Meridox led James around the left wing of the manor, revealing several smaller buildings. Then they entered one that wasn’t the largest, but also wasn’t the smallest. Inside was a single large room with work tables lining the walls, broad windows to let in as much light as possible, and there were large chests under the tables. Meridox set down the sword, still hilt-less, on the worktable with the most light, and opened the chest under the table, pulling out a rod about a foot and a half long, and a smaller chest. The rod he set down on the table, and then he opened the small chest, pulling out six colored mana stones and a small bottle of liquid that sparkled in the light more than water normally would. He then reached into the chest again and pulled out a mortar and pestle and several other small, metal tools James had never seen before.

  Meridox then looked over to James, who was standing to the side, watching. “These are the tools of the Enchanter’s trade, generally speaking. But first we’ll measure your magical aptitude in general. Can’t be an Enchanter in the first place if you’ve got no aptitude.” He picked up the rod. “If you have a mana pool of any decent size, this rod will pull some of your mana out and light up. The more mana you’ve got, the more it’ll light up. You can’t push more mana into it than it’ll take from you anyway, so you can’t fake having more mana than you do. Now, you can hold your mana back, and then the rod won’t light up, like I’m doing now. Sometimes people do that when they don’t want their lord to know they’ve got talent, but your lord, Baron Rufus, is one of the good ones. You heard him: if you don’t want to be a Mage, he won’t force you into it. So I’ll ask you not to hold your mana back, okay? Besides, it’s nice to know where you stand in the world. If you hold back, you won’t know how much mana you do have. Of course, I won’t be able to tell even if you do. Are you ready?”

  James nodded. “Yes sir.”

  Meridox nodded. “Good boy. Alright, take the rod, hold it, and just relax. It’ll pull the mana out without you needing to do anything.” He handed James the rod.

  The rod started glowing white dimly, starting from the end James was holding until a few inches away from the end of the rod.

  “Ooh, would you look at that, you do got a decent bit of potential in you.” Meridox pointed at the furthest extent of the glowing portion of the rod. “See, this is your potential mana pool, and how bright the rod glows is how much you’ve trained your mana pool. If you trained, you’d have a bit more mana than your average mage. But see how dim the light is? You haven’t trained at all, have you?”

  “No sir. I wouldn’t even know how to train mana, sir.”

  “Well, that’s no surprise for a peasant. Regardless, just having mana isn’t enough to be a Mage, you also need elemental affinity. There’s many different elements you can have an affinity with, but every Mage has an affinity with at least one of these six basic affinities.” Meridox gestured to the six stones lined up on the table. “Fire.” He pointed to the red stone. “Water.” He pointed to the blue stone. “Air. Earth. Light. Dark.” Green, Brown, White, Black. “If you have an affinity, you can push mana into an appropriate mana stone and make it shine. Oh, except for Dark, if you have Dark affinity it emits a shadow. Weird stuff. If you don’t have an affinity, it won’t shine. The stones won’t draw your mana out on their own, but you should notice there’s an emptiness in the stone that you can push your mana into. It’s not that hard. Now, let’s just go down the line. Touch the stone, push some mana in, and we’ll see.”

  “Yes sir.” James said, then put a finger on the fire mana stone. He didn’t feel any ‘emptiness’, and wasn’t sure what it meant to push his mana, so he was at a loss. After just a second, though, Meridox hurried him along.

  “Okay, no Fire then. Move along, check them all in order. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you get to your affinity, don’t worry. James said “yes sir” again and moved onto Water.

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  Nothing.

  Same for Air, Earth, and Light. Finally he touched the Dark mana stone, and… nothing.

  “Whelp, that’s that.” Meridox said. “Bit unusual, but not unheard of. Now, Mages aren’t the only Classes that use mana, Holy Classes like Priests and Paladins, for instance. But more importantly, Enchanters.” Now Meridox reached for the small bottle of liquid and removed the cork. He just barely touched the tip of his finger to the sparkly liquid and then it started shining brightly, brighter than the sunlight coming in through the window. “This liquid is called Aqua Magia. It’s produced by Enchanters and is used to create Enchantments. If you have talent to be an Enchanter, you can make it shine just like a mage with the right affinity can make a mana stone shine.” Meridox removed his finger from the bottle, which stopped shining. Strangely, his finger was entirely dry, unlike how a finger pulled out of a bottle of water would normally still be wet.

  “Go ahead, stick your finger in and see if you can make it shine. Don’t worry about spoiling the Aqua Magia or wasting it. It doesn’t work like regular water.” Meridox said, holding out the bottle.

  James nodded and stuck his finger into the bottle, just barely touching the surface of the aqua magia like Meridox had. The moment he did, he felt it. The emptiness. The liquid, which he now realized wasn’t a liquid at all, not like water or soup or tea. It was as light and empty as air, while simultaneously as thick and heavy as mud. And suddenly, he realized there was a not emptiness within him, a mass of something that, until just now, had never had an outlet, never had anywhere to go or anything to do. He willed that mass to move, but it was sluggish, and heavy. Like trying to roll a heavy boulder. But the aqua magia was so empty, that with just a little push some of that mass moved and filled up the emptiness. All this James realized in less time than it took to blink, and the aqua magia shone just like it had for Meridox.

  “Well, there you have it.” Meridox pulled the bottle away, and James noted that his finger was completely dry, just like Meridox’s had been. He restoppered the bottle. Looks like you do have some potential as an Enchanter. And before you go getting a big head, it’s not that rare. Most Mages have the potential to be Enchanters. But anyone with an affinity usually chooses to be a Mage outright, rather than take an Enchanter Class. And lots of people with potential get overlooked, because they never get tested. Lucky you, you’ll get to make an informed choice before you choose your Classes.”

  James wasn’t sure what to make of this. He suddenly was aware of this mana that was inside him, and suddenly he had an opportunity to be an Enchanter.

  Meridox then moved the mana testing materials to the side and pulled the unfinished sword to the center of the table, inspecting the Smith’s work.

  “Tch” he clicked his tongue. “More undine essence than I’d like, but probably unavoidable. The river’s infested with them. And the forging… tolerable, I suppose. The sword itself is excellent but look here-” Meridox pointed to the engraved patterns, specifically around where the hilt had yet to be attached, leaving the tang bare. “See this? The Smith just copied the pattern blindly onto the metal, didn’t take any of the mana composition of the steel into account. If he’d just stretched this bit of the pattern here, and compressed it here…” Meridox continued on in this vein for some time, delving deep into minutia well beyond the ken of an untrained and unstudied fourteen-almost-fifteen year old boy. After a time he satisfied himself with his critique and prepared to begin enchanting.

  “Alright, stand over there and observe. Do not disturb me during the enchanting process. You can ask questions after I’ve finished.”

  Meridox took the green mana stone and placed it in the mortar, then, using the pestle, ground it into a fine green dust. Using one of the long thin implements, with a tiny little shallow scoop on the end, he spread the green dust into the grooves Jared had etched into the blade. Once the dust was evenly spread in the grooves and tamped down, he took a small brush with a long handle and dipped it into the bottle of aqua magia. He then applied the aqua magia in an even coat to one side of the sword. Then he repeated the process for the other side of the sword, spreading the mana stone dust into the etched grooves, then applying aqua magia. Finally, he held both hands over the sword and after a moment, all the aqua magia flashed with a bright light. When the light faded, the etching on the sword had changed into green glowing lines depicting the enchantment pattern, before slowly fading. Eventually, the pattern faded entirely, leaving the sword without any apparent etching at all. It just looked like a normal sword.

  James had to bite his tongue, hard, to keep from pestering the Enchanter with questions. What was that flash? Where had the etching pattern gone? What did the enchantment do?

  Meridox inspected the sword from every angle, then let out a heavy sigh. “Hahhh… ten percent, at best.” He then glanced over at James. “Oh, yeah, you’re here. Well, ask your questions.”