Having finally achieved [Rune Engraving], we could move on to some of our final lessons. That's not to say my Enchanter journey was over; far from it, I still had much to uncover in my own time, and I had barely touched spherical enchantments beyond the fundamentals. Greg had even described it as having reached the starting line, and I'd be registered as a fully licensed Enchanter within the Merchant's Guild with Greg's name backing my credentials.

I wondered if I was perhaps setting a record for graduating from [Apprentice], but Greg had heartily laughed at that thought. While I was by far his fastest graduate, I wasn't even close to some of the training Royals got. He explained that they would receive tutelage from someone with an absurd level in [Apprenticeship] while likely also having [Prodigy] and combined with legendary artifacts that could either boost experience or understanding and an ocean of elixirs and potions.

"So we've finally reached [Rune Engraving], and thus, I need to explain what we mean by permanent enchantments." Greg began his lecture as I eagerly waited to absorb the knowledge.

"Generally, we break down permanent enchantments into two broad classifications. The first and most common by far is unpowered enchantments, and I'd say these easily make up more than seventy percent of all engravings. The inscription is unpowered, and you must channel mana through it to activate it. Think of a tool that you only activate when needed, and our refrigerator egg also falls under this category, except it has been combined with a storage component. This includes most adventurer equipment, which passively siphons off mana from their wielder or wearer to power the enchantments. It need not be said, but most [Rune Carving] enchantments do this as well, but the difference is that the Carving will fade as mana flows through it, but the Engraving will not. Unless the Enchanter is grossly incompetent, using the wrong tool, or the object itself is of poor quality, of course."

"The second is passively powered enchantments. The enchantment is always on through accumulating mana or mana generated from the object itself. The first option usually leads to an extremely large enchantment, as mana-gathering arrays are inefficient unless you combine your engraving with high-quality materials designed to entice the mana into the enchantment. The second option is the more common method of the two, and this is where monster parts usually come into play."

"For example, instead of using our refrigerator inscription, we could enchant a white slime core, which is practically pure ice mana. The slime core being aligned to Ice means we wouldn't need someone with Ice-mana to do the inscription, and it would be permanently on. We usually add another inscription to act as a switch, temporarily breaking the enchantment so it can be turned off if required. The downside of this, aside from potential resource scarcity, is that the quality of the material will significantly affect the quality of the result. A poor quality core could lead to an enchantment barely cooling a room, while a high-quality one could potentially even freeze its owner."

I asked a few questions, such as how I added material to an engraving, and Greg demonstrated. He showed a specific head for the engraving tool that could absorb resources, usually in liquid form, and distribute them along with the enchanting mana flow. Greg did a relatively small enchantment to not waste resources, which in this case was a tiny coin of mana-enriched silver. The coin easily melted in a small flask he rapidly heated. He then dipped the head of his tool in the faintly glowing silvery liquid, and it sucked it up to the last drop. Greg then proceeded to enchant as normal, and soon, there was a beautiful glass ball of permanent light. He also explained there was a skill I'd unlock later on now that I had [Rune Engraving], which allowed you to designate a source as your material and incorporate it without needing a tool, presuming very precise mana control.

Now that we had reached this point, I had finally been given access to the refrigerator inscription. I was immediately grateful it wasn't a spherical enchantment as I had expected, but instead, it was two highly interwoven circle enchantments. The bottom enchantment was entirely related to storing and distributing mana, acting as a battery. The top enchantment was the cooling and freezing effect, and while originally it had felt oddly familiar, now armed with [Rune Reading] and quite a bit of experience and theory crammed into my core, I now could recognize parts of it as a modification of [Glacial Aura]. Unfortunately, translating spell constructs into runes or inscriptions wasn't a simple process, and it was one of the things I wanted to study in my own time once I was free from the obligations I had set myself. But still, it was nice to see a visible sign of my progress.

Greg had me practice both circles individually before we worked on the interlinking mesh formation. The bottom one was simple, I had worked with storage functions before, and this was just a more advanced one. I was happy to have it added to my rune collection for free. The top part was the tricky part and involved many complex runes I'd never drawn before, but with the aid of all my helpers, I was soon drawing it without error.

Happy with my results, we moved on to enchanting one or two fake eggs made from iron or copper. Our actual end product was to be made from electrum, a gold and silver alloy that practically went hand in hand with magical tools due to its natural tendency to contain and distribute mana. It was the gold standard. Heh.

The copper and iron eggs wouldn't last long, and the metal would warp after one or two uses, but it was a great way to check my work. I was extremely grateful we didn't immediately move to the end product because I had made a careless mistake on the mesh of the copper egg, which meant its storage would drain into the freeze effect quicker than intended. I was a little distracted during the engraving as I needed to ensure I was pulling only Ice mana, and I had become far too familiar with pulling only Arcane for all of my previous work.

With a deep engraving of ice mana, any raw mana injected into the finished product would be rapidly transformed into Ice. Hence, the storage component was vital for this egg, not just for prolonged usage, but to give an appropriate amount of time to buffer the raw mana becoming Ice. High-purity Ice mana was needed to overcome any leaked affinities from the user, as not everyone could produce pure Arcane mana on demand, and even raw mana would contain small traces of their affinity.

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Thankfully, my second attempt at using the iron egg was a resounding success once I told my helpers to double-check my work. It honestly started to feel like I could do anything if we all put our cores together, and I was eager to see what else I could accomplish with [Core Collective]. One amusing thing about enchanting with Ice Mana was that it made the room absolutely nippy, and Greg would be forced to wear a large fluffy coat and gloves if he wanted to closely observe. I luckily got to handwave any such necessity by claiming [Ice Resistance] from my Cryomancer class.

Once Greg and Thern tested the trial refrigerator eggs and gave them a thumbs-up, we proceeded with the first real attempts. I was surprised by the dwarf coming to observe, but apparently, Greg had been bragging, and there was a small bet going on about how successful my first real attempt would be. It was likely the most intense enchanting session of my life, with two sets of eyes closely observing and critiquing my every stroke. Thankfully, I had nine hidden helpers to protect me from potential screwups.

"Bloody hell! I feel like a dwarf runt being drunk under the table." Thern exclaimed when I finished the final stroke.

"I told you my [Apprentice] is precise!" Greg said smugly, stroking his beard.

"Scarily so," Thern said, wasting no time to examine the finished product. "I'd swear you were one of those fancy enchanting golems if I didn't just watch you do this before my eyes..."

"Oh. I heard about those. Supposedly going to revolutionize the business." Greg answered before I could question. "I heard they can only do one enchantment, though?"

"Aye. One was shown before my Pa, made the most perfect lines I'd ever seen but could only do one enchantment and nothing else."

"Good for mass production, but..." Greg said, stroking his own beard now.

"Yep. Terrible for any creativity or unorthodox solution. Supposedly, they can't go above rank four yet either." Thern finished Greg's thought.

"Sounds like our jobs are safe now, old friend." Greg chuckled.

"Or maybe we send your [Apprentice] to take them on!" Thern said, giving a big hearty laugh and slapping me roughly on the back. "After all those bloody storage crates you've enchanted, I'd swear you were one of them!"

I couldn't help but chuckle, maybe a little nervously. "Enough about golems! I want to know how good the egg is; my [Rune Inspection] isn't high enough yet."

"Has bloody [Rune Engraving] yet can't even inspect one!" Thern gave a friendly jab.

"Hey... It's level five." I tried to defend myself.

"If it weren't for your results, I'd lock you in a vault filled with magic tools and not let you out until you could properly evaluate every single one!" Thern countered.

Greg cleared his throat, giving a friendly smile. "Well. Good thing he's my [Apprentice]. I can't say most approve of the dwarven course."

"Bah! It puts hair on a youngin's chest."

"The egg?" I interrupted. "Or should I just fill it up with Ice mana right now and see how good your coats are?"

Both of them laughed at that. "At least he's got some teeth!"

"Aye!"

Finally, they both got to work, and after some intense back-and-forth, they finally injected it with some mana, made some more evaluations, and turned to me.

"So, we've evaluated it and..." Greg began.

"It's bloody perfect!" Thern interrupted, giving another hard slap on my back. "Also, bloody hell, do you have frozen blood running through your veins? The purity is off the scale. I swear I could inject Fire Mana, and it'd still become Ice in that thing."

"I bet he can do it again." Greg said with a sly grin.

"I'm not taking that bet! Ma didn't raise no fool." Thern chuckled.

After a short break, I made the final egg. Unlike the first, I didn't have the unexpected pressure, and it was easily replicable. Thern had once again commented that I was like an enchanting golem. Meanwhile, Greg was simply just happy. He'd seen me make countless storage crates, after all.

Before we closed up for the evening, I wanted to thank both of them. I withdrew the gifts I had secretly obtained, smiling friendly and gratefully. For Thern, I had requested James buy me an impressive bottle of alcohol "fit for a dwarf." Not one to take half measures, I had secretly added a few drops of [Poison Slime] to the mix after ensuring it would still mix. Thern wasted no time popping the bottle and taking a swig, giving a large grin only outdone by the one I had seen as Syl.

"This is some really good stuff! Thanks, lad!" He said cheerily.

For Greg... I had initially struggled to think of an idea. I had considered buying something, but it felt a little impersonal. I had then thought of trying to enchant something, but I worried it wouldn't be impressive enough at my level without guidance. Over the long time we spent together, I had become quite familiar with Greg, and one thing he had always grumbled about was his master's dragon bone tool.

I thought it would even the playing field if I could give him something similar. Thankfully, it wasn't that hard to find out what affinities Greg had by just querying his enchantment specialties. He was born with Fire and Light, then added Water, Earth, and lastly, Wind in his attempt to get Ice. It was a long shot, and after some secret research by looking into some of the Merchant's Guilds catalogs, I had the perfect idea. I handed him the long, thin wooden box and smiled teasingly.

"Really, Sylvester? You didn't have to get me anything." Greg said although he couldn't hide his smile.

"It's nothing, Master Greg. Just something I picked up in my travels before I arrived here."

"Bloody, open it! The suspense is killing me!" Thern shouted, causing Greg and me to laugh unexpectedly.

Greg gingerly opened the box, and his eyes widened.

"Is that what I think it is?" Thern asked.

"I believe so..." Greg said as he gingerly touched the immaculate white horn in the box.

"Shit! Lad, do you want to become my [Apprentice] next?" Thern asked unabashedly.

"I don't know if I can spit out another unicorn horn..." I chuckled. "Do you even have Light affinity?"

"I don't, but bloody hell. Where'd you even find the thing?" Thern asked.

"I passed by Glimmerock on my way here," I answered.

"I had heard there was an incident with the adventurers getting attacked by pegasi..." Greg muttered.

"Aye! The things were out for blood. Never seen them go that crazy before; an emergency quest was even put out. Probably ruined plenty of young gals' imagination of the 'majestic creature.'"

"I can imagine... My niece loves to draw them and unicorns." Greg said with a slight frown.

"Well. I can't say I see the appeal after being attacked by them. At least I got a fancy horn from a dead one." I shrugged.

"Fell from the island? I wonder what caused such a ruckus up there." Greg asked.

"I have an idea..." Thern said, giving a chuckle accompanied by a cryptic smile.

"Not going to share?" I asked, and Greg nodded in agreement.

"I'll hopefully get my confirmation in a week or two. But, see! You should go pick up your combat class again. You never know what you'll find outside of the city walls." Thern teased.

"Why bother when I have such a generous [Apprentice]?" Greg countered, causing Thern to sputter. "Honestly, Sylvester. Thank you."

"You're very welcome. Master Greg."