Using his finger he carefully carved the runes into the blade before passing it to old Tobias for inspection. He stared at him like he had a great grievance against him.
"That is unfair. Melting ink costs, me so much and you can just write it with your finger." He muttered as he took the sword and carefully examined the runes. "The engraving's not too deep and the runes are even. Looks good, charge it up and let's test its effect."
Taking the sword back Chronos channeled his power into it and watched as a shimmer appeared along its edge. Holding up a sword old Tobias gestured for him to strike the blade.
Swoosh, snick! Clang!
The blade was cleanly cut through and fell to the ground.
"Ooh that's nice. Let me try it now, we won't know if others can use it until I test it." Old Tobias started acting like an overeager child.
Passing it over Chronos took the spare blade.
Swoosh, snick! Clang!
He stared as the same result happened when old Tobias wielded the sword.
A vein bulged on Chronos's head, "Oi old man you could have hurt me!"
"Calm down, I'm skilled enough with a sword to avoid cutting you!" Old Tobias retorted.
"But you don't know how far [Sever] might extend when used! You could have cut me in half!" Chronos pointed out.
"Ugh, I-I saw you use it so I knew how far I could go." He tried to make up an excuse, but Chronos's glare wore him down. "Sorry."
Realizing that that was the best he would get from him Chronos moved on.
"Alright so how was it? How much energy did it use? Did it feel awkward or was it hard to activate?"
"It used more energy than an elemental blade skill and it wasn't hard to activate. As for being awkward, I'd say getting used to the feeling of cutting through anything you swing at is more awkward than learning to activate it.
There was a point where the energy's flow was interrupted and slowed down. Let's see." Old Tobias began to break down how well he had done while examining the sword.
"Aha, here." He pointed at a nick on the edge of the blade. "Your [Sever] skill needs a perfectly sharp sword in order to activate properly. Whoever receives this is going to have to take special care of their weapon and make sure there are no nicks or warping if they want to use it consistently. Overall, you did a good job with writing the rune, but you need to be more careful when picking an item to enchant."
"I see, well, using spatial skills has always been a little complicated." Chronos said.
While rubbing his head in slight frustration a thought suddenly entered his head.
"Hey, how can people use an enchanted item that doesn't match their element?"
"Took you that long to notice, huh?" Old Tobias looked at him like he was an idiot for not asking such a simple question earlier.
A vein bulged on Chronos's head. Was this old man trying to get under his skin or was he like this with everyone?
"Enchantments need to be charged with the right element for them to activate the first time. Once activated the rune will contain a small amount of that power from then on. That means that anyone with power can 'feed the rune' and as long as the original power is still present it will produce more power to activate the enchantment.
This is also why enchanters need to recharge runes or reapply them periodically. The core power within the rune has run its course or become corrupted from continuous use by someone without the right elemental power. Hmph, value this knowledge kid most enchanters never have the opportunity to learn about this. They just thoughtlessly repeat the actions." Old Tobias spoke proudly.
"Oh, so that's how it works but how can a mere word hold power in the first place?"
"I don't know!" He exclaimed with even greater pride.
"Huh?"
"What? I might be good, but I don't know everything. Enchanters have pondered on that question for as long as we've existed and still haven't found the answer. The best answer I've ever heard is that it's because the gods set up runes to work this way. If you want to know more than you have to ask a god."
That... somehow made sense. If the gods wanted something to work a certain way, then it would.
"Is there a way to make an enchantment last forever?"
He knew about artifacts he had one, but his artifact was based off of the material it didn't have an enchantment on it. If there was a way to make an enchantment last forever, then he wanted to know about it.
"Yes, some advanced enchanting techniques can turn an enchanted item into an artifact. Artifacts not only contain a core power but produce more core power to replace what has been used or corrupted. I use the memory imprinting method myself; it makes the item remember what its core power is supposed to feel like for replacing power." Old Tobias was rather proud of his mastery of the imprinting method.
It was a difficult method to learn despite being well known. You had to be able to manipulate mental energy to the point where you could force an item to contain that energy until it started remembering on its own.
Even though it was a rather simple method, the variety of things you could create by implanting a memory was as large as your own imagination. Making it one of the most supreme methods for artifact creation in the world.
Chronos was looking forward to learning memory implanting, but he knew he wasn't ready yet. First, he needed to master basic enchanting.
"Alright so what do we do with the sword?" He pointed at the sword with [Sever] engraved on it.
Old Tobias immediately tried to hide it behind his back.
"I'll hold onto it for you until you decide who to give it to."
Chronos gave him a look that screamed who are you kidding.
"You can keep it. If I need more, I'll make them."
"Arrogant much, there's no assurance that your next sword will turn out as well as this one." Old Tobias poked fun at him.
"Then I'll just keep making them until it does." Chronos smiled with a small amount of arrogance.
They stared at each other for a few seconds before laughing.
"Hahaha, well it's time for you to be going and don't forget to memorize both of those books."
"Right, see you tomorrow."
As Chronos left the ship the rain finally started letting up. With any luck the crucible knights would be able to start construction once the ground dried out but it was the rainy season now. And with the erratic weather in the wasteland there was no telling when it would start again.
Over the next three days the crucible knights finished their examination of all three potential construction sites. It was decided that the hill castle and the river castle would be fine, but the lake castle wouldn't work.
The lake had expanded to nearly double its previous size during the rainy days so they would need to move the castle's location further away from the lake. Magnus ordered the scouts to find another location for building a castle.
Unfortunately, on the third day it had begun to rain again which prevented them from beginning construction work immediately. Today they were setting up barriers so that they could work even when it was raining.
Chronos had also memorized both books in just two days. While he had been reading them, he had a moment of inspiration and turned them into mental books making them similar to skill books, but they weren't registered with the system.
This way he would never forget them.
Old Tobias also had him practice enchanting by creating items with basic skills over the past three days. Surprisingly he found this harder than creating items using his bloodline skills.
But he did have fun turning [Wolf's Roar] into a megaphone, he hadn't told Magnus what it did before having him test it. Watching him jump as the roar knocked over several trees was well worth being chased around afterwards.
Today he was meeting with old Tobias for another lesson, however old Tobias had other plans. The knights had dropped off a stack of swords that needed their enchantments reworked and old Tobias was determined not to work on that massive pile alone.
"You're picking this up way too fast. What's your secret?" Old Tobias demanded as he started work re-enchanting a stack of swords.
"Hm, picking what up too fast?" Chronos asked in confusion.
"Enchanting, it should take weeks to memorize the basic runes, but you've done exactly that in just two days. How?" He smacked another sword with his resonance hammer and caused the rune to glow.
"You gave me a task you knew was impossible!?"
"Yes, it's meant to help temper your eagerness and prevent stupid actions in the future. How did you memorize those books in two days?"
"I've always been good with languages, I already know 9 and runes are just another language, so it wasn't hard to pick up." Chronos replied.