Chapter 25: Astraea's Blade (Part 2) (Patreon)

Astraea grabbed the boy's arm. Her voice carried a rare trace of excitement. "Shall we test the effect?"

Renan needed to confirm this anyway: how many rounds of rune activation could the [magic items] he made at this stage actually last?

So he didn't refuse. He picked up the short sword from the table and told Astraea to step back a few paces.

Only after the brown-haired goddess had reached a safe distance did he stir his thoughts. The mana in his body flowed down his arm and through his palm into the short sword, and in moments every rune on its surface was triggered.

"Whoom!"

Orange-red flames surged up. The heat was intense, and the air above the fire warped and rippled.

But a closer look would reveal that the flame summoned through the runes wasn't actually touching the blade. A gap about three millimeters thick separated them.

Inside that gap, white and silver light flickered on and off.

The white was the effect of Rune Solidification. The silver came from the Sharpness and Hardness runes working together.

As for Repair and the other auxiliary runes, they were quietly running too, powered by the mana.

They were simply hidden behind the effects of the runes mentioned above.

Renan kept the runes on the blade active. With his current total mana, pushing himself into a state of Mental Exhaustion this way would take at least another half hour of continuous mana output.

But clearly, while Renan could handle the drain, the beginner's short sword in his hand, bought from the Guild, would never last that long.

At the seventh minute of activation—

Crack!

The goddess and the boy in the workshop heard something shatter at the same moment.

Then the orange-red flames burning on the blade of the sword in Renan's hand went out abruptly. Next, the runic characters along the blade, which had been glowing bright blue as mana poured through them, turned dull and ordinary again.

Renan raised his left hand and flicked the blade lightly with a fingertip.

In the next instant, the sword, which had still looked fairly intact, burst apart as if struck by some heavy hammer and fell to the floor in pieces.

"Hoo..."

Seeing the result, Renan didn't react much, since he'd expected it.

He was even a little pleased. After all, under normal circumstances, seven minutes was already enough for him to settle things with Goliath, the Floor 17 floor boss.

Astraea, standing nearby, had clearly hoped for more. Watching the first magic weapon the boy had worked so hard on fall apart, a look of dismay crossed her face.

"Renan, you..." She stepped forward and parted her lips. She had meant to say a few words of comfort.

But then she noticed that Renan showed no sign of dejection or frustration. If anything, a faint smile hung at the corner of his mouth, and she realized the truth with a start.

"The magic items you make this way have a limit on their uses too, don't they?"

"As expected of Lady Astraea. My little tricks really can't be hidden from you." Renan didn't deny it. As he spoke, he pointed at what remained on the workbench, a mixture of paraffin wax and magic stone powder that had already solidified again. "The magic stones I use come from the upper floors, so their quality is relatively low. They can conduct mana, but as raw material for engraving runes, they're merely usable. If the runes are activated too many times, or for too long like just now, mana clogs the inner structure of the runes and they destroy themselves. The weapons and armor turned into magic items break along with them."

Astraea wasn't the Goddess of Forging, but mastering one path opens the way to many others.

After hearing him out, she lowered her head slightly and thought for two seconds, then offered a suggestion for improvement. "What if you changed the raw material to magic gems made by the fairies?"

Renan answered, "By my calculations, the number of uses and the duration should improve further. But if I'm not mistaken, that would only treat the symptoms, not the cause."

As he spoke, he had already sat back down at the workbench.

"Still, even a flawed magic item like this is more than enough for me right now. After all, I'll probably only use this gear I've modified myself when I challenge Goliath."

Astraea fell silent.

She had seen Renan fight before. Back then, when he had only just received his Falna and hadn't yet awakened his magic, the boy's combat power had already come close to Lv3.

Now nearly half a month had passed. Given what Renan himself had said about his [Rabble] being unlocked again, his strength must by now stand firmly among the ranks of Lv3.

Lv3.

Even in Orario, where adventurers are a dime a dozen, that was no weak level.

In quite a few small and mid-sized Familia, a Lv3 could even serve as captain.

Add the [Mind Magic] Renan had awakened, which could pass for a watered-down version of a divine authority, plus the magic gear he'd modified himself...

Astraea ran a simulation in her head. Goliath was extremely dangerous to the vast majority of Orario's adventurers, and one wrong move meant being slaughtered. Yet before Renan, he seemed not quite so unbeatable.

Of course, that was easy to say.

The brown-haired goddess had already come to regard the boy beside her as her own. She still wanted him to have a more solid safeguard while he pursued his great deeds.

As for how, it seemed there was a way after all.

Forty-some minutes later.

Renan had engraved a great many runic characters in succession onto another beginner's short sword and onto the blade of the broadsword Tsubaki had forged. He was about to repeat the process, pouring the re-melted mixture of magic stone powder and paraffin wax into the rune engravings.

Astraea, who had been watching him work all this time, suddenly stopped him.

"Lady Astraea?" Renan turned and cast a puzzled look at the goddess beside him.

A faint smile played at the corner of her mouth.

"Hold on a moment," she said. Then she lifted a arm as pale as white jade, picked up the double-edged broadsword from the table, and turned it over in her hands.

"From your earlier explanation, I've more or less worked out how your awakened skill, Magic Item Crafting, operates. There are two core points. First, the correct engraving and writing of the runes. Second, a filler material capable of conducting mana. Am I right?"

Renan nodded hesitantly. He couldn't tell what the goddess of justice was playing at.

But in the next second...

Squelch!