Chapter 78: The Rune Trigger and Amber’s Leisure Time

Rebecca clearly basked in Gawain’s praise, looking almost ready to wag an imaginary tail and beg for more compliments—if she had one, that is. Meanwhile, Gawain, after finishing his praise, turned serious and began examining the structure of the new furnace. He noticed many features that hadn’t been part of his original design. Some of these additions were likely Hammer’s modifications, based on his blacksmith experience, while others were definitely Rebecca’s handiwork.

Hammer, after all, didn’t know the first thing about altering runes or magic circles.

“What’s this mechanism for?” Gawain asked, pointing to the intricate pedals, linkages, and iron plates beneath the furnace. The craftsmanship looked delicate, probably hammered out bit by bit by Hammer himself. Part of it fit snugly against the stone floor, while another part seemed connected to the furnace’s magic circle. This sparked a faint idea in Gawain’s mind.

“Oh! Didn’t you say you wanted ordinary blacksmiths to be able to control the activation and deactivation of the magic circle?” Rebecca said proudly. “So I designed this mechanism. Although the new furnace can run continuously, it still needs a way to turn off. See, this pedal controls the movement of this iron plate. There’s a rune on the plate, and another on the obsidian panel of the furnace body. Separately, these runes do nothing, but combined, they form part of the entire magic circle…”

As she spoke, Rebecca demonstrated by stepping firmly on the pedal. The connected iron plate flipped up and locked into a groove beneath the furnace. Gawain then noticed the back of the plate was etched with basic elemental runes—precisely the missing piece in the furnace’s magic circuit.

It was a switch. A simple yet ingenious mechanism.

Before this, mages had to control magic circles directly with their own mana.

But blacksmiths didn’t understand how to manipulate mana, so this device was clearly necessary.

Once the iron plate flipped up, the furnace’s magic circuit closed. Gawain felt a faint breeze stir the air around them. Then, faintly glowing patterns appeared on the stone floor, and the magic circles on the furnace’s side began to activate, their runes lighting up one by one. The wood already placed inside the furnace suddenly burst into flame—far hotter and fiercer than normal burning wood!

Rebecca had lifted her foot, but the iron plate was held firmly in place by a locking mechanism. Though the precision couldn’t compare to industrial products, the fact that simply pushing the rough rune into place activated the system showed it worked perfectly.

“Step on it again, and it’ll reset!” Rebecca said proudly, pointing to the locking teeth between the linkages. “I call this whole thing the ‘Rune Trigger’—a mechanism that uses runes as conductors and can be toggled! Believe me, it’s not as simple as just rearranging a few runes. I tested for ages before I found this pair to be the most stable and versatile combination…”

Girl, you gave this thing a seriously cool name!

Seeing Gawain’s slightly dazed look, Rebecca finally stopped her excited babbling and, with a mix of hope and nervousness, asked, “So… ancestor, what do you think? Oh, and besides the Rune Trigger, the rest of the furnace was modified by Hammer.”

“Very good, very good. Both of you did well,” Gawain said sincerely. Then he noticed the old blacksmith wasn’t around and asked curiously, “Where’s Hammer?”

Rebecca scratched her head. “Since building the new furnace needs more black stone and red clay, he took some apprentices and went with the exploration team into the mountains to gather materials. They mentioned seeing black stone up there when they returned yesterday.”

Gawain nodded, then suddenly remembered why he’d come to see Rebecca in the first place. Smacking his forehead, he said, “Ah, right, I have something for you—take a look at this. Does it look familiar?”

He pulled out a dull gray-black lump: the last piece of “waste slag” he had left after giving samples to Hetty.

Rebecca immediately recognized it. “Ah, isn’t this the slag I burned before?”

“Look closely inside,” Gawain said, noticing Rebecca hadn’t realized the slag contained other materials mixed in. “See those tiny crystals? Do you remember how you produced them?”

Rebecca finally noticed the tiny granules. Honestly, since all the slag looked similar, she couldn’t tell which batch this came from just by sight. Luckily, she had meticulously followed Gawain’s instructions to record the exact material ratios, times, temperatures, and furnace numbers for every batch she made. So once they confirmed this was from the earliest samples, they could easily reconstruct the process from her notes.

Hearing that Rebecca had kept detailed records and could easily retrace her steps, Gawain breathed a sigh of relief. In this era, “detailed record-keeping” was almost unheard of among ordinary people. Only mages obsessed with magical research had even a rudimentary concept of it. But Rebecca wasn’t a scholar-type mage—her fireball spells were always just “big,” “bigger,” “huge,” or “I-have-no-idea-how-big.” She’d never developed any habit of scientific experimentation…

Thankfully, she was obedient and never cut corners on tasks Gawain assigned.

While Gawain pondered how to introduce the “art of explosion” into this era as quickly as possible, a certain half-elf rogue, having eaten her fill and with nothing pressing to do, was wandering through the dense forests of the Dark Mountains.

Of course, the more official explanation was that she was patrolling the territory’s borders, searching for potential dangers and treasures in the Dark Mountains… but anyone who knew her well understood this was just an excuse to slack off.

Carrying her two beloved daggers and humming a tuneless song, Amber leapt between rocks and branches as if walking on flat ground. Using the shadows that blanketed the forest, she would vanish from sight only to reappear dozens or even hundreds of meters away. Sometimes, her figure flickered briefly, and a wild fruit would appear on one of her daggers—picked from who knows where—only to be bitten twice and tossed aside.

This dim mountain forest was like a tailor-made paradise for Amber, both an elf and a master of shadows.

“Ha… what a perfect place…”

Perched on a sturdy branch, Amber stretched luxuriously and sighed contentedly.

Though she’d been intimidated by the Dark Mountains’ fearsome reputation when she first arrived—once even considering running away—after spending some time here, she realized it really wasn’t as terrifying as that old seven-hundred-year relic claimed.

Well, the magical cataclysm had ended centuries ago. The monsters were sealed away behind the Great Wall and the Dark Mountains, trapped in the ruins of Gondor. The northern side of the mountains was heavily protected. How could there still be any real danger?

Those northerners were just scaring themselves silly.

Unconsciously, Amber mocked those “northerners” who dared not come here because of the Dark Mountains’ fearsome name—completely forgetting she had been one of them not long ago.

After lingering on the branch for a while, enjoying the cool breeze, she spread her arms and fell backward from the tree.

Mid-fall, she shifted into shadow form. The power of shadows enveloped her and instantly transported her into a parallel world almost no one could enter.

The sounds of wind, insects, and birds faded away. Amber floated lightly to the ground, standing in a quiet, monochrome world.

The dense forest was gone, replaced by jagged rocks and rugged mountain paths. A few dead tree trunks lay across the slopes, their gnarled branches like sharp teeth pointing at the gloomy gray sky of the shadow realm.

This black-and-white world was unsettling, like the legendary land of the dead. But to Amber, it was a place of comfort.

Standing here gave her a feeling of being home.

Yet, in the past, Amber hadn’t been able to enter this realm so freely.

Despite her exceptional shadow talent, she could only vaguely sense the boundary of this world and reach it more easily than most stealthers. But fully crossing over was difficult, usually requiring long meditation or magical aids like enchanted items or potions.

Since leaving the land of Cecil, however, this process had become much easier.

By focusing, she could sense the boundary’s presence. By summoning shadow power, she could cross it effortlessly.

After some time adapting, she could even enter the shadow realm with fancy moves like this dive…

Though she wasn’t a scholar of shadow magic or a mage with “supernatural senses,” Amber wasn’t stupid. She suspected the shadow realm had become easier to access not because her affinity had suddenly skyrocketed—though it had improved somewhat—but because the world itself was changing. Some force was loosening the barrier between the shadow realm and reality.

So far, the loosening was slight, perceptible only to a “freak” like herself.

If she tried to tell the high-and-mighty mages and scholars about this discovery, they’d probably dismiss her as crazy—or worse, see her rare shadow talent and poor combat skills as a treasure to be exploited. She might never leave their mage towers alive.

Amber wandered the shadow realm, enjoying its peace and safety, her mind drifting with various thoughts.

What did the world’s changes have to do with her?

But maybe she could tell that guy who rose from the grave?

He seemed like the type who’d be interested in strange things like this—and he probably wouldn’t dissect her on an experiment table…

Amber’s thoughts spun in her head, and she couldn’t help but smile.

(Holy crap, it’s out today—who expected me to update right now?)

(End of chapter)