Palace Museum, Four days before the Academia Scholastic Trials

Sepphira made her way through the main hall of the Palace Museum's inner complex. Her steps were light, her pace neither fast nor slow.

She was not wearing her usual brightly colored dress today, instead, it was a simple light pink dress. The outer robe she threw on top of the dress was deep red in color, exuding bold contrast that was very eye-catching.

Her hair was tightly wound up in a bun, unlike her usual style of lazily tying it in a high ponytail. A jade hairpin stuck out from her hair, complimenting the pair of small and refined earrings she was wearing.

Sepphira was beautiful, but not extremely beautiful, yet at this moment she exuded some kind of aura that turned heads wherever she walked.

Students and elders alike were a little bit surprised by the noticeable change in Sepphira. They greeted her as she walked past and the warm smile and soft gaze she returned with her greenish eyes startled them even more.

People were still looking even after she already walked past them. They had never seen the usually vicious and uncompromising Sepphira looked this charming before.

At this moment, Satoshi, Unsui, and Tellrog were gathered in Unsui's study.

To Unsui's and Tellrog's dismay, Satoshi came asking them first time in the morning. The two of them initially thought to give him another day of rest, since he was just badly injured. But Satoshi appeared to be completely fine even after they checked on him multiple times so they could only oblige despite being thoroughly surprised.

Right now they were discussing enchantment inscriptions, specifically about the fundamentals of setting up inscriptions for the purpose of enchantment. Laid on the table in front of them were the hand wraps that Unsui made. As they went through their discussion they would go over examples of possible scenarios with the hand wraps as the main case.

"So…if we put these inscriptions onto the containment enchantment already on the hand wraps, it should alleviate some of the risks…" Satoshi said while his eyes alternated between a diagram of enchantment and the hand wraps in front of him.

"Right…but there are some caveats, which is?" Tellrog responded.

"As the inscriptions basically function as a set of law, or rules, to ensure certain criteria are met then there will be repercussions in the case the rules were to be broken."

"The simplest result would be the spells or techniques will be dispelled and the mental energy consumed to activate it will instead be used to neutralize the harm."

"But in cases where the rules can be bypassed or simply broken through, even though the spell would still be able to be performed, the resistance provided by the inscriptions would greatly diminish its power and the resulting excess of energy would be expelled, potentially hurting the caster." Satoshi finished repeating what Tellrog and Unsui had just told him.

"Good! See, I told ya he isn't just a mere Sandoshi!" Tellrog exclaimed toward Unsui.

"...I don't know about that, I mean, look at his face…"

Satoshi was surprised by Unsui's response. Even though he was now more or less used to Unsui's antics, it would still surprise him whenever Unsui directly insulted him right to his face. Luckily, Tellrog volunteered to join the session, which more or less prevented Unsui from going completely off the handles.

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"So…the inscriptions work as some kind of power cut that will kick-in when overloaded…resulting in the expulsion of excess energy, which is harmful…"

"So…I'm just eye-balling here, what if we put some kind of containment enchantment on top of it, to act as some kind of energy reverse or something…"

"Continue," Tellrog said as he saw Satoshi went deeper in his ponder.

"Or, even further, what if we set an enchantment array that would kick-off a relay of opposite or neutralizing elements to offset the imbalances, thus there is no wasted excess energy and the relay could also be perpetually maintained as necessary from then on…creating some sort of self-sustaining chain reaction…"

"HAHAHAHA!!! You Sandoshi, you want to go nuclear?!" Unsui suddenly jumped on Satoshi.

"Well, he is not entirely wrong, you know…" Tellrog came to the rescue.

"Well sure, if by that you mean he can go past Sandoshi and turn to atomic sandwich."

"What? What's wrong? What did I say?" Satoshi confusingly asked.

"Your second suggestion, while it is hypothetically possible to do, it is not possible to do in your current state. Unless you somehow get your hands on a set of formation array and high-grade conduit, that is." Tellrog explained.

"What kind of formation array and conduit are we talking about here?"

"The kind they have in Xinjia-kor and Dai, you sandwich!"

"That would be the simpler ones, the more complicated example would be Eyriin's Old Wold Tunnel of Celestial Aspects," Tellrog interjected.

"Tha-that so…" Satoshi was perplexed at the absurdness of his conjecture.

"What you are suggesting requires precise and reliable manipulation of elementary particle configurations. Perpetually no less. Even if you were to achieve the rank of Grand Master, you will be hard-pressed to do it on your own without external help." Tellrog smiled wryly.

"Eyy…don't be so pessimistic Tellrog. Who knows, maybe the sandwich would one day really be able to create gods like the tunnel, right?" Unsui continued with the jabs.

Satoshi ignored the clear insult and asked instead, "Create gods?"

"The Old World Tunnel of Celestial Aspects in Eyriin is said to be able to create something called 'celestial particles'. That's according to record tho, since they hadn't succeeded in replicating that yet."

Satoshi drew a cold breath after hearing Tellrog's explanation. He had heard the name of the ancient relic before, but this was the first time he found out why the tunnel would be called as such. To think that the people living in the Second Era were able to invent something that allegedly could be used to create gods, was beyond his understanding.

Satoshi looked around the study, it was thoroughly messy. Weird parts and materials were scattered everywhere, haphazardly laid on the floor or hung from the ceiling. Research notes were sprawled over the table and workbenches, or disorderly pasted on the wall.

Satoshi had been in this study many many times, and he had observed Unsui's work many many times. No need to mention Xinjia-kor's or Dai's facilities, the things within this study right now were beyond him. To think that ancient civilizations from past eras could achieve such a thing despite their limitations, it was understandable for Satoshi to be perplexed.

"Your first idea, however, should be significantly easier to do tho." Tellrog's voice awakened Satoshi from his pondering.

"it is?"

"Yes, it should be. Unsui, what do you think?"

Satoshi looked at Unsui, who had suddenly gone silent. His face turned serious as he looked at Satoshi. Both Tellrog and Satoshi were now waiting for his response, after all, Unsui was the expert in fabrication among them.

Before Unsui could answer, the door to the study suddenly opened and Sepphira entered. The three of them were in deep anticipation before so the sudden opening of the door startled them. When they saw how different Sepphira was, they were even more surprised.

Tellrog's thick mustache was suddenly standing stiff as he pulled his lips tightly to contain his surprise, but his almost bulging eyes betrayed his effort.

Unsui totally froze in his previous position, he didn't even turn to look at Sepphira making him the most unnatural among them.

Satoshi was also surprised by Sepphira's sudden appearance, even more so by the sudden change of her look. He didn't realize that he had been staring at her long enough to make it weird.

"What?" Sepphira asked Satoshi.

"No-nothing." Satoshi meekly answered, fear began creeping into him due to his audacity to stare at her. He began preparing to be scolded.

To Satoshi's surprise, Sepphira only smiled and averted her gaze to Tellrog and Unsui.

"Unsui, I assume there is no trouble with the study?" Sepphira asked the frozen Unsui.

"Everything is alright, everything is alright, there is no problem whatsoever," Tellrog answered in place of the frozen Unsui.

Sepphira looked weirdly at Tellrog that suddenly jumped at the question. "You make sure that nothing is too excessive and dangerous, right?"

"Right! I'll make sure nothing is too excessive and be as safe as possible."

"If Satoshi is tired, you should stop and have some rest. It won't be good to have too much pressure after all."

"Yes! We definitely won't put too much pressure on him, in fact, we would put the pressure on us instead so he could be at ease, hahaha!"

Sepphira simply nodded at Tellrog's weird answer. She then gently grabbed Satoshi by his shoulder and softly said, "Don't exert yourself too much, your well-being is the most important."

"O-of course, I'll make sure to look after myself."

Sepphira gave him a very sweet smile and continued to say, "I have submitted your application for the trials with Daojia Institute as the only choice, so you don't need to turn it in yourself."

"I have also ordered an assessment crystal to be sent, I'll notify you once it is delivered to my study and we can test your affinity."

"Okay, thanks."

Sepphira nodded and gave both Tellrog and the frozen Unsui a look before she left the study. There was an extra charm on her last turn as she walked out of the room that Tellrog and Satoshi clearly noticed, it was definitely done on purpose.

Satoshi and Tellrog exchanged a confused look. There was even a wry smile on Tellrog's face, which made Satoshi even more confused with the whole thing.

"What the hell, why is she suddenly so nice to me??"

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