Elincia and I had stayed up all night talking about my past life on Earth. Even if my rational mind told me Elincia would accept everything, a part of me still feared rejection. In the end, she just shrugged and said, ‘You are still you’. Maybe Elincia was right, and I was getting old. I found her maturity very attractive.
My biggest desire was to return to bed and sleep beside Elincia until noon. However, time was pressing. Preparing the final details for the tournament was only the tip of the iceberg. I also had to put my new Class to the test and help Ginz settle at the orphanage. Not to mention looking after the orphans.
I filled the wooden tub halfway up, hoping the water would wake me. The sheer number of trips I had to make to the well made it clear why bathtubs were a rarity and a luxury in the orphanage. I put the wooden screen between Elincia and myself while she was busy brewing potions and shed off my pajamas. Then, I cautiously heated the water using mana.
A smile tugged my lips, thinking about the long way I had traveled since I had warmed water for the first time. I entered the tub slowly, letting the hot water embrace my body. I put my head on the edge and closed my eyes. The sound of Elincia working with her tools on the other side of the screen had a soothing effect on my body.
The more pressing matter was to examine my new powers. I closed my eyes and examined my mana pool. I was a Runeweaver Scholar, yet runes made little sense to me. More than a thousand different runes, sorted in incomprehensible ways to my inexpert eye, covered every single centimeter of my mana pool. [Master of Languages] didn’t give me vital insight about the runic language.
The gargantuan task of learning the secret of the runes on my own didn’t overwhelm me. During the last months, I had learned that I wasn’t alone.
“Eli?”
“Yes, my love?” Elincia replied from the other side of the screen. I detected a humorous undertone in her words that made me smile. At least, I was sure routine wouldn’t erode our relationship.
“Do you know anything about Enchanters? About the enchanting process?” I asked. Even though Elincia was more inclined to evade classes during her orphan years, Mr. Lowell taught her a lot.
“Have you been living under a rock? That’s basic stuff! Oh…” Elincia bit her tongue mid-sentence. Despite my reassurance, she still believed I was homesick to a certain extent. “Well, Scribe is a basic, non-combatant class that can advance into Scholar or Enchanter Class. Enchanters are masters of all kinds of mana. They can pour it into objects to give them magical properties.”
I expected Elincia to say something more, but the silence grew long.
“That’s it?” I asked in disbelief.
“Rare classes are obsessed with secrecy. Even high-level Alchemists keep their original recipes to themselves and their disciples,” Elincia replied.
My fears were starting to crystallize.
Firana’s enchanted cape glowed with runes, so I expected the Enchanter’s craft to be related to engraving runes. Runes were like Chinese pictograms; I knew they had a meaning, but I couldn’t start guessing them without a teacher. The System, however, hadn’t given me knowledge about any runes. Leveling up my Runeweaver class might be more expensive than expected if I had to buy pre-enchanted items to learn runes.
In hindsight, I should’ve asked the enchanted item merchant about enchanting. I decided to not batter myself over it. I couldn’t have guessed I was going to get a Class upgrade.
I grabbed the bar of soap and started rubbing my body. As I enjoyed the hot water, I let my mind wander away from the rune problem. Maybe I was a little homesick. I wanted to crack a cold beer, not the lukewarm, stinky mead they served in Farcrest taverns. I imagined myself hunched over the computer screen, searching for runeweaving tutorials online. I sighed and submerged my head until my lungs screamed for air. When I resurfaced, I caught Elincia looking at me.
“I don’t know if this is part of your training as a swordsman, but you are going to get sick if you take cold baths in winter,” Elincia pointed out.
Did I ever tell Elincia I could heat water with my mana? I massaged my temples. I might have done so, but I didn’t remember clearly.
“Anyway, I talked to Miss Nasiah the other day. She must have our new uniforms ready by now, so when you have a free hour, you should go to the store to get them,” Elincia said.
I wasn’t the only one putting in extra hours for the orphanage.
“I’ll go after checking on Ginz. He might know something else about Enchanters,” I replied, clearing the last traces of soap and waiting for Elincia to disappear to the other side of the wooden screen. She didn’t move. Instead, she locked her eyes on the soapy water. For some reason, the ring on my finger tugged my hand insistently.
I raised an eyebrow.
She raised her eyebrow back.
My towel was nowhere to be found.
Sneaky girl.
“Speaking of wary Alchemists, did Mr. Lowell leave you a list of his original potions?” I said, pretending I wouldn’t get out of the tub any time soon. For good measure, I heated the water some more in case I stayed a little longer.
My question seemed to touch a sensitive fiber because Elincia’s face turned red. “Mr. Lowell was somewhat of a wayward Alchemist. His recipes are… I would rather not reproduce them.”
Forbidden knowledge. That was totally my thing.
“If his recipes bought him this manor, they would be useful for us,” I pressed the matter.
“No, they won’t!” Elincia turned around and disappeared behind the screen, all flustered.
Curious.
I pondered over the implications of Elincia’s words as I looked for my towel. Mr. Lowell didn’t strike me as the kind of man who developed deadly potions or potent flammable compounds. I wondered what kind of potions would make Elincia react that way.
I closed my eyes and let my muscles relax. Unveiling the secrets of Mr. Lowell’s alchemy prowess would have to wait. Staying up all night wasn’t doing any favors to my ability to think logically. The hot water wasn’t helping to keep me awake.
“Hey! Don’t sleep in the tub. You’ll get sick,” Elincia said, handing me a bright green potion.
I looked at her with a curious expression. My [Identify] skill was still corrupted.
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“Oh, right. It’s an Energy Potion. It will keep you awake for twelve hours; then you’ll crash down, bad, so be near a bed,” Elincia explained.
The potion was spicy.
“Fire vine pod?” I asked.
“Lots of it,” Elincia smiled.
A moment later, the fog of sleepiness suddenly disappeared, and I felt a surge of energy coursing through my body. I blinked to activate my [Mana Mastery] and caught a glimpse of a fiery red mana flowing through my veins. The spiciness made me cough. I couldn’t remain sitting with all that buzzing energy within me. I stood to my feet and grabbed the towel from Elincia’s hand. The sensation was addictive.
“The water is still warm if you want to take a bath,” I said, wrapping the towel around my waist and grabbing my clothes. In an outburst of affection, I grabbed Elincia by the waist and kissed her. I decided I wasn’t homesick. After a minute, we broke apart.
“So affectionate, so early?” Elincia asked, a little dazed. We were too busy dealing with the orphans in the morning to have any semblance of time alone.
“We have Ginz to cover for us now,” I replied.
“So, don’t you want to soak a little more?” Elincia asked, untying the straps of her bodice.
My heart skipped a beat. A glance through the window revealed it was almost breakfast time. It might be too risky with twelve orphans and a craftsman running around unsupervised.
“I would love to, but I can’t,” I said with a mischievous smile as I put my pants on. “If we take a bath together, then I would have no incentives to obtain your bath pic, and I don’t want to ruin your plans to make me act cautiously.”
Elincia couldn’t hide her surprise. “Oh, I see what you did there, you sneaky bastard!”
She jumped forward, trying to catch me, but to my surprise, my body reacted instantly, and with an elegant jump, I got out of her reach. It seemed the System wasn’t messing with me when it gave me access to Elincia’s [Light-Footed].
“I have twelve hours to work on something, so I better make them count,” I replied, blowing a kiss to her and leaving the bedroom. If Ginz knew nothing about enchanting, I would ask Firana if I could look at her new cape.
“You’ll pay for this, Robert Clarke!”
I heard Elincia yelling as I jogged down the hallway. If things go well for the following weeks, we will have all the time in the world to take long baths and sip on Margaritas under the sun. For now, I wanted to tease her a little more. The ring on my finger furiously tugged my hand towards Elincia’s bedroom.
Ilya was already in the kitchen, preparing breakfast with the rest of the early birds. Ginz raised his head, pleading for help. Dark circles outlined the craftsman's eyes. Shu was continuously pulling on his jacket with a mischievous smile. As soon as she saw me entering the kitchen, the girl stopped tormenting Ginz and greeted me with the sweetest smile possible.
“Is it like this every day?” Ginz asked with a defeated tone.
“You guessed it, pal,” I replied with a wink. I sat by his side and shot my question. “Have you ever met an Enchanter?”
Ginz gave me a quizzical look. “There was an Enchanter teaching here when I was a kid. Her classes were hectic, though. She forced us to do all kinds of exercises to help us develop mana before getting our classes. Other than that, I can’t say I learned anything about actual enchanting.”
That was a downer. It seemed like Firana’s cape and Ilya’s Cooldown Bow would be my first approach to enchanting. I stood up and returned to the door without waiting for breakfast to be served.
“You won’t leave me alone with the kids again, don’t you? Rob?” Ginz called for me as I exited the kitchen.
As I headed to the kid’s bedroom, I made a mental note to tell Shu to stop trying to ‘break’ Ginz. I knocked and opened the door. I hadn’t a reason to frequent this room other than a couple of times when a younger kid wanted to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
There were six beds on each side, with night tables between them and two big wardrobes on the opposite wall. Usually, there were four empty beds because the older orphans had personal bedrooms. However, no beds were currently vacant due to Firana’s insistence on celebrating with a sleepover.
Further from the door, I recognized Wolf, Virdian, and Ash sleeping soundly despite the hour. Firana was sitting on her bed, her messy hair pointing in all directions, looking blankly into space.
“Good morning, Firana,” I greeted her, full of energy. Maybe I should’ve saved a couple of drops of the Energy Potion for her.
“Good morning, Dad,” she yawned. Then, suddenly, she finished waking up. “Mister Clarke! Good morning, Mister Clarke!”
I smiled. During my years teaching in an elementary school, I was called ‘dad’ at least a dozen times. The kids’ shameful expression afterward was the same in this world and the other. My answer remained the same.
“Good morning, daughter,” I said. “Would you be so kind as to lend me your cape for a moment?”
Firana sighed, still appalled due to the slip of her tongue. Then she guided me to her room, and after a moment, I had the cape on my hands. The fact that the Aias Sword was hidden atop the wardrobe didn't escape my scrying eye. Like the cape, the sword’s surface was covered in bright red runes.
The more enchanted items I had access to, the easier it would be to reverse-engineer the enchantments.
“Could I see your sword?”
Firana nodded and stood on tiptoes to retrieve it.
“That’s an enchanted item,” I said.
“Yes, but it’s dead now. It needs monster blood to revive,” Firana replied, bringing the sword closer. When I stretched my hand to grab it, Firana violently pulled back.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” I quickly said. It wasn’t a surprise that Firana was protective of the only memento of her family.
“It’s not like that. You’ll burn your hand if you touch it directly,” Firana said, her eyes lost in the charred iron. “That’s why Captain Garibal had it wrapped in silk… and Uncle Kellaren can’t wield it.”
I nodded in silence. That was the reason Kellaren needed Firana to lead the family. Only an Aias of the family’s main branch could wield the sword. It was an intelligent safeguard to keep the family’s name in good hands but a two-edged sword for Firana.
I focused on the sword, and the runes shone before me. Considering the dark, charred patches, I guessed the Aias Sword had at least three enchantments in place: a recognition enchantment, a vampiric enchantment, and an igneous enchantment. The sword might not be the most manageable object to work with as a novice.
“How strong is it?” I asked.
“Right now, it is a piece of metal; when charged, it can cut through steel and set stone on fire,” Firana replied with a hint of reverence.
As dangerous as it sounded, having a powerful magical artifact as a home defense measure might prove to be helpful during an emergency. However, I wasn’t a fan of bringing Firana to the Farlands to charge the sword with monster blood.
A sudden idea struck me. Monster blood didn’t seem to have any unique properties other than the high concentration of mana within their bodies. Maybe we didn’t need to go to the Farlands to revive the sword.
I led Firana to my room and retrieved the slime core Dassyra had given me.
“Do you think the sword will charge up if it breaks the core?” I asked, unsure if I wanted to lose a valuable item in a doomed experiment. The core was full of mana, even if the slime it came from was dead.
“I think it’s reacting,” Firana said.
The runes on the blade suddenly shone as I brought the slime core next to the edge. Maybe it wasn’t a doomed experiment in the end. With my mana pool recovering, Ginz’s shells, and the Aias sword, the orphanage was a step closer to being a safe space for the kids.
“Do it,” I said.
Firana nodded and sliced the slime core. A mist of blue mana, only visible to me due to [Mana Mastery], flowed towards the sword. Firana tightened the grip, and the blade caught fire. I felt the scorching heat against my face before Firana extinguished the flames.
“Keep it away from the other kids, and only use it in a moment of great danger. It will be a while until we can travel to the Farlands to feed it more monsters,” I said.
“Understood,” Firana replied with utmost seriousness.
Igneous weapons were as powerful as they were intimidating.
“Could you leave the sword on top of that dresser? I want to study it,” I asked. “Without touching it, of course.”
Firana nodded and, without asking questions, left the sword in my room.