Alexander sits down and lays out the materials needed for what comes next.
The Telfa flowers are set out beside a mortar and pestle and the few oils to create the ink. He had acquired the oils a few months ago from an herbalist below the manor. They were commonly used to form simple concoctions. Perfect for the magical ink.
His research journal is put out besides him to make sure each rune is drawn to the exact specifications he had devised earlier. The copper plate from his experiment just an hour earlier sits neatly among the pages.
Alexander searches through his satchel until his fingers stumble on white chalk. The dust rubs off on his fingers painting his pale skin with the fine powder.
He starts with the center circle, it is three feet in diameter the exact size for him to sit within. From there he takes the chalk in a one foot radius. He starts with the cardinal runes. One to the north, south, west and east. They would be the grounding effects of the runes. Power, efficiency, expression, and control. Then each rune from there would determine deeper effects.
It takes him about an hour making sure every line was symetrical and exact. He uses strings like a stone mason would or a house builder laying foundations. It was intricate and necesitated precise geometries.
Next came the paint.
He places the dried telfa flowers into the stone mortar and pestle. The black and white petals express as the full spectrum of mana. From the center white bulb the color creates a gradient into the black tips of the five petals.
Although they were dried and the gradient was faint under the minimal light coming from the single window in front of him; they seemed to glow.
A faint energy hung on the edges of the flowers. A power that could not hide from the very fabric of the dried flower. Alexander wondered what these might look like in nature, outside of just a book and the energy they might give off.
Those thoughts vanish as he feels the coarse pestle in his grip mixing with the white chalk that still lingers on his fingertips. The dust eases the callous stone into the edges of his palm as he slowly begins grinding each flower into a fine powder.
He twists his hand over and over again, slowly and carefully, avoiding too much pressure otherwise losing potency to the holes within the mortar's stone surface.
Each dried flower breaks away easily until he is left with nothing but the fine grey powder left over. He reaches next for a circular brush about two inches in diameter and sets the pestle to the side.
He pours the two vials of oil into the mortar, one stark clear and the other a milky white. Then he carefully mixes the grey powder and oils with the brush. For certain moments he could be mistaken for a painter, an artist, so lost in his muse he does not see the passage of time.
Alexander only sees what is exactly in front of him.
The sun slowly loses it's edge from the window, it's sharp orange glow breaks in the trees edge and dulls. Each hour Alexander loses more light. It was close to noon.
Alexander doesn't worry about losing the light. The light would mean nothing when he starts.
He finishes the paint making sure the consistency is perfect. Each turn of the brush within the mortar thickens the ink until small peaks are formed within it.
'It's ready,' Alexander assures himself.
With the mortar in hand he starts from the center circle, painting away from himself. Then he paints the farthest two circles, the ones the runes will lay between. He starts with the cardinal runes, the same he chalked out, and follows the order percicely.
The order was important. The final step even more so.
He layed out four candles right at the edge of the circle. Each candle was unlit, but had their own importance.
An undying flame. Candles made by elves that had long left the empire but passed down in mage families. The highest alchemists knew the recipe of their creation. Alexander is not privy too, but Alexander also isn't afraid to take what he needs.
Such as taking the undying candles from his Father.
Alexander sighs knowing that after this he would fall into a trance, either everything he knows is right or he will die trying to prove it.
'It is a low chance,' He thinks to himself, 'Low enough..'
A tinge of fear hits his stomach but it is overshadowed by guilt. Not telling anyone and not seeking any help. He has been relegated to the shame of the kingdom for so long, he thought there was no point if he didn't do this himself.
Maybe in some ways he was still a boy. 'Unless i'm right.'
Alexander takes the blue potion from his bag. Mana concentration. It will allow him to feel his mana in a way he couldn't before and ease the chances of death. If he had support there would be none, but it is the choice he is making.
With one swift pop of the bottle and chug. He downs the vile liquid and holds back every instict to throw it up.
He doesn't have any time to spare.
He quickly grabs the brush and paints straight lines from each rune to the inner circle, following the same order he did earlier.
When the final line connects. The undying candles light one by one. Their purple glow flickers as the rings begin to pulsate one by one.
Alexander can feel a warm rushing wave flow through his body as the natural expression of mana flows from his breath and into the circle. If he allows this natural expression to continue, the circle will steal not just the mana on his breath but his very life force.
Alexander slows his breathing to a steady pace as the once grey ink begins to flow into a vibrant purple. The runes glow one by one as he focuses deeper into himself.
At first he just feels warmth fill him. Alexander feels like a piece of metal being placed in a furnance heating up from the inside until his edges begin to melt. He closes his eyes trying to focus deeper and deeper into himself.
The Mana concentration potion begins to digest and a rush of cool energy begins to cut inside his body. Pathways he has always known are there begin to become clearer. Step by step he follows that cool flow as the warmth pulsates through him. He can't see the vibrant display of purple light fill each shadow of the small shack he holes himself off in but he feels it.
His hairs stand up from his skin like an irradiated field of energy crashing into his body. The air hissing in a constant buzz around him only filling his ears and nothing more. His eyes are closed but he sees every inch of his body.
The trance state.
The pathways everyone follows instinctavely that run parrallel to the major blood vessles of the body light up within his mind and he begins channeling the raw energy flowing through him, the paint and the candles.
However quickly Alexander notices the pathways begin shifting. The cool energy that was easing the heat fades as the runes he created begins guiding a new path. Something he couldn't expect.
A rush of pain floods his body so much more than that trifling heat. However it is too late to stop as the mana is led to carve out his flesh to form the 'right' path.
Each moment he painfully circles the mana within himself carving more and more away. He feels as if his blood is boiling and his skin is melting off his flesh. The first circulation takes four hours.
He barely scratches the surface of his heart. The second circulation he begins to form the first rune, the expression of the mana itself, space.
He can't see the sun fade in the horizon but the pain dulling his senses tells him the passage of time. Each circulation becomes increasingly painful as he struggles between sitting up right and controling the flow of mana as he etches the runes around his heart and the new pathways begin to settle within his body.
He doesn't even feel the blood well from his mouth as the first rune forms.
The pain from the sheer heat was far greater than Drak's furnace. It felt more than that, like every cell of his being was being stripped and regrown and molded to fit the mana pouring from his soul. The runes he devised to help him now send him to the edge of death without any chance of forgiveness.
The four cardinal runes take two days to form. Hours begin to fade by then. Time just becomes pain and he marks the passage of it with the countless circulations he does to form the runes around his heart.
The mana begins to clump with every rune he succesfully makes within the circle.
The runes soon begin to aid the formation and by day six a circulation of mana takes only ten minutes. By day seven it takes one.
Then on the tenth day it takes thirty seconds. Alexander no longer feels the boiling hot pain caused by the unfamiliar flow of mana carving the pathways through his body led by the runes he created. However with the pain subsiding he begins to feel the dried blood on his lips and the stiffness of his muscles.
There is no stopping, not unless he craves death, and so he pushes passed every strange unfamiliar feeling with sheer will.
Soon his mind fills with not just the creation of the circle but everything he is fighting for.
For power.. For control.. For domination.. For respect.. For those he loves.. And to spite all those that look down on him. That said his intelligence would get him nowhere because he is just some fallen noble's heir.
The spite drives him. Molds his will and by the twelth morning.
The final rune is complete and he can see it.
He can feel it.
Alexander is now a mage.