The week passed quicker than Michael had expected it to. His early classes with Master Silksen and mana-intensive classes with Master Delta tired him to his core, yet he still found himself enjoying his time at Ilkhorn. This week, he was given even more spells to practice in his free time and, as a result, had almost no time to himself.
Thanks to the all the work he'd had to put in, Michael had had no time to think about the task he had to complete. Dozing off in any one of his classes was an easy way to get hit in the face with a literal splash of cold water, at best. At worst, he'd end up with a fireball burning off his hair (and he liked his hair).
Days went by and the only thing that Michael thought about were his studies and his friends. Despite most students having failed the Order's challenges, the gifted floor spent more time together than ever. Even James was getting used to the idea of speaking up in conversations and it turned out he was incredibly witty.
Scott and Michael did their best to be paired up in Intermediate Water magic and grew closer over the course of the week because of it. In his other classes, Michael tended to take on a role closer to that of an instructor, helping his friends and classmates figure out what they were doing wrong. Magic came easily to him and, once shown the right way to do it, he had little trouble replicating magic so long as he had the mana for it.
He especially enjoyed finishing the day with Darkness magic. So many of his friends were in that class, and Julia always saved him a seat. Seeing her face for his first and last classes of each day just had a way of making everything better. Her energy was infectious and her kindness was undeniable.
Michael especially loved when she and her fairy, Rose, were allowed to come to class together. Julia seemed to be quite good with Light and Darkness magic and made her fairy glisten in the magically-dimmed rooms. Michael had a feeling it might even be the kind of thing the headmaster was looking for in their challenge.
Eventually, their rest days arrived again. They had no homework; instead, they were tasked with enjoying the nice weather. Michael promised to do so, but first he had to figure out what to do for his task.
It was no small feat to come up with something completely original. He could get lucky and show the headmaster a beast he'd never encountered, but somehow that felt disingenuous. Michael's thoughts turned to enchanting. He'd continued his experiments in his free time and had finally managed to make some of the basic spells permanent.
If he could do that much in a week, how much could he do in three weeks? It was a great idea, but he realized the headmaster had likely seen first-years enchant quartz before. Enchanting was his best chance to impress them, but he couldn't just do normal enchanting.
Michael sat down and listed out his advantages. He had impressive control over his magic despite being so young and new to it. He had the system that could help him complete difficult tasks, though he didn't really want to use it for this. He was strong and a talented swordsman, but again, there had likely been other good swordsmen in the school. And then he had Orthus. A chimera was rare, but not necessarily original. But his chimera could cast magic...THAT'S IT!
If Orthus can cast magic, then he should be able to enchant quartz! It'd be difficult, but he'd been watching Michael do it, already. Surely the headmaster had never seen a first-years' familiar do a permanent enchantment before!
Michael called Orthus over and explained his idea. It took a while to explain how Orthus had to channel his magic to properly enchant the quartz, but Orthus seemed to understand the concepts he was talking about. Eager to see his familiar's work, Michael placed a stone in front of him.
He felt the air magic in the room move, entering the quartz. It lined the stone, as he had instructed. And then it blew up...
"Orthus, what happened? You were doing so well!" Michael couldn't contain his surprise. As far as he could tell, his familiar had done exactly what he was supposed to.
"It's the air magic, master. It just keeps expanding once it's in the stone until it destroys the entire vessel." That was news to Michael. He'd completed a couple air magic enchantments without suffering any such issue. Yet, when he asked Orthus what spell he used, he answered that he had attempted a simple levitate spell.
Michael took a moment to consider what might have gone wrong. It was possible Orthus had simply made a mistake and gone too fast without letting the magic settle. It was also possible that he had packed too much magic in the middle and not enough around the edges to keep the magic in. The last possibility was that the magic Orthus used was different from the magic Michael used.
That last one would be the hardest to solve, and so Michael began with the other two possible problems. He suggested Orthus spend a little more time reinforcing the gem so that the magic stayed contained. He also reminded his familiar to let the magic settle before moving on to the next part. Finally, he placed a second stone in front of the chimera.
This attempt seemed to go much better. Unlike the last one, the gem didn't immediately shatter. It seemed that Orthus had taken his master's advice to heart and had spent most of the magic on protecting the gem. Unfortunately, he hadn't saved enough for imbuing the actual spell and thus this enchantment failed, too.
They spent hours trying and, after nearly 20 attempts, Orthus succeeded. His enchantment wasn't permanent, but the quartz certainly could levitate a small person (as Michael enthusiastically learned). They'd been at the school for less than three weeks and already both he and his familiar had managed to produce some basic enchantments. He'd asked around his Intermediate Water magic class and they all said that it wasn't even offered until their third year!
Moreover, enchanted magestones were valuable. Since enchantment was an elective only offered to third, fourth and fifth-years, it was relatively difficult to find a good enchanted magestone. A few basic ones like what Orthus had produced could cover the cost of several sets of quartz magestones, and the ones Michael had produced could cover his supplies for the semester!
If they kept at it, Michael wouldn't have to worry about money for his entire time at Ilkhorn Academy — they'd practically be paying HIM to go there!
Though Michael had a feeling Orthus was likely the first familiar capable of enchanting magestones, he wanted to be sure they'd make it in. What did that mean? More enchantment training for both of them!
Michael dove back into the slowly dwindling pile of magestones, dragging his chimera with him. Their weekend days were going to be pretty much their only chance to practice, and there was no way he was going to waste a minute of it.