Chương 112: Chapter 111: Apparently, Smelling Better Counts as Magic

The blood beneath Sieghart's nose should probably have convinced him that experimenting directly upon his sensory nerves was a terrible idea. Instead, once First Aid repaired the damage, his first reaction was to determine exactly which part of the attempt had gone wrong. Simply forcing more mana into his nose had clearly worked, considering the sudden flood of smells that nearly overwhelmed him.

The problem was that his sensory tissue and blood vessels had not tolerated the enhancement nearly as well as the nerves themselves. Sieghart spent the next attempt reinforcing the surrounding tissue first, using what he understood from Protection and First Aid to stabilize the tiny blood vessels before directing a much thinner stream of mana toward the sensory structures deeper inside his nose. The result was less dramatic, but considerably less painful.

He could distinguish the smell of machine oil from heated metal several meters away, and the faint scent of old smoke still clinging to the warehouse walls became noticeably easier to identify. More importantly, his nose did not bleed.

"That's progress." Sieghart maintained the effect for several minutes before releasing it, allowing his senses to return to normal. The sudden reduction felt strangely similar to entering a dark room after spending too long beneath bright sunlight. His third attempt focused less upon the nose itself and more upon the nerves carrying information toward his brain.

Sieghart had only a rough understanding of their structure, so he increased the mana slowly enough that even his usual impatience could not justify taking shortcuts. That produced a different improvement. The scents did not become overwhelmingly stronger, but separating them became easier, almost as though his mind had gained additional space to organize information that had previously arrived as one indistinct mixture.

Sieghart could now smell the leather straps around several weapons, the oil coating nearby metal, dust beneath the shelves, burned wood from the earlier explosion, and something sweet coming from a bakery somewhere outside the workshop. He opened his eyes.

"That's far away." The bakery was not even visible from the warehouse. That was considerably more interesting. Sieghart repeated the exercise several times throughout the afternoon, alternating enhancement with First Aid whenever the interior of his nose became irritated. Each attempt taught him slightly more about how much mana the sensory structures could tolerate safely. He eventually stopped thinking about the spell as simply strengthening his nose.

The actual process required three separate stages: reinforcing the organ, improving the sensory receptors, and sharpening how efficiently the resulting information traveled through the associated nerves. The final stage remained the hardest because Sieghart refused to push mana directly into his brain without understanding considerably more about what he was doing. Accidentally damaging his nose was recoverable; accidentally damaging his mind was a different category of stupidity.

Even without that final step, however, the effect improved steadily until Sieghart could activate it without bleeding, burning, or temporarily regretting his interest in experimental magic. Once that happened, the System finally acknowledged what he had created. A fundamental magical affinity has awakened. You have unlocked Sensory Magic. Sieghart blinked several times while keeping the enhancement active.

He had suspected that improving his senses might produce something new, but seeing an entirely separate magical discipline appear confirmed that the System considered sensory fundamentally different from ordinary reinforcement. A second notification appeared before he could examine the new category properly, defining the first branch created through his extremely questionable decision to experiment with mana inside his own nose. Sensory Magic Path Discovered: Sensory Enhancement.

That description immediately made Sieghart think about eyesight again. If smell merely represented the first application of Sensory Enhancement, then hearing, vision, touch, balance, and perhaps senses he had not considered might eventually belong beneath the same branch. The final notification appeared shortly afterward, and the permanent parameter reward made Sieghart considerably more pleased with the entire experiment despite the blood still visible on the cloth beside him.

New Spell Acquired: Enhanced Smell — Level 1. Reinforces olfactory receptors, supporting tissues, and associated sensory pathways to increase scent sensitivity, separation, recognition, and tracking capability. Each level grants +1 Perception. Sieghart smiled. One Perception per level. That was extremely welcome. His Perception remained embarrassingly low compared with Magic, Mentality, Resistance, and most of his other important parameters.

Anything capable of increasing it permanently immediately earned considerably more attention than a spell allowing him to smell dinner from another street. Unfortunately, the satisfaction lasted only until Sieghart opened his Status and stared at the newly created primary category. He already understood enough about his System to predict the annoying problem waiting somewhere beneath the new ability. Individual spells could improve through practice. Primary magical disciplines were different.

Black Magic wanted meaningful combat. White Magic wanted him protecting or improving other people. Summoning Magic wanted his creations performing independent roles, particularly when used by allies. Arcane Magic remained frustratingly mysterious. Sieghart looked at Sensory Magic.

"Oh, no." If the pattern continued, repeatedly enhancing his own senses probably would not meaningfully advance the main discipline. The System had demonstrated an increasingly irritating obsession with making Sieghart involve other people whenever he wanted broader progression. That created an exceptionally strange possibility. He might eventually need to improve someone else's senses. Helping another person see farther sounded reasonable enough.

Enhancing someone's hearing could probably be useful during reconnaissance, while sharpening touch might assist craftsmen performing delicate work. Enhanced Smell was harder to imagine. Sieghart pictured approaching a guild member and offering to magically improve their nose so they could smell things from farther away. Somehow, he suspected that would produce more questions than gratitude.

"Problem for later." That sentence had become one of Sieghart's most useful techniques. He dismissed the notifications and returned his attention toward the runic-engineering books instead. Whatever absurd condition Perception Magic required could wait until he actually needed to level the primary discipline. For now, he had something considerably more practical to learn. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

During the following two days, Sieghart finished every introductory book Vessa and Orin had given him. He read during meals, breaks, quiet periods between charging weapons, and occasionally while waiting for one of the craftsmen to finish preparing another shipment. The material became increasingly technical near the end, but the basic principles remained understandable.

Simple runic equipment depended upon choosing the correct functional rune, providing it with stable mana, and preparing a material capable of surviving the resulting effect. More complicated equipment added regulators, storage formations, triggers, conditional effects, safety channels, and secondary runes. Sieghart quickly understood why professional runic engineers spent years studying blueprints before being trusted with expensive materials.

Once Vessa became satisfied that he could identify the difference between an input line and a discharge channel without causing another explosion, she finally allowed Sieghart to use one of the workshop's spare runic engravers. Sieghart examined the tool far more carefully than he had examined the portable hand cannon. The engraver resembled a thick metallic pen containing a narrow mana crystal, several focusing rings, and an extremely fine tip designed to carve prepared surfaces.

The first assignment was deliberately boring. Vessa handed him a small metal lamp housing, a simple blueprint, and enough material to replace everything if he somehow destroyed it. The entire magical function depended upon a single illumination rune connected to a basic mana input. Sieghart copied the diagram slowly. His Infinite Mana offered no meaningful advantage while engraving the first line because the important requirement was keeping the stylus perfectly steady.

Too much mana would damage the groove, while insufficient mana produced an incomplete inscription. Sieghart adjusted almost immediately. The engraver consumed so little mana that its cost was irrelevant, allowing him to focus entirely upon precision. Several minutes later, the final line connected with the illumination rune exactly where the blueprint indicated. Vessa inspected it from several angles before handing the lamp back.

"Charge it." Sieghart supplied mana. Soft white light filled the housing. He stared at it for several seconds. The effect was almost insultingly simple compared with Fireball, Mana Sword, Telekinesis, or anything else he normally considered worth practicing, yet creating an actual magical device from raw materials felt strangely satisfying. His second project was a canteen containing a purification rune.

The inscription was slightly more difficult because the functional line needed to remain close enough to the interior surface to affect the water without weakening the container itself. The third project was a heavy winter coat containing one heating rune sewn into a prepared conductive section across the back. Unlike the metal devices, the fabric required lower power and considerably more patience to avoid damaging the material. All three worked.

Vessa examined the completed coat while Orin tested the canteen, occasionally exchanging comments about the line depth and several places where Sieghart could have made the inscriptions cleaner. Eventually, Orin returned the canteen.

"You have steady hands for your age." Vessa nodded.

"Teenage boys are usually hopeless." Sieghart almost laughed. Technically, he understood exactly what they meant. During his previous life, Sieghart had been an exceptionally clumsy teenager. Puberty had turned his body into something that seemed to change proportions every few months, and coordinating his limbs had occasionally felt harder than learning actual school material. This body had not reached that stage yet.

Being ten came with countless disadvantages, but apparently the absence of sudden growth spurts was useful when carving magical lines narrow enough that one careless movement could ruin several hours of work. There was another reason he enjoyed it. Sieghart had considered himself a failure at studying during portions of his previous life, particularly whenever effort failed to produce the academic results he expected. Practical projects had always felt different from memorizing information for examinations.

Working with his hands demanded attention in a way Sieghart liked. Every movement produced something visible, mistakes could be identified directly, and improvement appeared physically rather than remaining hidden behind grades or theoretical measurements. He remembered repairing small objects, assembling things, and occasionally becoming completely absorbed in projects that required careful manual work. Activities like that had already been becoming less common around him before his death.

Automation, disposable products, digital services, and increasingly specialized manufacturing had made many forms of practical craftsmanship feel distant. Sieghart was hardly opposed to technology, but he had always thought something was lost whenever nobody understood how ordinary objects were actually made anymore. Runic engineering felt like the opposite. Every magical item around him had been designed, carved, assembled, tested, and repaired by people who understood its individual components.

Even the simplest lamp represented knowledge transferred directly from someone's hands into physical material. Sieghart liked that. Perhaps more than he expected. After finishing another practice plate, he placed the runic engraver carefully beside the blueprint and examined the tool itself. If he intended to continue learning once the assignment ended, borrowing workshop equipment forever was obviously impossible.

"How much does one of these cost?" Vessa looked toward him.

"One what?"

"The engraver." Orin stopped working as well. Sieghart pointed toward the magical stylus sitting beside his hand.

"I want one." Vessa and Orin looked at each other. Neither answered immediately. Sieghart narrowed his eyes. That reaction was suspicious. His first thought was that the tools were simply expensive. His second was that perhaps professional runic engravers required licenses or guild approval, which would be irritating but manageable. Then another possibility occurred to him. Perhaps they were worried about competition.

If Lunar Arc obtained its own runic engraver and started manufacturing simple magical equipment internally, workshops like theirs could potentially lose one of their largest customers. Sieghart raised one hand.

"I'm not part of Lunar Arc." Vessa looked back at him.

"What?"

"I help them sometimes, and I live there, but I don't have any formal affiliation with the guild. I'm not planning to make equipment for them and steal your customers." Orin blinked.

"That wasn't what we were worried about." Sieghart paused.

"It wasn't?"

"No." Vessa crossed her arms.

"We wouldn't care if you sold things to them." That answer surprised Sieghart enough that he remained quiet. He had expected craftsmen to become protective about business, especially while war increased demand for exactly the equipment they manufactured. Orin pushed his glasses higher.

"The problem is usually training." Sieghart looked toward him.

"What about it?"

"A normal apprentice works beneath a runic engineer for years before buying personal equipment. They copy diagrams, prepare materials, repair simple tools, ruin several pieces, learn why they ruined them, and eventually become trustworthy enough to work alone." Sieghart looked down at the engraver again. That sounded reasonable. Vessa leaned against the nearby table.

"You've been here less than a week."

"Indeed."

"You already want your own engraver."

"Yes." Vessa studied him carefully for several seconds before looking toward the old scorch marks still visible above the workbench where the hand cannon had failed.

"You look like someone who could have his own workshop exploding surprisingly soon." Sieghart stared at her. Then he looked toward the burned ceiling. Then toward the blackened section of wall that had still not been completely repaired.

"I don't want to hear that from you." Orin started laughing. Vessa looked offended.

"That was one prototype."

"It threw both of you into the street."

"We already fixed the mistake."

"You wrote ammunition lines backward."

"One line." Sieghart pointed toward the ceiling.

"The ceiling disagrees." Vessa opened her mouth, apparently preparing a defense, before deciding that arguing about the explosion while standing beneath physical evidence of it would probably not strengthen her position. Orin continued laughing until Vessa threw a folded cloth at him. Sieghart looked at the engraver once more. Despite everything, he still wanted one. Possibly even more now.