Amelia Thornheart

Chapter Fifty-Two: Crystalcraft

Amelia walked as quickly as she could without embarrassing herself. She would only be a few minutes late. Her chat with Sarafina Nakajima had occupied too much time! Sarafina’s company was pleasant and Amelia made a mental note to acquire her own batch of firemint tea leaves. It would compliment her jimari coffee beans quite nicely.

Although now wasn’t the time to be thinking about tea. Amelia entered the magic tower and hurried up its spiralling staircase. About halfway up, she double-checked the brass plaque that indicated the floor and stepped off. The magic tower’s rooms were arranged in a circle on each floor, with their doors facing the center. A balcony ringed each floor and provided the only walking space. The academy had installed nets on each floor, stretching from the balcony edge to the stairway, saving any student unlucky enough to fall.

“Workshop D…” she muttered, circling the floor and quickly finding the target door. Taking a deep breath and mentally hoping that not everyone would stare at her, Amelia pushed open the door and stepped through.

Unfortunately, everyone stared at her.

Three dozen students and a handful of staff all stopped what they were doing and stared. Silence enveloped the room.. By now, she’d grown used to people staring at her. After all, who could blame them? She was radiant, cute, and mysterious! Resisting a giggle, she exclaimed, “Hello! I’m sorry I’m late! Lunaria, I mean, Head Instructor Inoue permitted me to sit in!” She punctuated her greeting with a polite smile and waved, adding, “Nice to meet you! I’m Assistant Instructor Thornheart!”

The unfamiliar instructor leading the class recovered first. Amelia put him down as a Southerner because of the man's marbled skin and ram-like horns. He coughed into his hand and said, “Ah, yes, Instructor Kawas, could you be so kind as to take Assistant Instructor Thornheart into your group?”

Amelia looked across the room to see a familiar face. Instructor Kawas panicked slightly before jumping into motion, pulling an empty desk into the group she seemed responsible for. With a nod towards the southern instructor, Amelia approached Instructor Kawas.

“Hello again,” she whispered.

“Assistant Instructor Thornheart, welcome,” Kawas replied as she placed an array of tools on Amelia’s desk. “Ignore the rest of the class; Instructor Abbas is teaching advanced theory. This group is focusing on introductory theory and practical applications, led by myself.”

“Right,” Amelia nodded, settling into a chair. She introduced herself to the students around her but received polite but short responses. It was one thing to stand before the mage class in the role of an Assistant Instructor, but to sit down with students as a fellow student? They didn’t seem to know how to act. She was, after all, a Speaker, an Assistant Instructor, and a human.

And devilishly cute.

 “What are we doing?” she asked Kawas as the class’ background noise resumed, and Instructor Abbas continued his workshop. Amelia couldn’t help but notice she was the subject of almost all whispered gossip. It turned out her performance earlier defeating every mage in Senior Group B had gotten around, and some nicknames were already being formed.

The Golden Terror had a nice ring to it.

“The simplest of all crystalcraft,” Kawas explained, pulling Amelia out of her eavesdropping. “Aetherlights.” The demon gestured towards the tools she’d placed in front of Amelia. “This is your callipers, chisel, eyeglass, and scoring tool. Oh, and sandpaper to grind away surface debris. Right, follow me…”

Instructor Kawas began explaining the fundamentals of crystalcraft to Amelia. All a moon crystal needed to act as a light source was to be cut into a specific configuration. This configuration was called the Tilburg-Cut, named after the Centralis city whose crystalers’ discovered it centuries ago. It required positioning, scoring, and then cutting the crystal into a long obelisk shape, with the ends then cut into a flat-topped pyramid. This was all that was needed to make the moon crystal glow.

And through Amelia’s exceptional perception, constantly enhanced by her wards, she saw why. When Amelia was transformed, she began to understand that the reason moon crystals glowed wasn’t that they generated light themselves; instead, the crystal sucked in the surrounding aether by bending the aetherfield towards itself, much like a planet bent spacetime to create the phenomenon of gravity.

Building on that observation, she now learned that by cutting faces into the crystal, the shape and nature of that aether flow could be manipulated. The geometry of the crystal changed how the aether was channelled through it, and by cutting a specific configuration, the crystal could be made to generate light.

The complications arose, however, because crystals weren’t perfect. Each and every sample carried imperfections. Trace amounts of material that weakened and disrupted how effectively the crystal could manipulate the aetherfield. The result was that while the Tilburg-Cut was ‘good enough’ for the majority of crystals, many of them needed custom adjustments to shine enough to be of practical use.

Most crystalers relied on their experience to produce a better aetherlight. Whether the angle between two faces needed adjusting or an entirely new face needed to be added, whatever it was, they relied on their intuition to make the change. However, Amelia wasn’t like most crystalers. When she focused, she could see the aetherfield bending to the crystal's geometry, and before she’d gone through a dozen samples, she quickly got the hang of what area of the crystal needed some adjustment to begin working.

Samples labelled as failed attempts from previous students breathed light anew. Not only that, but her extreme dexterity allowed her to quickly understand the ins and outs of using the tools before her. Amelia became adept at knowing exactly how much force the chisel needed to be struck with. Once she understood how faces and angles changed the aetherflow, she needed little direction in positioning her chisel and making adjustments.

“Why did you do that?” a student asked after Amelia chipped a large section of crystal from the center of the sample she was working on. It would have looked like the work of a maniac to anyone else, but Amelia knew what she was doing.

“The imperfection here,” Amelia explained, pointing to the upper half of her crystal. “Is blocking the aetherflow to the end. If we curve the flow around it, which we can do by cutting out what I just did, and then…” Amelia positioned her chisel, and with a quick tap, the crystal began spewing out brilliant white light. “We can save this from becoming a reject! Look at that!” Amelia held up the crystal, feeling proud of herself for saving it from failure. It would need refinement from more practised hands, but Amelia’s rough cuts had created another working aetherlight.

“You can see the aetherfield so clearly?” Instructor Kawas asked, only to shake her head when Amelia responded in the affirmative. “How lucky you are. Speakers have an advantage, don’t they? Ah…” the demon suddenly looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, Assistant Instructor Thornheart.”

“It’s fine,” Amelia answered, waving her hand. “It makes me wonder, though; if cutting crystals make them naturally form a light-generating formation inside themselves, then surely, in theory, every spell could be activated from a crystal cut precisely enough?”

Instructor Kawas shook her head again. “In theory, yes. But the difficulty of cutting a crystal to form even a simple spell formation is beyond our abilities. As a mage, you should recognise the difference between your spellwork and the simple light-generating formation in these crystals.” Seeing Amelia nod, Instructor Kawas continued, “Only this, along with a few others, such as the heat-generating or heat-absorbing cuts, are capable of mass production.”

“Are crystals used in cameras?” Amelia asked, remembering the flash photography she was subjected to when she arrived in Asamaywa. “When I was being photographed, the cameras gave off a hiss of steam. Was that the result of a heat-generating crystal?”

“Not quite. The Tilburg-Cut can be adjusted to provide a light surge when activated. The problem is this also produces a lot of heat, enough that the camera is at risk. So, inside the camera, the crystal is kept in a container of water that evaporates when it takes a picture. That’s why you hear a hiss of steam.”

“Oh…” A piece of the puzzle fell into place! “Can you show me examples of the heat-generating and heat-absorption crystals?” Amelia waited for Instructor Kawas to dig around for some samples. Unsurprisingly, the heat-generating crystal was cut from red moon crystal and the heat absorption one was cut from purple. Different moons were better or worse at producing different phenomena.

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“This one is called the Yiannis-Cut. You can see custom adjustments here and here,” Instructor Kawas explained, pointing to different parts of the crystal. “Heat-generating formations are much more complex, and therefore, even small imperfections lead to a large loss in efficiency. Even with these adjustments, this crystal cannot generate steam. It does have some usages, such as preventing a tank of water from freezing in the winter.”

Amelia took the sample from Kawas and examined it, noticing that the crystal was in two pieces. Instructor Kawas explained that, like aetherlights, the final production stage was cutting the crystal in half. By doing this, you would lose some efficiency but gain the ability to activate and deactivate the effects by simply pulling apart or rotating one section of the crystal. It was a principle that would allow lights to be dimmed or allow bathwater to be kept at the right temperature.

Amelia rotated the crystal, sensing the aetherflow forming as it began to warm her hands. “Can they break from the heat?” she asked.

“Eventually, the faces of heat-generating and heat-absorption crystals develop micro-fractures and need to be recut. If you’re lucky enough to have thousands of denarii to afford a perfect, pristine crystal, then you might be at risk of it melting. Red melts at around sixteen hundred thols,” the demon explained. “Purple melts the easiest at around nine hundred. Once a crystal melts, it loses all ability to affect aether.”

“How many thols to boil water?” Amelia asked, seeking a reference against the temperature scales she was familiar with from her world. If Instructor Kawas thought it strange that Amelia didn’t know she didn’t show it. She informed Amelia that it was a hundred thols to boil water at the continent level.

Amelia continued studying the crystals. Before she knew it, the class had ended. That didn’t mean everyone left. Her prodigious talent for seeing the aetherflow meant Instructor Abbas and more than a dozen students remained to watch her work. After a while, Instructor Abbas had an idea and brought out a few boxes of heat-generating and heat-absorbing crystals deemed only worthwhile as practice items. With Amelia doing her best to explain how the aether was flowing, the remaining students could, under Abbas's instruction, put many of the crystals in working order.

Interestingly, Amelia noticed that the closer she was to a crystal, the greater its effect was. This made sense, as the crystal only nudged the surrounding aether, and the atmosphere near Amelia was dense with aether due to the many layers of wards she was running. Furthermore, the aether that she was constantly pouring out to run Serena’s wards created an invisible flow that would brighten any aetherlight that happened to cross its path. It wasn’t as noticeable as it could have been; after Chesterfield’s complaints Amelia had spent some effort trying to cloak the aether in transit to Serena. She’d found some success, although it was something that she’d achieved through her intuition rather than any definitive spellwork.

Still, Amelia vowed to continue to work at it. She wanted to protect Serena worldwide, and it would be ideal if she could achieve that without disrupting the migratory patterns of aether-sensitive animals like arcwhales.

“You have a natural talent,” Instructor Abbas intoned, rubbing his chin as he looked over the now large pile of shining, warming, and cooling crystals. “I’ll have to ask Head Instructor Inoue whether we can borrow you in the future. If you want to know more about becoming a crystaler, stop by my office. As for now…” the demon turned to look outside the windows at the darkness beyond. “We seem to have lost track of time. Assistant Instructor Thornheart. It’s been a pleasure to have you in my class. I hope you’ll continue attending if it doesn’t conflict with your other obligations.”

“Mmm! Sure!” Amelia nodded happily. Her magical talents, along with her cuteness, had gained her another friendly contact! Even the students who were apprehensive at the start of the lecture had now become comfortable enough to chat with her as they worked. They fielded several questions to her, trying to figure out her backstory while complimenting her flawless Imperial speech. Besides vaguely mentioning that she’d spent time in Centralis after travelling from Karligard, Amelia avoided saying too much lest she accidentally commit to something contradicting the pre-agreed backstory.

Saying her goodbyes, Amelia exited the workshop. Checking the direction her aether was flowing, she could see Serena was somewhere in the main building. As much as Amelia wanted to hunt down her girlfriend and see what she was up to, she had something she wanted to do first.

Continuing up the spiral staircase, Amelia came to her lodgings. What she was after wasn’t in her room but next to it. Moving to a nearby door, Amelia knocked politely and was soon greeted by the face of her assistant, Mel.

“Hello!” Amelia chirped the moment it was open.

“Assistant Instructor, how-”

“Please,” Amelia raised a hand, interrupting the woman. “Call me Amelia.”

“Amelia, I see. Thank you, Assistant In-” Mel coughed lightly into her hand. “I mean, Amelia. How can I help you?”

“Can you show me where the library is?”

“Of course. It’s in the main building. Do you want to leave now?”

Amelia nodded, and soon the two of them were on their way. As they walked, neither of them talked, and an awkward tension formed.

“So…” Amelia began. “I understand the uses of having you as my assistant, but what am I meant to do in return? You’re not being paid for it, are you?” Amelia knew she would feel bad if she kept making demands of Mel without giving anything in return.

“Normally, if my assistance was acceptable, you might provide a letter of reference after I graduate. A Speaker’s reference would be an excellent start to my military career and might even give me a commission as a squad commander.”

“Right, but is there anything I can do for this semester?” Amelia asked, prompting Mel to hesitate momentarily.

“There is…” The woman audibly swallowed. “Do you remember our last, uh, duel?”

Amelia did, and the mention of the event caused a twinge of guilt to form in her stomach. She’d felt terrible breaking Mel’s arm. Of course, many would say Mel deserved the consequence of picking a fight with a much more powerful person, but those people weren’t the ones who had to deal with the sickening sensation of feeling their opponent's arms break under a strike that was unintentionally too strong!

“Sure do! I’m really sorry about that. How’s the arm?” Amelia asked, relying on her friendliness to hide any awkwardness she might otherwise give off.

“It’s… fine. What I wanted to say was after those events, I promised myself I would become the best swordswoman in the East, better than my brother, better than Lord-Prospect Halen, better than Katalin of Driss!” As she spoke, her voice rose with more and more determination.

“Lord Halen,” Amelia corrected. “She was promoted recently, didn’t you hear?”

“Ah! Yes, old habits…” Mel shook her head. “What I’m trying to say is I decided I didn’t want to settle as an average swordswoman! For that purpose, I was hoping you’d agree to duel with me perhaps… once a week? Ah…” Mel brought her thumb and forefinger close together, throwing Amelia a small smile. “But keeping the force down. Even though your healing was exceptional, it wasn’t an experience I want to repeat.”

Amelia giggled before accepting Mel’s request. They made a promise to duel every weekend. Their discussion erased most of the awkwardness between them, and they were able to chat amicably as they made their way through the main building and towards the library. Amelia found out that Mel was being bombarded with questions about her. Most people were too hesitant to approach Amelia directly, but they would hassle her new assistant for information. Amelia made Mel promise to tell her if anyone got too pushy.

“Here we are,” Mel said as they rounded a large doorway into the academy's library.

Amelia was stunned at what she saw. It took a moment for her to realise why; Amelia had never set foot in an actual library before. Living in a city of steel and glass, with most of her time bed-bound, she’d never had the opportunity to visit one. It didn’t help very few remained in her world. Why would they? Even the old-fashioned silicon devices from centuries past could store millions of books, let alone the more modern photoelectric devices that dominated her modern world.

She’d only ever seen a traditional library through the game. Still, it was enough to ignite a fascination with the ancient world. The idea of a library was romantic: rich rugs upon creaky wooden floorboards; long hardwood bookshelves filled with dusty tomes; warm light from chandeliers coupled with a quiet atmosphere of hushed discussion between students frantically studying for the next exam.

The Asamaywa Academy’s library didn’t disappoint. Sure, it wasn’t quite as grand as the libraries from the game world, and instead of chandeliers giving a warm light, there were aetherlights, but it was a library! An actual, authentic library! Look, there was even an old librarian shushing some students!

“Wow,” Amelia muttered.

Mel pointed out the rules regarding borrowing and returning books, as well as the associated privileges and fines she would face as a staff member. Amelia asked Mel to bring her to the mathematical section, and she was led through the rows of bookshelves. There was a method of organisation, a mixture of colours and numbers determined precisely where a book could be found - another thing she’d have to learn.

Amelia perused the books. The offerings seemed slim at first glance, with perhaps a few dozen books covering mathematics. However, on one of the mornings in Kenhoro, when Tomes dropped off some mathematical workbooks, he mentioned that all the knowledge of mathematics in the Known World could be contained within a hundred volumes. That was a drop in the ocean compared to Amelia’s native world. It meant there were likely many opportunities where she could contribute. Theorems that were brushed over in a few minutes in a lecture in the online courses she’d attended would be ground-breaking revelations here.

Amelia picked a few books covering subjects she felt most at home with. With only a few suspicious glances from the stuffy-looking librarian, who looked like she’d rather anyone other than a human take out her precious books, Amelia checked out the books and left the library.

She planned to return to her room, drop off the books and then find Serena, but Mel said she’d take the books herself. Amelia obliged, handing off all but one. The thin book’s title had caught her eye: The Mathematics of War. It would be her reading material for the night.

Waving Mel off and with the book in hand, Amelia tracked down Serena. It was an easy task; all she had to do was follow the aether leaving her body. Before long, she found herself outside Serena’s quarters.

“I thought it was you,” Serena said upon opening her door and seeing Amelia. “Can I help?”

“I, uh, was hoping for some advice regarding my swordsmanship.”

Serena stared at Amelia for a long moment before leaning out the doorway and looking down both ends of the corridor. “Come in, then,” she finally said.

Amelia stepped into Serena’s room. After the door was closed behind her, she followed her usual habit of casting a sound-blocking ward. “Wow,” Amelia said, looking around. “My place is much nicer. You should come visit, have some tea…”

“Swordsmanship training?” Serena intoned sarcastically, crossing her arms. “Couldn’t you have come up with a better excuse? You don’t even have a sword on you! How long are you planning to stay?”

“I wasn’t planning on leaving,” Amelia said with a grin. “Where’s your bedroom, through here?” Ignoring Serena’s sudden protest, Amelia opened a nearby door and saw a comfortable-looking bed with a suspicious arrangement of blankets and pillows.

“Oh my,” Amelia raised a hand to her mouth in mock surprise, unable to keep the smugness out of her voice. “Is that supposed to be a replacement for me?” She turned to find Serena thoroughly red-faced, looking to the side.

“I… I’ve become accustomed to your… warmth. Damn it!” Serena kicked the doorway. “This is your fault! If you weren’t so… so…”

“Devishly attractive and extremely cuddly?” Amelia asked, widening her eyes to form a look of innocence.

“Yes! Idiot!” Serena reached out, ruffling Amelia’s hair. “Because of you, I now have…” Her voice became quiet, the last bit barely audible even to Amelia’s senses. “...needs.” Serena groaned, grabbing her horns while looking upwards and muttering, “I was managing just fine, and then you appear for two minutes, and I become like this! Damn, damn, damn…”

Amelia giggled before skipping over and launching herself onto the bed. “Well, don’t mind me. I’m just here for some light reading. It’s lonely in my room.” Amelia waved the book at Serena. “What are you up to?”

“Ahem! I’m writing a lecture plan,” Serena explained, recovering slightly from her prior awkwardness. “I’ve been asked to explain the Port Highwind operation. How we approached it, why we chose to do what we did…” Serena shrugged. “What about you? Everyone’s talking about your duel with Instructor Inoue. I see you chose Taranis in the end. Are you planning on Speaking another?”

“Maybe,” Amelia replied, stretching like a cat on the bed. She quickly explained the events that transpired regarding Senior Group B, as well as the positive impression she made during Instructor Abbas’s Crystalcraft workshop. All in all, Serena responded positively to the idea of Amelia taking on a few disciples. She explained that learning to teach would be a great learning experience for Amelia.

“So what do you want to do now?” Amelia asked.

Serena’s blush returned and she took a half-step forward before stopping and shaking her head. “I need to finish this plan. Then we can… do other things.”

Again, Amelia couldn’t help but giggle. Serena was so easy to read. Amelia sat up on the bed and patted the mattress next to her. “Come work here. You can do your writing, and I can read, okay?”

“...Fine,” Serena muttered. She vanished and soon reappeared with paper and pen. The demon hesitated only a little before climbing onto the bed as if she was worried Amelia would do something the moment she got too close.

Amelia began reading. At least, she pretended to. While Serena scratched away at her work, Amelia spent her time focusing on her girlfriend's movements. It didn’t escape her senses that Serena kept pausing to glance at her legs, and when she rotated to the side, her back facing Serena, she could feel her girlfriend’s gaze on her arse.

So predictable.

Amelia yawned, complaining that the room was too hot. She removed her outer layer of clothing and positioned herself on her belly, pretending to read while lightly moving her feet in the air. After a minute of being a distraction, she muttered that it was still too hot and removed her trousers, leaving her only in her undershirt and pants.

“I know what you’re doing,” Serena said flatly.

“What?”

“Nothing. Stop talking.”

“You’re the one who said something!”

“...Shut up.”

Half naked, Amelia hummed while flicking through the pages of her book. Serena had long stopped writing, and Amelia knew if she looked up from her book, her girlfriend would either be glaring daggers at her or rolling her eyes. Whichever it was, it would be accompanied by flushed cheeks.

“Still so bloody hot!” Amelia exclaimed, doing her best to act frustrated. Reaching back, she pulled her undershirt off and, acting as nonchalantly as possible, unhooked her bra. “Aren’t you hot?” She asked Serena as she rotated her body so her bare back touched her girlfriend’s arm.

This was too much for the demon, who yelled, “Seven hells! You’re incorrigible!” Pen and paper were thrown aside, and Amelia felt herself forcefully adjusted so she was lying on her back. Serena clambered on top of her, her face bright as a tomato, but the brashness of the situation didn’t stop her girlfriend from leering at Amelia’s topless body.

“What’s gotten into you so suddenly?” Amelia asked, unable to keep herself from smiling.

“You!” Serena exclaimed in frustration. One of Serena’s hands pinned down Amelia’s wrist above her head while the other was brazenly groping one of her breasts. “Making me so… so…”

“Horny?” Amelia asked.

“Stop saying weird things!”

“It’s not my fault you demons reference your horns in every idiom ever made, yet you’ve never come up with the expression horny. That’s weird!”

“No, it’s weird that humans reference horns to communicate their… their…” Serena tutted. “Just say aroused like a normal person!”

“Well then!” Amelia chirped. “Are you?”

“Am I what!?”

“Aroused?”

“Of course I am, you fool!” Serena leaned forward, aggressively stealing a long and passionate kiss. Amelia fumbled awkwardly, eventually managing to undress Serena. It wasn’t until they were both entirely naked that Serena’s hand left Amelia’s breasts and went below to a far more pleasurable area.

I’m the luckiest human alive, Amelia thought as she moved closer and closer to the inevitable satisfying explosion.

Whatever the future may bring, these moments made it all worth it.