Heaven's Greatest Professor

A couple of days passed with nothing to note happening. This morning, Jason reminded him that the forging of his Knight armour was complete and Warden only needed to carve the runes in them to complete them.

With nothing to do other than train and experiment with his cooking, he left for Dragonforge early in the morning after June left for the academy. Jason was already waiting there for him with Miss Arden in the forging room.

"Finally, you find time for some actual runesmithing, huh," said the redhead beauty with a smirk. "Did you decide anything about the contract I gave you?"

"Actually, yes," Warden said and brought out the new contract Elder Vess made for him from the subspace. After taking a good look at it, he handed it to her.

"This is not the contract I gave you," Miss Arden said, narrowing her eyes.

Warden nodded. "Your contract was generous," he said politely. "But it wasn't doing it for me, so I made a new one with some help. Care to take a look and tell me if it works?"

Miss Arden's eyes lingered on the papers for a few moments as a frown quirked up on her brows. She only read that much to say, "I'll have to discuss this with an Elder to decide anything."

"Well," Warden studied the forged parts of the knight armour, "it will take me hours to finish scribing. Should that be enough to make a decision?"

Miss Arden didn't give a definitive answer and left the room for them to use.

Warden prepared himself for the hours of tiring yet enjoyable work. Before starting, he shot Jason a look. "It'll take hours to finish up. Perhaps you leave to do something more productive."

"I'd like to watch if you don't mind," Jason said, situating himself behind him.

"I don't mind, but are you sure? Runesmithing is profoundly boring to look at for most people."

Jason nodded and did not see himself out of the room.

Warden ignored the chair and laid all the instruments and carving styluses on the floor. Jason was standing idle, so Warden asked him to hand him over the breastplate from the stone table. If he was going to just watch, it was better if he made him useful.

There were styluses of various nanometres. Considering that he was planning on making his best work, he chose the narrowest stylus. Its nib was even smaller than a needle. Well, it was the right instrument to draw master-level runes, after all.

Parameter was an important aspect while carving runes into an item. A stylus with a big-ass nib would be made it harder for you to carve higher-level runes, while the needle-sized ones needed more expertise from the carver's end.

Warden filled the stylus with pure spirit energy essence and imbued his energy. He began carving the empowering runes at the beginning. It was the easiest rune, but since he would have to draw five layers of shell, it would be the most tiresome part of the job.

His carving was so thin, it was almost impossible to see through naked eyes. Warden began fast, but as time progressed and he completed layer after layer of carving, the shell became stressful to carve at his best pace. He slowed down, but not stopping to take a rest even after an hour of relentless carving.

After completing the Empowering script, Warden moved to the Consumption script. In another Tier-5 script, the sheer number of runes in them was merely half of the empower rune.

***

On the other side of her office, Miss Arden discussed the contract with her grand Uncle who was the head of this branch of the Dragonforge.

"Master Runesmiths are hard to get," the elder said, his expression even as he read through the contract. "That is why our business plan is to rope them in with lucrative offers for as many years as possible."

Arden could only give a helpless sigh.

"This is exactly the type of loose contracts we rather not encourage in our establishment," her grand uncle continued.

"But this is a Master Runesmith," Arden said. "I've confirmed it with my eyes. He's very close to making it into Tier-6 runesmith."

The elder narrowed his eyes. He thought for a few moments to say, "He's working in the forge now, right? Let me judge his work, then."

With that decided, Arden could only lead the elder towards the forge. Warden was fully immersed in carving the runes into the parts of the armour. Currently, he is doing Amplification runes, Another Tier-5 one. Deep beads of sweat formed on his forehead, while his tunic was already soiled with sweat.

A frown appeared on the elder's face as he watched without making any move. He watched for half an hour straight in silence.

"This is enough, let's go," he said as Warden moved on to the next shell of scripts. Exiting the chamber, the elder opened his lips again, "At least, he has expertise to back him up. The contract he set is… fair for someone like him."

"But?" There was always a but.

"Try if you can sign an exclusive."

"I don't think he'd agree with that," she said.

"Have some confidence. We're biggest in the business for a reason," her granduncle said. "Offer him 25%, no 35% more benefit… Use your womanly charm if you have to, at least they'll be put to use."

"Grand Uncle!"

"What?" the elder laughed. "It is how we used to do things in our time. If you cannot bind someone with a contract, bind them with matrimony."

Arden glared up at him.

"You cannot deny, it worked," her granduncle laughed on his way to leave. "The lad has a bright future ahead of him in runesmithing. Our business needs more people like him to stand tall against the test of time."

With that, the branch manager was off to do his own thing. Arden couldn't help but let out a sigh.

***

It was evening when Warden finished and that was only after he took half an hour break in the middle. It was two four-hour-long sessions of laborious rune smithing.

Even Jason, with all his fervour for getting new armour, was bored out of his mind. He left and came up a couple of times.

"It's completed right?" Jason asked with a child's glee.

"It still needed to be polished, but yeah, I'm finished," Warden said, wiping clean the sweat from his face. He'd still need a bath. "Let's inspect it to see."

[Knight's Levity: Rare

A heavy armour made from the best common alloy available. After laying various script formations in it, the armour gained various magical capabilities. Other than rustproof, shockproof, the armour has the following capabilities:

- Amplification: All magical capabilities are raised by 50%. Strength is raised by 25%.

- Resistance: 40% impact absorption. Can decrease magic damage by at least 40%. +40% to Fire resistance, Wind Resistance, Curse Resistance, Water Resistance, Arcane Resistance.

- Weightless: Although made from heavy metals, sparing a little energy, you can make it as light as a feather.

- Restoration: With proper care, the armour can restore itself on its own, providing enough energy and raw essence.

"It's pretty good," Warden said. "I managed to get the Weightless enchantment in."

Weightless was something not in the original blueprint. However, considering the heavy armour would weigh a lot, Warden carved two layers of anti-gravity runes to give it that quality. Now, it was not just an armour for a tank.

"This is… perfect!" Jason shouted immediately as he read. "I can fight without care without care wearing this. It won't hamper my agility at all."

Warden smiled. It appeared Jason's realm of perfection was far from his. Perhaps Warden should let him see the specification of his cloak or light armour. Definitely not now, though. It only disappoints the guy if he compares it with legendary items.

"I think you can still get a couple of other abilities by having some good enchanter enchant it," Warden said. Unfortunately, the raw materials of the armour had no other quality than its toughness to be made into a higher grade.

Well, considering Jason's energy is empowering based like that of Liam's, the armour would serve him well for the remainder of Iron rank.

"I'll try, though I probably won't find any," Jason said, already draping on the arm guards.

"It's not polished yet," Warden reminded. "You might damage the shell using it right now."

"Ohh," Jason smiled, embarrassed.

"Now, if you're done with all the work, should we talk about the contract?" Miss Arden said, coming into the chamber.

Warden is not really in the mood of going into long, meandering talk that went nowhere after his exhausting work on the armour. But he was prepared to hear the gist of it. "So, what do you think?"

"The elder has agreed with the terms in the contract," the redhead said, causing Warden to sigh in relief. "But he also said if you sign the exclusive contract, you'll receive 35% more benefit, access to rare ingredients and more..."

Warden rubbed his forehead as if he was in deep thought. In truth, his mind wasn't protesting to even think about complicated business such as the contract after the stressful work.

"Well, let's sign my free contract now," he said. "It will leave me open if I want to sign your exclusive contract later."

"Are you sure, you know--"

Warden let out an exaggerated groan, stopping her from enticing him more with the benefit. "Sorry, I think I need a rest."

"Of course," she said, sighing.

"Oh, I forgot to add, I broke the spear you lent me. So it will be better if I can get your secret alloy as quickly as possible."

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