Summoned A Hundred Years Too Late

Murmurs and steps broke the silence of the Iron Library’s first floor. Alexandra stayed close to the stacks, changing course every time she heard someone come from the other direction. She couldn’t afford to be spotted.

The sound of two students talking. She climbed on a ladder and continued her path on the upper stacks. A shadow rounded a corner, and she turned back, going in the wrong direction.

The enchantment section was perhaps not the busiest of the entire floor, but it was near the top. Not every student at the Iron Library destined themselves for a life in the order. For those who didn’t, enchantment stood alongside alchemy as one of the most profitable disciplines.

Which noble family didn’t have a ward keeping their garden cool in the summer months? Which trader didn’t employ someone to enchant his storage for preservation and safekeeping?

A beacon on a lighthouse, a strengthening enchantment on armor, sharpening on a blade. The uses of enchantment were many and expensive.

Then there was the crown jewel of it all: spatial storage. An enchanter who could make spatial storage items was worth their weight in gold three times over.

So the enchantment section was busy. Worse, Alexandra wasn’t looking for riches. All she wanted was to complete her daily quest.

Quest Journal

Daily Reset: 06:00 | Streak: 49 Days | 2% All Stats, 2% Skill experience

Next Milestone: 50 Days

Daily Quests:

• Enchant an Item (0/1)

Despite training for weeks, she hadn’t managed to crack the code and enchant even the simplest wooden disk. Perhaps she should have put in more effort. In her defense, she was diligent, working on it almost every day. There simply hadn’t been a sense of urgency.

Now, things had changed. She ducked under a table, avoiding a pair of students walking past her.

She was on a timer, so she wanted to read enchantment books. That was the only place she could think of. But it meant stepping out in the open, where her pursuers could find her.

She paused. Pinched her cheek.

Fuck this.

It was sickness of paranoia acting up again.

Ever since that day she got lost in the forest, she’d been plagued by the curse. She hadn’t managed to get rid of it.

Sheepish, she crawled from under the table and straightened her grey robes.

The enchantment section was deep within the maze, in a corner of the first floor, tucked behind tall oak shelves that served as a natural barrier against foot traffic. Alexandra reached it without incident.

She exhaled.

The shelves here were no older than the rest. Made of dark wood, the grain was worn smooth along the edges where generations of hands had passed. The books were packed tight, spines faded to varying degrees of illegibility. She ran a finger along a row and tilted her head to read the titles.

She pulled the first book she saw with enchantment in the title. Put it back. Pulled another.

The section was busy, but not chaotically so. A pair of white robes sat cross-legged on the floor at the far end, a spread of open volumes between them, talking in low murmurs. A boy stood at the shelf opposite, copying something into his notes without looking up. Those scenes repeated all along the shelves.

Alexandra found the nearest kiosk and linked her mana to the enchantment. She began to browse properly. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. She was a beginner, but not a complete one. After a few lessons with Professor Bird, she had a good theoretical base. Good enough that she should be able to succeed with her first enchantment.

Yet there she was.

The white robes laughed at something, and she glanced over before she could stop herself. Neither of them was looking at her.

She got her curse under control. It didn’t matter if they were laughing at her. If anything, better them than Sera. She looked up and down. The Keeper was nowhere to be seen. Maybe they didn’t need to send someone to watch her while she was inside the library.

She turned back to the kiosk and refined her intent. She needed help. Something with advice tailored to her specific situation.

“There you are.”

Alexandra’s connection to the kiosk snapped, and she whipped around to face the newcomer.

Willow stood right behind her, her hand raised as if she was going to poke her in the back.

“Sorry,” she said.

Alexandra relaxed, a hand on her heart. “You startled me.”

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“Everything does, nowadays.”

Alexandra looked down.

“Mind telling me why you haven’t asked me for help before coming here?” Willow continued. “You know I’m good at enchantments.”

Alexandra opened her mouth. She closed it.

"I didn't want to bother you," she said.

Willow gave a wry smile. "You were avoiding everyone when I spotted you. You went up a ladder."

"Shortcut."

"It isn't."

Alexandra looked back at the kiosk.

"I thought I was close to figuring it out on my own," she said.

Willow glanced at the kiosk. "Have you managed a single enchantment?"

"That's what I’m close to achieving."

Willow grabbed Alexandra’s hand.

"Your room?" she said.

"The books—"

"Won't help you actually do it. All you need is a disk and someone standing next to you."

They didn’t retrace her path through the stacks. Instead, they went straight for the door. No detour. The cold hit her in the face the moment they stepped outside. It was raining.

Through the clouds, she received a little boost from Photosynthesis.

Willow fell into step beside her on the path toward the dormitories.

"Streak's at forty-nine," Alexandra said.

"I know. I’ve been counting."

Alexandra narrowed her eyes. "You did?"

"Don’t overthink it. I know it’s important for you." Willow put a hand on her back. "Besides, I know you wouldn’t miss a quest."

Alexandra said nothing. But she kept walking.

They reached her room, and she pulled out Clarity of Mind from her drawer. “Raymond said to return it when I was done with it.”

Willow sighed. “I’ve asked my elders. They know. Everyone is in on it.” She shook her head. “But that’s not why we’re here.”

Alexandra grabbed the disk.

“Show me how you’d do it,” Willow said. “The most basic exercise. Make that disk levitate.”

Alexandra looked at the disk, then closed her eyes. She could sense the flow of mana inside the disk. Through one side, along the wood, a loop, and back where it came from.

She’d first felt it weeks ago, and it hadn’t changed. Not in a significant way. Then, following what she learned during class, she introduced the thinnest sliver of a thread from her core into the flow.

What she wanted was for it to merge into the natural pattern of ambient mana. Enchantment was a negotiation. The slightest trace of intent would disturb the process. Moving a mana thread without intent was harder than it seemed. After all, the action of moving the mana thread itself could already be considered intent.

However, Alexandra had learned how to suppress her mind and let her threads flow into the ambient mana naturally.

“Good,” Willow said. “Now maintain that state until the wood accepts your mana.”

That was the second step. The wood had to think her mana was part of the ambient mana. The difficulty of this step was highly dependent on the material used and the ability of the enchanter to neutralize their mana.

For Alexandra, it took her a good ten minutes of intense concentration.

Only now could the negotiation start. The mana already had somewhere to be. What she needed was to make somewhere else more appealing.

She let the concept form slowly. Not the word levitation, not even an image of the disk rising. That was too sharp, too demanding. Instead she let her mana take on the idea. A leaf moving on moving water.

It wasn’t working.

The mana brushed her coloring aside like water parting around a stone.

"You're thinking about it rising," Willow said.

Alexandra kept her eyes closed. "I'm not."

"You are."

She exhaled through her nose. The leaf. The water. Let it—

"You're thinking about it rising," Willow said again.

Fine. She was.

She let the image go entirely. Let there be nothing. Just the thread resonating alongside the ambient flow, neutral, accepted. Then, slowly, she let a single thought bleed in. Not a word, not an image, just a minuscule sliver of intent. Up.

The ambient mana didn't resist it.

She felt the shift. The flow began to change its course. It moved on its own, following the slight gravity of her intention, the path of least resistance. Degrees. Fractions of degrees. Her thread moved with it, or rather her thread had already moved, and the ambient mana was catching up, aligning.

"Good," Willow said. "Don't touch it. Just hold the intent."

The new loop formed. She could feel it looking for somewhere to land. The pattern was stable but untethered, hovering above the grain of the wood without anchoring.

She pressed her awareness into the grain. The long striations running pole to pole through the disk. It was the path she was supposed to imprint. She knew it. Bird had said as much. She fed the new loop into the grain. Not all at once. She followed one striation to its end, turned back along the next.

The loop closed.

She opened her eyes.

The disk hung in the air three centimeters above her palm. Still, no trembling.

Willow let out a slow breath. "There it is."

Alexandra stared at it. “It wasn’t that hard.”

Willow laughed. “Don’t undersell your achievement. You’ve been trying for weeks now. How many people have succeeded in your class?”

Alexandra frowned. “They’re children.”

“Children with more experience than you.”

Alexandra wanted to retort but found nothing. She knew a few of her classmates were ahead of her, but they could be counted on one hand. Annoyingly, Zamar was among them. At least, the boy hadn’t bothered her since the first class.

“Remove your hand,” Willow said.

Alexandra turned back to the floating disk and her hand that was extended beneath it.

“It’s enchanted,” her friend continued. “It will hold on its own.”

Tentatively, Alexandra pulled her hand away from the disk. It hovered still, inert in the air, like it was attached to strings hanging from the ceiling.

“This looks weird as hell,” she said, moving her hands around the disk.

Willow shrugged with a smile. “You better get used to it. A floating disk is far from the strangest thing you’ll make with enchantments.”

Alexandra looked at her friend and matched her smile. With a flick of her wrist, she summoned her journal and made to set it on the desk.

The disk was blocking the way.

“How do I turn it off?”