"Sure," Asher replied.
"I will call you after the week," Neyman said as Asher soon left the room.
"Hmm, oh, I almost forgot why I came here," Neyman said as his face turned serious.
"We can go to my office. This is not the place," Xander said, looking at Neyman.
A week later,
Asher was standing in front of Neyman who was still looking at the sword.
"Would you believe me if I said this sword could be improved?" Neyman asked Asher.
Asher looked at Professor Neyman, but his eyes were drawn to a certain senior year student standing in the room with them.
"Oh, ignore him for now. What about my offer?" Neyman asked again.
"How?" Asher got straight to the point.
His sword was an artifact and not a normally forged sword. Improving it was almost impossible as artifacts were not upgradeable unlike man-made ones.
"Remember I told you I found an interesting book in the Restricted Area? There, I found some new runes and I saw familiar ones on your sword," Neyman explained.
He had found an old book in the Restricted Area, but the study was interesting so he continued reading it.
He then explained to Asher how he was going to use the method devised in that book to improve his sword.
"So, that's where this young man comes in," Neyman said, pointing at the senior year student who was feeling a bit awkward in this situation.
Out of nowhere, he was called by Neyman when he was showing his useless Ring Armor artifact to someone a month ago. Now he was called again but this time, even Asher Greville was present in the same room as him.
Asher's emotionless eyes looked at the senior, who became a bit nervous when he saw his crimson-red eyes focused on him.
"Well, he has another piece that is needed to recreate the method I'm talking about," Neyman said.
He explained how he had found similar runes on this artifact as well, and by inspecting it for a month, he found out the artifact was actually a tool to inscribe runes on the blade of this sword.
It took him months, but judging by the information, and his knowledge of runes, it was obvious why he came to those conclusions.
"But there is a slight issue," Neyman said as he looked at the senior year student.
"This artifact is bound to the one who used it first, and it can't be used by anyone else than him," Neyman said, looking at the senior year student.
"So, he will perform the runic arts on your sword," Neyman said.
"But I don't know anything about runes, and-" The senior year student was about to complain why he should waste his time for Asher but he stopped.
He forgot that the person he was talking about was the heir of the Greville Family.
"Don't worry, I will tell you which runes to draw, but it will require preparation," Neyman said.
And after a month, just before the End Year Tournament, which was the final examination for the first-year students, Neyman finally called both of them again.
"S Rank Mana Gem!" The Senior shouted.
"Yes, this will be needed to supply the energy for these runes. I will guide the energy; you will draw them," Neyman said.
"Don't worry, I won't charge either one of you. This is my own research," Neyman assured the guy in case he got nervous.
"I will pay for it," Asher spoke.
He was the heir of the Greville Family, and he couldn't accept favors from others casually.
And Neyman knew he would respond like this. If any other student his age was in his shoes, they would have accepted it for free but knowing that nothing came without a certain price, Asher told Neyman that he would pay.
Both Neyman and the senior year student started working on the rune. Neyman told him to draw certain runes on the sword. He was guiding the mana from the mana gem himself but the pressure was getting to the Senior.
And that's when the mistake happened. At the end, where Neyman had thought the rune would finish, a problem occurred and the runes started to become unstable.
"This should not happen," Neyman frowned as he looked at the unstable runes.
From his research, this should have completed the job.
"Shit," the senior year student cursed as he lost his concentration and the broken runes were applied to the sword.
"Did I mess up?" He asked Neyman, worried.
"Well, not really, but it seems we made some mistakes," Neyman said as he took the sword in his hand.
"This is incomplete," Neyman said.
"That was a failure, but not this time," Asher muttered.
This time, he had the Ring Armor Artifact, the pen needed to draw the runes and unseal his sword.
And unlike last time, he was going to perfectly unseal the first seal on his sword.
Neyman had told him that his sword had more than one seal, but the book he read was either incomplete or he didn't understand it fully.
But Asher remembered the power in his sword. Although due to the broken runes it never went above S Rank, it struck terror into the hearts of many people.
Asher looked around; he could see many books, some looked decent but most of them were very old. All of them had protective runic charms on them to make sure they didn't get damaged.
He picked up one of the books and started reading it. His high comprehension made it easy for him to understand what was written but what he was looking for was a specific book.
He still remembered the runes that Neyman made the student draw, and he was searching for them specifically.
He took out many books from the lower shelves as he skimmed through most of them.
Most of these books were written by famous runemasters from history, and they contained records of their understanding of runes. But it was still not what Asher was looking for.
"Journey of the Runic Master. Not it," Asher put the book back after skimming through it for 10 seconds.
Most of the titles were weird as people wanted to leave their own impression on their works.
"Scorch Family's Record..." He picked up another book.
'Probably a fallen family.' He guessed it might have been an elite or famous family in the past.
Most of these books were either retrieved from such families, or they were individual works left behind by certain people.
The World Academy wasn't the only place that held these books. Most of them were donated to the World Academy by the order of the High Council.
As the current powerhouses never revealed their own techniques, it was decided that knowledge from the fallen families, which was in possession of various families, would be donated to the World Academy.
Although some hesitated, all such books, or records, were donated except for the ones exclusive to those families.
And one of those families was the Greville Family.
Asher remembered that they still had the 'Records of the Past' that were present with almost all the Elite Families.
"None among these ones," Asher concluded after an hour of searching through the lower shelves.
Asher had skimmed through at least 360 such books and journals.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l