This is...!

Taking The Nine Methods of Earthly Formation from the bowing Nayao, Lex regarded it in silence for a long moment, his visage calm and composed.

Inwardly, however, he was shaking at the magnitude of what he’d just been given.

“As I’m sure Mei Li has told you, the Pimao Jingzhi is a clan of artisans,” murmured Yuyan.

“By the decree of our founder, Pimao Shenqi Weida Jineng Mei Ren, every fox who calls themselves by the name of Pimao must dedicate themselves to cultivating beauty and refinement in a particular field. Some choose an area of music, or sculpture, or the brush and canvas. Others choose certain rites and ceremonies. Others focus on meals. So long as it expresses beauty and serves the needs of the clan, any choice is accepted.”

Nodding at the book, she continued. “This manual, The Nine Methods of Earthly Formation, was penned by our founder herself, detailing her pursuit of beauty in her art. As a retainer of the Celestial Bureaucracy’s fox goddess, Huxian, the service that she perfected for the goddess’s pleasure was-”

“Creating magic items,” finished Lex, not taking his eyes off of the book.

Mei Li’s clan of foxes had just brought him a manual for the one skill – at least where magic was concerned – that he’d never been able to master.

Everglow’s ponies had built a society that had lagged behind his own in every regard, except for their magical development. Here, thought-based spellcasting was the norm, rather than his own singular exception, and other methods and traditions of magic were to be found in abundance. But nowhere had the disparity been clearer than in how Everglow’s ponies created magic items, imbuing magical channels that were expansive and self-sustaining into material objects with alacrity that had – when Lex had witnessed the results upon his first exile here – been nothing short of astonishing.

In Equestria, only the absolute weakest amount of magic could be artificially imbued in an object that way, the results having such little power that they were little more than trinkets. Anything beyond that required finding – or combining – things which had naturally developed great magical power, with such things virtually always being unique. Mage Meadowbrook had served as a living example of that, being written into the history books for having amassed eight such objects in her lifetime.

But although even one of the magic shops in any of the Pony Empire’s cities would have put Mage Meadowbrook’s collection to shame, Lex had never been able to figure out the process that Everglow’s ponies had used to imbue ordinary objects with so many potent enchantments.

That hadn’t been for lack of trying on his part.

It hadn’t taken him long to acquire a modest collection of magic items for himself. Although even the cheapest ones were priced out of easy reach for anyone who wasn’t a noble or an adventurer who’d managed to strike it rich, Lex had found it easy to procure funds – not much, but enough – in such an economically-underdeveloped society. A single report to the authorities about the chrematistic subterfuge of the round-trip transactions that a local merchant company had been engaging in had seen to that.

But although he’d been able to acquire a modest collection of Everglow’s magic items, he had failed miserably when it came to reverse-engineering them. Despite numerous experiments, weeks’ worth of diagramming the magical channels they’d been imbued with, and disassembling more than one of his enchanted acquisitions, he’d had no success at unraveling the secrets of their creation.

Even in spite of his having been banished to a world that was as foreign as it was hostile, Lex had found that failure particularly galling.

Even he’d been able to recognize that this had been his inability to find a convenient power source for his thaumaturgical spellcasting all over again.

Nor had those ponies who worked as artificers been willing to part with their secrets. The proprietors of urban magic shops and the local churches both had magical crafters, but the former all belonged to local guilds – outdated institutions whose entire reason for existence was to restrict entry into a particular industry – while the latter refused to engage with anyone who wasn’t a member of their congregation, and even then required years of dedicated service before they’d teach anything useful.

His only other hope had been to find a freelance adventurer who happened to be in possession of that knowledge – members of that profession had, by nature, an eclectic collection of skills – and convince them to part with it.

But that hope had been no hope at all for someone who had such profound difficulty with interpersonal communication.

The closest he’d come to solving that problem had been much later, when Solvei – after merging with Akna – had taught him the runes that the adlets used to enchant their gear. But although it had been a huge advance for Lex in terms of personal capability, it had been an imperfect solution to the underlying problem. For all that Lex had been able to optimize the use of those runes, they relied on using physical etchings to implant micro-channels of magic into an object.

It was a technique far superior to anything discovered on Equestria, but still notably inferior to what Everglow’s ponies had developed.

Expressed in terms of physical, rather than magical architecture, then Equestria’s ponies were unable to construct anything greater than lean-tos out of sticks and leaves, only occasionally stumbling upon a cave they could take shelter in. Akna’s people, by contrast, were able to build simple wattle and daub huts.

By that same analogy, the artificers of Everglow’s Pony Empire were capable of building skyscrapers.

Solvei had mentioned how her grandmother had worked on Bloodletter – Yotimo’s enchanted spear – for years before she was born. And yet by the time it had finished, Akna had been old enough to take part in the inscription process as part of her religious training.

From what little Lex had learned about Everglow’s material enchantment process, the ponies here could have done the same thing in a matter of weeks.

As it was, even after he’d optimized those runes when enchanting Belligerence, only the fact that the Night Mare had blessed the weapon had let him finish its construction so quickly, otherwise he’d still have been in the Shrine of the Starless Sky, endeavoring to finish the weapon’s construction. And while the crystal stylus he’d found after defeating Hvitdod could theoretically help speed up the inscription process further, that device had its limits.

Those runes alone would never be able to match what Everglow’s ponies could do.

But this...

The contents of this book...

If the magical artifice of this world’s ponies could be compared to constructing a skyscraper, then the Nine Formations was a guide on how to build an entire city.

“The title itself is an example of our founder’s aesthetic,” continued Yuyan. “The term ‘nine methods’ is a reference to the arrangement of all the forces of the immortal realms, which I believe are also referred to as being ‘numinous’ in nature. Likewise, ‘earthly formation’ means the foundations of the mortal realms, often called ‘elemental.’ As these two realms collectively encompass the duality of all existence, the book’s title means that-”

“That with the knowledge it contains,” finished Lex, “one can, so long as they have sufficient resources, craft any kind of magic item imaginable.”

Yuyan smiled. “Our lord is very wise.”

The compliment meant nothing to Lex, currently engrossed in the book’s contents. Although he had yet to open the covers, he was envisioning futures in rapid succession, each of which involved him flipping the tome open to a different page and scanning what was there. With analytical ability beyond what a mortal mind was capable of, eidetic memory, and speed whose upper limit he had yet to discover, it would take only a few seconds to completely absorb all of the knowledge it contained.

Just so long as nothing interrupted him.

That was enough to make Lex tense inwardly, certain that some distraction had to be inbound. There had been too many times when something had happened at the worst possible moment for him not to be wary now.

But as he silently devoured the knowledge that The Nine Methods of Earthly Formation contained, no disturbance reached his awareness.

No sudden sense of distress came from his wives. No incoming report from Carnelia about something happening to the adlet village. No sense of a spell trying to slip by his personal defenses.

Everything was quiet.

A few moments later, Lex finished reading.

Inwardly letting out a roar of triumph that had nothing to do with the beast inside of him, Lex gave a single crisp nod and placed the book into his pocket dimension.

Now, at last, he knew.

He finally, FINALLY knew how to imbue material items with self-sustaining magical channels! No more being limited to whatever random assortment of miscellanea he happened to stumble across on his misadventures. No more having to make due with spell-imbued gemstones as his only way of externalizing his magic. No more having to inquire if his tulpa could bring something forth before its capacity was exhausted, and then try to utilize what it made in the seconds before the item faded back into the ether.

Now, withstanding only time and material resources – and the fact that he couldn’t make anything truly divine the way the Night Mare had when she’d turned Belligerence into a prison for that void creature – he could make, alter, or enhance any kind of magic item he wanted.

Even with those altogether minor caveats, the possibilities bordered on limitless. By imbuing external objects with magical effects that could operate in perpetuity, he could effect change on a scale previously unimaginable once he got back to Equestria.

Trains that didn’t require fossil fuels to run.

Medical tools that dispensed precise applications of healing magic.

Two-way scrying devices that would enable real-time communication over vast distances.

And those were just the beginning!

His goal of bringing Equestria to its fullest potential, shaking off the thousand-year torpor that Celestia had encouraged it to slip into, had just taken a massive leap forward.

And all because I didn’t kill Mei Li that day.

The thought was a sobering one, the reminder of the slaughter he’d carried out against the creatures that he’d wrongfully assumed were Kryonex’s minions dampening his excitement. He’d discovered the truth only after killing many, making the same mistake he had with Panuk except writ much larger. Worse, unlike with the adlet, it had been a mistake he hadn’t been able to undo later on.

How many more of his current problems would be solved right now if he’d been less bloodthirsty? Had one of those hapless creatures known a way to track Adagio’s wayward soul? Did one among their number have family who possessed knowledge of how to bypass an angelic blockade? Would one of them have led him to some secret about what had become of the Night Mare?

Lex knew that speculating about counterfactuals was a waste of time, but even so he found himself driven to wonder.

“My lord?”

Yuyan’s voice came to him from the future, the six-tailed kumiho about to prompt him in response to his silence. While her thoughts would remain hidden even then, those of her daughters – and most of the rest of the foxes – were on the verge of growing nervous at his lack of reaction.

Putting both his future plans and his past regrets away, Lex instead returned his focus to the present.

“Even for one such as myself, that book is awe-inspiring,” he announced, constructing the phrasing from the expectant minds of the gathered vulpinoids. “There are no words that can properly express my gratitude at having received such a treasure.”

Yuyan’s smile was mirrored on the faces of her kin, and she bowed again. “No gratitude is necessary, my lord. The Nine Formations is yours by right now. As is this.”

Sitting up, she gestured to her twins. “Jing Bei, Jing Xiao, present our lord with View From the Heavenly Mountain Gate.”

Author's Note

The Pimao Jingzhi grant Lex the first of their clan’s treasures, granting him the long-sought knowledge of how to enchant his own magic items!

What will Lex make now that he's capable of crafting his own gear? And what does View From the Heavenly Mountain Gate do?