Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 66

Claude on the Roof

Amidst the silent void, Claude used his mental power to trace a hexagram in the air, leaving a trail of faint light behind. Soon, countless points of light appeared in the surrounding space, peppering the void like stars in the night sky. The lights were multi-colored and moved nonstop towards the hexagram.

So these are essence photons… I can’t usually seem them with eyesight alone and can only detect them with mental power in the void state…

The speed of the essence photons Claude could see moving gradually increased. They seemed to be rushing for the hexagram and he didn’t understand why the hexagram would attract them so much.

Red ones should be fire elemental essence and according to the diary, green ones should be wood. What are the blue ones then? Water? Those white ones are light, but what are the dark ones? Dark or earth? No, the yellow ones should be earth, so that means the black ones are dark… Then what about the silver ones? The gold ones should be lightning, and what color are wind elemental essences?

After staring for a long time, Claude began to wonder. Wait, what element am I most attuned to? After much observation, he saw that the number of fire essence photons attracted to the hexagram was the most compared to the other essence photons. Apparently, he was also highly attuned to the fire element just like Landes.

Why that saves a lot of trouble, thought Claude gladly. Having high fire affinity meant that he could train according to Landes’s diary using the same insights and concepts. He was initially worried that if he was more attuned to some other element than fire, the diaries of Landes could only be used as subpar references. He wouldn’t be able to train according to Landes’s own experiences.

Following the instructions on the diary, Claude began to use his mental power to slowly rotate the hexagram to apply a filter of sorts around the outer parts of it, letting only fiery-red essence photons through and keeping the others out. It didn’t take long before the six triangles in the hexagram gradually filled up with a fiery-red.

Not long after, the six triangles turned bright red. Even in the void state, Claude could feel the heat emanating from the fire element. He felt himself gathering less and less essence photons with each revolution. That should be enough, right?

Claude then connected the six red triangles with his mental power and guide the essence photons into the hexagon in the middle of the hexagram. That was the conversion of essence photons into mana.

That wasn’t difficult in the least. The essence photons within the six fiery-red triangles were quickly siphoned into the central hexagon. However, the triangles dimmed in color while the hexagon seemed like a bottomless hole. Even though so many essence photons were sent into the hexagon, it didn’t look red and bright like the triangles. Instead, it was dark as if nothing had changed. Claude did notice that the borders of the hexagon did thicken ever so slightly, giving it a sense of volume.

All the fire essence photons had been transferred into the hexagon. But by then, there were no longer any fire essence photons available in the nearby space to fill it back up. The empty void no longer provided any fire essence photons for him to draw in.

That concluded his first meditation. Landes mentioned in the diary that one ought best not to meditate too often during the start of the training. Otherwise, stressing one’s mental power up too much would give searing headaches. It appeared that he had experienced the agony himself.

Claude didn’t feel any toll on his mental power, but he didn’t want to take any risks, so he didn’t continue. Instead, he got back into his attic and looked at his sandglass. Only half an hour had passed, including the time it took for him to get on the roof and calm down. It appeared that if his mental power could support it, he could meditate four more times if he wanted.

So, Claude got back out the attic and started Hexagram Meditation again. But this time around,, when he drew out the hexagram in the void state once more, he found that the three dimensional feeling of the hexagram he saw the first time was no misconception of his. The hexagram he just outlined looked slightly thicker, just like how he left it after his first meditation.

When the bell of the wargod shrine resounded throughout town, Claude only just noticed that he had meditated throughout the whole night. He had forgotten the number of times he meditated, but it was definitely more than five. He didn’t feel any toll on his mental power, nor did he feel the fatigue from staying up through the night. Instead, he felt rather excited and energetic.

Landes forgot to note an important point in the diary, and that was the gradual increase in volume of the hexagram during training. It was no wonder he described the hexagon within the hexagram like a well. When it was filled with mana converted from essence photons, that marked the successful transition to the stage of a first-ranked rune magus.

Perhaps it was an honest mistake on Landes’s part. Given that he had penned the diary only after he became a third-ranked rune magus after he finally got his own room in the basement of the magic tower, it was no surprise that he would forget to state some things he took for granted.

Throughout the night of training, The hexagram Claude envisioned in his mind had turned into a flat picture to a solid shape. It was like the size of the tip of his ‘pen’ used to draw the hexagram had enlarged. Apart from the six triangles on the sides of the hexagon being able to store more fire essence photons, it alsop gave Claude the impression that filling up the hexagonal well in the center wasn’t going to be an easy feat, and that it would require more time than that.

So that’s why Landes made a point to write that it took him only three months to become a first-ranked rune magus… It really is something worth bragging about. Apart from having talent, he also put in a lot of effort… But compared to the average apprentice that took around a year or two to achieve the same feat through meditation, the female magus that spent five years at that stage was even more worth sympathizing with…

Even though Claude had high fire elemental affinity like Landes, his mental power was also as sensitive as how Landes described his own. As he put it, his hearing was exceptionally good. But Claude didn’t think he could be the same as Landes and become a first-ranked rune magus in three short months. He set his own deadline for half a year later. Claude would be satisfied if he could graduate from being a mere apprentice in half a year’s time.

As an apprentice magus, he didn’t have to do apart from meditation. If he couldn’t channel mana out of his body, there wouldn’t be a point in learning any other magical skills. Landes noted clearly in his diary that during the time when magical resources were aplenty, apprentice magi could use all sorts of supplies and talismans to cast spells. However, in the age when magical resources were dwindling, apprentice magi woudn’t be able to cast spells with anything other than the mana stored in their own bodies.

Claude was in a similar situation. He wouldn’t be able to start unpacking the mysteries of magic just because he learned Hexagram Meditation and became an apprentice magus. Though Landes wrote down some magic spells and techniques in the diary, he wouldn’t be able to test their effects before he became a first-ranked rune magus and attained the ability to channel mana out of his body.

As for using magical resources to cast spells… Claude didn’t know what they were, let alone find and use them. Landes wrote a diary, not an encyclopedia. There was no way he would indicate what sorts of magical resources could be used to level up. He only noted down the few kinds he used as a rune magus’s assistant when he helped out with some experiments.

Claude made up his mind to focus on training in his meditation technique and rely on the accumulation of time and effort to become a first-ranked rune magus. Only then can he keep up with the information in the latter pages of Landes’s diary. Rice had to be eaten mouthful by mouthful, just like how a path had to be traversed step by step.

As the overnight meditation didn’t leave Claude the slightest bit uncomfortable and instead boosted his energy for the next two days, Claude decided to use meditation to replace sleep. That way, he could save more time.

But during the third night of doing so, Claude woke up from meditation only to notice that the lights downstairs were lit and there was a large crowd outside his house. All the rooms in the red-bricked mansion were lit with oil lamps and people chattering about could be heard.

What’s going on? It’s this late in the night… Has there been a fire? Claude still coudln’t make out what was going on.

But soon, he could hear flustered footsteps rushing up his room and the sound of his siblings crying after being startled out of their sleep, sandwiched between the unrelenting bark of the snowhound.

The hurried footsteps got louder before the door to his attic was almost slammed open. His father urgently called, “Claude! Claude…”

“I… I’m here!” He was completely flabbergasted. What’s wrong? Was I discovered to be meditating on the roof?

“You…. what are you doing on the roof?!” yelled Morssen when he realized that everything was normal in the attic.

“The… the attic was a little too stuffy, so, I… I got up the roof for some fresh air and fell asleep,” Claude said, hurriedly finding an excuse for himself, “Father, what’s going on?”

“What’s going on? You dare to ask?!” Morssen snapped angrily, “Get in first and we’ll talk!”

Claude obediently reentered the attic and only got hold of what was going on after much fuss.

The whole incident played out rather simply. During midnight, one of the guards patrolling the town passed by and unintentionally noticed a person lying on top of the roof of the red-bricked mention and started to get anxious about it. This is the residence of the town’s chief secretary, Morssen! A thief actually dared to climb up the roof?! he thought, before he gathered his men to surround the mansion and knocked on the door to run a search just in case the alleged thief had others working with him.

Claude was heavily reprimanded by his father. “Well? You tell me that you’re up on the roof just because it’s cooler up there? Putting aside how you managed to wake up all the residents of the mansion, you even fell asleep on the rooftop! What if you accidently roll down the roof? This is ridiculous… Where do you get that kind of courage…”

Morssen was fuming with anger, but the patrol captain looked incredibly apologetic. “Umm… Sir Morssen, since it was a misunderstanding, we shall leave now. Apologies for interrupting your night.”

“Don’t apologize. What you did was right,” Morssen said, retaining his rationality before his subordinates, “Thank you so much for your efforts. If it hadn’t been for your alertness in noticing this, my foolish son might’ve really ended up in big trouble. As a father, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

After sending the patrol captain off, Morssen put his angry face back on. “It’s four in the morning, so scramble back to sleep! I’ll deal with you in the morning!”