Episode 137 – Clay Mines (1/2)

Episode 137 – Clay Mines

Previously:

It’s Friday, the last day of Muni entrance exams It is time for the last exam of the day – Special exam Kiel and Elaru make their way towards Sapphire Quarters where there special exaeezers who are acting high and hty while Kiel shot hi exa ability, but rather, to test for a special talent that can only be revealed through the process of spell replicating He is tasked to spell replicate several cogwheels and then given an intricate enchantment to place on star-shaped artifacts

Episode 137 – Clay Mines

As Kiel holeheartedly absorbed in enchanting his third

In his peripheral vision, Kiel saw thee looks, their faces riddled with frowns In the end, one of them set up a sound isolation barrier around their table so that they could talk freely without disturbing Kiel’s replicating

Kiel tried to ignore their rapidlyclear doubts, tried to overlook the way they passed the papers between the with each passing second

Alas, it was too conspicuous Each tiiving the professors a quick glance, and then his concentration would waver, worry invading his ured out that he was a fraud, that he didn’t have the talent they spoke of That he was here by mistake

He wondered whether they were upset that he asting their ti whether they should cut his exam short As he looked at their faces, he could alranny looked like she wanted to go by the book, seeing the exauing that she was too traditional, that there was no point torturing themselves and the examinee further And of course, there would always be that one person who’d try to pacify both sides and wonder whether the , and the examinee actually did have the required talent

And then they would test the cogs again Even going as far as enchanting another previously unenchanted cog for coain concentrated wholeheartedly on enchanting the hollowhi this complicated enchantment required his undivided attention, for the professors had asked him to concentrate on accuracy instead of speed Each woven line had to be the right width, the right length, even the density of mana had to be precise With all his mental faculties occupied he had no room for his mind to wonder

After the 6th replicated artifact, sweat drops were rolling down the sides of Kiel’s face as if he were a leaking faucet

So was labored

Finally, after the last artifact was done, Kiel took the tiuing The old grannyso no one dared coave Kiel a few silenttheir sound isolation barrier to speak to hirand that he wasn’t in a good enough condition to display this special skill

“Do you have enough ed man added tentatively In Kiel’s opinion, “Please say no” ritten all over his face

Kiel briefly debated whether to take this chance to back out of the exam and spare hiiving him a way out

But just as he was about to say no, his dark side reared its ugly head filling hie and spite It was their job to run this test, yet they wanted to cut the exam short?! Did they find hi down on him? Who did they think they were?? He’d be daritted his teeth, his eyes flashi+ng unyieldingly He nodded his head, stifled an angry snort, and squeezed out one of his signature sht I have plenty of mana left in me Feel free to test me further”

If you think you’ll ain! Kiel al thumbs up to Elaru Her soul was truly a bottoued, he was in perfect condition His body could handle his currentspeed without issues for quite so, his face healthily flushed, the ed man had no other choice but to pull out a briefcase He opened it to reveal several dozens of ash brown pebbles padded within the box as to avoid dae

Unlike the previous artifacts that Kiel had to replicate, which he wasn’t fa Kiel recognized

Made frohly explosive clay found in swamps, these pebbles could be used as weapons in various ways, however,Clay Mines

These pebbles would be enchanted with a spellspell if it detected sufficient deformation of the pebble Thus, if one stepped on the pebble, flattening it, the sudden increase of temperature of the clay would cause an explosion

The Clay Mine was a textbook exaer enchantle spell modifier, this enchantment was one of the first enchantments Kiel’s class learned in school (Needless to say, they were testing it on ordinary clay, and not the explosive variety)

“Are you faranny drawled, her question clearly perfunctory, for she are that Clay Mines were a part of the basic ic curriculum in most schools

Kiel nodded “Yes Do you want me to turn these into Clay Mines?”

“Correct We have a finished exahest possible ed man picked up one of the pebbles that already had an enchant you should aim to reach this mana density You’ll know you’ve reached it when the clay starts heavily resisting further increase of mana”

Most materials had a constant mana resistance and would start to cruher the mana density, faster they would fall apart