To make matters worse, he had returned the Professors’ bodies to the army, but he still had to deliver Yondra’s final ssage to her family.
’Solus, do you want in or do you prefer that I leave you in Lutia? I’m sure you’d like to spend so ti in your body with Tista and Nyka.’ Lith thought.
’Until you have a proper weapon again, I’m not going anywhere.’ Solus replied. ’Just have her pick sothing easy.’
"I can agree with your idea with the following conditions. First, we make camp sowhere near a Gate, so if bad luck follows our tail we can always ask for reinforcents.
"Second, let’s do sothing fun rather than dangerous. Third, and I an no offense, but I’m not single. I’d really like to spend so ti with my girlfriend, especially after risking my life on a daily basis for a month. So nothing too long."
"Oh, my! You grood mister ’an eyes’ into a true gentleman, dear sister." Friya chuckled. "I’ll accept all of your conditions and raise your ante. You can have Kamila join us for dinner once she is done with work.
"With a Gate, it will take her a step to reach us and a Warp for us to bring her to our restaurant. Yet, four won and one man seems a bit inappropriate. What if we invite the other Ranger as well? Judging by your stories, he seems like a funny guy...."
"Absolutely not!" The three veterans from Kulah replied in unison.
"He’s obnoxious, even by my standards." Lith said.
"He’s damn rude." Phloria said. "It took him a week to believe that I’m a woman."
"Plus, he hits on everything that breathes. Ranger Eari made so many passes at that if I hear his voice one more ti I might snap. I don’t even dare imagine how he would react if he sees you." Quylla said with a bit of envy.
She was pretty, but Friya’s hourglass figure was a stunner.
Phloria agreed as well. Because of her relentless rise among the army’s ranks and her sisters’ full-ti jobs, she hadn’t seen them for more than an hour at lunch for years. Also, she could feel Quylla’s eyes staring at her from ti to ti.
Lith’s secret wasn’t a heavy burden but it wasn’t small either.
’It was much easier for to accept his nature. Back then, we were still together and I think I was in love with him like a teenage girl can be. After seeing so many people die during Nalear’s attack, after losing Yurial, I would have accepted Lith even if he was a five-headed dragon.
’As long as he was fine and by my side, nothing else mattered.’
At that point, Quylla was forced to agree. She really wanted to spend so ti with Friya, and Phloria was the only one that could help her unravel the tangle of thoughts in her head.
Friya then started to tell them about how she had spent the last few months. As she had told Lith the last ti they had t, she had completely changed her guild’s hierarchy.
She had kicked out all the mages from the great academies in favor of those from smaller academies after obtaining the right to teach her own specializations to the most talented mbers of the Crystal Shield guild from the Mage Association.
It had made things quite competitive, but now there was more motivation than envy, and everyone now worshipped her like a goddess. Since most of her lessons would find practical application during their work, usually talent and survival rate went hand in hand.
"This way those with little talent quit after having a taste of their own limits, while those who stick with are either really talented or motivated. I was able to apply for harder jobs and successfully complete them.
"Now that I have people who I can actually trust, I’m finally starting to make so real money!" She dropped a bag full of gold onto the table, gloating.
It was more than a Captain or even a Professor would make in a year. Lith would have liked to point out to her how such a sum was less than what he could make by selling a single Orichalcum Skinwalker armor, but preferred not to ruin her mont.
After all, he wouldn’t make many of them since he liked to keep his advantage. After chatting a bit more, Lith gave Friya her own Skinwalker armor before returning to the library.
After talking with Solus about his plans for the future, he had decided to take a look at her past. Orion could really teach a thing or two to most libraries in the Kingdom. Not only were the tos in the Ernas’s library divided based on their topic and arranged in alphabetical order, but also each section was linked to a holographic pad.
By inputting specific keywords, each pad would notify its user what tos they had to consult. First, Lith tried to input the na "nadion", but without much luck. After all, for such a research thod to work, the pad would have been able to contain a digital copy of all the tos, which was still beyond the capabilities of magic.
Then, he tried with "Ruler of the Flas", getting several hits. In all the other libraries he had access to, he had to explain why he was researching such a specific topic which proved to be quite a difficult feat to Lith since he had no idea who nadion was.
Saying: "It’s for a friend" would only get him a sneer and more questions than he was willing to answer. After checking that the system had no internal mory and that there was no surveillance system in the library, Lith put all the tos inside Soluspedia.
He and Solus could imdiately search for any information related to her master, discovering an appalling lack of details. The title’s aning seed to be obscure since many Forgemasters had used it in the past, but never bothered to explain its origin.
As for nadion, it turned out that Solus’s mories were correct. It was the na of a woman, one of the best Forgemasters of her era who had lived almost 700 years before and was considered to be one of Lochra Silverwing’s closest friends.
According to Orion’s books, nadion had left behind several powerful artifacts which together ford a set. The picture of the Eyes of nadion reminded Lith of Scarlett’s pince-nez, making him curse when the book just described it as a "peerless treasure".
There were also depicted a helm as the Ears of nadion, a set of gloves as the Hands of nadion, a mask as the Mouth of nadion, and a hamr as the Fury of nadion.
Little was known about her personal life, aside from the fact that she had been born in the Griffon Kingdom and that even though she had raised many apprentices, none of them seed to have inherited her talent nor her title.
There was no ntion of her having a tower or working on forbidden magic. nadion seed to have lived in Silverwing’s shadow for most of her life. Her friend’s achievents were so great that the few historians who ntioned her did it only because the two ancient mages were really close.
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