“Often referred to as the greatest enchanter seen in the early 21st Century, Graham Bates's eptitude for creating items to do his bidding was second to none, exceeding the Mastery of the infamous Jordan Havenbrook in such crafts. Perhaps part of his success is due to the time he devoted in his early life to locating Aether Fonts across the world and harvesting their precious Embercrysts which were then essential to the quality of the items he enchanted.
The then Dr Bates proceeded to lecture for many years at Fullington University, being the lead researcher into the field of Object Oriented Enchanting and Embercyrst Enchantment taking on many students under his wing. The mass and mysterious theft of Embercryst from stores across the country in the 2020s encouraged Fullington University to provide proper protection for Bates's Embercryst stores - kept safe from the thefts that plagued many stores.
Professor Bates, as he became titled later in his lecturing life, was the source of a number of ground-breaking discoveries involving Embercryst - particularly the enchantment of them to store, dispense and channel power easily, as well as the fusing of multiple Embercrysts together. He revealed in his autobiography that he had spoken with another crystal master - the infamous Pilkington-Smythe - and learned his secrets before applying them to his own art to make even greater headway into the subject, but grave concerns over the Professor's mental state began to arise when he declared he had mastered a fourth school of magic…
Bates never attended the disciplinary meeting for the accidental explosion of the Liberty Quad Lecture Theatre. While nobody was hurt, Bates seemed to take it as a cue to run and so left with his Embercryst and was lost from the public eye for years and years until later an eruption of power around the original site of Bedlam Asylum signalled to HMMR authorities to investigate, and a maddened Bates was found in a building, surrounded by Embercryst and encased in a suit made entirely from the orange crystals, jittering and shouting about the gloriousness of the crystals, and was eventually removed before being carefully and calmly taken for magical pool settling.
Eventually, Bates was released from psychiatric care and returned to Fullington University where he lectured one final time on a course on the dangers of attempting to master too many schools of magic, and regained his Professorship, retiring finally to a secluded home out in the countryside where he and his many Magic Items reside in peace.”
- excerpt from “Notable Wytches of our Time”