Chapter 119: Face of The Prince
In the end, he decided first to master all the 24 pseudo runes and then do all the phantom challenges at once, there were a few reasons behind it, first of all, the moment Axel defeated a total of 8 phantoms, he would ascend to the mid stage of the 1st phase, now there could be lot of questions if he advanced that fast, considering its only been a total of 3 months after waking up from the trial and 1 month spent in Eldarion while being on the trial.
So, a total of 4 months had passed in that case from the beginning of the trial.
His daily routine consisted of attending various classes, spending time with his friends, then forging and engraving uninterrupted, and just one more month later, Axel had mastered all 24 of the selected pseudo runes; now it was time for non-stop grinding. He could constantly fight the phantom figure and achieve the highest level of combat proficiency using that particular pseudo runic weapon on his current level.
The process of fighting a phantom of yours with a certain pseudo rune engraved weapon and on the process perfecting your combat proficiency with that particular rune engraved weapon, and finding the flaws of your own engravement, he decided to give this process a name, for easier future reference, he decided to call it rune or pseudo rune optimization.
So, now he would do the 23 other pseudo-runes optimization. But that would not be his main focus, and even if he did focus after trying for a while, he understood that this is something that is a process that simply cannot be rushed. You have to keep doing slow and steady, understanding your flaws, and you can improve both on the combat and engraving parts. It takes time; rushing it will only make more bad implications for the future.
So, he would just treat it like a daily exercise instead of rushing it, rather than creating an unstable foundation. That was a big no. Another big task he had was selling weapons, that’s right.
Axel decided to sell weapons of 16 different pseudo runes, and he would sell the most badly made ones. he would say to everyone that he had decided to master a total of 16 runes for breakthrough to the 2nd phase. Considering his talent, that should be an acceptable range.
It was double the minimum amount of pseudo-rune one needed to master.
Selecting 16 runes to which he had least amount of affinity to, now the thing was, he would have to craft them on the real world, anything brought into the runic chambers could not be brought out, specially materials or anything related to runic sorcery, well to be perfectly honest, anything un related to that cannot even be brought to the primary aspect chamber.
He could now go hunting, but he didn’t feel like wasting time doing that; he didn’t have the urge to kill some random monsters now. Making the weapons as fast as possible and amassing a good amount of wealth is more important for now.
It seems he could only go to his loyal friend and borrow some money, and so he did borrow some money. The guy was really grumpy and stingy when it came to borrowing money.
So, he had to haggle with the guy a bit to get the required amount of money, and he needed a lot to be honest, like a really, really good amount. He could actually get all the necessary materials from Heinz himself for the forging procedure. But that would be a loss considering a 50% discount from the academy itself.
Getting all the materials necessary, he went towards the forging facility, where he had already booked one forging room in advance. There were multiple forging facilities , for all the sections, each separately.
He found Lucien going in the same direction of the facility as him to the facility. He nodded towards Lucien reluctantly and was about to go ahead, but the guy had something else to say about that.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“You’ve been hiding like a rat. I think we need to have a good talk,” stated Lucien, a trace of anger could be found in his voice.
Axel stopped in his tracks. He sighed internally, he could already feel a headache coming on.
He turned around and stated to Lucien in a frosty tone of his own,
“With all due respect, your highness, you could have sought me out anytime you wanted; I never hid; there was nothing to hide.”
Lucien’s eyes became furious at that response, he added,
“Who do you think you are to reject my sister? Do you think you’re too good for her or something?”
“Reject? Oh, please,” scoffed Axel. he walked forward face to face with the main character himself.
“I have no interest in getting into your political games. The other princes and princesses have already approached me many times, but I have also held my firm stance to remain neutral. Getting in a relationship with Lumina is but a bold declaration of my allegiance towards you in the future succession of the throne, and I would rather not get involved,” added Axel arrogantly.
Lucien’s raging expression calmed down, and a smile formed on his face, an intense gaze came from his eyes as the prince stated with a chuckle,
“Heh, I guess you’re not so foolish after all.”
Axel also smiled, seeing the real scheming face of the 4th prince. He did not add any comments on his statement. Lucien added, looking towards a certain direction,
“Yes, perhaps you’re neutral now, since the succession of the throne is quite far away, it’s acceptable for now. But you would have to choose it at a certain point, where your allegiance lies, and a smart man like you knows who has the best chances despite all the rubbish my siblings spread around everyone about me.”
He paused and turned towards him again. he was about to put his hand on Axel’s shoulder, but stopped at the last moment and said in amusement, “Uh, right, I forgot you dislike others putting their hands on your shoulder, I apologize.”
Though it was doubtful if he was really apologetic or not, he looked straight into his eyes and continued in a wise tone,
“Axel, everyone has a price, everyone has something they want, some kind of support, help, or something in exchange. You have something you can give, so you must also have something you want.”
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{Author Note = If we hit 200 power stones and 50 Golden Tickets by the 6th of June, there would be a 6 chapter mass release on that date, if not, then a 4 chapter mass release on 6th June for the magic castle I was gifted by [Zamir].}
50 Golden Tickets = 1 Extra Chapter
200 Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter
1 Magic Castle = 4 Extra Chapter