Supreme Magus

Chapter 4550: Ernas Legacy (Part 2)

’Those metal sheets are nothing to me, but a priceless treasure to fake mages. They are something even most Awakened bloodlines would kill to get their hands on. The silver lining is that now that I know they exist, I can point my mages in the right direction.

’I’m not doing all the work for them, or they’ll keep relying on me, and my Blood Desert will always lag behind the Kingdom, let alone the Empire.’ Salaark considered her people’s achievements as her own, just as she credited her fellow Guardians for the development of their respective countries.

Being the God of the Forge only made the Blood Desert’s magical development ranking last among Garlen’s three great countries more humiliating.

Orion gave everyone a few final words of advice and encouragement before walking up to the Overlord.

"We are ready when you are." Pride and pain battled for dominance over Orion’s features, and Salaark could read their every clash.

The lord of house Ernas was proud of his family’s achievements and wanted to demonstrate their prowess to a well-respected colleague like the Overlord, yet he couldn’t forgive himself for the transgression he was about to commit.

Despite his earlier confident words, there was no Forgemaster who would share even a fragment of their bloodline legacy lightly. What Orion was about to show Salaark was the result of the ingenuity of countless generations of Ernas mages, and he was giving it away to a rival.

It was a slight to his ancestors, one that could never be atoned for or forgiven. A black page in the Ernas family’s history he was about to write and for which he might one day be called to answer.

"I’m about to use my tier two Creation Magic spell, Separation. I use it when I can’t undo the imprint on an artifact or dismantle it. It allows me to split the ingredients from the spell matrix that empower an enchantment. From which blade do you want to start?" Salaark asked.

It was a small piece of knowledge she was offering, but she hoped a practical demonstration of Creation Magic would be enough to lighten the burden on Orion’s conscience one bit.

"Skywarp." He replied. "I need you to undo Jirni’s imprint to reforge it, and I doubt it will be a pleasant experience. I don’t want my creation to suffer one second longer than necessary."

"It won’t, and I agree with your choice." She nodded. "I wish I could put Skywarp to ’sleep’, but that’s not possible."

"Do you need the mana geyser to cast Separation?" Orion asked.

"I could do everything in my living room, child. The time and place for such an insignificant task are irrelevant to me." She replied.

"Then give us a few minutes, please. Cast Separation and bring Skywarp to my Forge after I give you the signal." Orion said, and the Overlord nodded.

He stepped to the center of the magic circles, and his assistants started their chant. It was almost identical to the standard spell that every Forgemaster used to conjure the world energy and focus it inside their Forgemastery circle.

The only difference was that the Ernas’ Forgemastery spell, Mana Spring, used the Adamant Forges and the large white crystals as amplifiers. The array used their natural ability to draw in and channel the world energy to make the process faster and increase the amount of energy the Forgemastery circle could contain.

A few seconds later, the air inside the magical formation crackled with raw power that grew in intensity until the world energy arched in bolts of pure energy that rose from the geyser and slammed against the Forgemastery circle’s boundaries to escape.

Much to Salaark’s surprise, Quylla and the others kept conjuring more world energy, and Orion chanted an unknown spell. With every word of power he spoke, the runes on the crystals’ cases and anvils lit up.

The storm of world energy kept rising and seeping inside the enchanted tools, but now it was filtered of Mogar’s will and reduced to a blank slate. At the same time, Orion poured his mana into his Forge, which transmitted it throughout the rest of the magical formation.

Orion’s voice rose as the storm of world energy turned into a pristine tornado that closed on him as if it were about to crush him. Yet he showed no fear and opened his arms, waiting for the world energy to reach his fingertips.

Before Orion’s Awakening, this would have been a very delicate moment, and he would have needed a special variant of the Royal Forgemaster wand the Ernas family had invented.

It let a fake mage tap into their mana core like the original, but it spread the mana around the mage as a thin mist instead of focusing it into a tendril. As an Awakened, Orion didn’t need any tool to release his mana, yet he still couldn’t afford one moment of distraction.

The stream of energy swirling around him still contained the part of Mogar’s will that the enchanted tools failed to remove, and it was up to him to drive it away. More world energy kept gushing out of the geyser by the second, and with it more of Mogar’s will.

If Orion released too little mana or too slowly, he would have opened a channel into his body that led Mogar’s will straight into his mana core. Best case scenario, the mage would experience severe mana abuse and need time to recover.

Worst case scenario, they would suffer mana poisoning and die. What mages called Mogar’s will was the planet’s energy signature. Letting too much world energy into one’s mana core without safeguards was akin to letting a storm blow out a candle.

If Orion poured too much mana or too fast, his energy signature would clash with Mogar’s instead of gently overtaking it. If that were to happen, the world energy around him would explode akin to a spell gone haywire.

With the large amounts of world energy necessary to craft any artifact worth an Ernas’ time, not a single mage had ever come out alive of the detonation. The family technique could produce incredible masterpieces, but it required the Forgemaster to walk a razor’s edge.

One misstep and Orion would die at the hand of the very power he had conjured. The Ernas standard protocol required the Forgemaster to release enough mana to coat their entire body before manipulating the energy vortex.

Fake mages had no mana flow, and all the mana they possessed was accumulated inside their cores, making them easy prey for the world energy. Orion, however, was an Awakened.

He released the full power of his aura, flooding his body with mana and using the fringes of the bright violet light he emitted to lap at the world energy and assess how much mana to employ on first contact.

He also activated fusion magic to create an extra layer of protection against the invasion of Mogar’s will.

’I wonder how effective this spell is and how many Ernas mages have sacrificed their lives to perfect it.’ Salaark stared at the spell with a mix of surprise and curiosity.

The answer to the first part of her question came when Orion’s fingertips brushed against the vortex, and he completed the Ernas tier five Forgemastery spell, Living Forge.