Chương 152: Chapter 13: To Be Matching

The book, in itself, was a marvel. Not because of its binding, though the reptile skin was soft to the touch and durable, but because of the voice that emerged from its pages. Sulfic presented himself as an ancient resonant, born in ER 3672, but what most caught Selena's attention was his stubborn pride. Every few paragraphs, with a stubbornness that could almost be felt across the centuries, he insisted:"I will always be a goldsmith by the grace of my family and the legacy of my blood."

It was not a signature, nor a motto. It was a vow carved in ink, a reminder that, to him, the title of 'resonant' was an external concession, whereas 'goldsmith' was a bone, a muscle, something irrevocably his own. Then, the prose turned toward the creation of objects.

Here, Sulfic's voice took on an almost evangelical tone, a mix of a stern master and a passionate artisan:"The written resonant, with their great magic imbued with their blood, much like the goldsmith imbued with precious metals, can create a magnum opus. I do not speak of the banalities that some create, such as scrolls of healing, defense, or those that change properties from soft to hard, among others.

That is like making merely accessories and losing focus on the jewels of sagas that not even kings believed themselves worthy of. Therefore, I set down here in writing, that to create a unique and powerful object, it is necessary for the resonant to understand their true nature. The echo is replicating and, as every resonant knows, costs us life. Indeed, if the resonant does not comprehend what they dominate, they are as useless as a goldsmith who only creates iron tools.

Learn to handle and create with your hands, whether it be jewelry, clothing, forging, or anything you have made with your own effort. It is true that a resonant object can be made with anything the creator wishes, but if it is manufactured by their own hand, it is even better, according to my own verifications." The words resonated within Selena with uncomfortable clarity. It moved away from abstract theory; it was a practical, almost physical mandate.

"Learn to handle and create with your hands." Valerian's warning —"use something more than will and... blood"— took on a new dimension. It went beyond merely dealing with ingredients; the very essence was the origin. It was almost a gesture, but also sweat, also calluses earned through labor, and perhaps even the effort itself.

The book continued, diving into specific goldsmithing techniques: melting temperatures, alloys with traces of rare metals, methods for engraving on curved surfaces without breaking the jewel. Selena did not stop reading out of boredom or disinterest. On the contrary, every technical detail absorbed her, confirming the author's seriousness. She set it down because a more urgent, more immediate question sprouted in her mind and overshadowed everything else: Where could she find a space to work like this?

It was no minor issue. She could not set up a goldsmithing workshop in her room at the Cloister of the Forest. She did not even have the most basic tools. Her gaze drifted from the pages and fell upon her own hands, bearing the fine scars of training. Then, her attention traveled to her left wrist, where rested the braided thread bracelet of smooth, dark stones that Corren had given her, back when everything was confusion and ignorance of the world.

A humble piece of craftsmanship, made by hands that knew the earth and patience. Perhaps weaving with wool, she thought, almost with nostalgia. Or creating a bracelet of thread and stones. But Corren's bracelet was already that handmade object, laden with a meaning that was not magical now, but deeply human. She needed something new. Something that would arise from her hands, imbued with her intention; she was not going to copy what she already had.

She left the library when the last rays of the sun, intense and horizontal, cut through the completely clear sky, announcing a cold and starry night. The air smelled of freshly cut grass and the sweet dampness that rose from the earth as it lost the heat of the day. Hunger, postponed by hours of concentration, made itself known with a silent roar.

She walked, almost out of inertia, to the small stall that a kind-faced woman always set up next to the Atrium of Knowledge, where she sold simple sandwiches of rye bread, smoked cheese, and thin strips of roasted ornitura. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. She bought one and sat on the nearby stone steps, biting into it with an appetite that was almost a physical need to anchor herself to the simple.

The bread was crusty on the outside, soft on the inside; the cheese, salty and dense. As she chewed, letting the earthly flavors reconnect her with her body, a dark red flash crossed her memory. The earring. The blood-red stone earring, set in black silver, that Valerian had given her some time ago. A strange, beautiful, profoundly important object of an importance that had saved her life, an earthly anchor for her mind. It was then that her thoughts led her to an idea.

Perhaps a twin, she thought, and a small, genuinely intrigued smile graced her lips. Two earrings, a pair. One already existed, made by foreign hands. The other... she would have to make it herself. It must not be an exact copy, that would be the opposite of what Sulfic preached, but a complement. An answer. Something that, born from her hand, would dialogue with the first, complete it, or perhaps balance it.

She looked at the last bite of her sandwich, then at the sky where the first stars were beginning to ignite, faint and distant. The morning's frustration, the sensation of walking in circles, had transmuted. Now she had a direction: the what was a twin object, and the how was creating it with her own hands, following the spirit, if not the letter, of Sulfic's techniques. The where remained a problem, but problems, at least, could be addressed.

She stood up, stretching slightly, and murmured to herself in a tone so low that the words merged with the whisper of the evening breeze: —To be matching. The following day was Ferul, a day for complementary courses at the university. Selena attended Languages and Dialects, where she presented herself before Lady Scarleth, her Sahric professor. With a calmness that did not betray her months of forced, daily use of that tongue in the desert, she requested to be formally evaluated on her fluency.

Lady Scarleth, a woman of precise gestures and neutral black eyes, nodded without evident surprise, but with a spark of professional curiosity. The test was long and exhaustive. Not just reading and translation, but contextual exercises: interpreting desert proverbs, describing nuances between nomadic dialects, even improvising a merchant negotiation in pure Sahric.

Selena responded with fluency that surprised even herself; she was no longer the student who had departed months ago, but someone who had breathed that language in the dry night air, had used it to give orders, to curse in silence, to understand the whispered warnings of her companions. She passed with an excellent grade. Lady Scarleth, upon handing her the parchment with the results, inclined her head slightly. —Your mastery is now native, Countess.

You have found an exceptional master on your journey, or necessity has been the best instructor. Without wasting time, Selena headed to the hall of Volg-Thûr, the dead language containing the secrets of the kingdom. Thorin, her professor, was a robust man with a graying beard and a voice that resonated as if he were always reading proclamations; he agreed to a similar evaluation. Here, the challenge was different: translation, context, deciphering half-erased texts, and others that had not been seen for centuries.

Selena, who had read secrets, had read signs in the dungeon, and books from millennia ago in the library, navigated the questions with cold and technical confidence. Although some words still cost her effort to read, she also passed with distinction. Thorin, as he signed her certification, grunted with a smile beneath his thick beard. —Well done. At least you have brought something useful back from your... absences.

With two certifications in her possession and a sense of small practical achievement, Selena left the classrooms with a clear objective: to find a workshop. She needed space, tools, materials. She sought Maya first, thinking of her knowledge of the university's hidden corners, but she did not find her in the Cloister of the Forest or in the alchemy laboratories.

She then remembered that Ferul's complementariness included Oratory and Courtly Debate, a subject that Maya, with her growing confidence and love for logical argumentation, had begun taking a long time ago. Selena headed to the corresponding classroom, a spacious room with semicircular tiers of benches overlooking a small wooden stage.