I logged back into Magia Online later in the afternoon and sat down at my desk to review all the runestones I'd made so far.
"Let's see, for fire we have two hand warmers, a fire starter, and a cooking stone. Three sun-powered light stones as lamps, one with a concentrated beam function for a flashlight. One dark stone that seems to emit a mist that slowly eats away at organic matter. I guess I could use it for cleaning?
"A water purifying stone, a fan stone, a magnet stone, not really sure what I'll use that one for, and an…infusion stone, was it?"
I looked closely at the runes inscribed on the last stone I'd made along the guidelines of the intro course. "This helps with mana infusion for alchemy stuff, right?" I wasn't sure exactly what the purpose was given that I'd already managed mana infusion the day before without any problems, but the structure of the stone itself wasn't that complicated. "Well, I guess I'll have to try it out later…"
I set the stone inscribed with an 'earth manipulation' spellrune down. "With both the earth and the water runes I really have no idea what they're actually doing. Like why would regulating mana flow through an earth rune stone help with mana infusion? Or how does a water purification stone actually do anything of the sort?"
I flipped back through the illusory pages of the encyclopedia to try to find some answers. "Hmm, water purification stone…creates a small upflow of water…acts as a pump only for pure water, leaving excess impurities behind…oh ok." I examined the diagram in the encyclopedia entry for the usage of water purification stones. "So this is actually like a little water pump, but people just mostly use it to draw up clear water from dirty water since anything else could pretty much be done better by physical methods, I guess that makes sense. In this case, the rune is 'pure water force' which creates a suction effect on pure water, leaving behind impurities…"
"Ok, well, doesn't really help me get to the bottom of spell runes, but putting that aside for now, I should move onto the last beginner project: the moisture collection stone." I quickly scanned over the runes and instructions that I was going to be using to get an idea of the project. "So similar kind of idea to the water purification stone, but…is this?" I looked again at the logic rune structure for the circuits. "Ok, no wonder this is the end, because this is kind of weird."
So far logic runes had served two primary purposes in the projects I'd used so far. The first was to regulate mana flow like in the battery circuit I had learned first. A simple loop of flow runes formed a closed loop that circulated mana, expanding the mana capacity of the material. The next kind were used to affect the primary spell rune in some specific capacity. For instance, in the solar lampstones there was a switch rune attached to a reversal rune. When activated the switch changed the stone from 'shine' mode where the stone was using up energy to pour out light to 'charge' mode where the light rune was reversed, absorbing light energy rather than emitting it.
But the runes of the moisture collection stone seemed different somehow. There was the basic battery circuit connected with a switch to the primary water rune, but then around the outer rim of the stone were logic runes I hadn't seen before that the book called 'dispersal' runes. At that position in the rune layout they could only affect the outer mana flow of the stone, dispersing the energy that was supposed to be gathering in the battery circuit.
"Why would they…?" I looked at the runes strangely, trying to divine their purpose. I scanned through the encyclopedia entry trying to find my answer. "Ok, here: 'one thing to always be aware about going forwards as we continue making more and more complex runestones is how the mana flow within and around the object in question affects whatever spell effect we are trying to produce. While mana flow might not primarily affect the spell effect you are trying to produce, it still has great consequences over the efficiency and productivity of the devices you try to create.
"'In this case, the primary effect of these dispersal runes is to widen the area of effect that the runestone can act upon directly, increasing the speed at which it can gather water while sacrificing mana efficiency…In essence, the dispersal acts as a hose spreading mana further and thinner than a default spell output…A key thing to take note of here, is that the dispersal runes are directly connected to the spell rune NOT to the battery circuit. This forms what we might call the 'tertiary rune ring' or the 'aftereffects' section of the rune structure as a whole, and will become more important to devices going forwards…"
"Damn, ok, more complicated than I thought it was." I pushed aside the encyclopedia as I sat back in my chair to digest the information. "Haaa, this is fascinating and also sooo draining. Like they seriously did not go easy designing this system…"
I got up from the desk and grabbed some jerky and some water from the table. As I did so I went outside to lean against the wall and look out at the forest. "Hmmm, I should make a chair or something." I muttered between bites. "Oooh, or maybe a hammock? Anyways, it'd be nice to come out here to chill sometimes."
I finished the jerky with a sigh. "Haaa, sometimes it's easy to forget this is all a game…" I rubbed my fingers together absentmindedly as I looked up at the birds flitting through the sun-dappled branches. "We've really come along far as a species, makes you wonder if you invented computing in this world if you could make a second Magia Online in-game…hehhh."
"Alright," I sighed, pushing off the wall, "Enough talking to myself, let's make this last beginner runestone, hmm?"