Chapter 80— First semester exam(1)
Thud...
"Here's your wand."
Inside the sweltering, metallic heat of the smithy unit, Rowan stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sarina, facing the counter where Master Orven Draegor rested a finished weapon.
Orven dropped Rowan's custom piece onto the wooden table with a dull clatter.
Rowan stared down at it, blinking in confusion. It looked like an ordinary, uninspired stick of dark wood.
"Uhm... Master Orven, I thought I asked you to make an axe?" Rowan asked, tilting his head.
Orven clicked his tongue, crossing his arms with an indignant huff. "Tch... Young folks these days. Absolute zero patience."
"What?"
"Just pick the wand up and see for yourself."
Rowan eyed the stick skeptically for a second before reaching out and gripping it. The moment his fingers closed around the wood, the entire piece flared with a sudden, brilliant flash of light.
Clack-shift.
With a mechanical hum, a heavy, gleaming axe head slid out and locked into place, transforming the simple wand into a formidable axe.
The blade was an absolute marvel. Swirling shades of prismatic color rippled across its surface, looking less like solid matter and more like liquid light trapped inside thick glass.
It shared the exact haunting iridescence of the rune Rowan had salvaged from Rune Island.
Looking closer, he realized the blade wasn't forged from ordinary steel or reinforced metal at all—the entire cutting edge was constructed purely from the condensed, crystallized energy of the strange rune.
Rowan stood completely mesmerized, his jaw slightly slack as he admired his new weapon.
"It looks incredible," Sarina remarked, her tone level yet carrying a genuine note of appreciation as she inspected the weapon's clean lines.
Master Orven rubbed his bulbous nose, looking far too pleased with himself. "Of course it does! After all, I stayed up the entire night tearing my hair out just to figure out how to forge that thing without blowing up my workshop."
The prominent, exhausted dark circles framing Orven's smiling eyes provided more than enough evidence to prove his claim.
Rowan looked at the master smith with a grateful smile.
Thok, thok.
Suddenly, an elbow caught Rowan sharply in the arm. Rowan flinched and looked over at Sarina. Catching the stern, pointed look in her dark eyes, he quickly remembered his manners and bowed his head toward the smith.
"Thank you, Master Orven. Truly."
"Ah, don't sweat it, kid. The rune you brought in was a masterpiece on its own," Orven said, waving a dismissive hand.
"Um... if you don't mind me asking, did you find out anything else about it?" Rowan asked, his natural curiosity getting the better of him.
"Of course. I was going to anyway."
Both Rowan and Sarina leaned in closer, fixing the old smith with intense, curious gazes.
Cough cough.
"So... It's kind of like a shapeshifting rune."
Orven explained, his voice dropping into a professional, analytical tone.
"I don't know where a kid like you managed to dig up something like this, but it defies everything we know. Not only is it entirely element-agnostic—meaning it harmonizes with any element type—it actually resonates with the user's subconscious intentions, shifting it's form to match their will."
Orven crossed his arms, shaking his head in lingering disbelief.
"To be completely honest with you, I didn't even think a rune like that could physically exist. Looking at it's nature, it was never meant to take the static form of a traditional staff or wand. It's fundamental property is adaptation. And the way it instinctively morphed into an axe for you pretty much confirms my theory."
Rowan stared down at the humming weapon in his hands, his mind racing. The prismatic blade caught the smithy's light, glowing softly.
'So that's what that rune actually was...'
"Did you find any similar rune like this one on that dungeon?" Master orven asked with curiosity.
A sudden thought struck him.
Rowan remembered clearly that there had been two runes he had found in that rune chamber, and the other one had been seized by the dark mages.
'Could it be that those guys were there for this Rune?' Rowna wondered in his mind.
Noticing Rowan's sudden silence, Master Orven let out a heavy sigh, misinterpreting the boy's quiet demeanor.
"Well... yeah. Runes of this caliber are practically one-of-a-kind. It wouldn't surprise me if that was the only one of it's kind left in existence from that dungeon."
"Ah..." Rowan hesitated, nervously rubbing the back of his neck to cover his sudden panic.
"Right. Well, I should probably be heading out now."
"Yeah. See you around, master," Sarina added smoothly, stepping back alongside Rowan as they turned toward the heavy iron exit.
"Goodbye, see you later, young ones. Good luck for your first semester exam!" Orven called out with a lazy wave.
Clang.
The heavy iron door slammed shut, sealing them in the hallway.
The moment the lock clicked, the relaxed, grandfatherly smile instantly vanished from Master Orven's face, replaced by a razor-sharp, calculating expression.
He shuffled slowly back to his workbench and pulled open a heavy, reinforced steel drawer locked with three separate mana seals. Resting on a velvet cushion inside was a tiny, brilliant fragment of the exact same prismatic rune—a sliver he had carefully shaved off during last night's grueling experimentation.
He vividly remembered how violently the material had resisted forging, fighting every single magical tool he owned until he unlocked it's secret.
"A true shapeshifting rune..." Orven muttered to himself, his voice laced with awe and caution.
He picked up the tiny fragment with a pair of silver tongs, examining how it pulsed rhythmically with a heartbeat of its own. His gaze slowly drifted away from the glowing metal and toward the closed workshop door, tracking the direction Rowan had just exited.
"I don't know what kind of messy trouble you stumbled into to get your hands on something like this, boy." Orven whispered into the empty room.
"But it's a miracle indeed—a Rune—like this has the power to completely shatter and bring a revolution on both Alchemy and Magineering."
A dangerous, ambitious grin spread across the old smith's face as he carefully placed the fragment back into the hidden drawer and slammed it shut.
"Hmm. Now, the real question is... Who do I report this breakthrough to? Should I send word directly to Councilman Ferner, or... maybe shall I contact the Alchemist King."
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CHAPTER ENDS