Jacob expected to feel a sense of emptiness as he looked inward, as if his efforts would reveal only missing pieces.
Instead, he discovered a sense of weight at his center. It was not a tidy core or a glowing spark. It felt like a deep reservoir that held no light and remained perfectly still.
When he brushed against it with his attention, the mass did not recoil or shrink. It was simply heavy, providing more potential than he currently knew how to manage.
The lines connecting him to his enchantments were not draining that weight. They felt like thin threads tied around his wrist that someone had forgotten to cut.
Each tether led to a specific object he had worked on, and along every strand, he could feel a faint echo of his own power. It was a specific flavor that matched his state of mind during the carving process.
He let his awareness slide along the link leading to the coat. As he did, the pressure in the air shifted.
It gathered around that specific connection like dust settling toward a damp cloth. The coat drank from that thickening atmosphere rather than pulling from the well inside him.
He realized Gerald had not suggested meditation to prevent him from running dry. He wanted Jacob to learn about this connection to his own magic and how it interacted with the natural magic of the world.
Jacob tried to push his perception further. If the world was answering his magic, there had to be a way to meet it halfway.
He focused on the stillness outside of his skin and tried to reach toward it. Nothing happened.
His awareness slid over the external pressure like fingers moving across polished glass. There was no edge to grab and no knot to pull.
He tightened his focus until a dull ache began behind his eyes, but the world remained indifferent. It sat there like a massive, full barrel that refused to pour just because he asked.
He tried again with a smaller goal, picturing a single drop instead of a flood. He waited for a trickle of motion, any sign that the pressure was yielding.
He found only the reflection of the world's magic and the slow glow of his own core. Whatever Gerald expected him to find, this layer of the world was still beyond his reach.
His back began to ache, and pins and needles crept into his legs. The long day of walking and enchanting finally settled on his shoulders.
Jacob let the threads fade and opened his eyes. The room returned to its normal state. He saw the armor on his bed, the blades against the wall, the faint moonlight at the window, and the shadows in the corners.
He wanted to try to touch the world's magic in a different way. He channeled his magic into his hands as he did for the runes. Then, he tried to feel how that magic interacted with the world's magic.
He closed his eyes and tried to feel where the magic left and where it had gone.
Still, he couldn't figure it out. And any attempt to change the mana into anything else simply resulted in failure.
"Tomorrow, then," he muttered.
He shrugged out of his clothes and slid under the heavy blankets. The last thing he felt before sleep took him was that still, external pressure waiting at the edge of his mind.
Morning light pushed past the shutters when Jacob opened his eyes. He lay still for a moment, counting the quiet links in the back of his mind.
He could feel the coat, the greaves, the bracers, and the reinforced boots all sitting in a steady state. His stomach grumbled, but the blank sword leaning against the wall held his attention first.
He pulled on his shirt and sat on the floor with the steel resting across his knees. It was just a dull metal blade waiting for a purpose.
While the coat had been about taking hits, the sword needed to be about control. He wanted to dictate where it cut and how it left his body positioned afterward.
He ran a thumb along the flat of the blade and let his mind build the nonflat shape. He started with a guidance pattern. He pictured a groove in the air between himself and a target, like a shallow track a wheel could settle into.
The rune would not wrench his arm toward a throat, it would simply nudge his swing into the most efficient path once he chose a line.
Next, he wove a braking curve along the spine. This was meant to limit follow-through. If the blade met something solid, the pattern would shunt the force into a redirect, encouraging the edge to slide along armor rather than stopping dead and locking his wrist.
He then added a lightness sequence to adjust the balance. He wanted the blade to feel lighter in his grip while maintaining its momentum during a swing.
He also included a bit of self-mending to ensure the steel could pull itself back together after a clash.
The final piece was a link meant to connect to his armor. When he raised the sword in a guard position, the pattern would nudge him toward angles that lined up with his reinforced plates. If he had to take a blow, it would land where his runes were thickest.
Only when the five ideas sat together as a single, twisting three-dimensional rune did he touch the etching tool to the steel.
The first lines were familiar. He carved a compact core of strengthening and sharpness into the base. He kept it dense, respecting the metal rather than trying to bully it. From that core, he pulled the guidance track outward.
His magic flowed more smoothly than it had the night before. It was a steady, effortless pour.
He kept his hand still as he hooked the braking curve along the spine. The metal resisted at first, but he adjusted the pattern, ensuring the steel had the ability to cut while nudging it toward glancing routes.
The lines locked together with a quiet click that he could feel resonate with his own mana field.
He nudged a bit of the power from the core and ran it along the edge to help the blade remember its shape.
Finally, he pushed the lightness portion through the grip and added the linking strand for the armor.
He wrapped it close to the hilt, sending it spiraling outward in a thin ring. That ring tuned itself to the same hum as the coat and bracers, which also began to resonate with his own field.
When he lifted the tool, the pattern sank into the field of the steel. For a moment, the sword felt denser, then it settled.
It began to move with him rather than against him. Jacob stood and took a testing stance in the center of the room.
The first cut he threw was a slow diagonal. Halfway through, a subtle tug straightened his line and removed a slight wobble. The follow-through checked itself, with the blade dipping just enough to ensure it would slide down an opponent's guard.
He tried a quick series next from high guard to mid cut, then a low cut, and recovery. The sword did not drag him, but it felt as if an experienced hand was resting on his wrist to guide his motion.
When he shifted into a block, the hilt nudged his arms wider, lining his forearms up so an imagined hit would land squarely on his armor.
Satisfied, he laid the weapon on the bed. The links in his mind from the coat, to the greaves, and his sword all pulsed with a shared resonance.
From the kitchen, the clatter of dishes and the smell of frying fat reached his nose.
"Right," he muttered as his stomach growled. "Food."