Chapter 47: Day Three of Training 3
Adam finally arrived at the Artisans’ Guild.
This time, he didn’t even take the time to observe the bustle in the main hall.
He already knew the way.
And with the Progressive Charge Bracelets on his wrists and ankles, each step reminded him that even walking had become a form of training.
He crossed the building under the curious gazes of several artisans, then headed straight for Elaria’s office.
The door was ajar.
Adam knocked lightly.
"Elaria?"
"Come in."
He pushed the door open.
Elaria was sitting at her desk, several sheets of paper spread out before her.
The rules of the Valoria Games occupied almost the entire work surface.
Adam’s sketches had already been copied, corrected, improved, and organized with almost unnerving precision.
The Reversi game board had acquired perfectly balanced proportions.
The chess pieces now came in several different shapes.
Even the storage boxes already had simple mechanisms for separating the pieces.
Adam remained silent for a few seconds.
"Have you come this far already?"
Elaria looked up.
Her eyes rested on him.
Then a slight smile appeared on her lips.
"You came."
"Yes. Selene released me in one piece. More or less."
Her gaze immediately moved down to his wrists.
Then to his ankles.
She noticed the bracelets.
"She already gave them to you."
Adam narrowed his eyes.
"Did you know she was going to give them to me today?"
"I knew she’d ask for them soon."
"That’s not an answer."
"It’s a partial answer."
Adam sighed.
"You’re all experts at avoiding giving complete answers."
Elaria put down her quill and stood up.
"Come. We’ll talk in the workshop."
She gathered some notes, placed the Valoria Games documents in a protective folder, and led Adam to his private workshop.
The space was already prepared.
The forge wasn’t lit this time.
The mechanical tools were stacked to the side.
The alchemy vials had been moved to another table.
In the center of the room was a workbench covered with metal plates, small crystals, mana-conducting threads, and fragments of runic circuits.
Adam took it all in.
"Today, this isn’t the forge."
"No."
Elaria placed her notebook on the table.
"Today, we’re starting enchanting." "
Adam immediately felt his interest pique.
Enchantment.
Of the four areas Elaria was teaching him, this was the one he had already touched upon most indirectly.
The Valorian Barrier.
The runic circuits.
The system’s blueprints.
The magical structures.
It all felt like enchantment on a grand scale.
Elaria seemed to read his expression.
"This is the area you understand best right now."
Adam nodded.
"I’ve already worked on the barrier with Vespera and you. And the runic circuits seem... familiar."
"Because of your past life?"
"Yes."
He placed a hand on the workbench.
"But before we begin, I need to talk to you about the bracelets."
Elaria looked down at them.
"Selene finds them inadequate?" "
Adam remained motionless.
"Is that really your first question?"
"Yes."
"She said they were working very well, but that you could still improve the load distribution on the ankles."
Elaria immediately took out her notebook.
"I see. The stress is too direct during weight shifts. There needs to be a smoother redistribution during rotations."
Adam watched her write.
"You’ve really just been taking notes on a more effective way to make me suffer."
"To make you improve."
"That’s exactly what Selene says."
"Because she’s right."
Adam closed his eyes.
"I should have expected it."
Then he added:
"There’s something else too. Selene noticed I was adapting faster than expected during training. I explained to her that I’d acquired a skill: Adaptation."
Elaria’s pen stopped abruptly.
Adam immediately noticed the change in her expression.
She slowly looked up at him.
"Adaptation?"
"Yes."
"You acquired a skill called Adaptation?"
"That’s what my status panel showed."
Elaria remained silent.
The silence was anything but light.
Adam frowned.
"Selene had almost the same reaction. What’s wrong?"
Elaria gently put down her pen.
Then she adjusted her glasses.
"Adaptation is an extremely rare gift."
Adam felt his attention sharpen.
"Rare how?"
"In the continent’s known history, it has only officially appeared twice."
Adam remained motionless.
"Twice?"
"Yes."
Elaria clasped her hands in front of her.
"The two people who possessed it became major figures of their time. Not just strong. Unstoppable in their progress. They could survive environments that others couldn’t endure, learn methods incompatible with their origins, advance in multiple disciplines, and turn every constraint into an advantage."
Adam looked at his own hands.
He finally understood.
Selene’s reaction.
Elaria’s mistrust.
The importance of this skill.
It wasn’t just an aid to endure training.
It was an ability that could alter her entire future development.
"So it’s not an ordinary skill."
"No."
Elaria stared at him seriously.
"In the wrong hands, this kind of gift creates a monster. In the right hands, it creates a legend."
Adam remained silent.
Then he gave a tired chuckle.
"No pressure, then."
"A lot of pressure. But you’re already under progressive overload, so you should get used to it."
Adam looked at her.
"Did you just make a joke?"
Elaria seemed to think.
"Maybe."
"That was cruel."
"So it worked."
Adam sighed, but smiled despite himself.
Elaria then approached and quickly examined the bracelets.
She didn’t remove them.
She simply threaded a thin mana line around the runes, observed their reaction, and then nodded.
"Selene was right. The distribution on the ankles can be improved. I’ll give you a new version tomorrow."
Adam stared at her.
"You’re not going to take them off now?"
"No."
"Not even to check?"
"I can check without taking them off."
"So I have to continue wearing these today."
"Exactly."
He closed his eyes.
"I wish I hadn’t asked."
Elaria returned to the workbench.
"Let’s begin."
Adam approached.
On the table lay a small, smooth, and perfectly clean plate of black metal.
Several low-quality crystals were arranged in a circle around it.
Elaria pointed to the plate.
"Enchantment consists of inscribing a stable magical function into a medium. The medium can be metal, wood, leather, fabric, crystal, or even bone, depending on the intended use."
Adam nodded.
"And runes are the instructions."
"Exactly. But an instruction alone isn’t enough. You also need order, flow, a source of energy, a limit, and a stabilization mechanism."
Adam felt his mind light up.
Order.
Flow.
Source.
Limit.
Stabilization.
It was almost like a software architecture.
A function.
A power supply.
A condition.
A loop.
An output.
Error control.
Elaria traced a simple rune on the plate.
"We’ll start with a gentle heat enchantment. Nothing dangerous. The goal is to heat the plate without melting it, wasting mana, or causing instability."
Adam observed the lines.
Thanks to the Eyes of the World, he saw more than just the lines.
He perceived the path of mana.
The points of tension.
The places where energy might accumulate.
The sections where the rune was too open.
Elaria handed him a thin tool.
"Try it."
Adam took the tool.
The weight of the bracelets made his movements slower, but also more deliberate.
He placed the tip on the plate.
Then he began to trace.
Instead of simply copying the rune, he viewed it as a program.
Mana input.
Distribution.
Conversion.
Temperature limit.
Controlled output.
Stabilization.
His old life returned to him almost instinctively.
When he coded, he didn’t just write lines.
He thought about the logic behind each instruction.
How one function communicated with another.
About possible errors.
About exit conditions.
About infinite loops to avoid.
About resources to conserve.
Enchanting worked the same way.
Except here, a bad line didn’t just trigger an error message.
It could make the plate explode.
Adam finished the rune.
The rune lit up.
The plate grew warm.
Stable.
No mana leak.
No overload.
Elaria remained silent.
Adam looked up.
"Is it bad?"
She didn’t answer right away.
Then she picked up the plate and examined it from several angles.
"No."
"Then why are you looking at me like that?"
"Because it’s not normal."
Adam blinked.
"Ah."
Elaria placed the plate on the table.
"Most apprentices learn by trial and error. They reproduce known patterns until they achieve a stable result. They only truly understand the balance of circuits after years."
She pointed to the plaque.
"You just produced a functional rune on the first try. And not just functional. Optimized."
Adam looked at the plaque.
"I just corrected the areas that seemed unbalanced to me."
"Exactly."
Elaria stared at him with growing intensity.
"You shouldn’t see it so clearly."
Adam scratched his cheek.
"To me, it looks like an algorithm."
"Explain."
He took a breath.
"In my old world, an algorithm is a sequence of logical instructions to obtain a specific result. For example, if a condition is met, then an action is performed. Otherwise, something else is done. You can also repeat an operation, limit a value, check for an error, optimize time, or reduce energy consumption."
Elaria remained motionless.
She listened to every word.
Adam continued:
"Here, I see enchantment as a magical program. The main rune defines the objective. The secondary lines guide the flow. The stabilizing circles prevent the energy from leaving the frame. The control points limit the power. And if the circuit is unbalanced, it resembles a logic error or a memory leak."
Elaria remained silent.
Very silent.
Then she murmured:
"A memory leak..."
Adam chuckled.
"In my world, it was a problem when a program used resources without properly releasing them. With mana, it’s like a rune accumulating energy without redistributing or releasing it."
Elaria’s eyes shone.
"That’s an... extremely useful analogy."
She immediately opened her notebook and began writing rapidly.
Adam watched her.
"You’re taking notes again."
"Obviously."
"I have a feeling I’m going to have to explain this to everyone tonight."
Elaria looked up.
"Yes."
"Was that an intuition or a command?"
"A gentle command."
Adam sighed.
"You all have your own categories of commands."
Elaria didn’t reply.
She placed a second plate in front of him.
"Again. This time, a faint light enchantment."
Adam picked up the tool again.
He worked more slowly.
The bracelets made his fingers slightly less precise, but they forced him to control his movements more.
He traced the pattern.
Source.
Diffusion.
Intensity.
Duration.
Stabilization.
The plate glowed with a soft white light.
Stable.
Elaria looked at him as if she were observing a living anomaly.
"Adam."
"Yes?"
"You really understand what you’re doing."
"It’s better than the other way around, isn’t it?"
"Yes. But it’s also frightening."
He turned his head toward her.
"Why?"
"Because enchantment is considered the most difficult of the four great crafts. Alchemy follows natural reactions. Smithing follows the properties of materials. Engineering follows mechanisms. But enchantment requires writing intention directly into magic."
She placed her hand on the glowing plate.
"Most enchanters copy formulas passed down by their masters. They adjust, test, fail, and start again. Even good enchanters spend a great deal of time searching for the right combination."
Then she looked up at him.
"You, on the other hand, look at a circuit and understand its intention." "
Adam remained silent.
He hadn’t thought of it as an exceptional talent.
For him, it was a natural way of reading a system.
But in this world, this way of thinking was perhaps rare.
Very rare.
Elaria placed a third plate in front of him.
"Let’s try something a little more complex. A minor strengthening rune."
Adam inhaled.
"Okay."
This time, it was more difficult.
The circuit required balancing the material’s resistance with the flow of mana.
Too little energy, and the effect would be useless.
Too much energy, and the plate would become so rigid that it would crack.
Adam made his first mistake.
The rune vibrated too strongly."
But instead of collapsing, he immediately corrected the secondary line, added a limiting loop, and reduced the input flow.
The plate stabilized.
Elaria froze.
"You corrected it during activation."
Adam raised his head.
"Was it risky?"
"Yes."
"Ah."
"But it worked."
He looked at the plate.
"I saw that the energy was rising too quickly. So I added a limit."
Elaria slowly placed a hand on his forehead.
"Apprentices sometimes take months to understand this kind of mistake."
Adam smiled faintly.
"Sorry?"
"Don’t apologize. Keep going."
The session continued in this way.
Heat.
Light.
Strengthening.
Stabilizing.
Cost reduction.
Small locking circuit.
Audible alert rune.
With each new exercise, Adam progressed with a speed that made Elaria increasingly silent.
When he failed, the mistake was almost never catastrophic.
It was rarely a rune that didn’t work.
It was a rune that could work better.
An angle to correct.
A mana drain to reduce.
A transition to smooth out.
A boundary to clean up.
Elaria finally put down her notebook.
"You’re not failing like an apprentice."
Adam looked up.
"Is that a good thing?"
"Yes. But it’s also very unsettling."
"Why?"
"Because your mistakes look like incomplete optimizations, not malfunctions."
Adam remained silent.
Then he smiled slightly.
"That’s a very programmer-like flaw."
Elaria crossed her arms.
"Tonight, you’ll explain the algorithm, the conditions, the boundaries, the logical errors, and this memory leak concept."
"To everyone?" "
"Yes."
"Even to Selene?"
"Especially to Selene. She’ll probably use a fighting comparison."
Adam imagined Selene transforming a magic loop into a chain of attacks.
"Unfortunately, it might work."
Elaria nodded.
"Good ideas change shape depending on who uses them."
Adam examined the last enchanted plate.
The phrase stuck in his mind.
Good ideas change shape.
In his old world, he had known this.
A simple idea became software.
Then a tool.
Then a habit.
Then an industry.
Here, an idea could become a rune.
An artifact.
A weapon.
A defense.
A revolution.
The session finally came to an end.
Elaria gathered the enchanted plates and placed them in a special box.
"I’m going to keep these. They’ll help me compare your progress."
Adam looked at the plates.
"Are you going to keep my first attempts?" "
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because they don’t look like first attempts."
He didn’t know what to say.
Elaria then approached him and touched one of the bracelets.
"For tomorrow, I’ll adjust the load distribution. I can also add a temporary attenuation mode if your body reaches a dangerous limit."
Adam looked at her gratefully.
"Finally, a sensible person."
"Don’t get too excited. The attenuation mode will mainly be used to extend the training without causing unnecessary injury."
Adam closed his eyes.
"I should have waited for the rest of the sentence."
"Yes."
She smiled gently.
Adam stood up with difficulty.
The bracelets still felt heavy.
But his body was already starting to adapt to them better.
He put away his notes and headed towards the exit of the workshop.
"Thank you for the lesson."
Elaria walked him to the door.
"You’ve made excellent progress."
Adam smiled.
"Is that a genuine compliment?"
"Yes."
"Without a threat?"
Elaria thought for a moment.
"For now."
"I’ll take it."
He placed his hand on the handle.
Then he turned to her one last time.
"See you later, Elaria."
She nodded gently.
"See you later, Adam. And don’t forget: tonight, you’re explaining the algorithm."
Adam sighed.
"I knew you wouldn’t forget."
"I hardly ever forget anything."
"That’s both reassuring and terrifying."
Elaria smiled.
Then Adam left the workshop.
As he stepped out of the Artisans’ Guild, he felt the weight of the bracelets, the fatigue of training, and the tension of accumulated concentration.
But beneath it all, there was something else.
A familiar excitement.
The enchantment spoke to him.
Not just like magic.
But like a language.
A system.
An architecture of rules that his mind could understand, manipulate, and perhaps one day transcend.
Adam looked up at the bustling street.
His next destination already awaited him.
The Merchants’ Guild.
Shiora.
Contracts.
Debts.
Advertising.
The Valorian Games.
And probably a new way to turn a simple idea into a continent-wide problem.
Adam took a deep breath.
"Very well..."
He adjusted the bracelets slightly on his wrists.
"Let’s see how much an idea is worth when Shiora decides to sell it."
Then he headed towards the Merchants’ Guild.