Corrin spent the night coming up with his plans for what he wanted to learn first, and he came up with a list of priorities:
1. [FIRE]
2. [CHANNEL]
3. [EARTH]
4. [FORM DAGGER]
He came up with this for a few reasons. First, it would allow him to use two types of mana for enchantments, and the two he had picked had the most utility in his mind. [FIRE] would allow him to cook things as well as give him some offensive power later on, and [EARTH] would allow him to utilize [FORM DAGGER] in order to make a knife to skin and prepare the animals he hunted. [CHANNEL] was an activation sequence and he figured that he needed to know at least one so that he could actually activate his enchantments. Corrin had decided not to learn any other command sequences for now because he had asked Ophion if it was possible just to make an enchantment with an activation sequence and a mana rune, and he had said yes.
Corrin's plan was to enchant a rock with [CHANNEL][FIRE] and he figured that it would be enough to make a fire that he could cook with. He would just build a fire and then light it with the enchanted rock. Corrin was a bit upset that he didn't have much else to work with to enchant, but he would make do like he had always done.
Ophion had warned him that enchanting less than optimal materials such as rocks would not be permanent since they ordinarily break after one use. Ophion had expected Corrin to be displeased at the news, but it seemed like it was the opposite.
"That's great. It's honestly a bit above my expectations that I can even enchant rocks. I thought I was going to be screwed over by being left in the middle of nowhere with nothing to enchant, but it seems I was wrong. Plus, I can think of a few uses for one-time enchantments. They only have to be charged once right? And they probably require less to charge too, right?"
"Uhhh, yes to both of those." Ophion said, confused as to where he was going with this.
"Perfect. That should work just fine for my future plans." Corrin said with his devilish grin.
******
It took about two days of constant practice for Corrin to get the hang of forming the four runes out of mana. He had chosen to focus on using his mana zone around his palms to manipulate the mana into different shapes, and it ended up working very well for him.
Now, it was finally time for Corrin to do some magic. Ophion had explained to him that the enchanting process was similar to how Ophion had branded him with the Daeman rune. Corrin just had to push the enchantment onto the object and pour mana into it to charge the enchantment.
Corrin picked out one small and one medium sized rock from the bottom of the pool. The small rock would be his fire starter and the medium sized rock would be his dagger. Corrin had tried his best to think of a cool name for his one-time use enchanted rocks and decided to call them Spellstones.
The two soon-to-be Spellstones were placed neatly next to each other on Corrin's meditation rock in the middle of the pool. This is where Corrin had been practicing everything magic related, so he only saw it fitting that he should enchant his first items there.
He decided to start by making his Fire Spellstone. He focused on his mana zone around his open palms and focused on forming the runes. The shape of the runes was irregular, jagged in some places, round in other places, some parts weren't even connected to the main body. This is what made forming them so complicated. The first rune he formed was the [CHANNEL] rune and once he was finished with that the rune sort of floated in the air in front of him, like it was awaiting his directions. Then Corrin moved onto the [FIRE] rune. The same thing happened with this rune, and it floated into the air. Corrin took the two runes and pushed them together until they stated side by side with each other. When he did that, the two runes pulsed with energy, the signal that he had formed the enchantment correctly.
He then took the floating enchantment and pushed it onto the rock. He was met with way more resistance than he was initially expecting, and it took him several minutes to even connect the runes with the surface of the rock. Once he had done that, though, he could feel the enchantment sucking the mana out of him. He then hastily increased the flow of mana out from his mana heart through his outgoing mana veins and he could feel the runes hungrily accepting the mana.
After a little while, what was left was an exhausted Corrin and a completed Fire Spellstone.
Corrin grinned widely before exclaiming "LETS GOOOOOOOO!!!! I CAN DO MAGIC!!!! Ophion did you see that? I did it on my first try too. Damn, I am awesome."
"Yes, Corrin, I agree that that was very impressive. I'm very proud."
"Thanks man." Corrin said to Ophion before examining the Fire Spellstone.
Ophion had already told Corrin that once the enchantment was completed, the runes would sort of fade into the object itself. You could always see the enchantments if you just sent a little mana over the item, but otherwise they would remain hidden.
The Spellstone didn't seem much different, but Corrin could feel the faint presence of mana hovering around it. Corrin was very pleased.
After resting for a bit and letting his personal mana reserves recover from the expenditure from the initial enchantment, Corrin started on the dagger. This one would take a little bit more out of him since there were three runes instead of two.
Corrin started out with the [CHANNEL] rune, then the [EARTH] rune, then the [FORM DAGGER] rune, forming the runes in the same order that they would be written for the enchantment. There was a pulse when Corrin joined the [CHANNEL] and the [EARTH] runes, and a stronger pulse when he joined the two with the [FORM DAGGER] rune. Corrin was met with stronger resistance when pushing the enchantment onto the rock this time, and the pull on his mana was a lot stronger than it was with the Fire Spellstone. It required him to charge the enchantments with a lot more mana, and the whole process took about twice as long as the first one had.
Corrin was very fatigued at this point, but he had completed the enchantment. He sprawled out on the rock and took a few deep breaths. He was very tired, but he was also ecstatic. He had just finished his first two enchantments, the only thing left to do was to test them!
Corrin was going to try out his Fire Spellstone later on when he was going to cook, but he could test his Dagger Spellstone now.
"Ophion, how do I channel a specific type of mana?" Corrin asked.
"Ordinarily, you would have to go through a similar process to Natural mages who use personal mana to sort of attract a certain type of ambient mana and channel it through the enchantment you are activating. However, theoretically, since your mana heart is made of Gold mana instead of White mana, you should be able to just change your personal mana into your desired type. Then, you would be able to directly channel it into the enchantment, similar to what you did when you were charging the enchantments."
"So Gold mana can turn into other types of mana?"
"Short answer: yes."
"Alright, got it. How do I change it into a different type?"
"Honestly, I'm not exactly sure, since I had a White mana heart, but I assume you just sort of focus on your mana in a certain area and just sort of will it to change. Try visualizing the Earth mana you saw when you were first absorbing mana into your body to form your mana heart."
Corrin picked up his Dagger Spellstone with his right hand and focused on his mana zone around his hand. He then visualized the brown-colored Earth mana particles that he had absorbed when trying to first form his mana heart. Suddenly the golden colored aura around his hand turned into the same brown color he had been visualizing. As soon as that happened, the enchantment reappeared on the Spellstone and started glowing the same brown color. The rock began to change form, and slowly took the shape of a simple double-edged dagger the size of his forearm.
Corrin waited a little bit even after it had fully transformed, half-expecting the knife to crumble into dust, but it didn't. The only thing that had happened to the rock, aside from becoming a dagger, was that the enchantment had disappeared. Corrin wasn't sure if this was due to the nature of the enchantment itself or due to the material that was enchanted. He decided he would have to look into this later.
For now, though, he had a new toy to play with.