Once the test paper is submitted, all that's left is to pray and wait.
After handing the mask to Joron, Edwyn stood anxiously to the side, waiting for his evaluation.
The mask had gone together so smoothly in the making that it cast a shadow over Edwyn's confidence.
Would a real Mage really assign something so easy as a test?
Minutes ticked by. What was only a short wait felt like hours to Edwyn.
"Not bad," Joron finally said.
He held the mask in his hands, examining it from every angle.
The white bone mask shimmered with a gentle luster. Under the light, faint gray lines spread like branches throughout the inside of the mask.
The runes engraved on the back, while slightly raw, were all well-positioned and wouldn't hinder the spell's activation.
Joron nodded. For a low-level apprentice, this was impressively well-crafted. As long as the mana conduction circuit functioned properly, this mask qualified as a legitimate piece of Arcane Artifact.
A stream of mana flowed from Joron's fingertip, traveling through the mask's conduction circuit, lighting up the runes one by one.
Once every rune was charged, a wave of invisible mental energy suddenly burst from the mask.
"Hm?"
Chayle and Agnes both voiced their confusion as they sensed the shockwave.
This wasn't right.
A Concealment Mask shouldn't emit a psychic shockwave.
But compared to them, Joron, who was channeling the mask, was even more confused.
This didn't feel like a flawed item.
"Agnes, Chayle, you two have had too much free time lately." Joron's face suddenly darkened. He turned to the confused pair. "You knew I gave the wrong blueprint, why didn't you come and tell me to replace it?"
Agnes stared at her suddenly angry mentor, baffled. She'd been buried in experiments nonstop lately. Chayle felt the same. Though he often drank on the fifty-fifth floor, he hadn't neglected his experiments or meditation.
"Teacher, what are you talking about? I don't get it."
"Don't get it?" Joron snorted. "A fine-grade Pale Mask. Took quite some effort, didn't it?"
Fine-grade? Pale Mask?
Agnes and Chayle glanced at each other, puzzled by their mentor's outburst.
Why would they make a Pale Mask?
Weren't low-level apprentices supposed to be tested on a Concealment Mask? Why would Edwyn show up with a Pale Mask?
Unless… the teacher really had given out the wrong blueprint?
Neither of them was slow-witted. In a flash, both figured out the situation. After confirming it wasn't the other's doing, Agnes spoke up.
"Teacher, I swear on my soul sea, I had absolutely nothing to do with this Arcane Artifact."
Swearing on the soul sea was the most solemn vow a Mage could make, rarely done unless absolutely necessary.
Chayle immediately followed. "Same here. I had no part in it. Besides, you know my skill level. I'm okay with making standard items, but a fine-grade Arcane Artifact? You'd have to kill me before I could pull that off."
Hearing this, Joron's face darkened even more.
"You. Did you make this yourself?" he asked Edwyn.
Edwyn swallowed nervously and nodded.
From everything he'd overheard… it sounded like he'd created something extraordinary.
"Swear it on your soul sea," Joron said, eyes narrowing. The countless micro-eyes within his pupils seemed to coalesce into a solid gaze.
"Before you swear, I must warn you: if you break a soul-sea oath, your soul will be tainted. That stain will cause your Spiritforce to regress and may even block your path to becoming a full Mage, or worse, to becoming an Arch-Mage."
This was clearly Joron giving him an out, a chance to avoid ruining his future over pride. But Edwyn had nothing to fear, he had made the mask entirely on his own.
"I swear on my soul sea: I crafted this Arcane Artifact myself, without anyone's help."
As he finished the vow, Edwyn felt a faint, invisible ripple emit from his soul and vanish into an unknown place.
After a moment, nothing changed in his body, no shift in mana, no weakening of his spirit. This meant his soul had not been tainted, and the oath had held true.
"So… it really was you," Joron said with disbelief. He handed the mask to Agnes, who tested it herself and then, stunned, passed it to Chayle.
"How is this possible?"
"A Pale Mask, and a fine-grade one at that. How can the mana circuit be so smooth?"
Joron exhaled slowly. He had thought he'd seen all kinds of genius, Agnes, Chayle, even the hundreds of students he'd trained. All of them were prodigies in their own right.
But compared to this mask, all their talents were dust.
"Edwyn, do you understand what you've accomplished?" Joron said with awe. "The Pale Mask is meant to test Intermediate Apprentices, and yet you, as a newly advanced Elementary Apprentice, not only completed it, you made it fine-grade."
"Even I, and my own mentor back in the day, could never have done that."
Chayle handed the mask back to Joron, looking conflicted. Agnes wore a similar expression.
They were both prodigies. They knew how hard this was.
Joron inspected the mask once more, and this time, he discovered something else.
The materials used were extremely poor.
"Can you tell me how you managed this?" Joron's voice grew serious and low. "The skull of a black-striped water python is porous. Using black mercury as a conduction circuit normally leads to branching paths in the bone, lowering the efficiency of mana transfer."
"In the past, only mutated python skulls could be used to make fine-grade Pale Masks. But this one… the material's common, even subpar. I'm guessing it came from a juvenile."
Edwyn nodded. "You're right. It came from a young black-striped water python."
"Then how did you do it? I'm not forcing you to reveal your method. According to Mage tradition, I will offer something of equal value in exchange for your secret."
He pulled a crystal ball from a drawer and handed it to Edwyn.
Equivalent exchange, a law passed down from the Age of Ignorance. It was the foundation of Mage civilization.
"This contains the recipe for the Focus Potion. It helps a Mage physiologically calm down, reducing mistakes caused by pain or emotional turmoil during casting."
"It's quite popular among apprentices," Agnes chimed in. "Always a best-seller in the commercial district."
Edwyn looked at the crystal, then back at Joron.
"I didn't really improve anything. If I had to say I did something different… after making the mask, I felt the material was too brittle, so I used a magic alchemy array to enchant it."
"Enchanted it?" Joron paused for two seconds, then handed over the crystal ball.
As a Mage with deep alchemical experience, he immediately understood.
The black mercury, when infused with mana, contracts, preventing side branching. And the enchantment array continually feeds mana into the mask. Though not enough to trigger the spell, it's enough to keep the mercury contracted, enriching the surrounding bone with mana.
This localized mana enrichment caused the bone around the conduction circuit to become enchanted and strengthened. As a result, the black mercury no longer branched.
It was a simple fix, like a sheet of paper. But for all these years, Joron had stood just outside that insight.
"This formula is now yours. Also, Apprentice Edwyn, will you accept becoming my personal student?"