Chapter 81: Runesmithing

Monica blinked at Elias’s question, and after a moment, she let out a confused chuckle as she looked at him.

"Well, I would love to leave this room..." she said with a faint smile, "though it is pretty hard for me to walk out."

Elias shook his head in exasperation before explaining, "We would be traveling to the east via the Sun Church’s carriages."

Monica gave him an amused look, and she raised an eyebrow as she asked, "How are you going to put me onto the carriage? Have you forgotten that no one can stay near me for over an hour..."

Her voice gradually faded, and her expression changed as something suddenly occurred to her.

Monica frowned while the memory of the previous night resurfaced in her mind.

’It had taken him more than an hour to learn Heal, right?’ she wondered. ’How was he not affected by the poison then?’

She narrowed her blue eyes as she studied Elias.

Monica knew exactly what her poison did to people who remained near her for too long. The longer someone stayed within her vicinity, the more poison accumulated inside their body, and eventually, their condition would deteriorate regardless of their strength.

Yet Elias had spent hours beside her.

He had awakened his mind’s eye in her room, learned about Healing magic, searched for his life flame, and eventually managed to reproduce it. The entire process had taken considerably longer than the limit she had always been forced to impose on anyone who approached her.

And yet Elias had remained perfectly fine.

Monica’s eyes narrowed further.

’Why?’

The question lingered in her mind.

Now that she thought about it, there were far too many things about Elias that didn’t make sense.

He had spent countless hours with her since their marriage, and although she had initially assumed that he simply had an unusually high resistance to her poison, she had never actually considered how strange that was.

No ordinary person could do what he had done.

Even the strongest members of the Mage Tower had been forced to maintain their distance from her.

Yet Elias could sit beside her, feed her, bathe her, teach himself magic in her presence, and remain completely unaffected.

Monica’s suspicion began taking shape.

However, before she could connect the pieces, Elias looked at her with an expectant gaze and asked, "Do you have any method?"

Monica’s thoughts immediately halted.

"Hmm?" she asked, slightly distracted. "What method?"

Elias frowned slightly before clarifying, "Did they not move you here from the Mage Tower or whatever place you were before? They had to have done that via a carriage, no? How did they do that?"

"Ah..." Monica’s expression softened as a look of reminiscence appeared on her face, and she slightly bobbed her head before answering, "They used runes to keep my poison from spreading."

Elias frowned.

"Runes?"

He had heard about runes before, although his knowledge regarding them was limited.

Runesmithing was another branch of magic, much like alchemy, arcane smithing, formation drafting, and the other specialized disciplines practiced by mages. Instead of relying purely on mana or conventional spell structures, runesmithing utilized Runes, symbols that were recognized by nature as its own language.

Elias remembered hearing that these symbols could produce phenomena without requiring the source of that phenomenon.

A rune could create the effect of a wall without an actual wall being present, produce flames without an ordinary fire, or strengthen a weapon without physically changing its structure.

Runes could also be incorporated into formations, which was why runesmithing and formation drafting often overlapped despite being separate branches.

However, Elias didn’t know why only certain people could become runesmiths.

There had always been something mysterious about the discipline, and his childhood maidservant had never possessed enough knowledge about it to properly explain the reason.

Still, that wasn’t important right now.

He didn’t need to become a runesmith himself.

"Maybe we can have a runesmith draw runes on your carriage?" Elias suggested.

Monica stared at him for a moment before suddenly laughing.

"You are unintentionally funny, you know that?" she muttered, shaking her head slightly. "Why would there be a runesmith in this backwater city?"

Elias’s expression stiffened.

He opened his mouth but then stopped.

Now that Monica had put it that way, his suggestion did sound rather unrealistic.

Kilmir was a remote city situated at the western edge of the Dracarian Kingdom; there was no reason for a specialized runesmith to remain here.

Someone capable of using advanced runes would have far better opportunities elsewhere, particularly within the central Mage Tower or one of its major branches.

"I should talk to Priest Mekah about it..." Elias mumbled.

Monica’s expression became slightly more serious as she nodded.

"It would still be hard," she said. "Most runesmiths join the Mage Tower or its branches because they need to learn the runes to use them in the first place, and they can only get that knowledge there."

Elias’s expression became increasingly worried.

If there was no runesmith in Kilmir and the Mage Tower controlled most of the knowledge surrounding runes, then obtaining the necessary assistance would be far more troublesome than he had initially expected.

He lowered his gaze while thinking.

’Then how am I supposed to get her onto the carriage?’

The journey to the east wasn’t something he could simply abandon because of Monica’s condition.

If anything, her condition was another reason they needed to leave.

The Draveon Marchional Clan had already made their hostility toward him clear, and staying within their sphere of influence would only create more problems. If they wanted to build a new life somewhere else, Elias needed to find a way to transport all three of his wives safely.

His thoughts continued racing through possible solutions.

He could perhaps find someone capable of using runes after leaving Kilmir, but that would mean Monica couldn’t accompany them during the journey.

That option was unacceptable.

Elias’s eyes gradually hardened as he searched for another possibility, but then something suddenly clicked inside his mind.

His expression changed, and his eyes shone with realization.

’Why am I worrying when I have the trove of arcane knowledge lying before me?’

Elias slowly turned his gaze toward Monica.

A strange, greedy glint appeared in his eyes.

Monica immediately noticed it.

Her expression became suspicious as she stared at him, and she instinctively leaned her head back slightly despite having nowhere to escape.

"What do you want now?" she scoffed.