A Quiet Rune Scribe

JUL 21 Monday. I wake up and move into the kitchen to make some breakfast, and after feeding Entropy and myself I sit down to read some before I have to go to work but after a while, I'm interrupted by a knock on my door.

Not many knock on my door so I'm guessing that it's somepony Celestia sent to collect the wheat, :And I swear to magic if it's Shining again I will flip a table: I move over to my door and being careful I open the door a little and when I see who's outside I open the door fully.

:OH, thank fuck: Standing on the other side of the door is a guard I do not recognize, "You here for the wheat?"

"Yes sir."

"Wait here a moment please," I walk away from the front door and go into my workroom grab two sacks, and bring them out to the guard, "it's in these, don't get them wet," he nods and takes the sacks before passing me a letter.

I see the royal seal on it and move it to the side, "Anything else?"

"Do you need me to take a letter back?" I shake my head, "Then no, have a good day sir," They take both sacks and start walking away, that's what I like about the guard, no unnecessary questions asked, I close my door and grab the letter I crack the wax seal and start reading.

Dear Shade Evergreen, first I'd like to thank you for the help you have provided me in this project, you've performed beyond my expectations, and I'd like to update you on the progress of the other inventions you've sent me.

First the magical light, they work well and we've found no problems so far, its sales have dropped some but that's to be expected, they can last years so most who wanted one already bought one, there has also been some discussion about exporting it to neighboring countries on a large scale, but it likely won't happen for a while.

The pest spell has already proven very useful, the main harvests of the year won't come in until fall, but the crops that are harvested earlier have shown good results, most have a ten to fifteen percent increase in crop yield, mostly from crops surviving more often.

The copying spell has been a massive help to the running of the country, there is not much to say about it beyond the fact that it's doing what it was made to do, and that there have been no problems with it.

The water flasks are already in production and will be released in a week or two, I've had several tests done on them and they work well, As you theorized the water harvesting flask is less effective in dry environments, but even then they still produce enough water for a single pony.

and finally, the new wheat you've made, I've decided to adopt the name you've been using, the Rocky Wheat will be grown in greenhouses and sent out to farmers, hopefully, it will be widespread in a year or two.

I'd once again like to thank you for the service you've provided to Equestria. Signed Princess Celestia.

I fold the letter and place it back inside the envelope, it's nice to know how the things I've made are doing, I reread the letter a few times and write down the information before burning the letter to ash, I burn the letters that could tie me to my inventions, any letter that is us just talking I keep.

But moving on I have an experiment to run before work, here's a question, how much magic do I have? Well, I don't really know I'd need a way to measure it.

Trying to feel the magic of others is something I can't do, and I don't really know how much a pony has to begin with, so that's what I'm going to try and figure out, I refill my teapot and take it with me to my workroom, I sit down and start going through my notes.

I do have a plan for this but it will take a lot of magic, I start with the scanning spell I made a few weeks back, It's seen some improvement since then mostly making the spell more efficient and stable, I grab a medium ruby and place it on my desk, and I take a moment to modify the scanning spell.

I want it to scan my magic, but I don't have a rune for me so I need something that will target myself and my magic, which leads me to my first problem, what type of magic am I scanning for? Even if I don't have an affinity for other types of magic that doesn't mean I don't have them in me.

For instance, all living things have life magic in them even if they don't have an affinity for it, so I need to narrow my scan to just one type, I pick natural magic as all ponies have it and it's the most common type of magic, so it would be the best baseline to work off of, I even have a rune for natural magic.

The next problem there is natural magic all around us, so I still need something to target specifically me, if I use a rune for pony and the natural rune at the same time I probably could get the spell to work, but it would need even more magic and because I'm scanning a full pony this spell will take a long while.

With this in mind I place the medium ruby back and look through my collection for something that will work for this project, and after some thought I grab the six by-six-inch amethyst I've had for a while now, even if the gem is only amethyst its size should be more than enough to hold the magic I need.

A gem's magic capacity is determined by the gems type, size, and quality, in that order, this amethyst is of decent quality and its large size also helps to keep it stable, so I take the heavy gem and place it on my desk, first I'll need to modify my scanning spell.

I'm undoing a lot of my work with this spell but I need to, It takes me a while but I get about halfway done before I have to leave for work, I grab my badge and leave my apartment, it only takes a little while to make it to the library and find my way to the right room.

I enter to see Blaz already working on something, "Hey Blaz."

"Oh good you're here colt, I got news."

I raise a brow, "Good or bad?"

"Depends on how you look at it, a small library burned down."

:Oh shit, please tell me it's not Ponyvile: I try and keep my calm while asking a question, "Do you know where?"

"Not really, but the order took a few days to get to us so I assume it's far, maybe a border town who knows? Anyway, we now have a massive order for over one hundred different books."

Hearing his answer I calm down, and then let out a groan hearing the second part, "The next few days are going to be a mess aren't they?"

He lets out a chuckle, "Yup, don't look so down, before that new spell this would take weeks, now sit down there is a list on your desk."

I nod and sit at my desk and look at the list and look for the names, I need to make a copy of each so I start by writing down the names and making my way out of the room, I'll need to retrieve these books first so I make my way through the shelves and find the right books.

When I'm done I sit down back at the desk, I start with the thickest book and flip it open.

The work is the same as always, I stop as the timer on my watch goes off "Lunch," I say to Blaz before leaving the room and walking into the breakroom, I don't see Maple here yet but Daisy is sitting there, so I grab some food and sit opposite of her eating my food.

I'm drinking some water when I'm asked a question, "So, how was your date?" I spit out the water I was drinking and cough a few times.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"HA got you, no I'm just messing with you."

I glared at her, "where did you even get that idea?"

"Well, Maple told me about the day you two had, I know it's not a date but you've got to admit it sounds like one."

Thinking about it I can see how others would make that mistake, "Well as long as you know it wasn't, and I will get you back for that."

She just smiles, "Bring it on, so how's your day going?" We continue talking as we eat, Blaz and Maple join us not long after and both get a laugh out of Daisy telling them what she did to me, Blaz nearly fell off the table, and I was half tempted to help him do just that.

After lunch I get through the rest of the workday and start cleaning my work desk up, I was able to copy the pages today but I'll need to go over it again to make sure I didn't miss anything.

I take a quick trip home to clean myself up and get ready, I have another meeting to get to today, after cleaning myself up some I feed Entropy and leave, I walk through the city until I find the right shop and enter it, I see Caelum behind the counter reading just like last time.

She looks up when I enter, "Good you're here, come on then let's get started."

The next two hours are filled with dry conversation on different topics and words, it's not exciting but I learn a lot in that relatively short time, it really puts in perspective how much having a good teacher can help.

A few ponies come in, some buy things some don't, and when we are done she gives me a few books that can help me and sends me on my way, Caelum is a blunt person like most griffins I've met but she's a good teacher and I think learning from her will help a lot.

I make my way home in the dark and take a moment to make some tea before getting to work, I need to finish the spell I'm working on so I sit at my desk and start where I left off, it takes me a while to get the runes working together properly and to finish all the math.

It's not done and I'll need to work out some other problems, the main problem right now is the magical requirements, the amethyst should be able to hold enough magic for a full scan, but the scan will take hours to complete and I'll need to stay as still as I can throughout it.

I'll also need to fill the amethyst with magic and considering how much it can hold it could take weeks, if I dump all my excess magic inside it will speed this process up massively, but I won't be able to do much training if I do that, regardless I start enchanting the amethyst to hold and gather magic.

I've done this many times so it doesn't take me long to finish, I won't add the scanning spell for now, I have some time to finish and improve it so I'll add it when the gem is full, I place the gem on my shelf and start on something else.

I don't have much to work on right now so I'll just spend a while tinkering with a few spells, first the scanning spell I just made, it could use a hefty amount of work and adjustment, I spend a few hours like this tinkering with different spells and dumping my magic into the amethyst, It will take at least two weeks to fill the gem at this rate.

When it gets late I spend some time reading and playing with Entropy, I throw her wood ball and close my book, "ya know girl" She looks to me with the wood ball in her beak as she brings it back to me, "We should get you some more toys," she seems to agree as her tail starts waving up and down.

"OK, then we'll go shopping soon," after a little more time I get up and take a shower, and head to bed.