Chapter 109: VOL 2 Chatper 54: Hidden test.
Late into the night, Erik returned to his refuge after wandering across the continent for several hours, trying to avoid leaving any kind of trail that might lead someone to his hideout. After all, he was certain he had made plenty of enemies with his clever stunt, and he was sure there were even more who wanted to take his emblem to keep him from winning the tournament.
Once inside the refuge, Erik sat down at his workbench and began to carefully analyze the staff. Meanwhile, the wolves lay down beneath the table, close to his legs, and Ebonique settled on his head in her smallest form. At that moment, she asked curiously.
"So, what did you find out about that staff?"
"Well, actually, this staff is quite curious. It's actually a magical artifact made from relatively common materials, but it's unnecessarily complex for its single function, which is to display different stellar cards."
As he spoke, Erik channeled his mana into the staff, causing various holograms to appear in the air around him, each showing a different stellar card. He continued explaining calmly.
"That got me really curious, so I started carefully analyzing the inscribed runes and found something peculiar. The staff is only pretending to use all of its runes to display this hologram, and it actually has more functions. It's just that these are locked and seem to have different kinds of conditions that must be met to activate."
"Hoho, that sounds like you have a plan." Ebonique commented with a mischievous voice, and Erik responded with an evil grin.
"Of course I do. Tonight, we're going all out, hahaha!"
Erik laughed cheerfully and began working on the staff without paying attention to the passing time. After a while, he could hear the wolves "snoring" beside him in their puppy forms, which made him shake his head. Those two refused to sleep anywhere other than by his side.
In the past, Erik had tried making them sleep in their doghouses in the garden or on his own bed. But in the end, they always got up in the middle of the night and came back to lie down beside him while he worked. So he simply gave up and let them do as they pleased, since, in a way, they were quite adorable.
The rest of the night passed with Erik modifying the staff, using different types of materials he kept in his storage rings to deactivate runes and carve new ones. He took great care not to damage the set of runes responsible for its various functionalities, focusing solely on those that evaluated the activation conditions.