Dominic laughed as he put the existing blueprint on the table for the Elder to examine.

"Yes, I see now. We can work with this. Give me a few hours, and I will design the rest of the circuitry and the orbs. You’ll need the blueprints, since they’ll all be added as you build the shield.

But can you make it? It’s a rather complex bit of magic, and if you get any of the steps wrong, or they don’t work in the order that I expect, it might not work at all." He asked.

Dominic shrugged. "I have a pretty good grasp of the fundamentals. It’s a dragonkin thing."

"Wonderful. If you can replicate it on your own, we won’t need to spend hours and hours trying to teach those children with no talent for true art how to make a new design."

Amie sighed. "You know, this is why you’re always alone in your lab, right? Even when we were in the desert, you were insufferable to talk to."

"Has she always been this sharp tongued? I seem to recall that she used to be so sweet." The old man complained, then began to ramble.

"When we first found her, she was so small, couldn’t even cast a Firebolt. She used to cuddle up with the cook all the time. He would carry her in a pouch on his back while he worked. Absolutely adorable. Now? Now, she stands here and insults me." He announced dramatically.

"Perhaps it’s a teenage rebellious phase?" Dominic suggested.

"At her age? No, she’s been through that already. She’s just lost all respect for her seniors. The power is going to her head, and she doesn’t keep old men like me in her eyes."

Amie smiled and shook her head. "Please know that I only tell you this because I love you and want you to be happy. You really should stop calling the others artless children for not appreciating magitech the way that you do."

The old man rolled his eyes and muttered something about ’irreverent brats’, before continuing with his design work.

Dominic simply watched in silence as the process grew by the layer.

The completed pair of magitech orbs were going to take entire days to create, though the additional layers of circuitry on the shield itself, to add their effect to the innate bonuses of the design, weren’t too bad.

"Does the language matter? I see that you used runes from the old dragon language, but that’s not the same one that most of Cygnia’s techno wizards use." Dominic asked as the design upgrades were completed.

"I’m just better with this one. For magitech orbs, it matters more that you have the perfect execution order in intent behind the magic when you first activate them. So, the runic language that you know best is the one that should be used for that portion of the construction.

A small error in translation can cause unexpected outcomes.

But the materials also matter.

The orbs can be copper, it’s a great magical conductor. But the gemstone is a non-negotiable. For one of them, it’s just a mana gem. Make it as large as you like, but I find that a marble size is best for practical reasons.

The other should be a perfectly clear synthetic Sapphire. Not a natural stone, a mage created one without any inclusions.

That won’t be easy to make for most mages, but Miss Amie should be able to do it."

Dominic nodded. He could do it, too. Now that he had the spell gem safely recorded in his spell book. But knowing that the gem requirement was that specific, not just in cut, but in origin of the stone, was a revelation.

"The layering is important as well, but that should be self-explanatory. There really isn’t any way to do it but from the inner layer out. Just be absolutely certain that you have lined up the connecting circuits marks, or the orb won’t activate.

There was something else. Oh, right. Don’t use a monster core in place of the mana gem. It’s tempting, but if the user of the magitech orb isn’t one hundred percent human, they could turn feral from drawing monster core tainted mana like that.

It’s not as bad as actually eating it, but still, don’t do it."

"Oh? That was information that I did not know. I thought that the only danger was from eating the cores." Dominic replied, intensely interested in this particular topic.

He had lost so many months of memories over the years, and this could be related, if it caused a slightly feral state in some nonhumans. It was considered safe enough for humans, though intensely wasteful, as it would only cast a few spells, whereas pouring the mana into a spell gem would cause a permanent enhancement.

The mage waved his hand dismissively. "It’s not fully studied, but it makes the trolls so dizzy that they nearly fall over, and it takes a lot to get past the immune system and healing of a Troll.

That’s not really my area of expertise. I am certain that there was someone in the Sect who studied it, though."

So, a dead end.

Dominic made a mental note to look into that later, and belatedly realized that he should be making physical notes, with how often he forgot about these things.

"Should we practice making the set of magitech orbs before I start on anything else? I can make the shield any time I want, I have transmutation magic for it." Dominic suggested.

"Well, that should do the job. It is better to use natural metals, the impurities in them tend to create a better result than the pure metals from the spells. But you’re right. Drawing out the designs is one thing, testing them is another.

We can’t have an incident like the elemental happening in the forge or when you give gear to some Nobleman as a gift." The old man agreed.

"Or, that could be the best time for it. It all depends on the Nobleman, really." Amie suggested.

"There is that. But I don’t think we’re going to be giving something so hard to make to people nobody likes."