Nearly a month had passed since I became a member of the Sion family in full. I hadn't quite gotten used to my new life, but had begun settling into a routine.

Every morning began the same way. I would rise with the dawn before setting off on a run around the family grounds. My stamina had reached a point where even intensive exercise didn't do much, but I used the opportunity to practice gathering mana while in motion.

Once I was finished, I would have breakfast with Flynn. We'd sit together, discussing the finer points of magic and considering our plans for the rest of the day.

We'd make our way to the training building, where we'd stay for at least four hours straight. Some of this time was spent on spell refinement, some on mana gathering, and some on practicing fundamental skills, such as mana control or sensing. The precise balance of these varied from day to day, though I did my best to split them into equal parts.

Around noon, I'd leave Flynn behind as I made my way to the guard barracks. There, I'd practice my combat forms with a borrowed spear, seeking to combine the disparate styles I had learned over the last few years. My strength and speed might have passed into the realm of superhumans, but my martial prowess left much to be desired.

Another hour of physical exercises followed, with a greater emphasis on strength, balance, flexibility, and agility. I would run through dozens of calisthenics, being careful not to draw upon my mana. Strengthening myself with a spell would defeat the purpose, after all.

Typically, I took lunch after this, stealing away a brief moment of peaceful solitude before meeting back up with Sion. We'd train for another three hours, followed by sparring. I had yet to win a single match, but every day it felt as though I took the tiniest inch closer to his talents.

Finally, I headed to the library for what was the most relaxing part of my day.

I had underestimated the resources at my disposal. The Sion family library might be a fraction of a fraction of the Academy's Archives, but the secrets contained within the former more than made up for the lackluster size.

The first few books Arvat retrieved weren't of much use. Whether through luck or purposeful selection on the record-keeper's part, they skewed towards introductory texts and older works. I could appreciate reviewing fundamentals, but most of the knowledge on Aether was elementary by my standards.

I tore through those within hours, noting anything incongruent with my current understanding of Aether and adding it to my personal records. With that done, I turned to other concepts, from force and spatial magic to Forging and the conjuration of magical constructs.

These demanded more time and focus. Digesting just one could consume a whole day of careful study. I would read and reread it several times, taking painstaking notes on what I learned and the questions that arose from those findings.

However, this process created more work in turn. The Sions had acquired knowledge from hundreds of sources, separated across centuries. Information from one conflicted with another, a third book might claim both were flawed and therefore incorrect, while a fourth would declare the first was, in truth, accurate.

All of this meant separating truth from myth demanded hours of exacting work. I could spend years on such a project, even considering the limited selection before me, and this realization gave me a newfound sense of appreciation for the Academy. They might have failed me, but creating a formal education out of the quagmire that we called magical development bordered on miraculous.

Still, weeks of work had uncovered enough commonalities between ideas and concepts to reveal the next steps in my path. And today, I was ready to take one.

I sat within a training room, alone save for my latest notebook. It was the third I'd used since arriving at the Sions, and it contained detailed notes on Forging.

In the past, I'd focused on Creation first and foremost. Conjuring mana constructs seemed the most useful of the three fundamental skills, and it had proven over the months to be the most applicable to my magic. I had never regretted that belief, but recently I had begun wondering if this focus had left me to ignore particular possibilities.

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I had tried to learn Reinforcement and created Destruction when those efforts failed. However, Alteration had fallen by the wayside. Sure, I had trained the skill as a matter of course, but the higher secrets remained out of my reach.

Alteration was the act of altering the properties of a magical construct or material. Most apprentices and even many adepts thought of this as a limited thing, restricting themselves knowingly or otherwise to crude changes in shape or construction, but this was itself a misunderstanding of its full potential.

Master Laila, back when I first began my training, had told me of her master. They were a true artist, able to use Alteration with such surpassing skill that they could shift the properties of materials in ways that defied the rules of nature. Fires that could burn underwater, stone lighter than air yet strong as steel, metal that flowed like water, and ice warm as flesh were all possible for a true Forgemaster.

Most of these weren't particularly useful, at least at the moment, but they led me down intriguing avenues. I had spent the past week focused on Alteration and some of the things enterprising mages had accomplished. And I finally felt ready to put some of my ideas to use.

I had already settled on permanent Aetheric constructs as a long-term solution. Both my armor and Mana Edge ate into my stamina, and creating something ahead of time should help. Moreover, I had begun exploring infusing my intent into a weapon to further its purpose, but was that enough?

No, of course not. I had created solid Aether, but it wasn't a perfect material. It was strong, yet heavy, with physical properties similar to a dense metal. But what if I could alter this material into something else, something useful for more than just creating a blade or plate of armor?

And what if I could then stack infusing my intent on top of that? I could create an altered Aether construct, layering my will onto it to further enhance the material to suit a particular purpose.

This was the sort of thing that might take years. I was only just starting to grasp infusing my intent into a material, and adding Alteration on top of that might set me back months. Hell, I wasn't even sure it was possible. As far as I knew, no one had attempted such a combination, save for maybe the Founders when they created the Invictus.

But what was magic if not an attempt to strain against the bounds of possibility? My forebears had strode forward, carried by half-mad plots and delusions of success. Who was I to deny such rich history?

I had my hands in my lap, palms facing up, and mana flowing between my fingers. The first step to creating a mana construct was simple enough, a now-familiar process after hundreds of repetitions. I wouldn't call it easy, as even my strengthened mana wasn't enough to make such an exertion cheap, but it was far easier than it had been months prior.

Aether flowed together, drawn into the shape of a hazy rectangle. Slowly, I began to compress it, even as I pulled more energy from my body and packed it into the unstable construct.

Ordinarily, I would focus my intent on the construct as I worked. I would push an impression of what I wanted the blade to do, much as I would an enchantment or a spell. Much like creating a permanent material, it wasn't complex, but it required far more willpower to work.

Instead, I focused on the material's properties. I imagined within my mind's eye the strip changing, growing softer and more flexible even as it retained the same strength and conductivity as my past efforts. Cloth, not steel. And as I did so, I continued to push, compress, and condense the Aether.

I had expected the material to resist or fail, condemning me to long hours before I made something viable. My surprise felt boundless as the construct snapped into place, stabilizing into something permanent. Then, the conjured material fell into my palms, landing with a soft thud.

"Huh," I muttered, looking at the material in my hands. It was a long, thin strip of what appeared to be black and green leather. The surface was streaked with darker and lighter bits like a forest canopy at midday, and I ran my fingers along the face, noting the coarse texture. Altering its properties had only been partially successful, it seems. Worse, its stability left much to be desired. I estimated at most three days before it broke apart entirely.

Still, this wasn't an attempt to reinvent the wheel overnight. It was solely a proof of concept, a test to see if I could create Aetheric constructs that behaved in ways disparate from the seemingly normal form I had made in the past.

I waited several minutes, taking deep breaths and allowing the mana within my core to replenish. Not for the first time, I marveled at the room around me and the sheer density of Aether it contained. My own efforts at creating such a place felt infantile by comparison.

Mana gathered between my hands again. I once again imagined a strip of solidified mana and once again tried to alter it into something resembling a cloth. However, as it began to take shape, I split my focus into thirds. One part of my mind continued to draw the energy into the construct, a second tried to force the Aether into something new and different, and the third worked to imbue my intent, telling the construct that it would be even sturdier than usual. No point in starting too ambitious.

Pain shot through my head as my mind was pulled in too many directions. The energy swayed precariously, growing too unstable to maintain. I cast aside my efforts at imbuing intent and tried to regain control, but it was too late. The Aether had gone over a tipping point, and there was no saving it without spending far too much energy.

I released the mana from my control, allowing it to dissipate into the air. The enchantments and runes built into the room activated, drawing that power in like magnets and metal. I took a few deep breaths, feeling the

energy flowing into my core even as I considered what came next.

Flexible Aether constructs that behaved like cloth shifted my plans for my armor. I could create something that resembled, even functioned as, clothing, and have a semi-permanent defensive measure. Going further, I could layer additional armor plating on top of that and get the best of both worlds, gaining back efficiency and mobility while retaining the protection I had already enjoyed.

And even further, if I could apply those same principles, what else could I achieve? Could I do the same thing with a swordstaff, making something that combined various 'alloys' of solid Aether to create the blend of flexibility and strength that a real weapon enjoyed?

The possibilities rose and fell in my mind, and I smiled despite the lingering headache. This, the feeling of exploration and understanding, was what I truly enjoyed about magic. There were so many mysteries left to uncover, and I planned to solve them all.

With a smile still on my face, I reached for my Aether and began forming another construct.

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