Soul stones, when used to create an ensouled item, use the affinities and skills of the creator, and the intent of the object they are crafted in to create an ensouled artifact with a purpose. The less focused purpose an object has, the more nebulous and tailored towards the makers need the artifact becomes. This also has the effect of making the artifact pickier about who they bond.

  -Bladed Knights by Kysin, the 195th High Librarian

  ---

  Kole, Zale, Rakin all went home after breakfast and returned to their own rooms to rest. Kole attempted to study a little bit before bed but passed out with his face in his spellbook. When he awoke a little while later, he rolled into bed without checking the time.

  No one woke him, and he slept through the whole day, and into the next morning. His body was exhausted from a week living in a ditch under constant threat of death. Tired as he was, there were limits to how much he could sleep in, and once he had crossed the sixteen-hour threshold, he woke.

  “Ouch,” He groaned. His body ached both from the week he’d just had and lying in bed for so long.

  He checked the time, and saw it was early in the morning. The campus would be deserted this time on a Sunday, and even Zale and Rakin would still be asleep.

  A smile grew on his face at the revelation he had the whole day to himself. He probably had homework, but he’d missed a whole week of class, so no one would expect him to turn it in tomorrow. The professors would still be busy dealing with the rift.

  Kole quickly changed and ran to go to the library, stopping just as he realized that it was so early the cafeteria would be closed. He stopped to pour a bowl of oatmeal from the magic jug and then took off to bury himself in spell work.

  With everything that had happened in the week prior, Kole had a lot of things he wanted to accomplish. His spellbook could help him in so many ways, but he needed to decide what to work on and in what order lest he bounce around from project to project, doing a lot of work but getting nothing done.

  He reviewed the developments.

  His spellbook could help create new spells in several ways. It let him rapidly convert traditional spells to spell forms via a combination of enhancing memory and copying instantly the shape of any spell component already in the book.

  Once those spell forms were created and he’d stored them in his mental vault, the memory enhancement let him complete the spell in record time using minimal amounts of Will and making the final spell incredibly Will efficient. The ability to relive the failure of each spell in perfect detail, allowed him to alter the path just enough to make it work without over correcting. Lastly, the enhanced memory helped sort through the massive mental library of spellform components he’d learned over the years to find an existing component that did what he needed.

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  And on top of all that, he’d recently learned how he could apply his primal abilities to his sorcery, and he was eager to see what else he could do with it. He knew sorcery and wizardry could be combined, though he’d never investigated that in much detail once he’d learned it wouldn’t help him. If primal magic and sorcery could be combined, and sorcery and wizardry could as well, it stood to reason that primal magic and wizardry could too.

  But that was a research task for later. He would first capitalize on his spellbook’s proven ability aid before going out into uncharted territory.

  First, he made a list of spells he could learn by tier.

  Cantrips:

  ● Conjure, Font of Space

  Well, he began to. After writing out the singular cantrip he wanted to learn so he could summon his spellbook to him should he lose it he realized something.

  I have never tested the Font of the Mind cantrip.

  He pulled a spell primer out and looked up the ability. The cantrip was called Emote and allowed him to project an emotion at the people around him.

  “That could be useful,” he said as he read, thinking of the conversation with Corbyn. “Could I project a sense of utter disinterest?”

  That matter settled; he went back to his list.

  After writing the start of the list, he thought back to his emergency casting of Shield which had unlocked his spellbook's new ability. He added it and Magic Missile to the list as well, deciding to see if he could improve them any further with his new skills.

  For good measure, he added Mage Armor to the list as well. If he could get those spells down to reasonable levels, he could probably get a working version of Mage Armor to resolve one of his larger weaknesses.

  1st Tier

  ● Mind Spike, Font of Mind

  ● Hideous Laughter, Font of Mind

  ● Sleep, Font of Mind

  ● Alarm, Font of Sound

  ● Shield, Font of Barrier

  ● Magic Missile, Font of Force

  ● Mage Armor, Font of Barrier

  He moved onto second tier spells, listing everything he’d considered of the past month.

  2nd Tier

  ● Shatter, Font of Sound

  ● Darkness, Font of Light

  ● Darkvision, Font of Light

  ● Mental Phantom, Font of Mind

  ● Mind Lash, Font of Mind

  ● Burning Rays, Font of Light

  ● Blink, Font of Space

  Blink he added in along the same vein he added Mage Armor. If he could cast it for a reasonable price, being able to teleport would save his life.

  Darkvision was at the top of his list, however. Being the sole person in the group unable to see in the dark grew tiresome, and if he could make do in the darkness, their group would become even stealthier.

  He expected the following week to be a busy one, and he wanted to have a tangible result for today's work. Instead of pursuing Darkvision, he began work on Mind Spike.

  Late on Sunday night—or possibly early Monday morning—Kole walked across a deserted campus back to his bed.

  “I missed when my room was in the library,” he muttered as he rubbed his aching head.

  He’d completed the spell and was fairly certain he’d gotten it right. Only he’d not been able to test it. Mind magic altered the mind, so without one to practice on he’d have to wait until he found a willing subject before he could confirm his results.

  Back in the common area of the house, Kole found a paper wrapped bundle with a note.

  Kole,

  I hope you aren’t reading this too late, but I’m sure you are. I figured you wouldn’t eat today without anyone to stop you, so I brought you this from the cafeteria.

  -Z

  Kole unwrapped the bundle to find a sandwich, which he devoured on the way to his room where he laid down.

  “It’s good to be home,” he said.

  He realized something that had been true for a while, but he had never internalized until that moment.

  This is my home.

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