Aiken immediately cleared the workbench.
Books were stacked aside.
Tools were moved away.
Sheets of calculations disappeared into neatly organized piles.
Soon, the wooden surface stood completely empty.
Perfect.
He grabbed a piece of white chalk.
Then another.
And another.
For the next twenty minutes, silence filled the workshop.
The only sound was the scratching of chalk against wood.
Slowly, an enormous transmutation circle took shape.
A large outer ring.
Ancient symbols running along its circumference.
Within it, a complex geometric pattern formed from overlapping triangles, circles, and intersecting lines.
Three smaller circles occupied the points of a perfect triangle around a central circle.
Each section was connected by runic pathways that resembled both magical sigils and mathematical formulas.
[Image Here]
To anyone else, it would have looked like the work of a madman.
To Aiken, it was beautiful.
A perfect equation.
Not written with numbers.
But with reality itself.
Most enchanted objects weren't made this way.
A witch would simply pour magic into an object and call it a day.
Crude.
Inefficient.
Primitive.
Aiken's approach was different.
Over the past month, he had come to a realization.
Magic and science were not opposites.
They were complementary.
Two different languages describing the same universe.
Witches saw magic as something mystical.
Scientists saw reality as a collection of laws.
Both were wrong.
And both were right.
Magic wasn't separate from science.
Science wasn't separate from magic.
They were merely pieces of a larger whole.
By merging them together, Aiken had stumbled upon something entirely new.
Something nobody had successfully achieved before.
He didn't simply create enchanted objects.
He created artifacts.
True artifacts.
Objects altered at the molecular level.
Objects whose very structure had been rewritten.
The spell wasn't placed inside them.
The spell became part of them.
Every atom.
Alchemy.
A magical legend.
A dream pursued by countless witches throughout history.
And a dream that had always failed.
The reason was simple.
Everyone approached the problem incorrectly.
They viewed magic and science as separate systems.
For example, when trying to explain telekinesis, they attempted to reduce it entirely to physics.
Invisible force vectors.
Energy fields.
Electromagnetic interactions.
When studying transformation magic, they treated it as nothing more than the rearrangement of atoms.
They tried forcing one system to explain the other.
Aiken had taken a different path.
Magic and science did not compete.
They cooperated.
Physics described how energy moved.
Magic provided the instructions.
Chemistry described transformation.
Magic directed it.
Matter obeyed science.
Science obeyed mathematics.
Magic allowed those laws to be manipulated.
For the first time in history, both systems worked together.
Aiken stared at the completed circle.
A rare smile appeared.
"I never expected to realize the dream of so many predecessors in just a month."
The smile widened slightly.
Aiken was originally from a witch coven in Kaskaskia, Illinois, the Blackroot Coven.
And he was treated as the greatest talent they had produced in centuries.
Perhaps ever.
Elders whispered that he had inherited the brilliance of the coven's founder himself.
A prodigy.
Their future.
Their pride.
Then his siphoner abilities awakened.
Everything changed.
At eight years old, he went from miracle to abomination.
A witch without magic.
A parasite.
A mistake.
An enemy of nature.
The Blackroot Coven despised siphoners more than vampires.
If not for his bloodline...
If not for the respect they held for their founder...
They might have killed him.
Instead, they abandoned him.
Left him to die.
If Alan Hill hadn't found him, he would have died that day.
Aiken's fingers tightened around the chalk.
Since that day, his hatred toward witches had only grown.
He turned away from magic entirely.
Science became his refuge.
The one field where talent mattered more than birth.
The one system that couldn't reject him.
And now...
Ironically...
Science was bringing him back to magic.
His gaze shifted toward the center of the circle.
The wooden necklace rested there.
Oak wood.
One of nature's finest conductors.
Living once.
Resilient.
Naturally receptive to magical flow.
The perfect foundation.
He stepped toward the first outer circle.
A fragment of obsidian was placed within it.
Volcanic glass.
Fragile.
Sharp.
Born from fire and rapid transformation.
For centuries, magical traditions had associated it with absorption and containment.
An ideal reservoir.
The second circle received a piece of granite.
Strong.
Stable.
Enduring.
Where obsidian shattered, granite persisted.
Finally, Aiken approached the third circle.
A dried stem of bindweed.
Convolvulus arvensis.
The thief herb.
Its vines strangled other plants, wrapped around them, drained them. Killed them.
Folklore claimed it did the same to magic. Aiken intended to prove that folklore correct.
The bindweed would amplify his siphoning properties and allow the artifact to passively drain magical energy from external sources.
Exactly what he needed.
Everything was ready.
Aiken stepped back.
Then began chanting.
"Potentia quae latet, nunc evigila."
The symbols flickered.
"Materia pareat voluntati meae."
The outer circle ignited with pale silver light.
Runes began glowing one after another.
"Vis et ratio unum fiant."
The entire formation started spinning.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
The obsidian rose into the air.
Granite followed.
Bindweed lifted moments later.
"Per scientiam transformo."
The workshop trembled.
"Per magicam perficio."
The three materials shone brilliantly.
Cracks spread across the obsidian.
The granite dissolved into glowing particles.
The bindweed turned into streams of emerald light.
All three energies spiraled toward the center.
Toward the necklace.
Aiken raised his hand.
His voice echoed through the room.
"Fiat Magnum Opus."
The Great Work.
A blinding flash erupted.
The workshop vanished beneath pure white light.
For several seconds, everything became silent.
Then the glow faded.
The transmutation circle disappeared.
The chalk markings crumbled into dust.
Only one object remained.
The necklace.
No.
The artifact.
The wooden pendant had transformed into an elegant black talisman shaped like a curled snake. Ancient silver runes flowed across its surface like living streams, occasionally pulsing with faint light.
[Image Here]
Aiken slowly picked it up.
The moment his fingers touched it, he felt it.
The magic.
The connection.
The siphoning matrix.
The storage system.
Everything worked.
A smile spread across his face.
"It's a success."
To be continued...
***
***
How was this chapter? Liked it?
I am trying to get more into artifact creation than I did before, like it?