"I assume he is one of those talisman crafters you mentioned?" I asked and Flammel shook his head.
"Goodness no! Kenzo might be a prodigy in his own right with a mastery of elemental magics rivalling Albus but he lacks the patience for talisman creation. The reason he stresses over the slow decline and soon to be loss of the art in Japan is because he is a nationalist. He desires nothing more than to maintain and advance the state of Magical Japan. Losing an ancient art like this would deal serious damage to that ideal." He explained seriously.
"So like a pureblood idealist but with the correct idea instead of just superiority?" I asked for clarification.
"Close. The difference is that he doesn't care about blood status, he himself is muggleborn after all. All he cares about is pushing the Japanese magical community forward without sacrificing the ancient teachings that brought it there. It's why talisman creation has always been a sore point for him. The entry level is too high, many try to keep it alive but talent is not so easily replaced in some cases and this is one. Without the proper talent it takes decades for even the most dedicated student to barely pick up the craft. It's not sustainable, much less said about advancement the better." he said and I understood.
It was simply a matter of gambling that arts continued existence on fate. If the right person with the proper talent came along the art got a short revitalization. But then it became another gamble on another such talented person showing up before the current practitioner died and could pass on their methods. For someone who desired advancement this was a maddening state of affairs as there was no way forward unless you got lucky.-
This was why Flammel said the man would have a stroke if he knew. My haki lowered the threshold considerably for the art. It solved the gamble and opened up a way towards advancement for it as it would allow younger people to master the art sooner and then dedicate themselves to pushing beyond where their predecessors got. Rather unfortunate since I had no intention of introducing haki to the general population. I highly doubted it could be taught normally here either or someone would definitely have discovered it in the past.-
Haki didn't require magic after all, just willpower and a strong body. Something no few have held across history. Honestly if Haki wasn't one of the only weaknesses of logia fruits I might have cut a deal but I wasn't so stupid as to literally hand over a counter to my greatest reliance in a world I lived in basically permanently. Despite this however I certainly wasn't going to say no to learning what most would consider an advanced form of alchemy when it was so easy for me. Actually making a talisman wasn't terribly hard, barely any effort at all so long as you had decent potioneering skill to brew the ink and paper treatment potions.-
The really hard part came with filling the talismans. Silent wandless casting of spells was not an easy matter even with haki lowering that difficulty massively both in the casting process and by infusing my magical signature into the raw talisman. Even after a week of work on the process I could only just barely make weak talismans. Little better than the spells cast by the average second year at Hogwarts really. There was nothing for it, silent wandless casting became progressively harder the stronger the magic being cast.-
Besides what I could use with my fruit the most powerful magic I could accomplish was only at this level. I didn't only study during this time either as Flammel was a firm believer in diversifying ones experience. He would teach until about two in the afternoon before basically giving me free reign to do whatever I wanted. Most of the rest of the day I kept practicing on my own but a few days I took the chance to do other things. For example I spent one day carefully chiseling the ward scheme I made previously into the fake philosophers stone. Flammel warned me not to attempt to infuse any magic into the runes though or it would kick up the ward immediately. -
I listened and instead took a trip to Bouvet island located nearest to Norway. It was ninety three percent glacier in truth but would serve my purpose because it had only a weather station. With it being so much ice no one would ever come looking there for my Fayth. I slipped into the place under the disguise of a storm. Like expected the air was frigid and the wind biting to anyone normal. It howled and waves crashed onto the side of the place as I waved my hand and parted the ice below me like curtains.-
I descended deeper and deeper into the island and created a small pocket nearly forty or fifty meters below the surface that I deposited my Fayth. I opened the surface of it before placing the fake philosophers stone securely atop the carved island. Finally it came time to activate the Fayth and let the summon begin. I held my spear carefully with both hands and following the knowledge of summoning I had began to ritualistically move.