Chapter 113: Not so talented..
Axel then proceeded to try one more time, activating his runic eyes to their full power, which he hadn’t used until now. He had found out that when it came to memorizing the runes, keeping the runic eyes active or inactive made no difference whatsoever.
And as expected, it was still a failure even with his cheat-like runic eyes being active. He sighed to himself in defeat. The rules of the Eldarion continent are indeed too strong. No amount of cheating could circumvent the absolute rules it imposed. In a way, if you think about it was the Prime Nexus who was the alien entity which is constantly trying to circumvent the rules of this world. But why? Which of them was connected to the calamity of the Golden lights?
With a sigh, he stopped thinking about that matter, those things were far too above his league for now. There was one more benefit in practicing in your soul sanctum than outside, which was that time flowed twice as fast compared to the outside world in your Soul Sanctum. Meaning if you spend 2 hours uninterrupted within your Soul Sanctum, only 1 hour would pass in the outside world.
But in hindsight, it was also discovered that spending too long within your sanctum also produces some side effects in the long term, but that referred to like spending maybe months and months non-stop, that kind of too long time.
Since the full engravement procedure of the rune was a spectacular failure, he could now only fragment the runes and do the engravings. Since all the 24 basic runes can have 3 fragments each, or can be fragmented into 3. That would mean a total of 72 pseudo-rune symbols.
(Fragmented runes are called Pseudo-Runes)
Now, for a first phase Seeker, their task is basically to choose 24 pseudo runes out of the 72 total pseudo-runes fragments coming from the 24 basic runes. A runecaster can master one pseudo rune from each of the main runes. Then engrave those runes in each tool. Make a polygon circle out of that, and place that circle around the Nexus core of the rune chamber.
But there is a catch: mastering 24 pseudo runes is not a requirement; the minimum requirement is mastering only 8. One-third of it. Not to mention, similar to the trial world, it was downright impossible to master one pseudo rune from all 24 runes.
The world Will doesn’t allow it, by the words of his rune professor, Alfred, that is. The professor was pretty much certain on that matter, even mentioning the name of his grandfather, which he never did till now, probably in consideration of Axel. That even Damien Nomrad did not manage to master all the basic rune symbols. The actual number of Damien Nomrad’s mastered basic runes was actually unknown.
With a sigh, he mentally revised the 24 runes he memorized.
Ignis (Fire), Aqua (Water), Terra (Earth), Ventus (Air), Lux (Light), Umbra (Shadow), Sanguis (Blood), Os (Bone), Carne (Flesh), Electra (Lightning), Glacies (Ice), Ferro (Metal), Flora (Plant), Bestia (Beast), Mens (Mind), Cor (Emotion), Sonus (Sound), Visus (Sight), Tenus (Barrier), Verba (Word/Naming), Fumus (Smoke), Pulvis (Dust), Venenum (Poison), Lapidea (Stone).
He picked one basic rune first, then fragmented it into three, picked one of the three fragmented symbols, using his runic eyes as he focused intently on writing that fragment. Pouring his mana into the rune engravement pen, with careful movements of hand, and focused willpower to bind the power of that fragmented concept, as it finally took form, and the concept was established onto the paper.
The symbol glowed in a slightly blue light, as sparks of small thunder flew from it; that’s right, it was a pseudo rune of the thunder rune. But he could easily spot many mistakes in it, and a strange force was dispersing the power of the pseudo rune. Not only that, while engraving it, he could also feel some kind of force heavily hampering his smooth process of engraving. It inflicted severe pain in his mind.
Now, he understood why Professor Alfred was always bitter and hateful whenever he talked about the world Will in particular. Even though his very first engraving seemed like a success, from his experienced eyesight and the special features of his runic eyes, there were so many small mistakes in the fragmented symbol that it could very well be called a failure.
But Axel didn’t mind considering how much enormous pressure the world Will was putting on him in the process of engraving. Even this much success was noteworthy. For now, he didn’t need to master it; soon, the fragmented rune symbol written by him disappeared after losing its power.
Axel would master it when he engraves it on the swords. He got up and took out the sword from the cooler. He separated the raw sword from the casting mold. Put it on the hammering table. Carefully running his fingers over the sword, understanding its composition and structure. He was quite disappointed, to say the least. It turned out far worse than he expected.
He was already having a headache thinking about the disgusting amount of material he would need. But even though it turned out quite badly, he started hammering it regardless. If he gave Gareth that sword, and the master forger had no choice but to work with it, he would turn this faulty thing into something impeccable just through hammering alone.
So, with that in mind, he heated the raw sword slightly again, he had to see how he would fare in hammering it and make it better or maybe make it worse. For the first 10-15 minutes, it’s mostly hard hammering; then the intensity decreases, and a more controlled hammering is needed. Gradually, the fine tuning becomes very subtle as time passes, as the slightly heated sword returns to normal temperature.
But after he was done hammering, again, a disappointed expression appeared on his face. He, by some miracle, actually made it worse.
“Fuck, goddamn it.” cursed Axel aloud in frustration. He really didn’t have as much talent in forging as he would like to have. The same thing was said to him by Gareth multiple times. His experience of rune engraving on millions of swords wasn’t as helpful in the procedure of forging as he would like to believe.
50 Golden Tickets = 1 Extra Chapter
200 Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter
1 Magic Castle = 4 Extra Chapter