kscans

Chapter 275 - The Enchanter Speaks 5. What is Enchanting? (Part 3)

Even if you say you want to improve a sword's cutting performance or striking power, there is more than one way to solve that problem. Just to list a few...

- Increase the rigidity or toughness of the sword itself.
- Temporarily increase its weight with magic to strengthen its striking power and impact.
- Temporarily improve the sword user's muscle strength.
- Weaken or stiffen the target with magic wrapped around the blade to enhance the effect of the slash.
- Keep the blade's sharpness keen.

There are many such methods. If you weren't particular about slashing and just wanted to increase its power, you could even enchant it with a formula that would activate a magical attack upon impact.

"Improving the owner's physical strength is one thing, but increasing the material’s rigidity or toughness is more in the realm of blacksmithing or alchemy than enchanting. But once a request is brought in, if you can’t meet the customer’s demands, you’re out of business. As a result..."

"Even if the content of ‘enchanting’ didn't change, the scope of an ‘enchanter’s’ work expanded."

"That's right."

So that was why the content of "enchanting" seemed so vague. In short, it wasn't that "enchanting" was vague, but that "enchanters" were taking on jobs other than "enchanting," which seems to be the cause of this ambiguity. Faren's eyes widened behind him, which suggested that even a magician did not know the full inside story.

And if that were all, it would be one thing...

"Then some merchants started selling things like clothes dyed with insect-repellent dye under the pretext that they were ‘enchanted with an insect-repellent effect.’ It has nothing to do with ‘enchanting,’ but the customers misunderstand that an enchantment has been applied. And since the insect-repellent effect itself is real, even without using enchanting, the situation becomes complicated."

"I see..."

"To make matters worse, those damned merchants had the nerve to argue, ‘We used the expression ‘enchant’ in the sense of adding that effect, we never said we performed ‘enchanting.’ We had them stop because it was confusing, but even now there are many customers who misunderstand that sort of thing..."

Yuri couldn't help but feel a sense of sympathy, thinking that this industry also had its share of troubles.

"...Well, that’s about it for enchanting... The ‘enchantment’ you’re worried about, lad, is ‘enchantment’ in the original sense, is that right?"

"Ah, yes. It doesn't have to be the real deal, but I at least want to prevent my enchantments from going out of control."

Yuri could already use [Enchantment] as a sub-skill of his [Rural Life Guide]. However, the problem wasn't that he could use [Enchantment]. For Yuri, the fact that he had attached the [Disintegrate Acceleration] enchantment to his mortar in an unintended manner was the big problem. This was nothing less than him being unable to control the [Enchantment] skill.

After all, Yuri’s [Enchantment] was something his [Rural Life Guide] master had thoughtfully added for him. Since Yuri himself had not consciously learned it, he was confident that he was straying from the proper path of enchanting. Even without that, an "enchantment that was there before I knew it" was too presumptuous to even call itself enchanting. True enchanting should be about applying the intended effect according to the proper Magical Principle.

"Well, that's certainly true. In magic, not just enchanting, it's important to have a clear image of the expected effect. But if you not only imagine the result but also firmly understand the process leading to that result, your success rate and power will also be different."

Having heard Yuri’s situation, Omo had no choice but to cooperate. After all, if Yuri's concerns were correct, it could be a matter of life and death. As someone who bore the name of an Enchanter, Omo could not overlook this issue.

Given the circumstances, they decided that basic lectures alone would be somewhat insufficient, and agreed that Yuri would learn to control enchanting through the practice of simple enchantments. To that end, Yuri would be commuting to Omo’s workshop for several days, which for Yuri was a most welcome development.

Thus, Yuri succeeded in learning the rudiments of proper enchanting from a professional Enchanter.