---Silvia's pov---
I watched as Deverick wrapped his arm around the truck of the tree and picked it up like it was nothing. This was a big tree! Holding the trunk under his arm, he led me to a machine and started removing the roots. The metal elements gathered by the machine constantly raced down from the top. Occasionally, there is a flash of lighting along the blade that was formed.
He would align one root along the path of this cutting machine and bring it closer. When the wood touched the edge, the pieces came off without any resistance and sent them flying. Then the array caught the pieces and moved them toward another box, forming a line of tree roots.
He repeated this process until all the roots were removed. While this happened, I stood further away since he was swinging a giant tree truck around. Then he made the entire tree float with a spell and went down to the trimmed end. He felt around the smooth cuts for a few seconds before forming a lighting scalpel with his palm. He carefully inserted the scalpel around a stump until it detached from the rest of the tree.
He split the small block of wood in half before sending both hovering over to me. I reached out my hand as they landed gently in it.
"Hold on to that for me. I will be putting this back."
Next, he started carrying the tree back to the storage room, where I assumed will stay until he needs it again. I observed the two blocks in my hand. They are small, about the width of 2 thumbs. Other than the edges cut by magic, the other surfaces are rough.
"Alright, I'm done," Deverick returned a few minutes later.
I tossed over a piece.
"I don't understand why you did everything with machines when you could have done it with magic"
"It increases the immersiveness of the act. I talked about how people depend too much on magic. In doing so, they lose the feeling of everything. For craftsmen, this could affect the quality of the final product. Magic should be a tool, not a crutch."
I thought about what he said. Everything is starting to make sense now. The way he taught his classes. The things he said yesterday. What it means to be a good mage. The habits needed to succeed.
"A good mage is not someone that can constantly succeed, but someone that can stand up after a failure. No matter what happens, they need to have a way to recover. Things don't always go how you wanted, so you need to prepare for the worst. Otherwise, everything will be like a meteor: flashy, but short-lived."
"Then how far have you prepared?"
"Let's take this lab for example. I have equipped the facilities so that anyone can use them. Things would be less convenient, but everything can still be done. And the preparations I made up to now are enough to set me up for life. Even if I lose everything about me, I can still recover."
"What defines everything?"
"Literally everything. My magic, my sharp brain, and my possessions. Heck, even existence. If I lose my magic, this lab can be operated to create without it. That and the experience and knowledge I accumulated, means that magic is not too big of an obstacle. By applying all of that, I can still pump out amazing results."
"Then the brain part?"
"That's all the knowledge, experience, and mental units. Even if I lose all of that through amnesia or memory theft, I left a backdoor to recover all of that. It will take a few decades, but I have a way. That is not to mention that I have a database with all of that."
This shook me to my core. Was he overly paranoid or expecting such things to happen to him?
"Then the possessions?" I am kind of scared of what he will say.
"That refers to everything I have, on top of the previous two. I won't say too much about this. Let's just say I have a method to obtain a copy of everything."
"That somewhat makes sense, but what about the last one? So far, I can tell what you were talking about, but the last one is too vague."
"It refers to body theft. If someone swaps my body and takes all my memories, leaving me in a crippled body, I still have a way. No matter what, I am prepared to continue my path. Nothing will stop me."
By the last part, I can hear the determination in his voice. I can't even begin to fathom how he made these preparations. But he is correct. The success of a mag depends on how well they can stand up after a setback.
"Alright, enough about this depressing topic. How about I show you the project?"
Seeing his quick shift, I also decided to push my thoughts aside.
"So what are we making?"
"Trinkets."
"Trinkets?"
"Like a necklace, earring, or some jewelry. It will basically be something small."
"Cool."
He led me over to one of the cabinets and opened it. Hanging on the doors and the back are a bunch of tools. He reached in and took out two pairs of carving knives, filers, and sandpaper. He handed a set to me and started walking towards the wooden countertops. He put his items on top and pushed a button on the side. Then, a block popped out from the wooden block.
"Have a seat."
I followed his example and got a seat next to him. He picked up the knife and showed me his grip.
"Hold it like this. When working with small objects, you want as much control as possible."
I copied his motion.
He picked up the block of wood and started whittling away the bark. Little by little, small, even strips of wood peeled off.
"Give it a try. It's another form of relaxation I enjoy like stargazing."
I picked up the knife and tried to follow his motion. The blade of the knife glided right through the wood with ease. This is a good knife. I wonder if it is enchanted. Although the knife made the task easier, the result is far from Deverick's result. Instead of his neat strips, mine formed a pile of uneven chunks of wood shavings.
"Relax your shoulders. This isn't a competition. No one is here to judge. Just be yourself," his soothing voice came as I was about to get frustrated.
I obliged and took a deep breath. My shavings became neater but the strips are strips remain uneven, though with fewer wood chunks. When I finished peeling the bark, I turned to compare the results. While the chunk in my hand has rough edges from my amateurish cuts, the one in Deverick's hand is a perfect curve. There were no imperfections.
"Now we shave off the other sharp edges."
He gave the knife a twirl and readjusted his grip. Then, he ran the knife under the corners. Unlike the previous grip, this cut was swift and sharp. It was a strange contrast.
I decided to manually adjust the grip with my other hand rather than try that fancy trick and end up losing a few fingers. After a few quick strokes, all the sharp edges are gone. Deverick then put the knife down and picked up the filer.
"Now I want you to use the filer and sandpaper to smooth out the edges."
I look at my creation and picked up the sandpaper to carefully erase my roughness. I already made some mistakes, so I didn't want to worsen them. After all, this is the chance to amend them. After I am done, a smooth rectangular with rounded edges remained in my hands. Not going to lie, I was proud of my recovery. I looked over, expecting some praise for my efforts, just to see Deverick playing around with 3 rounded wooden blocks.
Since when did he finish them?
"Happy?"
"Of course. I worked hard on this."
He shrugged. "Well, the next step will take a while so do you want to have lunch first?"
It's lunchtime already? I must have lost track of time when I was working on it.
"Of course."
He handed me a box. Ah, the classic boxed delivery I got a few months ago. How I missed you. I quickly scarfed down my food as I was eager to see where this project is going. After finishing, I looked over at Deverick. Noticing my gaze, he put down his food and walked back to the table we were working on. I kind of feel bad for making him pause his meal, but his next display made me forget that thought.
He started spinning the carving knife at a rapid pace and continued speeding up. Then he quickly threw the 3 nobs up one at a time and started juggling them. With each cycle, the wooden pieces flew higher. With each cycle, they took longer to come back down. A few cycles later, he started moving his knife as well, crossing it with the piece of wood in his hand to make a cut before tossing it upwards again. Seconds later, I noticed that his hands were speeding up.
How can I tell when everything was a blur? Well, he started making two slices per cut rather than one. Eventually, it got to the point where he was doing mini tosses to change the orientation of the piece.
A few minutes later, he stopped spinning the carving knife and caught all 3 pieces.
"This step is simple. Just carve your piece until you are happy with the design."
Then he put them on the table and started walking back to his meal.
What a showoff.
"Of course, I was showing off. That's one of my favorite things to do."
What! I thought he was done reading my mind.
"Can't help it. I had to respond to your comment. And by the way, it's not mind reading."
Whatever. I looked at his pieces to find that each piece has a different design. To further augment my surprise, the entire surface seems smoothed down. If I didn't see it with my own eyes, I would have believed that each piece was delicately crafted by someone after hours of tedious work. No point in dallying over this. I should get started.
A few hours later, I finally finished my design and sanded everything down to a product I was satisfied with.
"Have you considered how you will wear this?" Deverick came over from doing some maintenance on the machines.
"Why would I want to wear this?"
"You didn't think I would let you carve ether wood for fun, did you?"
Oh, shoot. I was so caught up in the creation process that I forgot this material. But why would I wear this? Wouldn't it have been easier to give me some normal wood?
"Because I will be enchanting this for you."
That makes sense. If it's enchanted, there might be an effect when I wear this. I looked at my creation and decided that a necklace would be best. I went back to the tool cabinet and found something I could use to drill a small hole.
"A necklace?" Seeing what I was doing, Deverick asked me.
"Yes."
A few minutes later, I followed him to another tub of hot liquid. From the clearish white color, I suspect it's some of fat. He handed me a towel and dipped it into the tub.
"This is a beeswax solution made from the wax of a Sunny Grove Bee, extract of the Mordi flower, and juice of an Havin plant. The two plants make the wax more resistant and have a pleasant smell."
He explained before I could wonder. Then, he took the towel and gave the wooden amulets a rub. When he removed the cloth, the wood has a gloss that wasn't there before. After I finished, he reached out his hand. I handed my piece over. We then walked back into the storage room. He looked around for a bit before coming to a spool of green threads. He unwound a good amount and gave it a cut.
He matched the two ends and folded it in half before repeating it one more time. By now, the piece is the length of his arm span. After making sure everything about his material is correct, both of his hands started accelerating and started forming complicated knots. The end result? A chain made out of green threads. He took one end and put it through the hole in my amulet and tied the knot. He walked over and held it to my chest.
After some more glances, he made some adjustments to the necklace, making it a little shorter. Compare again. He nodded this time. Then we walked back into the workshop.
"You might want to stand back for the next part."
When I was a good distance away, he made the trinket float and waved both his hands. A curtain of magic circles appeared around him. It's quite a sight, though I was not expecting his next actions. Using all his fingers, he started writing rune scripts, one per finger. And like always, at a rapid pace.
Soon, the entire curtain was filled up with many runes. I can faintly discern some runes started overlapping. Just how complex is this enchantment of his? When he had us practice last year, we only had to draw up a dozen runes. Yet in front of me, there are many small runes all jam-packed in this small area. There must be at least 100,000 right? Well, I might be wrong, but that's only because I was lowballing it. At this point, I can't even see him anymore. Is this really how enchanting works? If so, then I am glad I don't plan on entering that specialization.
After a while, the curtain stopped rotating and started shrinking. It kept shrinking until it encased only my amulet. At least I assumed so because there is only a pitch-black sphere hovering between Deverick's two hands. He held his hands there for a few seconds before starting to close them slowly. As they approach each other, the sphere started to become lighter. I can see that a fraction of the rune scripts started flaking off from the inside and gathered around my amulet. The closer the runes, the faster it spun.
The continued until this part of the runes touched my amulet. When they did, it stuck on and fused. Then Deverick moved his hands a little closer together and the process repeated itself with more clarity since the outer shell has become clearer. Finally, the last portion of the runes fused onto my amulet and Deverick's hands clapped around the necklace.
A few moments later, a bright light flashed for a few more seconds. When it stopped. he tossed the amulet to me.
"I will leave the creation at that. You can figure out all the effects by yourself. I am going back to my things. Oh, and before I forget, rest well tomorrow. You are going to need it for Thursday."
He waved his hand as he walked away.
There are definitely some puzzles in there