“No!” Stina called out. “No! No! No! This isn’t … what is this? This isn’t how enchanting works!”

“... sorry, but for me it is.”

“I can see that! But … But how is anyone supposed to encrypt this much information with regular enchants?”

“... I don’t know, but that is what I was hoping you could figure out.”

 

I was showing Stina and her apprentice Elma how I enchant stuff with my cards. Aka. what happens when I install a card into a weapon.

It has been a few days since we came back from the weapons competition. During that time, the previous set of dhampirs who were here were returned to their towns and a new batch of students were brought in. … Well, most of the dhampirs were returned. A few stayed on HomeBase for further training.

The two that stayed were Syra and Rahman. … oh right. You don’t even know who Rahman is. He is the dhampir that is training to become a blacksmith. Syra is training to become a maid, and I won’t confirm it yet, but I think she wants to be Lua’s personal maid. … but that might be just me.

 

“... figure this out. I suppose now I understand Miss Wilhelmina’s warning.” Elma said.

“You know you can just call her Wilma, with no Miss or anything.” I pointed out.

“She is my senior and our work wouldn’t be possible without her lovely hands, so I feel like calling her Miss is appropriate.”

“... just know that she doesn’t like it that much.”

“You would say that, mister ‘Just call me Brian’. As if you aren’t basically an angel.” Stina pointed out.

“Come on. Angels and System Support holders are very much different. I would know. I’ve spoken to angels.”

“... you do realize you just proved my point.”

“Yeah, I know. And I was pointing out that your point is wrong. You can’t be stuck in your pre-established sense of reality. You have to break past it to really grow.”

“Like a Limit Break?” Stina asked.

“You know of that? Nice. But yeah, in a way. It is more like … if you stick to the pre-established, you will just make what someone has made before. But if you can imagine the possibilities beyond that, you might have something even better. And in this case, at least you have a solid goal to stride towards. Even if it is something completely outside the norm you are used to.”

 

We had been making arrows and bolts for Unika, mainly because they are consumable and something easy for Wilma and Karl to prepare.

… still working on that functional quiver for her, but Wilma did come up with a design. We just need to design it sturdy enough and then actually make it.

But back to the arrows. We had a few kinds. 

First were the standard arrows. We call them standard, but even they had a penetration enchantment, supplied by Stina and Elma. Penetration is one of the more simple enchantments and even Wilma can apply it with relative ease.

Second were Rainbow Veil arrows. As you might have guessed, they have Rainbow Veil installed into them. They were a bit more difficult to manufacture, because in order to hold the card, the arrowheads had to be at least mithril or similar level metal, with the shaft being high quality wood. We naturally used B-rank treant wood. The feathers came from griffons I’ve hunted inside HomeBase.

 

Next up were some Burning Spear arrows. They were made with a crimson treant shaft and a hihi'irokane point. With an install of Burning Spear naturally. They worked super well with Unika’s Fox Fire, so that is nice.

 

Those were the ones we had made multiple of, but there were also a few one offs. Like the Lightning Blade arrow, which would electrocute anything it hit. We just simply didn’t have great materials for building it, so we weren’t producing them in any numbers.

 

Another one was the Big Bang Shot arrow. It was designed as something that would do massive damage to SS-ranks, but again, the materials for it are a bit too expensive for general use. For it to really be effective, it needs an arrowhead made of a legendary metal.

 

But we are still looking into the Knowledge of Legendary Metals Wilma got, so we don’t yet have access to a ton of legendary metals. 

And ideally, the Big Bang Shot arrows should have adamantite arrowheads, which we don’t have a recipe for. We simply have a dungeon it can be gotten from.

… which also brings me to something that happened with Wilma after the weapons competition. She got a new System Mission. Her new job was to find new ways of making legendary metals. Like how we discovered the way to manufacture star titanium, even ignoring the fact that there used to not be a way of getting it outside of dungeons, and sometimes meteorites would have small amounts of the metal.

So yeah. The System just using us in hopes of learning new things from my monsters. I don’t mind, too much.

 

But I think I got sidetracked talking about arrows and legendary metals, so let’s get back to enchanting.

I guess I can tell you a bit about how it works. In short, it is like writing computer code, but instead you write enchanting code.

There are a few different ways of writing it, all with their own advantages and disadvantages. 

The first, and the one my monsters use, is a chanting based enchantment. It is basically casting a magic spell that enchants the sword. It is fast and efficient, but very difficult to learn. It is also the one Wilma mainly uses.

Second is a writing based enchanting, which uses a magic ink, similar to the magic ink used to draw slave marks. The enchanting ink just doesn’t need blood. Then you just write the enchantments you want on the sword or tool or whatever. It takes a lot longer than chanting enchantments and it requires magic ink, but it is considered easier to learn. Stina and Elma both mainly use this style, but both can also use some chanting enchantments.

Third is rune enchanting. This relies on carving runes into whatever you are making. It is also considered the most difficult type of enchanting, as you have to learn a ton of runes and carving them isn’t easy. Wilma can carve some basic runes, but nothing really powerful.

And then there is my BS way called installing cards. It is the fastest and the most powerful method, but it obviously needs both me and my cards, so it is only an option for us.

 

And now that you know all of that, the limits of enchanting should become obvious. All tools and weapons have a set amount of ‘enchanting data’ you can write into them, and if you exceed that, the weapon breaks. Like what happened to the twin steel swords I originally planned on giving Earl Sawyer for his birthday, before they broke when I tried to install Twin Swords of Flashing Light - Tryce into them.¹Happened in CH.239

 

The data limit is an arbitrary number that you can somewhat predict based on things like the materials the weapon is made out of, the quality of the materials, the craftsmanship of the maker and so on. Basically better made, more ‘enchanting data’ you can fit into the weapon.

 

That is why legendary swords are so legendary. The strength up enchantment just takes up a lot of data, so most swords can’t hold it. 

… except when it comes from my cards. The strength up enchantment installing some of my cards, like Legendary Sword, don’t take all that much of the data. 

 

Sure the cost ramps up quickly with better stuff like Fusion Sword Murasame Blade and Lightning Blade, but the basic +300 ones are kind of light on the data they take.

… But, because there has to be a but, the problem with my cards is that they code the information differently than regular enchantments. It is like … A zip file. Or something like that. Basically, they pack the information differently than any of the other three enchanting styles, which allows for the larger/better enchantments to fit into weapons where they really shouldn’t.

And yes, in theory, you could do that with the other three styles, except maybe runes. You just need to learn how to compress your enchantments. … which may sound simple, but it really isn’t. I mean, it isn’t like we can code an enchantment and just compress it with a PC program.

 

“... actually, why can’t we?” I questioned myself.

“Sir?” Elma asked. “Can’t what?”

“Zip the enchantments.” 

“... what does that mean?”

“... Oh right. … how do I explain that..?” I pondered. “Well, you know that my card enchantments are basically written differently than the regular ones.” I began. “I think that is because they are somehow packed, or zipped. … so if we can figure that part out, I think we can come up with a way of zipping the regular enchants into something that takes less enchanting data, but offers the same results.”

“... But … shouldn’t that be impossible?” Elma asked. “Enchanting is a technique older than the Kingdoms. It has been refined and bettered across the ages. Do you really think something like that isn’t something that hasn’t been tried before?”

“Not sure. But there is a big difference between us and those who may have come before us. We have a solid goal to stride towards. If we can just … unzip the enchantments as they are written by my cards, we can potentially zip up something that wasn’t written by a card.”

“That sounds … difficult.”

“Agreed. But, I think I can make it easier. I just have to make a few programs and I think I can manage it.”

“Programs?”

“... I’ll explain it some other time. For now, I’ll leave you two to ponder on those and head to the Factory to see if I can actually do something with this idea.”

“The Factory is that mental landscape, right? I think that is how Cinnamon explained it.”

“Yeah.”

“... may I come?” Elma asked.

“Sure, I don’t mind.” I agreed.

“I’m coming as well.” Stina said. “I need to see how you do things.”

 

---

 

“... Is this safe?” Stina questioned, as she looked at the Factory VR.

“I mean, we’ve only lost one soul thus far, and we found her later, so yeah, it is safe.”

“... Why did I ask. And what do you mean ‘lost a soul’?”

“This thing operates with Soul Magic. Basically, it temporarily separates your soul from your body.” I told them, but I saw that Stina wasn’t happy with that. “Don’t make that face. It is actually 100% secure, unless there is some outside influence.”

“What kind of influence?”

“Like a group of spirits wanting to kidnap your soul because you are a good singer.”

“... why does that sound super specific and like something that should never happen?”

“Because it shouldn’t. But if you want the full story, visit Cailie on the CropFields. I’m sure she will tell you all about it.”

“And why am I even less surprised that it actually happened?” Stina questioned.

“Because you learn fast and you’ve realized that crazy things happen around me. It isn’t too late to quit and move out. I can probably get you a job as an enchanter somewhere where you don’t have to deal with my bullshit.”

“... no. This place is good. … it is just…”

“A lot to get used to.” Elma finished her teacher's sentence.

“Can’t argue with that. Now get in and I’ll get you to the Factory.”

 

---

 

Inside the Factory, after a quick tour and setting up a small space where the two can practice enchanting, I got to work on a program that could unzip the card enchantments. 

Sadly I couldn’t just load a program for it from the Internet, so I really didn’t get all that far, but it did become apparent that my theory was correct and that my cards do kind of zip up the enchantments they supply.

And yes, you can unzip it, I just need more data. I didn’t really do all that much today, and instead asked Tahlia if she could gather the raw enchantment data of all the weapons I currently have in Storage. I also asked Fantasia to have some of my monsters enchant some random Factory weapons so that we’d have more data points on weapons that are enchanted ‘regularly’.

Laura will also prepare me a set of card enchanted weapons. The idea is that we will use effects that we can do with both through card installs and regular enchants, like maybe making a flaming sword, and then I can see if I can unzip the card enchantment and compare the code to the regular enchantment.

Though honestly something more basic like increased penetration is probably better, so we’ll likely do that instead.