APR 11 Saturday.

I draw out another rune and double-check that everything is correct before casting the spell without a target in mind. The matrix flashes before disappearing completely, it does nothing. This is a healing spell I've been working on for over an hour now with mixed success.

Before this, I only knew two healing spells, one for speeding up the healing process of muscles, and the other speeds up the healing of bruises and rashes. And now I'm learning about a spell to help speed up the regrowth of fur and hair, not the most useful spell but I found it interesting to learn.

And I've found another healing spell I want to learn. It helps with healing burns and it might be the most complex spell I've tried to learn yet. It helps speed up the healing process but to a much greater degree, the other spells can take hours to fully heal injuries.

And even if you overpower those basic healing spells with more magic, like I do, it hits a limit on how much faster it can go before the magic required makes it not worth the investment. But this is a better quality and more complex spell that costs more magic but can be pushed much further.

I look through the spell's matrix for a while before deciding to do something else instead, it's the weekend and I wouldn't mind doing something I've been thinking about. I grab my saddlebags and cloak, and then my necklace.

My necklace is something I don't leave home without and recently I've put some work into improving it. Over time I've improved the illusion detection spell on my bracelet and now it's efficient enough to fit on the diamond in my necklace at the same time as the emotional shield.

I had to remove the silence field enchantment but that's just fine by me. This also leaves me with the bracelet free to be enchanted with anything else I could want again. After putting on my necklace I call Entropy over and she merges into my shadow before we leave my apartment.

Over time I've observed that Entropy seems to prefer to stay inside my shadow when we move through public areas. I think she likes being able to watch everything or sleep whenever she wants while staying with me. And that's good because her appearance keeps changing slowly.

When I started using the illusion spell on her, her feathers were so efficient at absorbing light that she looked like a hole in reality itself. Now her feathers have stopped getting darker and have started to become a mass of black shadowy wisps that appear and roll off her like fog before vanishing. This effect started at the very tips of her feathers but is slowly creeping over more and more of her body with time.

I'm going to guess all her feathers will be replaced by it given time, she'll definitely be a sight to see on that day. I take my time walking through the markets and making my way to the city's edge. I don't find anything of particular interest before I reach the city's gate.

I walk outside the city past the guards and see many caravans camped outside selling many different things. Many of them set up stalls out here to sell things without needing to move their products into the city or pay for a stall, the downside is that they can only sell to each other and any ponies going into or out of Canterlot.

I'm here to see if the diamond dog caravan I traded with last time is here again. I only have three small gems left and one medium, so I'm going to need more for my tests and inventions soon. And to my luck, I see the same symbol used by their caravan on a camp.

It's been months since I last bought gems and back then I wasn't as rich as I am now. All my inventions and spells are really seeing some dividends now, there was a dip from paying my taxes but I can easily ignore that. My point is I have much more money to spend this time on some of the things I had to leave last time.

I walk over to their tents but don't approach too close, it's obvious I'm here to talk to them and I think it's best I don't just walk inside their private area asking questions about where their leader is, so I simply wait for someone to see I'm here and get someone in charge.

And a few minutes later two diamond dogs approached me. They both have small swords and are well-muscled, it seems like some guards noticed me, perfect. While they approach I take a moment to remove my cloak and pack it inside my saddlebags, I also move my small dagger from a hidden spot into a pocket, I would rather not have any misunderstandings.

Last time I was here I was vouched for by the caravan leader's daughter, but I'm alone this time and I'm also not sure if the leader is still the same diamond dog, so it's best to stay on good behavior. Both caravan guards walk up to me and look me over before one of them gets a bit closer.

"What business do you have here?" Her tone is blunt and dry but not angry or rude.

"I've done business with your caravan before, and I'd like to do more. I'd like to speak to the caravan leader if that's fine?" I ask back with an even tone.

They scrutinize me a little more before nodding. "Follow me." They turn and start walking away. This is going surprisingly well considering I had no proof of my claims, although it would become apparent very quickly if I was lying to them. We walk through their camp and enter a large tent with a table set up just like before.

And just like last time Onyx is there, reading something while looking over some other papers. He sees us enter and looks confused for a moment before seeming to recognize me. "Well this is a surprise, I'll be honest I never thought I'd see you again." His tone is light and relaxed as he looks over my appearance.

"Well, I needed more gems and decided to check if your caravan was here." He nods and moves the papers away before getting right done to business. He doesn't seem as suspicious of me as last time, I guess I earned some trust from doing good business with our last deal.

"Well you have some good timing then, someone I supply just backed out and I have a lot of gems that they ordered. First, though, did you bring enough bits or are we doing the same deal as last time?" He asks while walking me over to several carts filled with boxes.

I'm not worried about being robbed as we are right next to the capital, and Entropy can get me out very fast if need be. "I brought a good amount, but if you have some more expensive gems then we can do the same deal again." I offer and he nods before calling two other diamond dogs to help him with the crates.

I brought a lot of bits with me this time and I'm expecting to have to go get more for this. Over the next two hours, we go through a few dozen crates and haggle over different gems while I look through them for what I want. By the end I have so much that it will be hard to bring it all home in one trip.

So we agreed to make it three trips in total with me coming back two more times to get the rest and pay them one-third at a time. I end up spending more than I thought but it still doesn't make that large of a dent in my savings. It takes me three hours of back and forth before I'm home with everything by the end of the day.

On my last trip, Onyx gave me a pendant with their caravan symbol on it, he told me I can show it to the guards to be let in right away if I did business with them again. I tried to decline as I didn't really know or trust them but he insisted because, in his own words, I rather not lose good business from an inconvenience, and from his tone I think he was speaking from experience.

So in the end I took it and kept it in my saddlebags while walking home. I made sure to check it for any type of tracker or magical enchantment before going home just to be safe, there was nothing on it but it's always best to check and be sure, many would call me paranoid, and they'd be right.

Thinking about my paranoia makes me think about the Changelings. I haven't had my bracelet or my necklace detect anything yet and I find that odd. I've been wearing the bracelet for months but nothing has happened and I'm wondering why. But I'm also not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

That saying just feels wrong as a pony. I refocus as I enter my apartment again with the last of the gems. I bought a lot and have to sort them all while updating my inventory list.

I got eighteen small gems, seven rubies, six sapphires, and five diamonds. Seven medium gems, four ruby, two sapphires, and one diamond. Two large gems, one ruby, and one sapphire. After that, I have the more unique gems I found.

A sun stone, this is an affinity-attuned gem for solar magic, it could prove to be very useful and I already have an idea for it.

Next is an iron gem, and it's an odd gem. It's known for being very durable and sturdy, and that extends to its magical capabilities. It can handle a lot of magic moving through it and is above average at conducting magic but it can't hold that much magic in itself.

And the last gem I found is a fire gem, this one is mostly self-explanatory. The gem is the same as the water gem, it can hold and safely store a large amount of fire affinity magic, but only that affinity and no other affinity type.

After organizing everything and writing it all down I start on a new project immediately. I grab the sunstone and place it on my desk, I start with the spell I use to hold and gather magic in gems. I've never modified this spell before because it's one of the few spells that has little room for improvement, honestly I'd love to meet the pony who made it, but they're long dead.

I carefully enchant the sunstone to hold and gather magic, because this is an affinity gem the process and how I use it is different. The spell will work fine as it just helps the gem gather and hold the magic it can't force any gem to take more magic than it can hold so it's safe.

The sunstone can only hold solar affinity magic and the spell will gather all magic that it can, and because only solar magic will enter the gem the other magic will just stay around it or more likely be absorbed by my other gems in my apartment, and the neutral magic won't decrease or increase as it can't outside of a gem.

But back to my idea, I can speed up the sun stones ability to absorb solar magic in a few ways. The first is simple, leave it in sunlight, and the second involves a plant I've bred. The Solar Trap is perfect for this idea and would massively speed up the gathering process.

Normally the sunstone could take weeks to gather all the magic it needs and fill itself because solar magic in the environment is in low amounts, even in direct sunlight. But I do have a problem, I don't have a large enough area to grow a Solar Trap big enough to fill this gem in a single day, although if I could find a place like that then it would be possible.

For now, I finish enchanting the sunstone, I grab a filled pot and a Solar Trap seed to plant. I take both to my main room and clear a place near my window with the best sunlight throughout the day, I place the pot and plant the seed before growing it into a full plant.

I don't have anything for it to grow on so I control the plant to grow into a structure of interwoven vines capable of supporting itself. The Solar Trap doesn't expend solar magic and just collects it, I originally wanted to have the Solar Trap feed its collected solar magic into other Solar Vines to keep their flowers glowing at night, but this is honestly a better use for it.

Once it's done I place the sun stone next to the base of the plant where the most magic will gather. It will probably take several days to fill it but when it's done I can experiment with it and see what I could do with Solar magic. I can think of the most basic use, which is to simply release the stored Solar magic for plants to absorb and use.

Once it's properly in place I take a shower and feed both of us before heading to bed, I have so much I want to do.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :D