Year 2, Summer, Third Month, Second Week.

The faint glow traveled through the drawings, highlighting the Arrays until it stopped on a particular part. The knife shined as the worn Rune that was drawn on it started to recover its fresh look, the shine dimmed and the people around exchanged excited nodes. Karl picked the knife and tested it until he was sure of the quality of the enhancements.

“It works, we did it!”

A round of cheers traveled through the disciples drawing the attention of everyone inside the Alchemy pavilion. Soon, the news spread, and the entire village was celebrating the creation of the first magic re-drawer. After weeks of tests, learning a new Array, resizing, adapting and discussing the design, the tool was finally done.

Because the tasks got disrupted by the celebration and it didn’t look like the general excitement would go away anytime soon, Reiner had to convince Karl to give a last-minute open lesson about the tool, otherwise, she wouldn’t be capable of getting everyone back to their tasks.

“First, I have to present the Addition Array. This Array is another adaptation of the Execution Array, similar to the Combination Array. It has the concept of group and the aspect of collection. To comprehend it you could think of the parts of the day, together they form a complete day, but they work separately with different characteristics and without invading the other parts’ time… Maybe that wasn’t the best example, but let’s move on. Instead of combining the effects, this Array allows for two separate and independent effects…”

“Next, you have to understand the two independent reinforcing tasks executed by the magic re-drawer, reinforcing the concept and reinforcing the drawing. You probably observed that our Alchemy drawings suffer from both ink and magic worn, so it’s not enough to only reinforce the imprinted concept as proposed by Wein, we also need to reinforce the ink in the drawing.”

“To reinforce the concept we can use the Focus Rune to increase the concentration of the concept’s energy. The imprint in a drawing is formed by spiritual energy in the form of a concept, so we can’t just blindly increase the spiritual energy’s concentration on it. We need to increase its concentration with a specific form, the concept’s form. Think of a dying fire, we need to add more wood to keep it going, but not any type of wood, if we add fresh wood its humidity could even destroy the remaining fire. The right choice would be to add dry wood, the same way we need to add more spiritual energy in the specific form of the Array’s concept. Therefore, we need to combine the Focus Rune with the Signature Extraction Array, which would supply the reference for a specific Array.”

“Remember that everyone’s imprinting is different because is related to our comprehension of the concept, so we need to match the reference with the drawing on the tool that we want to reinforce. Meaning that the same person must draw the Array in the tool and the one in the reference. The reference Array could be drawn on a wooden plate or anything that can fit inside the Signature Extraction Array. So, for first reinforcement, we need the Focus Rune combined with the Signature Extraction Array with a reference Array on its center.” 

“The second reinforcement (drawing) needs for the ink to enter the tool in the same pattern as the original Array, so we need to provide a reference, which is the Array drawing again. To move the new ink into the tool’s drawing, we need to use the Manipulation Array, just like we used it to manipulate the harvested grains. However, we need to combine two references for the Manipulation Array, one is magic ink and the other is the drawing pattern. In this case, we’re supplying what and how for the Array, resulting in the magic task: Manipulate the ink to draw the pattern. So, for this second reinforcement, we need two Signature Extraction Arrays for two references, the Combination Array to combine the references and the Manipulation Array to move the ink.”

“Finally, we can use an Addition Array to group the two reinforcements and a Direction Array to point the effects to the magic tool we want to reinforce.” 

“My observations about the design are that it needs a functional copy of the same Array that you want to reinforce and the copy needs to be done by the same person the drew the Array in the tool.”

Reiner took the cue and replaced Karl in the lesson.

“From now on, we will be dividing the drawing tasks among those who have a good grasp of the Arrays, only one person will be responsible for drawing the same Array in all the tools to increase efficiency…”

***

“This is too much!”

Keller went through the list of the demands a second time to check if he was getting something wrong. But every time he read the list he felt a bigger headache. If he knew they would use the paper he sent to write such ludicrous demands he wouldn’t have sent it in the first place. He drank some tea and massaged his forehead until he calmed himself.

Fortunately, the letter didn’t only contain the crazy list, it also described something incredible, a way to make the Alchemy drawings last indefinitely. Omero wrote that they were developing a tool to reinforce the drawings in other tools and they would be opened to exchange it with him, as long as he was able to get the items on the list. The letter wasn’t overpolite and even mentioned that they would never sell this tool if it wasn’t for their current situation. As a seasoned businessman, Keller understood how much they would gain by keeping the tool for themselves, all the customers would have to come back for the re-drawings.

After reading about the tool, he had already decided to meet their demands as long as they were within his reach, but the villagers had really gone overboard. This time they even asked for people. As for the magic resources, even if he dismissed the costs, the difficulty of gathering them was a problem by itself, and the worst part is that he would attract unwanted attention. It wasn’t uncommon for a Merchant to look for precious items, but he was a weapons dealer, if he bought too many magic resources his competitors and the Kingdom’s spies would surely suspect something.

Keller pondered about his options, he could try using his contacts in the other regions but that would be too risky, the Kingdom was in a high alert situation right now, crossing the region’s borders discretely was impossible and there were too many eyes on him, so he couldn’t use illegal means. Either way, he wasn’t prepared to give up on getting as much from the villagers as he could. After more than 30 years working in the Wind region, he was still far from achieving his goal and the magic weapons might just be what he was missing.

“Boss, your niece sent a message asking about the weapons…”

The interruption broke Keller’s concentration but also gave him a new idea.

“Hmm… Send a reply asking her to come over.”

He could use Lana to get the resources, she was new in business and didn’t have an official connection with him, she would be able to get the resources without drawing too much attention. Even though she could find some problems crossing the borders, she could use some discrete methods to force her way through.

***

Keller stared at the man, impatiently waiting for an answer, but Arnold didn’t seem to be in a hurry, he continued to hammer the metal ingot without sparing him a single glace.

“I’m serious!”

Arnold stopped midway in his swing, put the hammer down and turned to Keller.

“So, you want me to go to a resource village, probably help out in a rebellion and there’s even chance that I would need to stay with them for a year… What parts are serious? I can’t really say…”

“I know how it looks…”

“And you still want me to go?”

“Take a look at this.”

“This is my craft… What…? How?”

“Oh, I would like to know that too…”