Goulth tried to rein his surprise in and looked at Red with a frown. “Do you mean you came up with new arcane sigils?”
Red shook his head. “No. I mean that I have discovered a completely foreign Arcane Scripture system.”
The blacksmith’s eyes widened again. “This… Do you even know what you are saying right now? How could there be two different arcane scriptures systems? It makes no sense!”
Red hesitated. “… The system I discovered isn’t from this world.”
Goulth’s expression changed in realization. “Do you mean you learned them from that dream of yours?”
Red nodded. This was one of the secrets he had told his master, mostly involving how he was sometimes pulled into this other world in his dream and was made to walk an endless desert with no purpose. Goulth didn’t recognize his description, but he shared the same belief that the youth was probably transported to some kind of infernal hellscape.
The blacksmith told him this wasn’t unheard of. People who came in contact with powerful demonic forces might establish contact with the other side through their dreams, but Goulth’s knowledge of the matter was limited. He only told Red that most of the time, these connections ended in disaster and should be cut off as soon as possible.
His master wanted to enlist Hector’s help, but Red convinced him not to. Since that infernal plane seemed to be uninhabited, there was probably no danger forthcoming to the youth. Not to mention, Red knew that as long as the mist remained inside of his body, there was no cutting off whatever connection he had with that place.
The blacksmith was reluctant at first, but he agreed. After a few years passed with no other incidents, Goulth stopped bringing the matter up for the most past.
Now, however, things changed.
“I thought you were only walking in an endless desert!” Goulth stared at Red with concern. “Who taught you those things? Did you make a deal with a demon?”
Red shook his head. “I did no such thing. It’s just that when I was pulled into that dream yesterday, something changed…”
The youth explained to his master how he managed to reach that bone yesterday for some reason, as well as the formations he saw carved on its surface. By the time he was done, Goulth had a contemplative look on his face.
“Do you know what prompted this change?” he asked.
Red shook his head again. “Nothing out of the ordinary happened… Or at least, nothing that hasn’t happened before.”
Goulth frowned. “So you just… reached the bone?”
The youth sighed. “That seems to be the case.”
The blacksmith grunted in thought. “Maybe it isn’t the case that nothing happened, but rather that something did happen, but you just didn’t notice it. Next time you’re in there, make sure to examine everything thoroughly. It might lend you a clue.”
Red frowned. What his master said made sense, but the youth had been very thorough already, so he couldn’t imagine what he was missing.
‘Well, there is one thing I didn’t check back then…’
The thing in the sky. Red didn’t linger on this thought, though, and let it dissipate lest something bad happened.
“There sigils you found… How many did you memorize?” Goulth asked.
“I committed three of them to memory.” Red said.
“Three?!” Goulth looked surprised. “How much time did you spend there?”
The blacksmith’s surprise obviously came from the fact that memorizing even one sigil is something that could take days or even a week for a beginner.
The youth shook his head. “I don’t know. However, I can’t say with complete confidence that I remember them correctly. I didn’t have the proper materials to draw them back there either.”
In Arcane Scripture, a slight mistake in your drawing could make the sigil completely ineffective. It was why it was so important to practice them, so drawing their shapes would become as much a matter of muscle memory as it was a matter of visualization.
This was not to mention that trying to recall information from his special dreams was rather difficult, even if Red was completely conscious. It was like there was a barrier which he needed to break through every time he tried to remember what happened in that hellscape - a rather arduous and tiring task.
Goulth smiled. “Well, we won’t know until you try doing it, right?”
The blacksmith got up and went to a side room, bringing back a stack of high-quality paper and ink before setting it on top of a table.
“Come here!” Goulth waved at him with an excited expression. “We’ll first check your drawing and see if you really remember how it looked!”
The blacksmith looked even more eager to experiment than Red was, so the youth nodded and approached. He sat down on a chair and picked out his brush and ink before setting aside a paper to start drawing.
Before he continued, though, he frowned and looked over at Goulth.
The blacksmith was leaning over his shoulder, staring at the brush and paper with a fanatical expression. “Come on, kid! What are you waiting for?”
“Give me space.”
“Ah, sorry!” Goulth scratched his head in embarrassment and stepped back.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Red still felt his intense gaze from a few meters away, but he didn’t bother telling the man to go to another room. He sighed and focused on the task at hand, drawing from his foggy memories the image of one of the sigils.
His hand began to move. The brush moved with fluid and elegant strokes, changing in speed every so often as Red moved to a more complex part of the drawing. There was no pause between any of the strokes and the youth didn’t stop to breathe or blink for even a second, since one slight lapse in focus could mean the sigil was a failure.
Finally, a few minutes later, he was done, and they were left with a rather peculiar drawing.
“… Is this the symbol you saw?” Goulth asked in wonder.
Red understood why he was surprised. This looked nothing like the Arcane Scripture they knew. There was an abundance of curved lines, criss-crossing and uniting to form a strange symbol. It was like a chaotic assortment of shapes that didn’t make sense together at first glance, not as aesthetically pleasing or orderly as the Arcane Scripture of this world.
“I was confused at first, too, but once these symbols were put together, they formed an extremely complex formation.” Red said.
Goulth nodded. “I don’t doubt you. Now, are you sure you got the symbol right?”
The youth hesitated, examining the drawing. “… I’m not sure.”
“In that case, continue drawing it.” he said. “Once we have enough samples, you can compare them and see where you might have made any mistakes.”
Red nodded and set about doing this task.
It was a repetitive and tiring ordeal, and the youth had to take a break a few times to maintain his focus. Goulth stood there watching him the entire time, enraptured by his practice and barely speaking throughout it. It was clear that the blacksmith was extremely interested in the prospect of discovering a new Arcane Scripture system, even if it was from a hellish landscape and possibly not even real.
Red compared every single one of his sketches, concentrating on the sigil’s image in his mind, and correcting mistakes whenever he saw them. Goulth offered him some limited help, as even though he wasn’t an expert in Arcane Scripture, he still had a good eye to spot mistakes and discrepancies in the youth’s drawings.
It took Red two hours before he felt satisfied with his drawing.
“I think this is as good as it’s going to be.” Red said. “If there are any mistakes in it, I can’t recall them from memory.”
Goulth grunted in satisfaction. “Great. Do you want to try inscribing it and seeing if it works?”
This whole time, all that Red had done was practice the drawing. Generally, if one wanted to see the true effects of an Arcane Sigil, they would need to inscribe it into a high quality Spiritual Material, such as a monster skin or spiritual paper, and use the proper tools and ink.
Red, however, hesitated. “… Are you not afraid of what its effects might be?”
Goulth frowned. “Well, of course I am! If that place you described is real, then these sigils are probably demonic in origin. However, we don’t even know if it will work, and there’s nothing wrong with just experimenting!”
It seemed the blacksmith valued knowledge above everything else, regardless of what the origin of said knowledge was. Red was of the same mind, but he wanted to make sure the blacksmith approved of their heretical actions before continuing.
“I would like to try to etch this symbol on a bone. Do we have any suitable ones?” the youth asked.
Goulth shook his head. “We have bones, but even the bones of those giant monsters aren’t big enough to etch on properly.”
‘If only we managed to keep the bone of that wolf back then…’
Red sighed. “Let’s try a monster hide, then. It’s the closest thing we have to a bone.”
“I agree.” Goulth nodded and walked away to the storage.
A few seconds later, he came back with a square-piece of treated monster leather.
“Here, this belonged to a Lesser Ring Realm fireleaf deer.” Goulth said as he laid the material on the table.
Red nodded. “And the ink?”
“Here.” The blacksmith put a pot of dark blue ink on the table. “Deep Blue Spiritual Ink. Made from Sky Howl’s resin. I’m not sure if any of this will work with these sigils, but it’s the best we have with us right now.”
“This will hopefully suffice.” The youth was satisfied.
“Are you drawing it right here?” Goulth asked.
“Yes.” Red nodded. “Please, make sure no one interrupts us.”
The blacksmith nodded. “I will be waiting in the other room.”
Goulth then walked away, leaving Red to focus on the task at hand. He examined his final sketch of the symbol a final time before setting about drawing the sigil proper.
Suffice it to say, doing the real thing was much more mentally taxing on Red than simple practice. One mistake here meant the material he used would go to waste, and this was something he obviously couldn’t afford to do, so he took particular care to make sure all details were drawn to absolute perfection.
Thankfully, the youth had six years of training to back him in this matter. This sigil took ten minutes to draw, but by the end of it, it was completed with success and with no signs of mistakes.
“I’m done.” Red called out to his master.
“Let me see!” Goulth came running from the other room, looking over his student’s shoulder at the symbol. A wide smile came to his face as he nodded. “It looks perfect!”
The youth nodded. “Now all we need is to power it.”
“Right!” Goulth took out a spirit stone from his pocket and handed it over to Red. “Here, you do the honors!”
Red hesitated. “I don’t know what this sigil does. What if it’s dangerous?”
“You’re the one who drew it! It’s your responsibility to see this through!”
The youth sighed. “Fine.”
He grabbed the stone from his master’s hand and brought it closer to the sigil. Red frowned as he heard Goulth distancing himself from him, but he didn’t stop, and a few seconds later he laid the stone on top of the arcane symbol.
The reaction was almost immediate. The stone glowed as the symbol seemed to absorb some of its Spiritual Energy. This glow, however, was quick to subside, and a few seconds later, nothing else happened.
“So?” Goulth asked, hiding from behind a table.
Red sighed. “Nothing happened.”
“Really?” The blacksmith sounded disappointed. He approached Red and examined the sigil. “It absorbed Spiritual Energy, didn’t it?”
“Yes.” The youth nodded. “However, that doesn’t mean it’s a proper arcane sigil. Maybe my drawing was still flawed in some ways, or maybe whatever symbol this is only works in that place. Either way, it seems like this was a failure.”
“Don’t be disheartened yet.” Goulth patted his shoulder. “There are still plenty of experiments we can do before declaring this a complete failure. After all, this is probably some kind of demonic sigil. Maybe it only works with some type of demonic Spiritual Energy.”
Red’s eyes widened as he seemed to realize something. “… I have an idea.”
Goulth frowned in suspicion. “What idea?”
The youth didn’t respond. Instead, he grabbed out a knife from his waist before slashing the palm of his hand.
The blacksmith’s eyes widened in surprise. “What are you doing?!”
“Just a test.” Red said as he put his bleeding palm over the sigil.
His blood started to drip down onto both the spirit stone and the arcane symbol. Suddenly, to their surprise, the crimson fluid seemed to be absorbed by the sigil as its bluish lines started to glow.
Some kind of reaction started to happen around the sigil as Red and Goulth felt the surrounding air change.
The blacksmith smiled in delight. “It worked! It really work-”
Suddenly, the sigil exploded, and the entire workshop was thrown into chaos.