Chương 38: Chapter 34. Ancient Legacy

Marcus sat in silence, bouncing the idea in his head. A human that hatched from an egg… an odd thing to be sure, but this world was full of odd things. There was a type of bird in the south that buried its eggs in the soil and the chicks hatched already able to fly from the day they drew their first breath. There was a type of sea slug that could chew its own head off from the rest of its body and continue living as a disembodied head until it could regrow the rest of its body.

Neither involved magic in any way, as far as Marcus could tell. Once actual magical bloodlines and gods got involved, things could get downright mind-bending. He had once heard a story of dragon teeth being planted into the ground like seeds, only for fully-grown warrior adepts to grow out of the ground like plants. A couple that couldn't conceive a child supposedly found a baby inside of a giant flower that had grown overnight on their field.

There were also stories of some elves supposedly not going through traditional pregnancy at all, and instead simply conjuring a child through magic after enough time had passed… he was fairly certain they were nonsense, but Celer did claim some spirits reproduced like this, so maybe that was the inspiration for the stories.

Marcus had never actually witnessed such a thing personally, however. There were a number of stories that had women lay eggs instead of giving birth to children, one involving a swan, one involving a snake, and a few involving dragons… but they were just that, stories. They were sparse on details and even after mulling over them for a while, Marcus did not find them particularly insightful.

"I'm guessing Regulus's father is unknown, then?" Marcus asked.

"Yes. Honoria refused to tell us a single thing about him. She claimed it was for our own safety, rather than out of concern for him," Cato said, gesturing in the air.

"Only I and a handful of other elders know the full truth behind Regulus, egg and all, but everyone could see that she had come back with a child, and without a man to accompany her. That naturally led them to come to their own conclusions as to what happened. It would have been a bigger scandal, but she hadn't just come back with a child: she'd also come back significantly stronger than she had previously been.

She used to be a fairly typical mage, and then she came back a foundation mage, even a strong one at that. Though our family is not barbarous to only care about strength, it was nevertheless enough, along with my support, to silence most of the complaints. Whoever her lover was, he was clearly no simple figure."

"She disappeared a few years back," Regulus commented.

"You said she went looking for my father, and never came back."

Marcus glanced at Regulus from the corner of his eye. He thought the boy would be more shocked at the idea of hatching from an egg… he always knew Regulus was very good at keeping his composure, but this was really impressive. Marcus didn't think he could have kept his cool like this when he was his age.

Was that a consequence of his unusually strong soul? Most of the time, soul strength correlated with adeptal power and age, so it was hard to disentangle its effects from the side-effects of being old and powerful.

"Yes, that is the truth," Cato nodded.

"I forbade her from leaving on that fool's quest when she talked to me about it, but… well, telling a foundation mage what to do is always tricky. I am only a foundation mage myself. Once she felt you were old enough to take care of yourself, she would not be dissuaded any longer."

And most members of the Uticensis family were far lower, usually just simple second rank adepts. Marcus thought it was really a huge waste: with their resources and support, he felt they could have easily all achieved third rank at the very least, but most just did the bare minimum and didn't bother. The fact some of their members regularly achieved fourth rank already put them on par with many of the minor academies and vassal powers on the mainland, so there was very little pressure for them to push for more.

"It also makes sense that she would want to track down the father of her child," Marcus commented.

"Especially if he had told her he would come back for her at some point, and then never actually did."

It was an assumption, but a reasonable one, Marcus felt.

"I wish I had tried harder to stop her," Cato said, sighing.

"I don't know what happened to her, but I fear for the worst. There is no chance she would have left Regulus here to grow up on his own if she could help it."

"Was his mother connected to the Raven Temple in any way?" Marcus asked.

The association immediately presented itself. Although lots of beings laid eggs, birds were what immediately popped into Marcus's mind… and the only bird he knew that was closely associated with death was the god worshipped by the Raven Temple. Perhaps there were some sort of death birds operating in his service? Powerful magical creatures were usually capable of shapeshifting, and sometimes produced descendants with mortal races.

"The Raven Temple?" Cato repeated in a questioning tone of voice.

"Why would you think of them, of all people?"

Before Marcus could explain his reasoning, Regulus beat him to it.

"The reason I was unable to learn any other foundational technique is because I have a near total attunement to the logos of death," Regulus explained.

"It's so strong that any foundational technique I learn has to be compatible with it or I just can't resonate with it. I'm not sure if you know, but Soul Tree Technique is partially a death-aligned foundational technique, and so was a valid choice for me."

"I did not know that," Cato said, staring first at Regulus and then at Marcus.

"But I am not entirely surprised. The Uticensis family had always known the Soul Tree Technique was unusual. A worldwalker met some of our elders decades ago, and recognized the technique. He claimed it was a bastardized form of a more refined technique found in the Outer Planes, associated with something called the Pale Tree. I knew that a foundational technique with such exalted origins had to be something special.

Of course, there was no guarantee that it would resonate with you due to that, but I was becoming somewhat desperate. You have the highest potential out of all of the children in your generation, but no way to bring it out… I'm sure you would have made yourself useful, but it would have been such a waste to have you stay a mundane man."

"I don't suppose they said anything else about the technique?" Marcus asked, trying to contain his excitement.

"Did he mention what the source technique was called?"

He didn't take offense at having Soul Tree Technique described as a 'bastardized form' of something greater. Worldwalkers and people from Outer Planes tended to be arrogant people, dismissive of most things they encountered. Of course a technique from the Outer Planes would have to be adapted in order to be usable on a backwards planet like Tasloa. If he could get the name and some clues, he would have Celer try to get more information on it.

"Sorry, but I know very little aside from what I already told you," Cato said, shaking his head.

"It is said the worldwalker was frightened by the technique, or perhaps this Pale Tree that was the source of it, and warned the Uticensis elders to be careful of its practitioners."

"Yet you still asked me to teach him," Marcus pointed out.

"I already said I was getting desperate," Cato said.

"Besides, while you are a menace in some ways, you do have virtue. Even at your worst, you opted to leave rather than start a destructive civil war. I don't see anything that would make you uniquely threatening. I don't suppose you can enlighten me about why I should be wary of you?"

"Well, the Soul Tree Technique does have an affinity with soul magic, appropriately enough," Marcus pointed out.

"I'm sure you know how enigmatic and hard to defend against soul magic is. If I ever found some powerful soul magic spells, I could turn into quite a menace, I think… as could Regulus."

Cato was silent for a second, giving both of them a measuring look.

"Don't worry, uncle," Regulus quickly assured him.

"I am somewhat shocked, but I don't resent anyone here. I'd never raise my hand against my kin."

Not for now, at least. Young teenagers rarely knew where life would eventually take them.

"I'm just… so is it true what Teacher said earlier? That some people don't see me as part of the family? But they shouldn't know I was, uh, hatched from an egg. So why…" Regulus said, picking his words carefully.

"They know you were born out of wedlock, to an unknown and foreign father, and that is an immense problem to a lot of people," Cato said.

It would have been an immense problem to Cato too, Marcus thought to himself, except that he was clearly more connected to Regulus than Marcus had initially realized.

"There is also the issue of jealousy," Cato continued.

"You have great, almost unbelievable potential. If that is realized, there is no doubt you will rise to great prominence in the family, and eclipse most of your generation. Our family is large, with many branches and interests competing for resources, so it is no surprise that some would prefer to see you fail. Pay no attention to them: focus on your studies for now, and let me deal with the snakes in our own home."

"So the Raven Temple…" Marcus repeated.

"No, I don't think so," Cato said, shaking his head.

"I have never heard Honoria mention them, and it would also not make any sense for the Raven God and his forces to meddle so directly in Tasloa. I am not sure you are aware, but he is an outsider god, granted access to our planet only because the Abyss incursion killed every one of our native death gods."

"I heard a bit about that, but not in any great detail," Marcus said. Even Helvran himself did not know many of the facts.

"You say the Abyss incursion killed our native death gods and this required the Raven God to step in… why? There are many domains that once had a god, and now don't. I wasn't aware that some things need a god."

"Death gods are special somehow," Cato told him.

"This is a secret far beyond my power, so I only know a little bit. Keep this to yourself, both of you, but I'm told the Abyss did something to one of the Pillars of Creation, the River of Souls, when it first assaulted our universe. Because of that, the flow of souls is unstable, and a potential weakness that Abyssals can exploit. When I say the Abyss incursion killed our native death gods, I don't mean that it just happened that all of them wound up among the dead.

They were specifically targeted by the Abyssals until they were all gone."

"Oh," Marcus said lamely.

"So the Illuminated Pantheon struck a deal with the Raven God, a powerful deity from the Oblivion Maze, who sent one of his subordinates to establish a temple here on Tasloa and manage the flow of Acheron," Cato continued.

"This foiled whatever plans the Abyssals had, but our native gods are clearly not happy with the arrangement. The Raven Temple is not allowed to meddle too much in our affairs, and I'm sure that if one of the Raven God's servants sired a demigod on the planet, the Illuminated Pantheon would notice and make their displeasure known. Regulus would have never been allowed to grow up in peace if that was the case."

"Err, I also think I'd know if I was part divine," Regulus said.

There was a lot of truth to that, Marcus privately agreed. While divine power was notoriously hard to detect with mortal means, most stories of demigods had them perform incredible feats even as children. Regulus was impressive, but he had not performed any feats worthy of a demigod.

"Fair enough," Marcus conceded.

"I guess Regulus will remain a mystery for now. It doesn't matter much at the moment. He doesn't have any issues in learning spells, now that he has a foundational technique. However, you and I both know that once mages enter the logos rank, their natural inclinations towards certain elements and concepts matter greatly… and death logos is not exactly easy to acquire."

"You speak as if becoming a logos mage is just a stepping stone. Not everyone is like you, Elder Marcus," Cato warned him.

"If Regulus can really reach third rank, then that is already enough to silence any complaints and ward off most plots."

"I suppose you're right," Marcus conceded. Rank three adepts were already the elite, even in a place like Adria. In some small vassal factions, they even acted as leaders.

But Marcus would still consider himself a failure if he couldn't get Regulus all the way to rank four. Plus, if his mother had gotten involved with powers beyond their world, such powers could eventually seek him out and endanger him. Hopefully he would figure something out by the time Regulus became a logos mage.

The conversation continued for a while longer, although that consisted mostly of Cato questioning Marcus and Regulus about what went on in the tower and the details of Regulus's studies.

"It's a shame I couldn't show you my caterpillar," Regulus told Cato.

"It was a little frightening at first, but I don't mind it now."

Alas, the caterpillars had become incredibly lazy in the cold of winter, and these days they preferred to simply sleep in one of the underground rooms, only waking up briefly to chew on the magic moss nearby. Adria had a lot warmer weather than the mainland, even in winter, so they might have become more active if Marcus had brought them along, but he decided to just let them sleep.

At one point, Regulus demonstrated his rudimentary spellcasting ability to Cato, first by making a handful of items on the table telekinetically float in the air, and then by throwing a large seed on the ground in front of Cato and making it grow ghostly green vines which entangled his uncle.

Being a foundation mage, Cato was never seriously hampered or threatened by such a simple spell executed by an absolute beginner… but he seemed fascinated by it regardless. He stared at the vines, not bothering to resist them.

"A wood spell? I thought they were all but extinct," he commented. Marcus did not bother saying anything.

"It seems your teacher is full of surprises."

After a while, Cato gave him a list of names that might be interested in a teaching position in his new academy, and promised to introduce him to some of them. Apparently, since the Second Academy War had ended somewhat badly for Great Sea Academy, there had been a reduction in traffic to Adria, and so there was no shortage of people willing to seek work elsewhere.

Marcus and Regulus said their goodbyes afterwards, and left the estate. Regulus was very quiet on the way back, lost in thought and not really paying attention to where they were going. Marcus thought about comforting him, but he really wasn't great at that… and was comforting even needed for this? Yeah, he hatched from an egg, so what? It was just weird, hardly some great tragedy.

"This changes nothing," Marcus eventually said, as they walked through the streets of Adria.

"I… I know," Regulus answered simply.

Nothing else was said.

The next point on Marcus's list was to find out what the items he had looted from the ancient dwarven vault actually did: a task that was not as simple as it perhaps sounded.

Typically, adepts would figure out what an unknown magic item did by either casting divination spells at it, or by simply attuning themselves to it and trying it out. The trouble was that many magic items, including most of the really powerful ones, had soul fragments of the maker embedded in them, which meant that attuning to them could be quite dangerous. You could end up possessed, cursed, or have your life and memories siphoned away by something beyond your control and understanding.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Unsurprisingly, most people preferred to try divinations first. However, not everyone was good at divinations, and the sort of divinations that identified what an item did were best performed by artificers rather than mages. As such, powerful artificers often offered identification services to other adepts, offering to examine items the adepts had found in order to tell them what they did, what the correct way of attuning to them was, and anything else they could find out.

Not only did they get paid for a relatively simple task, but they also got a steady stream of interesting items they could examine and potentially buy off their owners. From what Marcus understood, simply examining a novel magic item was useful for the advancement of artificers across different ranks, so this doubled as magical practice for them.

This was not without its dangers, of course. The artificers could sometimes refuse to give back items if they turned out to be extremely valuable and they judged the adept to be too weak to stand up to them. The adepts sometimes brought incredibly dangerous items that ended up killing the artificer, whether through accident or as deliberate assassination attempts.

But the benefits were high enough that both sides were willing to bear the risks, especially in powerful and stable powers like the Great Sea Academy, where one couldn't simply steal and kill as one wished.

Marcus made his way to one of the most prestigious artificer houses on the island, the House of Vulcan. It was more expensive than the rest of them, but also closely connected to the Illuminated Pantheon rather than the Academy itself, so it was less likely to be under Gaius's influence. That mattered to him more than saving some money.

He stepped into the entrance hall, and was immediately met by a colorful, but surprisingly modest interior dyed white and red. A marble statue of the god Vulcan, the patron of the place, was placed in the center of the hall. Marcus offered a brief prayer to the god and then started searching for someone to talk to. He didn't have to search hard: a familiar middle-aged bearded man named Verus soon came out to greet him.

Verus was not really a friend, but Marcus knew him from before he had gone into exile. This was not the first time he had patronized the House of Vulcan, after all.

"Ah, Elder Marcus! I heard you have returned from your long pilgrimage to the East, and that you're even more powerful now than you were before. Hard to believe, in all honesty. It feels like only yesterday that you were just a wide-eyed student arriving here on a boat from some tiny orphanage on the mainland…" Verus said, sounding like he was reminiscing.

"You are only slightly older than me," Marcus protested.

"Got more treasures for me to look at, I'm guessing," Verus said, switching topics.

"I take it your journey to the East has been a very productive one, then?"

"You could say that," Marcus said.

Verus didn't need to know where he had gotten these items. Sometimes knowing the origin helped, because then you could try searching academy records for known magical items and what previous generations knew of them… but Marcus could do that himself. He had a higher level of access to the Academy's restricted archives than Verus did.

"Anyway, I want a private consultation," Marcus told him.

"I don't want people to know what I have. If people start bothering me about these, I will know it was you who sold me out."

"You wound me, Elder Marcus. I am a virtuous man and a professional," Verus said without any heat.

"Besides, from what I heard, Beortan was with you when you entered that ancient vault, so there is at least one other potential leak you need to worry about."

Marcus raised his eyebrow at him.

Verus snorted derisively.

"News travels fast, Elder Marcus… especially when the Academy mobilizes such large numbers of adepts to clear out a place, like they did with the vault," he told Marcus.

"It's not hard to connect the dots. Follow me."

Verus led Marcus into a sealed room, containing a large table and a bunch of chairs. Marcus placed the seven items he had on him onto the table and then just waited. He didn't bother placing the storage bracelet, since he already knew what that one did.

Verus spent the next several minutes simply staring at the items on the table, twirling his beard thoughtfully while keeping his distance. He did not even bother to take the items in his hands to examine them more closely. At the end of this, he simply took one of the items, the shiny black feather in a crystal case, and pushed it towards Marcus.

"I don't know what this is," he said.

"And I don't know where to even begin figuring it out. You'll have to take this to someone else. I won't charge you for this."

Marcus nodded, sighing internally. He'd known the feather was going to be trouble. It emanated a powerful logos, but it was exotic and multifaceted, impossible to identify. It looked more like a material used in construction of magic items, rather than an actual magic item. Such things could be surprisingly hard to sell or make use of. It may be worth a veritable fortune, but finding an artificer capable of creating something out of it might prove impossible.

He put the feather back into his storage bracelet. Verus noted the move.

"If you ever find another one of these, I'd be willing to offer you an absolute fortune," Verus commented.

"I'll keep that in mind," Marcus told him.

He was never doing that, though. Storage bracelets like this were extremely rare and coveted. The Lygos Empire was the only native power that knew how to make them, and a small number arrived off-world via Selenite traders, but the numbers were so low that even most spirit-rank adepts didn't have one.

Not to mention, there was no rule saying you couldn't own and use more than one. The second one he found in the vault was already reserved for Beortan, and even if it wasn't, Marcus would just keep it for himself and walk around with two of them.

After that, Verus started to actually get serious about identifying the rest of the items. He put on a set of silly-looking goggles, one with multiple sets of lenses, prongs, and other instruments, and then started casting various divination spells. Every once in a while he would take an item and turn it over in his hands, adjusting the lenses and mechanisms on his goggles as he did so.

The whole process took almost an hour, after which Verus took off the goggles and tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"You have an interesting haul this time," Verus said.

"I guess that's an ancient vault for you."

"Stop stalling," Marcus told him, folding his hands over his chest.

"Fine. First, the ring," Verus said, pointing at the plain golden ring.

"It is probably the simplest of the items. It is very simple to use, and it has only one effect. It can conjure an armor of force around a user."

He put on the ring briefly, and activated it. A translucent armor made out of golden light immediately sprung up around him. It looked bulky and ostentatious, with a roaring lion head in the center of the chest and lots of spikes pointing in every direction, but Verus had no issue waving his hands and walking. It probably weighed nothing and didn't inhibit movements.

Verus took off the ring and put it back on the table.

"It doesn't last long, maybe ten seconds at most, and it takes an entire day to recharge, but it is likely a potent defense while it lasts. You will have to test it out yourself," he told Marcus, taking the dagger next.

"Now this… it's a bit complicated to explain, and touches upon some secrets of artificer craft that I'm not willing to reveal to another adept, but this is essentially a runecarver's dagger. An incredibly powerful runecarver's dagger."

"I'm not selling it to you," Marcus warned.

"I am not worthy," Verus said, looking at the dagger in his hands with a complex look before shaking his head. He put the dagger down on the table.

"I don't think any artificer in Adria is worthy. I know this is not meant for me, I'm just saying… the best use of this, for someone like you, is to find a really powerful artificer and give it to them."

"And the others?" Marcus asked.

"The rest of them I am a lot less certain about," Verus admitted.

"The white mechanical beetle is an incredibly complex piece of work. It actually tried to communicate with me when I tried to scan it, sending me information about what it does, but I simply couldn't understand what it was telling me. I can tell you it is capable of powerful divinations of some sort, but I don't think you can really use it in the way you would the ring or the dagger. I am pretty sure you need to figure out a way to give it commands, which it will then execute to the best of its ability."

"So it's like a miniature golem?" Marcus asked.

"I believe so, yes," Verus said. He pointed at the necklace made out of stone orbs with intricate eye structures carved into them.

"The necklace on the other hand, is not divination related, despite the strong eye-motif. Instead, it seems to be imbued with a powerful protective magic of some sort. However, it's also cursed."

"Cursed?" Marcus frowned.

"I sense a powerful seal on it," Verus said.

"There is something very potent inside these orbs. It is locked away, but it would definitely try to latch onto anyone who puts the necklace around their neck. It probably wouldn't have any adverse effects right away, and it likely wouldn't be such a big deal for someone as powerful as you, but I don't think most people could easily remove this once they put it on."

"Disappointing," Marcus said.

"When you said I had an interesting haul, I thought that meant good things, but so far it hasn't been that exciting."

"The ring and the dagger are good stuff. I can take them off your hands if they're too boring for you," Verus noted.

"What about the crystal and the bottle?" Marcus asked.

"The crystal possesses a powerful life-force locked deep inside, and was clearly once part of some living creature," Verus said, taking the hexagonal green crystal and placing it in front of a nearby lamp. The light reflected off the facets in odd ways, causing multi-colored patterns of light to form in the air around it.

"It is likely the power core of some powerful monster, or the heart of an elemental. Whatever it is, it was likely intended to be a mana battery for something. It would be absurd to use it for anything I could make, but presumably the ancients had some use for it… although, I am detecting there is more to it than this. I don't know. It's just a hunch, but it seems like it would be a waste to just turn this into a simple, if powerful mana battery."

Lastly, he pointed at the bottle.

"This is an elven artifact, no doubts about it. I even recognize the design: during ancient times, when the elves still lived on the mainland, they had a habit of making these bottles by the thousands, and many still survive in private collections. They were meant to be vessels containing small quantities of water from their sacred 'moon pools', whatever those were. Typically, though, these bottles are only ever minor magic items, able to keep the contents pure and tightly sealed, and resistant to breakage.

They're largely just curiosities with little practical use. This one is unusual, though… it is imbued with powerful magic of some sort, but I can't make any sense of it. In all honesty, though, it is probably just a more potent version of the lesser enchantments used in regular moon water bottles. Maybe an elven artificer could tell you more, if you ever meet one."

Marcus hummed. This was less informative than he had hoped, but no matter. At the very least, he found out that all of these except the necklace were relatively safe to mess around with. He would just try them out when he was back at the tower and see what he could figure out through trial and error.

"Is that all you needed?" Verus asked.

"Actually…" Marcus said, taking out a black arrowhead out of his storage bracelet and showing it to the man. Verus took a deep breath upon seeing it.

"Can you tell me where I can take a look at any previous research into these?"

"Blackblood arrowheads?" Verus asked, carefully taking the arrowhead from him with slightly trembling hands.

"Where… no, forget I asked. You want to look into this? But you're not an artificer…"

"I'm curious," Marcus said.

"I want to see if I can glean something from them that will help me fight the orcs in the future. I know many have tried before, but I believe few of them had the sheer amount of different logos that I have…"

Verus stared at the arrowhead for a few seconds, turning it in his hands very slowly, careful not to cut himself on the edges.

"I don't have access to the records here, right now, but I can get them for you," Verus finally said, looking at him.

"However, you need to do something for me in return, and money won't cut it. I want you to give me some of the blackblood weapons you recovered as payment."

Marcus looked at him cautiously. Trade in blackblood weapons was illegal everywhere. He could get in serious trouble if someone ended up being assassinated with these and they connected the weapons back to him.

"The House of Vulcan is a vassal of the Illuminated Temple," Verus told him.

"I am not interested in trading these on the black market."

It was unlikely that Verus would risk the wrath of his patrons in exchange for some extra money, Marcus quietly conceded.

"How many arrowheads would pay for those records and for my consultation fee, too?" Marcus asked.

Verus gave it some thought.

"Fifteen?"

The way he said it, he seemed dubious that Marcus could produce that many. However, in the very next moment, Marcus took out fifteen arrowheads, levitating them in the air above his hand like a loose cloud, and then dropped them onto the table in a loose pile.

He had recovered a great many of these after their battle with the orcs, since the enemy was forced to run and didn't get a chance to recover their spent ammunition. Even after this, he had plenty of examples to examine later.

"That settles it, then?" Marcus said, picking up his items and putting them away.

"When can I look at the records?"

"Come back in two days," Verus told him.

"While you are arranging everything, see if you can also find me any of this," Marcus said, giving him a piece of paper with a list of materials.

Verus glanced at it, his eyebrows getting higher and higher the more he read.

"Quite a list," he commented.

"I'm planning on making a heritage tablet," Marcus told him.

"I know you're unlikely to have all of this, or even most of it, but just in case…"

"Some of these things, I would not dare buy, even if people brought it to me," Verus said.

"Much like the dagger, I am not worthy. However, if someone does try to sell me any of this in the future, I'll send them to you."

"Deal," Marcus agreed.

Later in the evening, Marcus and his students all gathered in the house Fabius had rented for them while they stayed in the city. His students had been exploring the city, and were excitedly chatting amongst themselves in small groups, discussing what they had seen. Well, except for Agron. He was entirely silent, though he was clearly listening to the conversation happening around him.

None of them were hurt or robbed, and even Regulus seemed to be in good spirits, so Marcus left them to it. He chose a spot in the corner of the room and sat on the floor. He knew there was a perfectly good table and some chairs in the other room, but somehow this always felt more comfortable to him. Likely because he used to always rest on the ground while traversing the wilds in his exile.

Eventually, his focus was disrupted by Renatus and Cassia approaching him.

"Teacher, I noticed the caterpillars can shoot these silken strands when you annoy them enough," Renatus told him.

"Do you think they could produce larger, stronger strands?"

"Yeah!" Cassia agreed.

"It's time they earned their keep! All they do is eat and sleep!"

"I take it you've seen something you want to buy?" Marcus asked, amused. They didn't say anything, looking slightly guilty at being figured out so quickly.

"Well, Celer did say they will eventually develop the ability to entangle enemies in silk as a defensive move, so you may be onto something. Just be aware that talking a fairy into doing something boring like spinning large quantities of silk to sell might not be as simple a matter as you imagine it to be."

Eventually, the rest of the students all wandered over to him to see what he was doing. He was actually examining the items he showed to Verus already, trying to see if he could notice something the master artificer missed. It was unlikely, but it was also true that Verus wasn't even a spirit-rank adept, and so maybe Marcus could brute-force things with his greater level of power.

After his students kept asking him about the items, he decided to simply show them off and put all of them on the floor in front of him.

"Don't touch the necklace, it's cursed," Marcus warned them, pointing at the string of stone eyes.

"Cursed!?" Claudia exclaimed, immediately scooting away a little. He didn't intend for it, but she was actually the closest one to it.

"The rest are safe to handle," Marcus said, picking up the runecarver's dagger since that was potentially the most dangerous, simply because it was very sharp and pointy. His students quickly snatched up the rest of the items, turning it in their hands.

"They are all beyond what you can handle or make use of, but it's always useful if you know how to recognize powerful items when you see them. Logos mages and higher can simply feel when items have a powerful logos embedded in them, but for beginners like you, you need to look for signs. For instance, here on the dagger you-" As his students stared at the items in their hands and handed them to each other, the transparent crystal case with the black feather eventually got handed to Regulus.

He had barely touched it, however, when the feather immediately flew out of the solid block of crystal like the casing was just an illusion. It hovered in the air in front of Regulus for a moment, spinning in place. Although pitch black in color, there was an iridescent sheen to it, and it looked obviously special and magical.

Before Marcus could say or do anything, the feather rushed straight into Regulus's chest…

Marcus's eyes widened in panic, thinking the feather was about to pierce the heart of his student and kill him. He rushed to Regulus's side, but found no wound. Rather than wound, the feather seemed to sink into his chest without any resistance and disappear. Regulus was very confused, but seemingly fine. Marcus spent the next ten minutes casting various divinations at him, but he simply could not find anything.

The feather was gone, as if it simply dissolved into Regulus when it hit his chest, and there was no obvious consequences.

The other students crowded around them, even though Marcus shooed them away once already. They obeyed at first, but then simply crept up closer and closer afterwards.

Finally, Marcus gave up.

"How do you feel?" Marcus asked Regulus.

"I feel fine, really," Regulus said.

"I'm sorry, Teacher. I have no idea what happened. I didn't mean to destroy your priceless artifact…"

"Can you fly now!?" Cricket asked him excitedly.

"Can you grow wings!? Can you turn into a bird!?"

"I don't feel any different!" Regulus protested heatedly.

"I really don't know what happened!"

"I believe you," Marcus assured him.

"I'm glad you're alright. It's not your fault."

He was absolutely sure the feather was just a fancy material, taken from some unknown monster… why did it act on its own? How could it act on its own? Marcus had never seen a mere monster material capable of such a feat.

And if Regulus absorbed it, why couldn't he sense its powerful logos on the boy? That sort of magic didn't just disappear, and it was so unique that he couldn't possibly miss it. Just what was going on here!?

"I'll take you to see some people tomorrow," Marcus told Regulus. Though he didn't expect them to find anything, either.

"For now, just get some sleep, and if you notice anything unusual, come find me immediately."

He looked at the rest of the students.

"The rest of you should get some rest, too. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. We'll be interviewing potential teachers, and they will probably want to see you demonstrate your skills and knowledge."

The group protested a bit about how they weren't tired, but eventually they did leave for the bedrooms. Marcus returned to his corner, staring at the items in front of him with a frown. Out of all the things that could happen…

The last person to leave the room was Renatus. Before he left, he briefly approached Marcus and lightly pushed the elven bottle towards him. He said absolutely nothing to explain his action, simply turning around and going to sleep.

Marcus lifted the bottle to his eyes, giving it a speculative look.