Chapter 106: Arcane Artifact Creation

Noon arrived before I realized how much time had passed.

By then, the outer yard had stopped resembling the aftermath of an especially ambitious massacre and started resembling an actual processing operation. The temporary structure was finished, most of the monster materials had been moved into storage, and the servants were finally no longer running around as if someone had released a dragon into the pantry.

We took a break for lunch.

That was when I told my wives what the King had waiting for me.

Twelve missing women. All brides-to-be. All followers of the Light Temple. A message left behind claiming that the Dark Lord would return, and a town conveniently close to the Holy City.

As expected, the immediate reaction was unanimous.

They wanted to come.

I declined.

Not because I doubted their abilities. At this point, claiming my wives needed me constantly hovering over them for protection would be ridiculous. Ariel, Lily, Seris, Nia, and Liora were perfectly capable of reducing someone’s life expectancy without my assistance.

I needed them here because there were other things that had to be done.

Seris received the ugliest assignment.

Tomas Venn.

My Mind Corruption no longer occupied his mind after I’d released him to make room for Clara, which meant the magical leash that had guaranteed his silence was gone.

That was a problem.

He had never been important enough for that. But he knew enough about the strange gaps in his own memories that leaving him unattended indefinitely would be idiotic.

I needed Seris to find him.

And once she did, Tomas needed to disappear permanently.

Preferably in a way that didn’t point toward me.

An accident would be ideal.

I didn’t give her instructions beyond that. Seris had been handling intelligence and security longer than I’d been properly paying attention to my own household. If anyone could arrange for a mediocre spy to meet an unfortunate but believable end without leaving my fingerprints all over it, it was her.

I also had no intention of turning Tomas into another Chimera Project experiment.

Tempting? Scientifically, perhaps.

Necessary? No.

Duke Harven hadn’t actually attacked me yet. He’d sent spies and maneuvered politically, but that was different from Raven openly trying to murder me. Escalating directly into experimental monster servants because someone sent mediocre spies would be slightly excessive.

Even by my standards.

Probably.

The others received less murderous assignments.

The Holy City was the important part.

I needed conversations.

Merchants. Travelers. Adventurers. Nobles. Anyone capable of carrying a story from one tavern, marketplace, carriage, or dinner table to another.

The question was simple.

‘Why hadn’t the Light Temple helped its own followers?’

I didn’t expect people to immediately believe anything negative about the Temple.

That would be stupid.

The Light Temple had spent generations building its reputation. Priests healed people. Holy Knights fought monsters. Saintesses blessed children.

One rumor wouldn’t destroy that.

Fortunately, destruction wasn’t my goal.

Doubt was.

A tiny question was enough.

Why had twelve women disappeared before anyone important cared?

Why had the King needed to intervene?

Why was Rey Valen, the supposedly dangerous cursed Royal Magus, traveling there to save Light Temple followers when the Temple itself hadn’t bothered?

People could defend the Temple all they wanted.

I merely needed them to discuss it.

Because once a person defended something, they had already been forced to acknowledge the accusation.

The rest depended on what I found in Lumenford. And I intended to find something useful.

Once lunch disappeared, I returned to my study.

Nia followed not long afterward with trays.

Several trays.

Accessories covered nearly every available surface. Rings, bracelets, pendants, brooches, earrings, ornamental clasps, and enough decorative metal to make my study look as though a jewelry merchant had suffered a fatal inventory explosion.

She was worried about me working when I had to leave tomorrow.

Reasonable.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t about money.

I needed my Arcane Item Creation to evolve.

The Maledict Sovereign Crystal was waiting inside my Dimensional Ring. A condensed mass of stabilized corruption powerful enough to contaminate an entire dungeon ecosystem and alter monsters over generations.

And I needed only a little of it.

Just a little.

Enough to eventually experiment with the Holy Relic.

I wasn’t stupid enough to shove the entire crystal into an artifact and hope enthusiasm counted as laboratory safety.

I might occasionally possess the self-preservation instincts of a drunk goblin, and my curiosity admittedly had no known upper limit, but I could still distinguish between a realistic experiment and suicidal wishful thinking.

First, evolve the skill.

Then improve my control.

Then test tiny amounts under containment.

One step at a time.

Painfully responsible.

Disgusting.

I sat down and began.

[Arcane Item Creation]

Forbidden Energy flowed through my hands.

The first bracelet gained a simple defensive enchantment.

Then a ring.

Then a pendant.

Again. Again. And again.

Unlike crafting the Lightward Guardian Bangles, this didn’t trigger my curse because I wasn’t forcing enormous amounts of normal Light Mana through damaged pathways.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that Arcane Item Creation was mentally exhausting.

Every enchantment required precision. Mana distribution needed to remain balanced through the material. Formation structures had to be compressed into ridiculously small spaces without overlapping incorrectly. One mistake could turn a perfectly good ring into an expensive piece of metal with the magical sophistication of a spoon.

Hours passed.

Enchant. Inspect. Set aside. Next.

Compared with fighting monsters, this was torture.

At least monsters screamed.

Jewelry just sat there.

Judging me.

By the eighth hour, I no longer looked like Rey Valen, legendary Royal Magus and feared master of elemental magic. I looked like an office worker three hours into unpaid overtime who had begun reconsidering every decision since childhood.

My hair was messy.

My shoulders hurt.

My eyes felt dry.

Forbidden Energy had been steadily consumed, but somehow my brain felt even more drained than my reserves.

I stared at another tray.

There were still accessories left.

I hated accessories. I hated rings. I hated bracelets. I especially hated necklaces because apparently their longer enchantment paths required additional stabilization.

At some point, I started muttering. “I should make a formation.” My fingers continued engraving a microscopic mana circuit into a silver bracelet. “A giant formation. Put everything inside. Distribute the spell simultaneously.”

The bracelet glowed.

“Mass production.” Another accessory joined the finished pile. “No more individual enchantment. Just throw fifty rings inside, activate formation, walk away, drink coffee…”

I stopped.

Actually… That wasn’t entirely stupid.

A formation capable of distributing a standardized enchantment pattern across multiple compatible items would require absurd precision, but theoretically…

A system notification appeared.

[Arcana Evolution is available for Arcane Item Creation.]

My brain stopped.

I stared.

Then blinked.

The notification remained.

[Would you like to initiate Arcana Evolution?]

My exhaustion vanished so quickly it might have filed for divorce.

“Yes.” I leaned forward. “Yes. Yes!”

The system responded.

[Arcana Evolution initiated.]

I nearly slapped the desk. “Yessss! Evolve it!”

Dark-violet energy stirred around my hands.

The finished accessories trembled across the table as information poured into my mind, not words exactly, but structures, principles, methods, layers of enchantment complexity that Arcane Item Creation had never been capable of handling.

Ordinary enchanted equipment was one thing.

True artifacts were another.

Items capable of carrying multiple interconnected enchantments. Items capable of accepting unique materials and retaining their properties rather than simply being enchanted over them.

My grin widened.

This was what I needed.

[Arcane Item Creation has evolved.]

[New Skill Acquired: Arcane Artifact Creation]

[Arcane Artifact Creation]

[Create advanced magical artifacts through the integration of enchanted materials, magical formations, and specialized magical properties. Allows multiple compatible enchantments to function as a unified artifact structure. Artifact quality and stability depend upon material compatibility, formation architecture, energy control, and creator proficiency.]

[Warning: Unstable or incompatible high-rank materials may cause artifact failure.]

Then another notification appeared.

[Evolution Progress: 96%]

I almost cried. But Royal Magi did not cry over system notifications. I stared at them with suspiciously wet eyes while maintaining professional dignity.

I leaned back in my chair and released a long breath.

The Maledict Sovereign Crystal suddenly felt much closer. Not safe. But possible.

For the first time, I had a skill specifically capable of working with high-rank materials and integrating their inherent properties into genuine artifacts.

My fingers twitched.

I wanted to take the crystal out immediately.

Just inspect it.

Maybe shave off a microscopic piece.

No…

I needed to make preparation before that. This wasn’t a simple thing.

Scientific curiosity was wonderful. Scientific curiosity while mentally exhausted was how Evan Veyr had once stayed awake all night reading an ancient book, encountered spilled water, and discovered that gravity remained undefeated. Never again.

The study door opened. “Rey?”

Lily.

Another set of footsteps followed her.

Nia.

“It’s past dinner time,” Lily said. “You’ve been in here for a long time. You should take a—”

Silence.

I slowly turned toward them.

Both women froze. Their eyes widened. Apparently, I looked worse than I’d realized.

Nia crossed the room immediately and grabbed my shoulders. “Rey, are you okay?”

Lily hurried around the desk, staring at my face with growing concern.

Meanwhile, I was still attempting to summon my soul back into my body after eight hours of magical factory labor.

I blinked at them. My brain eventually located language. “I’m okay…”

Neither woman looked convinced.

I probably looked less like their terrifying cursed husband and more like a corpse that had been forced to complete administrative paperwork before being permitted to die.

But I smiled anyway.

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!

Thank you for the Magic Castle, Bry35!

Thank you for the Magic Castle, Crow_Constellation!

Thank you for the Magic Castle, Thunder_god!

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