I awoke to the sounds of children playing and fighting with sticks. It got quite loud here, didn't it? Well, it's an annoyance, but it's also nice in its own way. The sound of children laughing warms the heart and can make a person believe that there's good in the universe. I wish it didn't happen at 6 Am every day but whatever.

I met Pop's at the forge as he instructed me to the day before. The dwarf requested to borrow my ax's in a sneaky manner: avoiding looking me in the eyes or grinning. I knew he was up to something, but I played along. Now the Grillo was tapping his foot out of impatience as I walked towards him as slow as possible. I pretended to observe the flowers and other foliage just to mess with him.

 Done screwing with his head I said "Morning Pop's."

"You trying to kill me, boy," Grillo pointed at me frustratedly.

"You know I don't play well with others right?" I replied nonchalantly shrugging my shoulders.

"To think I put all this effort in for your sake," the dwarf said pretending his feelings were hurt.

 Oh, the games we play! I told myself.

"Don't be like that I promise I do not see any other dwarves behind your back," I jested.

"Gah," Grillo scoffed, but the joke still put a smile on his face.

Dwarves had a similar sense of humor to myself. They liked someone who could take an offensive joke and dish one back out. They felt there should be no "walls" that friendship should not allow crossing in jest.

"What you got for me today father of time?" I asked mockingly.

"Well, ya know Eloriums one great weakness?" Pop's said while making a swirling motion with his hand telling me to continue the train of thought.

The only thing I knew that could hurt the metal was high temperatures, so I turned to him and said: "You mean heat and fire right?"

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"Yes," the dwarf replied excitedly shaking like a chihuahua.

"What did you think up this time?" I asked the dwarf losing my composure.

"This," Grillo stated as he picked up one of my ax's and held it up in front of my face.

The ax had two runes carved into its surface. One was the fire rune I already knew, and the other was unfamiliar to me. Where one rune ended it connected to the second rune: It looked just like cursive writing. 

"Okay..." I replied to the excited dwarf confused.

"Bah," Grillo groaned sick of waiting for me to catch on. The dwarf put my ax directly into the forge. I nearly screamed like a small child who just dropped their ice cream onto dog poop.

The ax didn't turn red hot like I expected and instead pushed the nearby flames away. Grillo then took the ax out and handed it to me. It was cold to the touch and not the least bit scorched.

"...How?" I inquired flabberghasted. 

Pops was almost rolling laughing since his prank got me real good. He wiped tears from his eyes and replied, "the first rune's function is to repel and the second you already know is fire. When joined the two repel fire and heat away from the object in which they are inscribed."

"That's amazing pop's but... I don't get how it's working like this didn't you say it needs mana conductive wire and a power source?" 

The old dwarf grinned, and his eyes sparkled, " A little something I discovered about mana saturation, my boy! The Elorium feeds the rune mana itself when necessary. Then the next time someone touches it the weapon siphons some of its user's mana to replenish itself." 

"The mana drain could be a problem in a long fight though..." I said before pausing in thought.

"My boy, don't you get what this means?" Grillo asked expectantly. 

"The ax is nearly unbreakable, and its enchantment cannot be removed in combat by destroying a socketed crystal right?" I said.

"No! ... Well yes but that's not all! ' Grillo shouted back. Grillo made a rectangular shape with his hands before saying, "Remember that thermoelectric generator you told me about? The one that absorbs heat and turns it into electricity. If we can create a mana version of that, then we can feed Elorium ambient mana. Imagine elven battery cores made of this inside a giant rune armor made the same as that ax!"

"... Holy guacamole! That would be awesome, but that's gonna take a lot of trial and error as well as time we don't have right now." I mumbled back at the dwarf.

"Don't worry about that my boy just leave it to Pop's," Grillo stated in the third person like it was easy.

Well, the dwarf was the most reliable person I knew other than Emma. So far he had co-invented Mana saturated Elorium and discovered a new way to make runes. If we could reinvent elven enchanting using my magic and knowledge from earth, then there would be nothing we couldn't accomplish. I just hope our experiments don't kill us. First, Emma would kill me if I died or worse. 

I looked at the ax in my hand before saying, "Well I wasn't planning on fighting dragons, but it never hurts to be prepared!"