Free Web NovelChapter 27: Elaria’s Lesson
After leaving the Adventurers’ Guild, he headed towards his next destination.
The Artisans’ Guild.
The journey allowed him to catch his breath.
His body was tired, but Mana Body was already circulating his energy more smoothly, slightly accelerating his recovery.
When he arrived at the guild’s calm and elegant building, he almost felt as if he were entering a sanctuary after surviving an arena.
Inside, the studious atmosphere contrasted sharply with the brutality of the previous training.
Artisans were discussing blueprints.
Alchemists were checking vials.
Blacksmiths were carrying ingots.
Engineers were manipulating small enchanted mechanisms.
Adam was quickly escorted to Elaria.
The white elf was already waiting for him, an open book in one hand and several tools laid out before her.
"You’re seven minutes late."
Adam blinked.
"I was training with Selene."
Elaria glanced at him quickly.
"I see. You were thrown to the ground at least eleven times."
Adam froze.
"How do you know that?"
She pointed to his shoulder, his elbow, and his slightly dusty sleeve.
"Impact marks. Reinforced gym dust. Visible muscle tension. And the expression of a man who regrets several life choices."
Adam remained silent.
"You’re all terrifying in your own way."
"Thank you."
He wasn’t sure if it was a compliment, but Elaria seemed to take it that way.
She then led him to her private workshop.
The room was enormous.
Organized with almost unreal precision.
A space for alchemy.
An enchanted forge in the corner.
An enchanting workbench covered in crystals and runeplates.
A space filled with mechanisms, springs, gears, and tools of magical engineering.
Adam looked around in fascination.
"It’s incredible..."
Elaria smiled slightly.
"Today, I won’t go into detail. It would be pointless."
She placed a book on the table.
"I’m simply going to show you the basics. The techniques. The principles. The connections between the disciplines. Then you’ll try to reproduce them."
Adam nodded.
"Understood."
They began with alchemy.
Elaria took three plants, ground them separately, extracted their juices, and then mixed them in a specific order.
"Alchemy isn’t just about mixing ingredients. It’s about understanding their nature, their reactions, and their compatibility."
She gently warmed the vial.
The liquid turned pale green.
"Minor recovery potion. Very simple."
Adam watched.
Then discreetly activated Eyes of the World.
The information appeared.
Temperature.
Order of addition.
Purity of ingredients.
Potential error.
Mana reaction.
When it was his turn, he repeated the movements.
Not perfectly.
But correctly.
Elaria watched in silence.
Then her sky-blue eyes shone with interest.
"You corrected your grinding angle after only two movements."
"I saw that I was losing some of the sap."
"You saw it?"
Adam hesitated.
"Let’s just say I understood."
Elaria didn’t reply.
But she jotted something down in a notebook.
Then came the forge.
The heat of the enchanted forge filled the room.
Elaria showed him how to heat a small piece of metal, how to strike it without cracking it, how to distribute the force, and how to listen to the sound of the material.
"Metal speaks," she explained.
Adam raised an eyebrow.
"Literally?"
"Sometimes. But here, I’m mostly talking about vibration."
Adam used Mana Body to control his arms.
His first blows were clumsy.
Then he adjusted his stance.
Less brute force.
More precision.
The metal responded better.
Elaria stopped behind him.
"Interesting. You quickly grasp the difference between hitting hard and hitting true."
Adam smiled slightly.
"Selene taught me the pain of inefficiency this morning."
"An excellent teaching method."
"I have my reservations."
They then moved on to the enchantment.
Elaria engraved a simple rune on a metal plate.
Then she channeled mana through it.
The rune glowed.
"Basic resistance enchantment."
Adam watched intently.
This time, his World Eyes reacted more strongly.
The rune wasn’t just a symbol.
It was an instruction.
A command given to the mana.
When Adam tried to reproduce the rune, his first version was unstable.
Boundary reacts immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Boundary
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Boundary detected:
Incorrect runic curvature.
Unstable mana flow.
Suggested fix:
Reduce the junction angle.
Stabilize mana pressure.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Adam corrected.
The rune glowed faintly.
Then it stabilized.
Elaria remained motionless.
"You just stabilized a rune on your second try."
"Is that good?"
She looked at him.
"For a beginner, that’s abnormal."
Adam sighed.
"I’m starting to hear that phrase a lot."
Finally, they moved on to engineering.
Elaria disassembled a small, enchanted mechanical lock.
"Engineering connects physical forms to magical effects."
She pointed to the gears.
"A mechanism controls the movement." "
Then the runes.
"Enchantment controls the function."
Then a small vial.
"Alchemy can provide a reaction."
Finally, she placed a metal strip.
"And blacksmithing provides the support."
Adam understood immediately.
"So the crafts aren’t separate."
Elaria smiled.
"Exactly. The best artifacts often arise from multiple disciplines."
She then had him disassemble and reassemble a small mechanism.
Thanks to Mana Body, his fingers gained precision.
Thanks to World Eyes, he better understood the function of the parts.
Thanks to Delimiter, he could see where the mechanism was jamming.
After two hours, Adam had managed to produce an imperfect but usable potion, a properly hammered metal plate, a stable simple rune, and a small, functional mechanism.
Nothing exceptional in itself.
" But for a first day...
Adam also understood that his progress didn’t stem solely from his blessings.
In his former life, he had already studied several fields that, in a way, resembled the foundations of this world’s craftsmanship.
His knowledge of chemistry helped him understand alchemical reactions.
His understanding of mechanics and modern blacksmithing allowed him to grasp the workings of materials and mechanisms more quickly.
As for his programming experience, it gave him a particular aptitude for analyzing enchantments and runic circuits as logical systems.
What he truly lacked wasn’t an understanding of the principles, but the practical foundations needed to apply them correctly in this world.
Elaria gazed at him for a long moment.
"Your speed of assimilation is remarkable."
Adam put away the tools.
"Thanks to my blessings."
"Even with blessings, one needs a mind capable of connecting the dots."
She adjusted her glasses.
"You don’t just learn quickly. You quickly grasp the relationships between things. That’s much rarer."
Adam remained silent for a second.
"I believe it’s because of my past experiences. In my former world, I studied several different fields. The principles are often similar. One simply has to learn to adapt them to the new field."
Elaria’s eyes immediately shone behind her glasses.
"Oh... Knowledge from another world." "That’s a topic I’d very much like to discuss with you later, when we have more time."
Adam smiled slightly.
"Of course. Whenever you like."
Then he inclined his head slightly.
"Thank you for today."
Elaria nodded gently.
"Come back tomorrow. We’ll go over the basics in more detail."
"Tomorrow too?"
"Of course."
Adam looked up at the ceiling.
"Everyone wants to see me again tomorrow."
"That’s the price of potential."
"I’m beginning to understand why some heroes run from their destinies."
Elaria smiled slightly.
"They lack organization."
After bidding farewell to the white elf, Adam left the Artisans’ Guild.
His body was tired.
His mind was overwhelmed.
But he had learned a great deal in just one morning.
Combat.
Alchemy.
Smithing.
Enchantment.
Engineering.
And above all, he was beginning to understand how all these disciplines could complement each other.
Stepping out onto the street, he looked up at the sky.
The day was far from over.
He still had one more destination.
The Merchants’ Guild.
Adam took a deep breath.
"Very well. Let’s see what Shiora has in store for me."
Then he headed towards the merchant district, unaware that the oni was already waiting for him with an overly enthusiastic smile.
