Chapter 25: Mind Games
"If you are here because you think this will be easy, you are already wasting my time."
Without another word, Professor Halric turned and picked up a piece of chalk.
Unlike their previous teachers, he used no magic. He had no floating words or glowing diagrams. Just a line of white scraping against a dusty blackboard.
He wrote the word Enchantment at the top and turned back around.
"Enchantments are magical formulas embedded within physical objects." He began. "They are built to produce effects when activated, powered by either the ambient mana in the environment or directly by the user’s mana."
He paused.
"You carry enchantments every day. The coins you spend? Enchanted. That lantern above your head? Enchanted. Your spell tokens, even the lifts that take you to different floors in certain buildings. Enchantment is what allows magic to persist without a mage present."
Noah nodded slowly. So far, it lined up with what Arlo had shown him earlier.
"However," Halric continued, "unlike spellcraft, enchantment is not about shaping mana in the moment. It is about forethought. Design. Calculation."
He began writing again, symbols and equations that looked nothing like the runes from Spellcasting.
"When enchanting an object, you must consider its material, its size, its structure, the intended effect, the expected duration, the method of activation, the power source, and many little things. Only then can you even begin to inscribe the first formula."
He stepped away from the board, dusting off his fingers.