“Are you sure you trust me with this? I can’t promise success, but I believe I can mold this into something invaluable to you,” Sen told her.
Milim smiled and handed over the Mimic Staff artifact she’d gotten under his advice. With his new artifact, The Elementless Shell, he believed he could elevate her own artifact to new heights. He’d help an ally grow stronger, and at the same time, have an opportunity to experiment with his new instrument.
“I trust you, Sen. Without your help, I would never have gotten high enough on the rankings to even get an artifact. If you think you can pull this off, I believe in you. Speaking of…I was wondering, maybe we could train together later?” She played with her hair. “I know we’ve been putting off that talk of ours, and you’ve waited long enough. Let’s meet up later. You can show me the changes you made to the staff, and we can try it out. I’ll tell you everything then.”
That caught Sen off guard. For weeks it’d been on the back of his mind, but if he was being honest, he hadn’t wanted to ruin the fun of questing and training with Milim. Back in the forest, she’d seemed willing but a bit reluctant to talk about how she’d learned the Mana Encapsulation technique. After realizing he considered her a friend, he’d been afraid to push her to talk about it in the event it pushed her away. He’d decided to let her bring it up on her own. Now she had.
Sen nodded slowly. “If you’re sure,” he said, gathering himself. “I look forward to training with you and seeing how you like the new modifications on your artifact.”
Milim smiled. “See ya, Sen!” She hurried off, leaving him holding the conch shell and wooden staff they’d received today.
He made his way straight to the forge room. Sikar had given him access to it after their session together, and according to the schedule, nobody should be using it at the moment. It wasn’t even a popular facility to begin with, and Sen was fairly confident Professor Sikar was the only reason Brightsail Academy even had a forge room.
He locked and sealed the door behind him, and cast a few simple spells to ensure nobody could spy on his work, as he usually did whenever working on things in private.
The forge lit up, responding to his will and the mana he poured into it. The blue flames roared momentarily before settling down. He started by pulling a high-grade dream essence sphere from his temporal space. It was his only high-grade sphere of that type, but he didn’t mind spending it on this..
The Mimic Staff roared to life immediately. Visually, the staff was like any other, but once it consumed a magic essence sphere, it would evolve. He could try feeding it low or mid-grade spheres, but Milim had shown surprising potential, and he considered this an investment in her future. After all, he had come to this world seeking peers, and they still had many spots on the class rankings to climb.
He held the dream sphere close to the staff and felt a tug as the staff tried to wrench it away from him with magic will. He consented, allowing it, and the staff sucked the sphere up in an instant. Dream magic essence flowed through the staff, and as it fed, a purple aura emanated from it. The staff expanded, growing from three feet long to about five feet long. It became smoother, and the act of simply touching it made Sen think of being back in his temporal world in the finest bed he’d ever slept in. The dragon silk sheets and phoenix feather pillows he missed.
“Adamantine Mind,” he barked. The artifact was bound to Milim, so he’d need to be more careful about its passive abilities. Milim would be able to stop it from lulling everyone around her to sleep, but she’d only owned it for ten minutes when he borrowed it to improve. Her control over it would come with time. Using a high-grade sphere improved the nature of the artifact itself. A perk of the mimic ability associated with it.
[The staff is now known as the Dream Mimic Staff and has evolved into a mid-grade artifact.]
That was a pleasant surprise, though not completely unexpected. It was the reason he’d used a high-grade essence sphere after all. Artifacts with the natural ability to evolve often could reach higher grades when given the right resources or attention. Now that was done, he needed to move to the second part of his project. As things were, this staff would enhance Milim’s abilities and control over dream magic. But that wasn’t enough. This wasn’t its final form.
He set the staff down on the anvil and allowed the blue flames to begin their work. They would prepare it, allowing him to further change the artifact in a moment. With that in motion, he turned and pulled out the magic artifact he’d taken from the cult of Harpis at the same time he’d gotten the artifact that had later become the Stone Tomb.
Tutor has managed to further analyze the artifact’s true capabilities. The artifact of Incremental Light. A low-grade artifact that shot beams of light. Each time they hit an opponent, the light grew stronger and more powerful. Of course, there was a limit to it because it was a low-grade artifact, and it reset to its base strength in between fights and when switching opponents. If Sen was being honest, it was fairly useless to him. So he’d sacrifice it in the name of magical progress. A worthy test subject for his research.
A loud noise outside the room caught his attention, and he looked toward the door. They were on the third floor, and it sounded distant. It was probably a duel in the entrance hall. He ignored it and returned to his work.
He withdrew another dream magic essence sphere, a low-grade this time. The grade wouldn’t matter for his purposes, only the effect. With his magic, he pulled over the table Sikar often took notes on, and it grated against the floor as it made its way over. He sat the dream essence sphere and the artifact of Incremental Light next to each other. Then he took his newest personal artifact, the Elementless Shell, and placed it against the mid-grade artifact. The light in it disappeared in an instant; the small crystal ball turned white. He then held the conch shell against the dream magic essence sphere. Faster than he could perceive, the magic essence sphere became a sphere of light. The dream magic now encased within the shell. He returned the shell to the now empty artifact and passed the dream energy into it.
The crystal ball glowed purple.
Sen smiled.
[The effects of the artifact are being rewritten. Should we—]
Tutor paused as Sen grabbed the artifact and hurried over to the anvil. He set it in place at the top of the staff and waited. The staff was still completing its evolution, and the blue flames had expanded its malleability. This was more of an offering than a forging. He didn’t need to use a weapon mold to create this weapon; he only needed to offer it something unique while it was still undergoing a period of transformation.
The dream mimic staff reacted tentatively at first, sensing more dream magic essence. Then, slowly, branches of wood grew out of it and wrapped around the new dream artifact. It pulled the crystal to the top of itself, and the branches wrapped around it in a circle. They grew thicker and hardened. Before Sen’s eyes, two artifacts became one.
[Dream Mimic Staff of Incremental Dreams. High-Grade Artifact.]
[Each strike of this staff lulls the target deeper into a dream state.]
Milim was focusing on dream magic, and now she’d have the perfect tool to further develop her strengths. With this artifact in her hands, she could reach heights she had never even dreamed of. But whether or not she lived up to that potential was up to her. He’d created the perfect tool. It was up to her how she used it.
He held the staff in his hand and felt the power radiating from it. Dream magic had never spoken to him as much as others, but holding this new high-grade artifact in his hand made him reconsider. Maybe after she further developed her path, she’d end up teaching him a few things. He decided it would be good to test it out.
Sen lifted it toward the wall and pushed magic through it. He might not have a live subject, but he could at least check that the projectile worked as intended.
Something slammed into the door. This time, Sen had a bad feeling. The doorknob rattled as someone desperately tried to get inside. He dropped the privacy wards and waved a hand. The fires of the forge smoldered out, and Sikar’s table returned to its usual spot. He wasn’t going to leave the room in a worse condition than he’d found it. His light essence sphere shot into his temporal space, and he returned the Elementless Shell inside as well. He carried Milim’s staff in hand and hurried toward the door.
Someone was still desperately trying to get inside. He opened the door, and a young woman, a fellow first-year student, burst inside. She looked up with wide eyes and stared at him. “Help,” she said.
Sen shook his head. “What’s going on?”
Screams. Screams filled the air, and magic roared throughout the academy. Other students ran down the hallway, and he heard guttural cries from inhuman beings.
His heart sank.
Brightsail Academy was under attack.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter