The Moon Thief

Heinald had informative conversations about runes with Lord Fredor every day during his week in the castle, and to learn the effects of the runes he find out from the Rune Tablet, he modeled them all in his mind and then integrated them with his magic energy. These runes were all related to Elemental Energies, unfortunately there were no Space or Light related runes among them.

Still, he was incredibly excited by the important information he had learned. Moreover, some of these runes were quite high-level runes. He thought that if he worked on these runes, he could make some of the spells he knew stronger with some modifications.

Moreover, Lord Fredor had also shown him some of the runes and seals he knew. All of these runes and seals were higher than the sum of the runes and seals in the thousands of books he had read before. After all, Fredor's specialty was runes and seals, which was not surprising.

By the end of the week, Tisha had reached the castle. At that time, Heinald and Fredor were talking about the Starlight Realm.

When one of the servants reported that Lady Tisha had arrived at the castle, they both went outside the building to greet her.

A small group was walking towards the main building. A young woman was leading the group. This woman's long blonde hair reached her waist. Her eyes were light green and her skin was as smooth as a pearl. She was wearing a white robe with blue and delicate embroidery on it.

"Father!" The young woman ran and hugged Lord Fredor.

This young woman was Fredor's daughter, Tisha. She herself was a Level 2 Ainsar and was also one of Ruthas Academy's favorite geniuses.

Those who came with her were the crew she was going to take to the Starlight Realm. Apart from Tisha, there was another Level 2 Ainsar in the group of five. This person was a man with long black hair and a disdainful gaze.

Everyone else was a Level 1 Ainsar.

After giving his daughter a hug, Fredor pointed to Heinald, who was standing next to him, and said, "Meet Heinald. He's a potion brewing genius who's qualified to be your Uncle Albin's apprentice."

"My lady." Heinald bowed.

Tisha looked at Heinald in surprise and said, "I never thought my uncle would accept an apprentice, you must really be a genius if you managed to impress him."

"I told him about your mission from the academy. He's willing to help you." Fredor put a hand on his daughter's shoulder and smiled.

"Father! I hope you didn't force him, that would be very rude." Tisha gave her father a questioning look.

"My lady, I have not faced any compulsion. I am willing to help you." Heinald intervened.

"Oh! An expert in potion brewing like you, I'm sure will be very reassuring to our crew." Tisha smiled gracefully.

Heinald was fascinated by this young woman in front of him. Although she herself was a Tier 2 Ainsar, she had a very kind and pleasant disposition. Moreover, despite her young age, the wisdom in her eyes could easily be recognized by a careful glance.

Tisha turned to her father again and said, "Father, meet Arlies Loghsor. He was kind enough to join my team and help me."

The tall, cold-looking man bowed his head in a respectful bow.

When Arlies' gaze fell on Heinald, he reluctantly bowed his head. After all, the man before him was a Level 2 Ainsar.

Arlies gave a slight nod and looked away from him.

At that time, Tisha introduced Heinald to the other members of the crew, Renshi, Lork, Durkus, and Plon.

Heinald wondered if these were also from Ruthas Academy.

In honor of Tisha's arrival at the castle, Lord Fredor made prepared a great feast that night. Tisha asked Heinald to sit next to her to get to know him better and to inform him about the Starlight Realm. During the feast, she told him what she knew about the Starlight Realm and their mission.

According to Tisha, few people in that area knew about the gateway in the Starlight Realm because it was in a desolate corner of a rather desolate forest. If it was not like that, there would be many visitors or invaders from that realm to the Ainsar World.

There were no kingdoms in the Starlight Realm, only clans and everyone was ruled by those clans.

In fact, they were similar to the Ainsar World in this respect, although this world also seemed to be ruled by Ainsar Kingdoms, it was actually ruled by major clans and unions.

Tisha thought it was very difficult to have a plan for the mission. It was a completely different realm, and they knew very little about it. There they would let things happen.

Anyone who went there had no hope of finding Aenarath's Sunstone, anyway.

Heinald had listened carefully to Tisha during the feast. However, something had happened that was bothering him. Arlies had stared at him coldly, contemptuously, and maliciously during the feast.

Heinald had generally never been met with hostility by any of his much stronger collaborators, due to his superior skill at brewing potions. If he didn't have his talent for potions, he would likely have been scorned by most of his previous collaborators, even if he hadn't faced hostility.

At least he thought he had good luck with the powerful Ainsars he had met, but now that luck seemed to be over.

Arlies, a Level 2 Ainsar, had an outright hostile attitude towards him. In fact, he knew very well the reason behind it.

Jealousy!

Despite his young age, Heinald had managed to become Grandmaster Albin's apprentice, and now he had the opportunity to see another realm.

Although Arlies had managed to become a Level 2 Ainsar, he had no particular specialty. That's why he considered his level to be a greater advantage than it was. Or so he wanted to see like that.

There was nothing Heinald could do about it. He would just try not to have too much contact with him and be careful about the moves he could make against him.

Heinald was to leave the castle in two weeks with Tisha and her crew. During those two weeks, he was asked to brew as much as he could of all the potions he knew. All the ingredients for the potions were in Lord Fredor's warehouse, which took him quite by surprise. He later learned that Lord Fredor was also one of the directors of a trade association.

So he began to spend most of his time brewing potions. Tisha and Fredor in particular visited him often and watched his potion brewing process. Then they understood better why Albin accepted him as an apprentice.

Heinald's knowledge and brewing skills were undoubtedly one of the best they had ever seen. They had witnessed him brew dozens of potions without making a single mistake, and they were horrified at this rate. Even if most potions masters spent decades on a potion, they would still sometimes make a small mistake in the process and cause the potion to fail. But he could brew many potions, not just one, without failure.

Tisha did not know what dangers they would face in the Starlight Realm, so there was always a fear in her heart. However, after seeing Heinald's abilities, this fear was somewhat alleviated. It was obvious that with his skill, he could prepare effective mixtures and potions when needed.

On the other hand, Heinald was working on runes he learned when he wasn't brewing potions. He was combining various runes and wanted to see if it would achieve a certain effect. Although most of his attempts ended in failure, there were some successful ones among them. He accepted these successful ones as 'seal' and listed them.

The main purpose of his work with the runes he learned from the books Lord Fredor lent him and the runes he knew before was to obtain seals that he could use in Spell modifications and various formations.

He didn't have the knowledge and experience to create a new spell yet, but he thought that with enough research and study, he could make various modifications to the spells. This would increase his overall power. Moreover, he had the knowledge that Magical Items and Magical Treasures were made in various formations. The more runes and seals he knew, the easier it would be for him to craft a Magic Item or Treasure in the future.

Moreover,one question that stood in the back of his mind was which creature the egg he found belonged to. No matter how many sources he examined, he had never learned anything about this egg. This egg was unlike anything he had seen before. He didn't want to let anyone else see it either. The only way he can think of is to keep searching and hope he can find something about it. Otherwise, he would have to wait for the creature inside the egg to hatch.