finshed his traning himself after all had needed to decide if he could handle this and how. But seeing Colbert he realized that with him being a teacher he could help him with deciding on the best way to go about with the idea he just got. "Okay change of plans. Girls and gentleman" he said a litle theactically "I believe that I have an idea."
AN: Okay I'm not kidding about the rewites but I would be lying if I said there wasn't any procrastinating with a little writer's block. But I'm past that now so let's address some last minute reviews. First up Bluedragon312 you did give me some good ideas. Now I realize now that there are stories where revolutions start in Tristain and why it doesn't happen often. But I disagree on no one wanting change. The nobles may not but the commoners do. They just don't want be treated like playthings and cattle by nobility. The may more or less love Henrietta but the other noble not so much for their mistreatment while she actually cares. But what you're forgetting is that Jack lived in a monarchy as well and liked it. The changes that he'll make once he meets Henrietta mostly be cultural, scientifical, and technological. The most socialogiacl change is to create laws that give commoners some basic rights and protections and a way to enforce them. Plus there are some very good reasons why these changes must be made. Some nobles won't really like this and will cause problems as you can imagine. As for Louise I mostly agree with you about her personality but, at least in my mind, her behaviour, at least when it comes to the "Nobles are the greatest" part, is kind of justified. Whith her magic the way it is the only thing that gives her any self worth is the fact she is a noble. The greater nobles are ther greater she is. As for the Tsundere behaviour well I'm mostly going to avoid that for now. As for Tabitha's and Kirche's backstory well let's just say they will play a part later. Finally the "Follow Canon Exclusively" curse will start to break as the story progresses. Now PEJP Bengtzone V2 I'll assume that you mean other races by meta-humans or things like vampires and the like. Well the answer is yes to both. The Empire did meet the nomadic Pechs a couple of years after it's formation. They still do tend to move around alot but now acting as traders and explorers. Although some do settle down as merchants and inn/tavern owners. As for vampires and stuff weelll remember how taint mutates people? Well those who didn't quite get enough to either die or go feral come out changed. They either have control over specific elements or substances, have strange abilities such as being able to read and control minds, being able to shapsehift, or being changed phisically. Well that's it. Thank you to all those who likeed,faved, and reviewed. Please review and tell me what think it helps motivate me.