CHAPTER 75— The Smithy unit
"Are you feeling okay today?" Sarina asked softly as they walked side by side down the stone pathway toward the Smithy unit.
"I'm good now," Rowan replied flatly, his voice carrying a steadier, albeit quiet, tone than it had in days.
Sarina slanted a glance at him, noting the faint shadows still clinging to the corners of his eyes.
"You don't need to accompany me, I can go myself."
"Who said I'm accompanying you?" Sarina retorted, raising an eyebrow with a faint, teasing smirk. "I happen to need to collect my own finished wand from masters there, too."
"Oh..." Rowan muttered, his gaze dropping back to the gravel.
A few paces behind them, Ritvik trudged along, hands shoved deep into his pockets while observing the quiet exchange unfold with narrowed, knowing eyes.
They continued walking, the ambient clatter of hammers and the hiss of cooling steam growing louder as they approached the sprawling, high-security facility of the Smithy Unit. Inside, the massive workshop was a hive of frantic activity, heat radiating from towering stone furnaces.
The moment they stepped through the heavy iron doors, they nearly collided with Mage-Smith Master Orven Draegor, who was balancing a towering stack of metal casings.
"Oh! Welcome, students. Are you here to pick up your finished instruments?" Orven boomed cheerfully, setting the casings down with a heavy thud.
Sarina stepped forward, offering a polite nod. "Sarina Welclover. I'm here to collect my wand."
"Ah, let's see..." Orven muttered, ducking behind a reinforced oak counter and shuffling through a rack of labeled wooden boxes. "Right here."
He hoisted a sleek, polished package onto the counter and slid it across. The package had Sarina Welclover written over it. Sarina unlatched the clasp and lifted the lid.
Resting neatly inside was her custom wand—a masterwork of deep, black wood etched with intricate, obsidian-like dark filigree that pulsed with a faint, pale blue resonance.
Ritvik leaned over, his eyes widening. "Damn, that's gorgeous."
Orven grinned proudly, resting his hands on his hips. "Well? Is it to your liking, young lady?"
"Hmm..." Sarina lifted the wand, spinning it effortlessly between her fingers and testing its weight from every conceivable angle. A quiet smile touched her lips. "It's good. Better then I expected."
Orven's face practically beamed with validation. Meanwhile, Rowan stood quietly a few steps back, his hands resting by his sides, his eyes lowered to the floor.
Sarina noticed his silence. "Oh, by the way, Master Orven. This guy missed the original submission window because of... well, circumstances. Can you take his materials now?"
Orven blinked, shifting his gaze to Rowan with a puzzled expression. But taking in the boy's tired, somber aura, the master-smith softened his expression and sighed.
"Sigh... Very well. Hand them over, boy."
Sarina nudged her elbow back into Rowan's arm, urging him forward
Stepping up to the counter, Rowan reached into his pack and placed a single piece of dark, polished mana-wood onto the iron surface.
Orven stared at the wood, his brow furrowing. "Hmm? Just the wood? Where are your Monster cores or runes?"
Rowan's eyes flickered at the question.
Orven crossed his arms, his tone turning professional.
"I'm sorry, student, but raw mana-wood alone isn't enough to construct a functioning wand or staff. You need at least one stable monster core or a compatible elemental rune to anchor the spellcasting matrix."
Rowan stared the face of Orven for a minute before touching his pocket the mysterious rune was still there.
Meanwhile Ritvik who was standing beside him remembered. 'Oh yeah I forgot he wasn't able to pick any rune because of the incident.'
Ritvik stepped forward, realizing the problem. "Ah, wait, Master—"
Before Ritvik could finish, Rowan slowly reached into his pocket. He pulled out the shifting, iridescent object he had salvaged from that dungeon of Rune Island and placed it gently beside the wood.
"Would this be enough?"
Ritvik froze mid-stride, his jaw dropping.
'Wait... he actually had a rune this whole time?!' Ritvik awkwardly pulled his hand back and took a silent step backward.
Orven stared down at the object. He slowly lowered his head, closed one eye, and leaned in until his nose was practically touching the counter, his jaw slackening in pure disbelief.
Then, pulling back sharply, the master-smith snatched up the rune with trembling fingers.
Moving with practiced haste, he reached into his vest pocket, whipped out a massive, brass-rimmed research monocle, and snapped it over his right eye. Orven took a deep breathed, his voice dropping an octave.
"What is this?"
Rowan flinched slightly. The playful, eccentric craftsman from a moment ago had vanished, replaced by an obsessive researcher staring at an impossible anomaly.
"It's a Rune, Isn't it?"
"Yeah it's technically a Rune but..."
Orven's monocle-enhanced eye darted frantically across the surface of the stone.
The rune was a chaotic storm of shifting pigments, liquid colors bleeding into one another without a fixed pattern.
"Every elemental rune has a definitive chromatic spectrum tied to its elemental affinity. The purer the grade, the deeper, darker and more stable the shade is. But this..."
Orven's breath hitched as he slowly rotated the object. "It doesn't have a fixed definitive color. It doesn't even have a single stationary shade!"
The more Orven turned it, the more violent and alien the spectrum of colors became, swirling like liquid starlight trapped in glass.
Orven snapped his head up, his gaze locking onto Rowan with terrifying intensity.
"Where did you even acquire this from?"
"Ah... I found it on Rune Island, inside the dungeon i went," Rowan replied, instinctively rubbing the back of his neck.
"Master Orven," Sarina cut in smoothly, stepping between the desk and the smith to break the spell of the researcher's trance.
"Are you going to forge his wand or just stare at it all day?"
"Oh—!" Orven blinked, shaking his head violently as the intense scholarly aura evaporated, replaced instantly by his familiar, jovial grin. "Ah, right! Of course. Trust in the legendary craftsmanship of this old man."
He pointed a finger at Rowan. "So, young man, do you have a specific design in mind for your wand? Or would you prefer a traditional staff?"
"A design...?
"Aye. Or I can just draft something standard. Well, whatever you prefer, just spit it out."
Rowan paused, mulling it over for a second. Then, slowly, he unclipped his axe from his belt and laid it flat across the workshop counter.
Orven stared down at the steel-headed weapon resting beside his pristine smithing tools. "Um... are you asking me to craft an axe for you instead of a standard wand or staff?"
"Is... that not possible?"
"Wait, wait, wait. Did you just question the bounds of my genius?" Orven chuckled, puffing his chest out proudly with a playful grin. "There is no such thing as 'impossible' for a master smith!
A tiny, microscopic hint of amusement tugged at the corner of Rowan's lips.
"Thanks..."
"Don't sweat it!"
Sarina crossed her arms, watching the interaction with a subtle, approving smile."Master Orven, how long will the forging take? Our first-semester exams are right around the corner."
"Oh, you don't need to worry about exams."
Orven waved a dismissive hand, winking at Rowan. "Young man, I am going to personally do the forging of this piece myself."
Rowan offered a small, genuine nod.
"Thank you."
"Aww, come on this is the least I could do. Afterall..." Orven chuckled, scratching his chin. "You are the second student this semester to bring me a thoroughly unconventional, high-grade ingredient for a custom build."
Rowan's eyes flickered, the word catching his attention. "The second person? What do you mean?"
Orven smiled brightly, completely oblivious to the sudden tension in the room. "Oh! Have you not heard it yet?"
At Rowan's blank, uncomprehending stare, Orven continued cheerfully, "I'm talking about the famous Skybreaker Spellmaster, Ashwin Skyris."
"Ashwin...?"
"Yeah of course you know there's no way you wouldn't. Afterall he is the star of your generation." Orven bragged.
"Do you know what he handed me for his personal wand? He brought me the raw, extracted mana core of a high-tier dark mage itself!"
Rowan's blood ran instantly cold.
The nightmare imagery slammed back into his brain with violent clarity—Ashwin standing over Seris's broken body, tearing the glowing mana core straight from his chest with cold, clinical detachment.
"I mean, the shifting rune you brought is incredible too."
Orven rambled on, completely missing the pale, ghostly pallor of the boy standing before him.
"But a dark mage's core? Who in their right mind expects a student to casually drop that on a smithing counter?"
Rowan stood utterly paralyzed. The ambient heat of the forge felt like a wall of ice. His fists clenched so tightly by his sides that his knuckles turned completely white, his fingernails biting deep into his palms.
---
Minutes later...
Rowan and his friends stepped back out into the bright, blinding sunlight of the academy grounds.
Rowan walked with his head lowered, the quiet peace he had briefly found inside the restaurant shattering entirely, replaced by a dull, throbbing pressure behind his eyes.
"Hey. Are you alright?"
Rowan flinched, snapping out of his spiral as he turned toward Sarina.
"You've gone completely pale again. something bothering you?" Sarina asked, her sharp, perceptive eyes locking onto his.
Rowan stared at her for a long, agonizing second before actively averting his gaze.
"Nothing. I'm fine."
"Don't tell me you're about to lock yourself away in that room for another solid week,"
Ritvik chimed in from behind them, crossing his arms with a skeptical grimace.
"Don't worry, I'm not gonna to do that,"
"You better keep your word. I'm already in a big trouble because of your last hermit phase. Who knows what trouble i might get into if you do that again."
"I told you. I'm not gonna do that." Rowan repeated without turning back, quickening his pace slightly.
"Yeah, yeah... I hope—"
Suddenly, Ritvik's sentence choked off in his throat. He lunged forward, grabbing a handful of Rowan's jacket shoulder and violently yanking himself downward, pressing his face flat against Rowan's frame as if trying to shrink out of existence.
"Jeez... speak about the trouble and she will literally materialize infront of you," Ritvik hissed in a panic, using Rowan's upper body as a human shield.
Rowan glanced over his shoulder in bewilderment.
A few yards ahead, striding down the paved walkway with her signature arrogant, confident swagger, was Seraphine, marching directly toward the Smithy Unit.
Ritvik nervously peeked one terrified eye over Rowan's shoulder.
At that exact moment, Seraphine froze in her tracks.
Her eyes snapped up, instantly locking onto Ritvik's terrified face peering out from behind Rowan's shoulder.
In a fraction of a second, the vivid, horrifying memory of the Bench-face Incident—the sheer indignity of accidentally sitting squarely across Ritvik's face while he was asleep—flooded violently back into her mind.
And to make matters worse some students had seen her like that at that time making that incident famous around the campus. (an incident the students had already secretly begun whispering about as The Bench-Face Catastrophe)—
Her face flushed a violent, humiliating shade of crimson that threatened to rival her fire magic.
Sweat beaded heavily on Ritvik's forehead. His primal, hard-coded survival instincts screamed a singular command in flashing red text: RUN.
Without a single word of warning, Ritvik violently shoved off Rowan's shoulder, using the recoil to launch himself backward.
Rowan staggered forward from the unexpected force, but Ritvik was already sprinting for his life down the path, kicking up gravel.
"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE RUNNING, YOU ABSOLUTE PIECE OF TRASH?!"
Seraphine shrieked, the temperature around her spiking instantly as small licks of fire danced across her fingers.
"TODAY IS THE DAY I TURN YOU TO ASH!"
Sarina and Rowan stood side by side, watching the chaotic blur of a running boy and a furious, flaming pyromaniac rocket past them.
Their expressions were entirely blank. At this point, the utter absurdity of their daily lives had simply become routine.
"Well," Sarina sighed, turning her head toward Rowan with a small, knowing look.
"You should probably head back to your room and get some rest."
"Yeah," Rowan nodded softly.
"Take care of yourself, Rowan."
"You too, Sarina."
With a quiet, parting nod, they each turned and walked their separate ways.
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CHAPTER ENDS