Tales of the Legendary Magus

"Well, this one looks impressive." Villin admitted as he looked at the speargun that was largely made out of a golden material, "How come its exterior is different to the other ones?"

The cocky blue-haired Atlantian who led this tower put his head up high before responding, "This one comes from the inner defenses. All of the enchanted spearguns on the barrier front were destroyed but they had a few spare ones."

Hearing this, Villin nodded, "But the enchantments are the same on this one compared to the less….golden spearguns, right?"

When the Atlantian nodded, Villin felt assured as he began studying it. Unlike Keith, the Atlantian in charge here didn't treat Villin too well, speaking to him in a condescending manner. But since Villin was inspecting the speargun instead of talking, he didn't care about it too much and simply continued his work.

For a few days, all Villin did was inspect the work that had been done here. Compared to the spears, the enchantments on the speargun were much denser. It made sense since the runemaster that used to live here must've had to make tens-of-thousands of spears if not a hundred thousand.

Compared to the two-thousand spearguns this place had, it was much, much more. The spears also had a limited number of times they could be shot while the spearguns wouldn't have such a problem as long as they weren't harmed.

By the time Villin completely finished his inspection of the speargun and increased his understanding of the Atlantian runes used here, it was already the tenth day. Time had gone by incredibly fast but Villin felt that he was making great progress. He had a special plan in mind when it came to the new version of the spearguns he would be making.

As far as he knew, even though Atlantis didn't have any runemasters currently, they did have over a hundred somewhat skilled enchanters. Villin was intending to make a runic blueprint simple enough so that a skilled enchanter would be able to improve the spearguns.

It wouldn't be as good as the ones a runemaster would make but they would still be much more powerful and many more would be enchanted by the end of the time limit, even after the time limit ended, once the battle was over, Atlantian enchanters would be able to repair the spearguns themselves, hopefully giving them a good impression of Villin.

Once he had a decent plan drafted up, Villin first went back to Keith to see how he was doing. The boy was currently working outside, next to some of the towers, there were large piles of spears all around him as he continued to work on his enchantments.

When Villin approached him, he noticed how exhausted Keith seemed, his eyes had darkened and he looked as if he could fall asleep at any moment. Villin didn't comment on this yet though as he simply asked, "How many have you finished thus far?"

Keith looked up at him and quickly gathered his thoughts, momentarily becoming less tired again, "Five-hundred and seventy-six thus far." he noted as he glanced at the notes he made himself.

Hearing the number, Villin couldn't help but let out a soft whistle. Considering that Keith had been working for around six days and he had finished so many, that meant he finished one every fifteen minutes on average. This included sleeping, eating, and time spent moving around spears.

Incredibly impressed by his performance, Villin once more looked at his condition and noted, "That's enough for now, thank you. Take a rest, if I need your help again I'll come to get you in the tower we met." 

With a soft smile, Keith nodded, "Thank you, don't hesitate to get me again." before heading to the tower he generally guarded to sleep.

Villin shook his head as he looked at all of the spears around him. He didn't doubt that mistakes were made in a number of them, but even if over twenty percent were faulty, there'd still be more than four hundred.

And so, Villin began adding in the hardest parts to the enchantments in these spears, finishing them. Without sleeping it took Villin a little over a day to finish but it was fast enough.

Thinking of the progress thus far he had finished nearly five-hundred rounds of ammunition in eleven days, this wasn't a very good result if you simply looked at that.

But Villin knew that it would only really be getting started now. He grabbed two of the enchanted spears and began heading towards the palace. First, he had to pass by one of the barracks so a general had to accompany him if he wanted to be let into the palace, but the general didn't cause too many problems.

The palace itself was gorgeous, it was said that the old palace was destroyed twenty years ago but you couldn't tell that this one was made so quickly. The closest comparison Villin could make was that the palace looked like a massive Muslim mosque with blue accentuations, it truly was a gorgeous building.

Since he was accompanied by a general he was easily let in and he soon found himself walking through hallways filled with beautiful paintings, each and every one of them seemed like they were made by a master painter, with thousands of them in a single building, Villin wouldn't be surprised if this was the most artistically valuable place on the planet.

After sitting in a waiting room for a little while, Villin was allowed to go to the throne room. Still accompanied by the general, he found himself before a golden door that had numerous engravings telling the history of this nation.

Once he was given the go-ahead by one of the guards that were guarding the throne-room, he opened the massive door and walked in.

The throne room was as beautiful as the hallways in the palace but in a different way. Compared to the hallways this room was a lot more open, there was an extremely wide catwalk going from the door to the thrones and even beyond that a lot of space was available. 

The walls didn't hold any paintings but there were some small sculptures spread out, other than that there were also corinthian pillars evenly spaced.

If there was one thing in the room that screamed art, they were the four thrones at the end of the room. The thrones were made out of what looked like a blue-tinted silver. Unlike most of the sculptures and buildings around, they were as sharp as could be. They seemed to be made out of a hundred different pieces of metal that just barely created a throne. Jagged and sharp edges protruded everywhere making it look very crude.

Yet despite this, there was a special kind of beauty to the thrones, one that made Villin classify it as art. On Three of the thrones sat the Atlantian leaders, two of which Villin had met before. They were all blue-skinned males. The empty throne was obviously from the Atlantian leader that died twenty years ago.

"Runemaster, what is it that you seek from us?" one of the leaders said with a calm voice that reached all the way towards Villin.

"I seek assistance, or rather, I seek to provide more assistance than I currently am!" Villin said clearly as he approached the throne somewhat, stopping when he was a good twenty meters away from the Atlantian leaders.

"Hmm, explain." the same leaders responded as they were all looking at him with piercing expressions.

"I have with me here two fully enchanted spears that can be shot from the spearguns. They are much more effective compared to the previous model and can do a lot of damage. With one assistance I managed to make four-hundred of these thus far, an amount that isn't sufficient at all.

"I overheard you have over a hundred citizens here capable of enchanting properly. With their assistance, I will be able to finish enough of these to last you through the battle. Additionally, they will be able to assist greatly in enchanting the spearguns themselves as I am working on an enchanting blueprint that will be doable even for those that aren't a runemaster." Villin finished in a charismatic tone, he was truly hoping to get the support of these enchanters as the change in results would be massive.

"Give us time to convene with one another." one of the three said, and just like that, Villin was sent out of the room.

When he got out, Villin let out a deep breath, he just asked for a lot of resources and he wasn't sure if the leaders realized why he needed them. It was most likely that the Atlantian leaders thought a runemaster had their own projects compared to a regular enchanter and that they don't generally work together.

"Those shots, how much better are they?"

When Villin heard the deep voice, he looked at the source and noticed the general looking at the spears he had been carrying, with a smile Villin responded, "The penetrations force is about the same, but once it does penetrate, it causes a large explosion, it should be able to kill most of the creatures it manages to pierce, if one isn't sufficient two should do. Much better than the six or so shots you needed from the old versions." Villin ended his short rant. 

He had learned a lot from the cocky Atlantian when he was studying the speargun, even though the guy was a bit annoying, he couldn't help but keep on bragging about Atlantis, giving away a lot of information while he did so.

After waiting in the waiting room for a few minutes, one of the guards entered as well, "The leaders have made their decision."