James awoke, full of vim and vigor. After a quick breakfast, he set up his enchanting tools and the two helmets.

He ground up one of the Water Magic Crystals, reducing it to fine dust, and carefully filled in the grooves of the first helmet with the stretched single pattern of the Basic Water Enchantment: Water Resistance template. Then, he produced some Aqua Magia, coated the entire surface of the helmet, including the visor, and began the enchantment itself.

He could tell the difference immediately, now that he was paying attention to how the magic flowed and the enchantment set.

The portion of the helmet with the enchantment pattern, filled with magic crystal dust, absorbed his magic first. Then, there was a conversion, a change in his magic becoming the magic affect tied to the item. Finally, the aqua magia allowed that effect to spread to the entire item, rather than just the portion where the etching and magic crystal dust was.

James could also tell that the enchantment template had not been optimized for the nearly spherical shape of a helmet.

When his magic flowed into the pattern and magic crystal dust, many parts of the pattern were stretched to accommodate the roundness of the helmet, and those parts around the edges felt weak and tenuous as James enchanted, requiring more and more magic to accomplish the change for less and less effect.

Eventually, the helmet flashed and the enchantment was complete. James eagerly [Appraised] the helmet.

[Appraisal]: Iron Visor Helmet, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 16/16, Enchantment: Water Resistance (3)]

James was disappointed by the low "score" his enchantment had received. Although he wasn't entirely sure, he had at this point a suspicion that the numerical value was the strength of the enchantment. But it made sense: the enchantment had felt weak as he was doing it.

The Enchanter had another suspicion as well.

He put on the helmet and attempted to pour magic into the helmet the same way he did with the [Reflect] enchantment on his shield. But the helmet did not accept his magic.

The Enchanter was right. He had suspected that the resistance enchantments were passive, rather than active like [Reflect] and, if he had to guess, the Basic Dark Enchantment: Shadow Concealment. So rather than being a magical effect powered by the user's mana, the resistance enchantments were more of an effect that the item now possessed.

For the final test, the Enchanter took some Pure Water and dripped it onto the helmet.

It splashed and wet the helmet entirely like normal.

James had thought that the water would bounce off vigorously and the helmet would remain dry, but simply noted that the helmet behaved like normal. He was still confident in the enchantment, since it had set properly, but was unsure if it was due to the weakness of the enchantment, for if there was some other arbitrary magical nonsense at play.

James paused now and checked his mana. He had used a significant portion, so he decided to take a break from enchanting until he was in top condition again for the second helmet. He busied himself baking bread, smoking monster meat, and even forged a woodaxe for chopping up the tree monster wood.

Several hours later, he was ready. He had used less than half the magic crystal dust on the first helmet. By the time he was done filling in all the etches on the second helmet, he had used that and another three Water Magic Crystals' worth of fine dust. And for this helmet, it had needed to be fine dust, because the grooves of the etches were that much smaller. Even with all his Class levels and increased Dexterity, it took complete focus for James to apply the dust to the pattern. And even then, on his final check, he found small grooves that he had missed applying the dust to.

Only after his third final check did James feel comfortable applying the Aqua Magia. By this point, he was wondering why he had taken a break at all. His mana would probably have recovered while he was applying the dust.

From the moment his Aqua Magia laden brush touched the helmet, he felt a difference. Normally Aqua Magia applied like viscous paint, and was easy to spread around the item evenly. Now, the Aqua Magia felt thicker, and he had to apply more and more to the helmet as the Aqua Magia left his brush and clung to the helmet, or rather, the enchantment patterns.

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James got his hopes up a little.

Eventually, after producing another batch of Aqua Magia, the helmet was ready. James held his hands out over the item as normal, and poured his mana in to set the enchantment.

But rather than a flash, the helmet glowed softly. Bit by bit, James' mana flowed into the enchantment, filling each magic crystal dust filled groove, flowing from one tiled pattern into the next. The drain on James' mana was growing heavy, but he dared not lower his hands as the enchantment wasn't finished, and he could feel that if he stopped the enchantment would unravel.

Longer and longer the enchantment continued, the glow growing brighter and brighter, until finally it reached a peak of brightness like his previous enchantments, and then instantly went dark.

The enchantment was complete.

It was a good thing James had been sitting, because if he had been standing, he would have collapsed entirely. The enchantment had taken nearly all of James' mana. Wearily, he [Appraised] his creation.

[Appraisal]: Iron Visor Helmet, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 16/16, Enchantment: Water Resistance (24)]

James goggled at the helmet. That was the highest enchantment score he'd seen yet. With a trembling hand, he poured some Pure Water on the helmet.

And like an utterly ordinary, unenchanted piece of metal, water splashed off and wet the helmet as normal.

"Yep," James said aloud, "more arbitrary magical nonsense."

Still, he had confirmed what he thought about the defensive enchantment templates. Using a single pattern would work, but tiling was the way to go for stronger effects.

Although at present he had no way to actually test the effects other than [Appraisal].

That done, James turned to the warding stakes.

What felt like a lifetime ago, James had touched one of the stakes at the slave camp, and his [Template Memorization] skill had activated. He recalled the intrusive thought.

Intermediate Light Enchantment: Ward? memorized.

There were three issues that the Enchanter noticed.

First, was that the enchantment was "intermediate."

Second, was that he was unsure if the enchantment was precisely a ward. Rather, there was more going on with the enchantment than just the ward, because he knew from experience that the enchantment had a function for recognizing slaves as they tried to escape and alerting the slavers.

Third, and the biggest concern, was that he hadn't actually seen the pattern on the stake. Rather, he had memorized the flow of magic inside the stake, and worse, the stake was part of a set that accomplished the overall effect of creating the ward and alert system.

Trying to recreate the warding stake from memory alone would have been like touching a carved pattern in stone once, weeks or months ago, and then trying to carve a perfect copy.

Thankfully, the Enchanter had several examples with him.

But the trial and error still took over a week. Or rather, James slept ten times while trying to get the pattern right.

In the end, it was James' forging skill that provided the breakthrough. At first, he had tried to copy the pattern onto raw ingots, but the enchantment failed over and over, consuming Light Magic Crystals. On the sixth "day," James had forged as perfect a replica of the stake as he could, using all the finesse he could muster, and it was on that copy of the stake that the enchantment pattern started to hold. Barely. Still not enough to actually set an enchantment, but enough to get a reaction out of his enchanting Skills.

On the end of the tenth day, the Enchanter completed his first Intermediate level enchantment.

First, he [Appraised] one of the original backup warding stakes that he had never used.

[Appraisal]: Forged Iron Stake, Quality: Low, Durability: 5/5, Enchantment: Ward? (10)]

Then, his copy.

[Appraisal]: Forged Iron Stake, Quality: Low, Durability: 5/5, Enchantment: Ward? (1)]

Though the score was his lowest yet, it was a huge breakthrough. Because as he had enchanted the stake, James had felt his mana flowing through the pattern, incomplete in some parts, disjointed in others.

With another three days of refining the pattern, James reached a point he decided was good enough.

[Appraisal]: Forged Iron Stake, Quality: Low, Durability: 5/5, Enchantment: Ward? (8)]

Like almost all humans, James a was a creature whose perception was dominated by his vision, not his sense of touch. Even less so his ability to sense magic. He was sure there were parts of the pattern that were wrong, but he lacked the resolution in his ability to sense the flow of magic in the original warding stake to determine where the pattern was wrong in the details.

James spent the next few days making a full four dozen copies of the warding stakes. This required a huge number of Light Magic Crystals, but the foul water passage was ever brimming with glowshrooms. He kept a hundred Crystals in reserve, just in case.

[Enchanter] Class Skill [Intermediate Elemental Enchanting] has been acquired.

[Enchanter] Skill [Enchantment Design] has reached level 3.

[Synergy] Skill [Efficient Crafting (Smithing and Enchanting)] has reached level 3.

At this point, James realized that even twenty Water Magic Crystals wouldn't be enough for a tiled enchantment of his entire Green Iron Armor set, and he did want to enchant the entire set. So after another day of arborcide, and with a stockpile of over seventy Water Magic Crystals and more tree monster wood than he felt he could ever need, he prepared himself to enchant his armor.

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