Chapter 12

The next day was Julia’s twelfth birthday and the first full day of having her Class, so it was a big one. Braden made a breakfast cake for her when she awoke. He called it a “lemon pound cake.” It was delicious. It was almost too sweet, but the lemon added a little sourness that offset the sweetness just right.

Apparently, it was tough to make, or perhaps the ingredients just weren’t readily available around here. He kept pulling things out of a bag she’d never seen before. Whenever he grabbed a new ingredient, he’d boast about how difficult it was to acquire.

Julia thought he was probably just full of hot air. One of the ingredients he bragged about was sugar that he ground into a powder. Why would anyone ever need to do that to sugar when it’s already been processed?

She didn’t expect to have cake for breakfast, but you wouldn’t find her complaining. He paired it with a side of bacon, which was a little confusing to Julia. He rambled quite a lot about the combination of sweet and savory during breakfast. She tuned most of it out to focus on the yummy cake. And, as much as she wouldn’t admit it—lest his head get overfull of the hot air and burst—the bacon was a nice pairing.

After breakfast was cleaned up, Braden gave her a birthday gift. At first glance, it was a rather plain bracelet made of carved wooden beads connected by thread. It was lovely, of course, but Julia couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed. She’d never been one for jewelry. What was the point of it if she constantly had to take it all off every day during her training?

However, when she was inspecting the carved beads, she noticed the thread wasn’t actually thread. It was metal. A wire. And—if she looked really closely—she could see tiny inscriptions along the metal. They glowed faintly, but they were so fine that she couldn’t even see them unless she pulled the beads apart as far as they’d go and held it right up to her face.

“It’s mithril, in case you were wondering,” Braden said rather smugly. “I enchanted it myself. The beads are there to hide the mithril and enchantments. Dimensional storage is rather expensive, after all. Wouldn’t want ne’er-do-wells in the city targeting you because of it.”

“Dimensional storage!? This bracelet has a subspace inside it!?” Julia exclaimed. Dimensional storage—as Braden said—was an expensive enchantment. Not just because of how complicated it was, nor due to the precious materials it required.

It was outrageously expensive because very few had any kind of magic that could create a separate subspace. Let alone one that was stable enough to tote around with you and store your precious things. Of course, now that she knew he was a Grandmaster, she wasn’t as surprised as she would have been otherwise.

“That’s right.” Braden walked over to the doorway and motioned toward practically the entire room. “It’s about this big, floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall.”

“It’s as big as the entire kitchen!?” Julia was flabbergasted. How could such a huge space exist inside this tiny, thin wire?

“Yes. It’s the maximum size I could make with that tiny piece of mithril. If I used more mithril—perhaps made a locket or something instead—I could have made it bigger. However, a locket of pure mithril—on anyone, let alone a twelve-year-old girl—would be begging to be stolen.

“Could have made it bigger if I’d used Orichalcum instead of mithril, but good luck getting your hands on that at all. Mithril has a lower magic retention and absorption rate than Orichalcum, so it can’t support as large a subspace. The size of the subspace would require more mana than it can passively absorb from the environment, and the space would collapse,” Braden explained.

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Julia was listening, barely. She was still staring in shock at the bracelet. This thing was—without a doubt—more expensive than their entire house and everything in it.

“Why don’t you put it on, and I’ll show you how to use it,” Braden said through a smile, seeing her fascination.

She slid it over her left wrist, noticing that when it settled against her skin, it tightened just a bit—enough to be snug but not tight. “It has a size-adjustment enchantment as well?”

“Yup. Durability, too. It’s as strong as I was able to make it considering the material and the amount of mana the actual subspace requires. I wouldn’t try to block a sword with it, but dropping it certainly isn’t going to do much.

“Should probably also mention that it’s the mithril wire that’s enchanted for durability—not the carved wooden beads. I just bought those from a little stand at the market near the gate in Striton. Should be pretty easy to replace if you need to.

“The vendor was a wonderful lady named Ethellia. When I mentioned the beads were for a gift I was making for my daughter, she gave me half of them for free. She has lots of neat little carved trinkets. I think she makes them herself.”

Julia was excited. Not just about her bracelet—which she was excited about—but also the prospect of meeting people who didn’t already hate her just for existing.

“Here,” Braden handed her an apple. She grabbed it with her left hand. “Now, focus on the bracelet. It’s difficult to explain, but if you’ve done it once, you’ll never forget. Just kind of…shift your attention down towards the bracelet.”

Julia did so. It was a strange sensation. It was like there was a magnet on her wrist that—once focused on—yanked her attention down to it. She felt a pulling sensation from the bracelet when she focused on it like this. She could tell that she could point that pull wherever she needed, so she shifted it to the apple.

Pop—it disappeared.

“Great job! Not too complicated, right? Now, if you focus on the bracelet, you should feel several sensations. You should also have a vague idea of what they’re for based on how they feel. It always helps me, personally, to visualize all those sensations as ‘threads.’

“Then, when you need to—for example—check what’s stored in your bracelet, you can just focus on that function and the appropriate ‘thread’ will become obvious to you.”

Somehow, despite the thread thing making no actual sense to her, it did help. Visualizing the threads made each function of the bracelet stand out distinctly from one another. She could see the threads for storing things, taking them out, and checking the bracelet’s contents.

There were also…sub-threads? If she followed the thread to check the contents of the bracelet, there was another thread behind it to check on the state of the apple that was currently stored.

“Do things…uh…rot in there? Should I take this apple out immediately?” Julia asked.

“Well, no, they don’t—and you should keep that a secret. Time is essentially frozen in that subspace, so nothing in it will age. Even hot food will come out just as hot as it went in.

“There are some limitations, though. Anything with mana and intent will interfere with the intent of the bracelet and won’t be able to enter the subspace. This means living things can’t enter. Even if they consented to it, their mana is inherently saturated with their own will and intent. It would interfere with the magic.

“Fortunately, recently-deceased things won’t. This means monster parts—even if they’re fresh—can go in. Intent begins to dissipate immediately after death and much faster than the mana itself. Whatever intent remains will be too weak to interfere with the bracelet since there will be no consciousness reinforcing—”

Braden stopped talking as Julia wrapped her arms around his middle. Her head was just up to his abdomen, so her arms were wrapped around his waist like a belt.

“Thanks. I love it,” Julia said in muffled satisfaction, her face buried in Braden’s robe.

“Of course. Happy birthday, Jules. There’s more, though. If you bring that apple back out, I’ll give you some pointers towards learning a new aspect of magic. It’s complicated, so you likely won’t get it immediately. It’ll be something you can work on while I’m in the city.”

“Kay!” Julia said happily as the apple appeared back in her hand. She handed it to Braden and followed him to the living room.

“What I’m going to tell you about is a concept called gravity,” he said as the apple floated up off his hand.