Stellar Echo: Heart of the Myst-Chapter 164: VOL 3 - 2: Manafexio project.

With a calm step, Erik approached the circle and made a few modifications to it with the special chalk—changes necessary to convert his "neutral" mana into elemental light mana. At that point, he placed his hand on the ground and began sending his mana into the magical circle, which quickly started to illuminate. But unlike when Liliana had done it, this time the magical circle barely began forming the mana construction before it went out completely without emitting any colored light.

"Well, that's another failure, and this time there wasn't even any progress..."

Erik commented with an ironic smile on his face; after all, that was precisely the reason he had become stalled. Although Erik could create a mana construction of any element if he was willing to spend a good amount of mana on it and had the necessary spell, the same did not apply to his "Manafexio" project—the name he had given his project to create magical artifacts through mana constructions.

The inspiration to start the Manafexio project was actually something very simple. The artifacts had millions of years of tireless development by Artificers throughout the galaxy, which had made them very efficient and reliable for creating elemental mana from mana crystals or the user's mana. And although this had a limit, they were more efficient than any spell, so they were still very useful and widely used in the galaxy, especially when it came to light constructions.

The problem was that the rune arrangements of the artifacts work in tandem with the intrinsic properties of the materials on which they were carved to produce their effects. So, they did not work well with spells cast using the technique of mana formation. For that reason, over time, they had diverged into two almost completely different branches within the Aegis system.

But due to his extensive research on mana constructions—something necessary to improve his Myst constructions, his only efficient means of ranged combat—Erik discovered that the potential of these was infinite, since, in theory, mana constructions could come to imitate any physical property with a relatively low-energy expenditure.

From that point on, Erik only had to add two plus two to arrive at a rather strange idea, born mainly out of his particular need: Would it be possible to use mana constructions to imitate specific materials and make them work with the rune arrangements of magical artifacts? And if it were possible, would this be more efficient than the traditional method or runic-geometric refinement?

With that idea in mind, Erik began his Manafexio project. Standing on the shoulders of giants—the mountains of literature that both the development of magical artifacts and the exploration of the possibilities of mana constructions represented—after many failed prototypes, he succeeded in creating a Myst construction capable of imitating the physical properties necessary to activate the fire conversion runes.

The success of the prototype filled Erik with great excitement, not only because his idea was feasible, but because the prototype allowed him to break through the 45% improved efficiency barrier offered by runic-geometric refinement alone, reaching an efficiency close to 55%—a significant breakthrough. But his joy did not last long, and he soon discovered a problem.

Due to his previous experience with the rune circle—his project to unify the three magical systems of humanity, which had remained completely stalled—Erik decided not to develop further on his own. He first focused on making it useful and accessible to the public in an attempt to get "free" researchers to "help" him improve his project. Their research to apply the Manafexio project to their needs would create a solid mountain of literature on which he could later work.

But that's where his problems began. After all, the functional prototype depended entirely on Erik's solidified Myst constructions, and as far as anyone knew, no one but him could control solidified Myst at will. So the real problem was that when Erik tried to adapt his spell to work based on light mana constructions—which were the closest to his Myst constructions—the spell didn't even activate.

Although Erik tried many ideas and different perspectives—different mana conversion methods, structures, traditional magical systems instead of runic-geometric refinement, and so on—it didn't matter what he did; he couldn't even activate the spells he developed, and since mana-neutral constructs couldn't be created, the entire project inevitably reached a dead end.

After that, Erik put his project on hold and only worked on it occasionally, applying ideas as they came to him, but nothing worked. He even tried to create neutral mana constructions, something that made no sense because no matter how much he tried or how much literature he read, the conclusion was the same.

The only way to solidify neutral mana was by creating something akin to a magical core—something that was not only difficult and expensive, but also, creating a second magical core for a mage was foolish, since these interfere with each other due to their special properties.

But everything changed when Liliana joined the project because the first test Erik conducted to confirm his theory—that natural affinities affect the result—turned out to be true. The moment Liliana put her mana into the magical circle that Erik had failed to activate, the basic structure of the mana construction was formed before the spell failed. This practically injected steroids into Erik, who then began working like crazy to improve the spell.

After working non-stop like mad, Erik and Liliana had reached the point where they had hit a new wall—and that was that the runes which changed the nature of the mana to a different affinity interfered with the very structure of the mana construction, which affected its imitation of the necessary physical properties and ended up entering a self-destructive spiral that collapsed the spell.

...

While Erik was deep in thought with his hand on his chin, Liliana took a couple of notes on her crystal tablet, then snapped some photos with a small crystal orb. At that moment, she turned to look at the star-haired boy and commented in a calm tone.

"Well, it's what we expected. Don't waste your time lamenting and move on to the next test."

"You're right—step aside a bit." Upon hearing Liliana's voice, Erik snapped back to reality and responded in a calm tone while picking up the special chalk once again.

After Liliana stepped aside and activated a barrier of light around herself, Erik erased the changes he had previously made to the spell, returning it to its original state. At that moment, he conjured various runes around his right wrist, which began to slowly rotate around it as if they were some sort of magical bracelet.

With the runes ready, Erik injected mana into the magical circle on the ground once again, and this time, the spell began to work similarly to how it did when Liliana had tried it—illuminating softly and forming the mana construction. But quickly, the magical circle and the runes on Erik's wrist spiraled out of control and lit up erratically.

At the obvious warning signs, Erik remained completely calm and forced them to keep functioning, but after a few seconds, they started trembling violently, only to soon produce a strong explosion right in Erik's face.

After the smoke from the explosion cleared a bit, Erik could be seen in perfect condition behind a shield of solidified Myst composed of small hexagons that were slowly disappearing. Ebonique and Ignis, who were levitating around him, scolded and complained in annoyed and worried tones.

"Why do you have to keep trying such dangerous things all the time?" Ignis complained while using one of his wings to fix Erik's hair, which hadn't even moved from its place.

"Dangerous? I didn't even mess up my hair."

Seeing the pair of pampered spirits wanting to make a big drama out of nothing again, Erik replied while rolling his eyes. At which point, Ebonique quickly "reprimanded" him while using her claws to adjust the collar of Erik's shirt, even though it was perfectly in place.

"You're not allowed any smart remarks, young man—constantly making us worry with your reckless acts."

"Worry? Reckless acts? But it was just a minor mishap—a single Myst barrier was enough to neutralize it." Erik commented between laughter and disbelief, completely unable to understand why those two spirits loved to make such a fuss.

"Hmph, you have no idea how worried we were about your recklessness." Ignis completely ignored Erik's words as he inspected him from head to toe, flying around him.

"Is it just my impression, or have you two been exaggerating a bit lately with your 'worry'?" Erik asked with eyes full of suspicion as he looked at Ignis and Ebonique, who elegantly replied as they perched once again on his shoulders.

"It's just your impression." Ignis replied in a calm tone as he landed softly on Erik's right shoulder, to which Ebonique added in a similarly refined tone, befitting high-born ladies.

"Ignis is right; it's just your imagination."

"Yeah, sure..." Erik just sighed in defeat, deciding to ignore the pair of dramatic spirits on his shoulders, so he quickly turned to look at Liliana before continuing.

"And it seems that this time we made a good breakthrough, even though it ended up exploding in the end."

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"Yeah, although it was to be expected—you always push it to the limit while maintaining firm control over the mana, leaving it no other option but to burst out violently."

"Yeah, but that's a minor problem; I'll think of a way to solve it. The good news is that now I have a way to activate the circle." As Erik spoke, a genuine smile spread across his face while he retrieved from his storage ring a plate with super special cookies.

"Thanks; without you, I'd still be stuck, unable to activate my own spell."

Erik thanked her sincerely as he offered Liliana the plate full of cookies, which surprised her to the point that her eyes widened in disbelief. After all, although offering a plate of cookies might seem like something a child would do, in her short time interacting with her foolish little brother, Liliana was fully aware of how special those cookies were to him. This led her to ask in a voice full of surprise.

"Are you serious?"

"Very serious." Erik replied in a calm tone, while subtly nodding his head, which led Liliana to comment in an insecure voice.

"But I only helped you test the spells and gave you my impressions and ideas—I didn't do anything extraordinary; you practically did all the important work..."

"And that was exactly what I needed. Look, it's already starting to show results." With a smile, Erik placed the plate of cookies into Liliana's hands, who still looked confused and uncertain, at which moment the beautiful girl whispered in a complicated tone,

"I don't know what to say..."

"Hahaha, you don't have to say anything—just eat some cookies; they're pretty good."

Erik commented with a pleasant laugh as he headed toward the site of the explosion to clean everything up and redraw the magical circle, leaving Liliana speechless with a plate of cookies in her hands. After a while, Liliana took one of the cookies and ate it slowly while watching Erik work, and for some reason, that cookie tasted especially sweet at that moment.

"Really, it's not so bad working with you..."

***

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