It did not take long to finish the draft.

  Myrda was a practiced hand at circuit drafting. Her familiarity with the fundamentals showed in the confidence of her lines and the steady pace of her work. She placed each component cleanly, with consistent spacing and clear intent, without pausing to second-guess proportions. Earlier, she had shown me the book she learned from, and I recognized the name on the cover immediately. It was written by the same person who authored my own manual.

  That realization stayed with me. I wanted to find that author someday to offer my sincerest thanks for all that they had done for the sapient races. Every diagram, every annotation, and every revision in that ongoing work, which continued to update even now, formed one of the most useful bodies of enchantment knowledge I had ever encountered. I believed deeply in the importance of that work, not as theory alone, but as something that actively improved the lives of others.

  The next stage was the enchantment itself.

  My hands still ached with a steady, lingering sensation. I had also chosen to leave my eyes untested for the moment. They were no longer merchant’s eyes, but altered versions shaped by my failed work, and I intended to understand their behavior carefully rather than all at once.

  I did not possess an internal source of mana.

  That single fact defined the entire process. Any mana I used had to come from outside my body, gathered and directed through method rather than instinct.

  I asked Myrda to take one of the vials and pour the catalyst directly onto my hands.

  She paused briefly, then followed my instruction.

  The sensation arrived immediately. For the first time in this life, I felt mana directly.

  Its texture differed from what I remembered. In my previous life, mana flowed with responsiveness and weight, adjusting itself as intent shifted. This form behaved differently. It clung and resisted, holding its shape as it gathered, more cohesive than fluid.

  It collected at my fingertips and held onto the runic tattoos etched across my hands. I perceived its movement without physical pressure, guided entirely by the grip the markings provided.

  I picked up my carving knife.

  Pain surfaced at once, present but contained. When my fingers closed around the handle, the transfer began. Mana drew out of my hands and into the reservoir within the Reverend iron blade. Cold traveled up my hand as the exchange completed.

  The knife heated rapidly.

  The metal brightened to white, reaching a functional glow that fell short of the purity Myrda achieved with her own blade. She observed the change closely before meeting my eyes.

  “Are you sure you want to use that knife?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I want to start my enchanting career with the one that belongs to me.”

  She accepted the answer and stepped back.

  I lowered the blade onto the dirt markings she had traced over the draft. The reverend iron absorbed the pattern immediately, the circuit igniting in a measured sequence as the design was memorized. I perceived the activation through the blade, each phase unfolding in a precise order that matched the theory.

  The experience carried none of the ease I remembered.

  In my earlier life, enchanting followed intuition supported by practice. Here, the process required conscious control. Every response arrived through external perception rather than internal guidance.

  Theory provided understanding. Execution demanded deliberate action.

  Without an internal mana flow, the tattoos served as my only interface. They conveyed information clearly, but without interpretation or correction. Each adjustment depended on intent applied directly and carefully.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I activated my merchant’s eye variant truly for the first time.

  The world resolved into flowing mana.

  It gathered around the blade in my hand, fractured along its edges, and streamed inward from the surrounding air as the catalyst pulled it in. Octarine swirled in layered currents, collapsing and rebuilding in repeating cycles as the blade continued to draw more. The motion held steady, sustained by the circuit itself and fed continuously by the environment rather than by me.

  The density of it surprised me. Mana filled space rather than passing through it, forming visible paths that curved and folded according to pressure and structure. Every movement of the blade reshaped those paths, and every change lingered instead of dispersing.

  Myrda’s voice cut in quickly. “What? What are you seeing? How is it working? Is everything okay?”

  Her words reached me through the motion, slightly delayed, as if sound itself had to travel around the mana first.

  The experience differed from my expectations.

  Seeing octarine directly placed an immediate strain on my perception. My body lacked any preparation for this form of input, and the sensory load arrived all at once. Color overwhelmed depth, motion overwhelmed form, and the boundaries between them blurred. I narrowed my eyes, then closed them entirely, allowing my thoughts to align with the new data before forcing my vision to keep up.

  When I opened them again, the flow organized itself into something workable.

  Octarine gathered and folded inward as I pressed the blade into the weight reduction circuit Myrda had laid onto the log. The Reverend iron bit cleanly at the point of contact, cutting through the completed line and accepting the new path I guided it along. The circuit responded immediately, its structure shifting to accommodate the change.

  The blade responded differently than Myrda’s tool.

  Her blade followed intention with precision and minimal resistance. Mine demanded compensation. Its edge met friction sooner, and its response lagged behind input. I adjusted through pressure, angle, and pace until the motion stabilized and the cut held a consistent depth.

  Midway through the line, an unexpected complication surfaced.

  The channel I was carving along the handle crossed a hidden notch in the wood, sealed beneath an older layer. The resistance shifted abruptly, tugging the blade sideways and threatening to pull it free of the groove. The circuit wavered under the change.

  I stopped immediately.

  I pulled the mana back through the grip as much as my control allowed and let the flow settle. Precision mattered more than speed here. I resumed in controlled increments, guiding the blade forward in narrow advances, retracing the same path repeatedly until the line passed through the obstruction without fracturing the circuit.

  This was meant for Winnie.

  The runes assisted where they could. The memory stored within the blade reinforced alignment and direction, applying subtle pressure that guided the weight along its intended path. I followed those cues, corrected deviations as they formed, and maintained constant focus on the circuit’s response.

  The process demanded sustained effort.

  In my earlier life, work like this relied on internal mana responding directly to intent. Here, every adjustment passed through structure first. Control arrived through feedback rather than instinct, delivered by the tattoos and translated into deliberate action.

  Time expanded around the task.

  Minutes stretched into something that felt far longer as the momentum circuit took shape. When it finally settled, the structure held firm. The alignment remained clean, the flow consistent, and the response stable under observation. Refinement would come later. The materials allowed for revision, reinforcement, and correction as needed.

  For the moment, the result served its purpose.

  I continued without pause.

  The remaining enchantments followed the same pattern, each demanding attention, correction, and steady pacing. By the time the final circuit locked into place, sweat soaked through my clothes. Heat clung to the room, the kind that built gradually and stayed. At some point, Myrda had opened the window to let air circulate. I registered it only after the work slowed.

  She remained close throughout the process, positioned to intervene if the enchantment destabilized. Her focus never left the blade or the circuits forming beneath it. If the mana surged or collapsed, she would have pulled me clear before it could cascade into a detonation.

  When I stepped back at last, she handed me a glass of water.

  “That’s far better than anything I could have done,” she said. “You clearly know what you’re doing.”

  I took a long drink before answering. “I would hope so,” I said. “I have nearly five hundred years of practice.”

  “Honestly, even with five hundred years of practice," she said. "I don’t know if I could do anything close to what you showed me tonight.”

  I smiled at her. “You’d be surprised how much you can learn when you sit in a cave doing one thing over and over.”

  She raised an eyebrow, so I continued.

  “When I first started drawing,” I said. “You should have seen how bad my 'art' was." I made air quotes with two fingers. “The first time I tried to draw a flower, it looked like a dying badger had vomited its guts out on the page. Anything more complicated than a stick figure counted as an accomplishment back then.”

  She laughed quietly at that.

  “Seeing how good you already are at drafting,” I went on, “I can only imagine what you’d be capable of with the same amount of time. You’d be far better at it than I ever was.”

  Myrda smiled and shook her head. “Thanks, kid, but time isn’t the same thing as dedication. Having years doesn’t mean you’d spend them the way you did.”

  She glanced at me again. “How long were you in that cave, really?”

  “Far too long,” I said. “But I had good company, so it wasn’t all bad.”

  The memory surfaced on its own.

  I smiled.

  I smiled a smile only I could see.