The Good Teacher

The inscription Guy had applied on the mana gem was special, in that it did not require the enchanter to forge a special body to contain it. This meant that Guy had more leeway in choosing the item to embed the gem into.

However, this did not make things any easier, because having too many choices can sometimes become a massive headache.

Guy brainstormed many possibilities while scanning his eyes around the storage room. He wondered whether he should embed the gem into an edged single- or two-handed weapon such as a sword, sabre, axe, spear and so on. That way, if Markus happens to enter a stressful scenario and is unable to form any spell circles, he can resolve to use the weapon itself to do substantial damage.

It was a viable option, but Guy dropped the idea because there was a high likelihood of Markus hurting himself by mishandling the edged weapon. Without proper techniques and martial-arts to complement the weapon, it would be like handing a writing utensil to a baby. And since Guy was from a world that had advanced to an era of ranged warfare with hot weapons, and had never dabbled in fencing or weapon-based martial arts, he was seriously lacking in that department and wasn't confident in teaching Markus.

The other alternative would be to use a blunt weapon that dealt damage through bludgeoning and impact, such as a hammer, bat, staff and so on. Those were generally friendlier to newbies, although they weren't totally safe. So Guy felt more comfortable with this option, but his conscience still felt uneasy.

He was just a simple teacher after all! Even after observing various atrocities in his old world, he wasn't someone who would willingly hand weapons that could wreak havoc and potentially harm the user, to his own students. He did recognise the irony in his thought process. He had essentially created ammunition capable of unleashing damage of unimaginable proportions for his student, but now he was being apprehensive about sourcing a weapon to hold it, just because it felt unethical.

"Why is that, though?" Guy pondered out loud.

It was after a brief moment of contemplation, that Guy recognised the cause for his present dilemma! He was fine with handing the enchantment to his student, even though it held power beyond Markus' limits. That was because Guy was confident in tempering Markus and training him to respect the power it withheld. However, Guy was apprehensive about handing a cold weapon to Markus because Guy couldn't guarantee that he could train Markus with equal stringency.

This conclusion greatly narrowed Guy's search. He didn't want to use a body that was beyond his own limits. This straightaway crossed out all metal-based solutions.

Thus, Guy drew his attention to the wide assortment of woods stored in the inventory. Wooden weapons were commonplace in academies and sects as they were optimal for training purposes. Logically, it was safer to teach students using a non-lethal replica of a weapon as opposed to the real deal. After all, it would be shameful if a student lost a few fingers or appendages accidentally during training.

In addition to that, wood wasn't a scarce or expensive resource. It was possible to mass-produce training weapons made of wood, but the same could not be said for their metal counterparts.

Guy inspected his choices available in the storage room and tried to cross-reference them with the data stored in the RoK. Just like back on Earth, there was an abundance of choices of wood in this world. Actually, with the addition of mana, there were even more options to choose between. Some wood types were more receptive to specific types of mana and enchantments, just like with mana metals.

Rather than floundering between choices, Guy decided that it was best to solidify his purpose and then decide on the wood. Seeing as his enchantment wasn't type-specific, the wood choice had to be neutral in its receptivity to mana of different types. What mattered the most to Guy was the body's ability to conduct the flow of mana. He wanted to ensure that there was no resistance when Markus channelled his mana through the body into the mana gem, and when the mana flowed from the mana gem to the body.

With some filters to narrow his search, Guy was able to find two suitable solutions: Menryl tree, and the Illuminescent Banyan tree.

The wood from the Menryl tree was distinct as it had a pleasant bluish-cyan hue. It was the first time Guy had observed such a pigment in a tree. Through some cursory reading, Guy realised that this shade was a result of dense mana channels running parallel to the wood's grains. Usually, the Menryl tree is found above dense mana deposits and is used as a marker when searching for mana crystal mines. The tree has a symbiotic relationship with those mines in that it absorbs tainted mana from the atmosphere, extracts the impurities for its own growth, and shoves the refined environmental mana into the soil, which in turn solidifies in the mines. The wood itself is exceedingly strong and opposed to bending.

The Illuminescent Banyan tree is different from the Menryl tree in many ways, but also similar. Unlike the Menryl trees, the Illuminescent Banyan is solitary. In actuality, the Illuminescent Banyan refers to the smaller trees that take root in the trunk of a much, much larger host tree and form offshoots and grow. The entire structure is often labelled as the Banyan since they can't be fully separated until it is cut down and processed.

Once processed, the primary tree is generally discarded as it does nothing apart from acting as a channel for sustenance to the offshoots. The secondary trees, however, are most functional as they produce succulent, mana-rich fruits, robust vines to assist in cloth-making, and syrupy sap that has a wide range of uses in alchemy.

In many ways, a live Illuminescent Banyan is more valuable than a dead one.

However, once chopped up and processed, the sinews produced from the wood of the secondary trees have many uses in weapon and armoursmithing. As its name suggests, the Illuminescent Banyan has a bright bluish glow. This glow stems from the rich mana channels present in the secondary trees' trunks.

Guy quickly thought of an idea and fetched a handful of Illuminescent Banyan sinews and a length of Menryl wood. To materialise his idea, he didn't require an excessive quantity of the two materials, and so he picked them up from the scraps container to remain economical.

After setting up in the workshop once again, he retrieved a few wood-working tools and began his work. Back on Earth, Guy had travelled to many villages and secluded locales that thrived on native craftsmanship. Most of the time, these products were made by hand using the natural resources available in the vicinity. Through that, Guy had picked up a lot of such mundane skills. Woodworking and wicker crafting were a few such techniques Guy was familiar with.

Slowly, Guy because to carve the Menryl wood to form a cylindrical, thin body of tapering thickness. At its base, it had a radius of half a centimetre, and at the tip, it was around a quarter. Without standardised measuring tools, Guy eye-balled those parameters when carving. After spending additional time sanding out any unevenness, Guy was left with a smooth bluish-cyan tapering rod.

Guy then used another tool to carve through-holes at set intervals. With Menryl's robustness, the holes didn't detract much from its stability.

With that done, Guy retrieved the sinews and worked them till they were uniform. The special property of Illuminescent Banyan was that it maintained a brownish hue till mana ran through the channels within.

He wound the sinews using his wickering techniques to form an ergonomic handle. During this process, Guy brought in the inscribed gem and used the sinews to fasten it into the base of the handle. He then worked the finer sinews to form a spiralling pattern along the shaft. He wound the sines through the periodic holes to tighten them up.

Once it reached the tip, Guy used a strong and permanent binding reagent to fasten the windings and coated the shaft in the reagent to affix the design. He then dipped the handle in another lacquer that was smoother once dried.

Using a few spells, Guy accelerated the treating process.

Finally, Guy beheld the craftsmanship in his hands.

It was almost the length of his forearm and had a brownish handle. The shaft had a similar brownish hue with a spiralling pattern and infrequent sections that revealed a pleasant blue, corresponding to the Menryl base.

"What a beautiful Magic Wand!" Guy exclaimed while exhaling in satisfaction.

What he settled for, in the end, was to use a simple magic wand as a body for the enchantment. He derived his inspiration from a series of young-adult modern-fantasy novels from back on Earth that were highly acclaimed.

The solution was simple and addressed his requirements directly. There was also no fear of Markus accidentally hurting himself, except of course if he pokes his own eyes.

Guy grasped the handle of the wand and prepared a basic fire starting spell in his mind.

Taking a deep breath, Guy flourished the wand and pointed the tip towards a small pile of wood shavings next to him.