Aethernea : Soulbound [Book 1]

Episode 138 - Bad Luck

Previously:

It's Friday, the last day of Muni entrance exams. It is time for the last exam of the day – Special exam. Kiel shot himself in the foot – as it turns out, the Spell Replicating exam was not designed to test Kiel's spell replicating ability, but rather, to test for a special talent that can only be revealed through the process of spell replicating. He is tasked to spell replicate several cogwheels and then given an intricate enchantment to place on star-shaped artifacts. After finishing enchanting the stars, he is given real Clay Mines to enchant.

On the other hand, Elaru is confronted by three old geezers who are acting high and mighty and she shows them her spell breaking knowledge, accidentally provoking them into an argument on their spell breaking views.

Episode 138 – Bad Luck

After the three old men settled their argument (or rather, they got tired of arguing), they brought out several more artifacts for Elaru to break, each one trickier than the last.

They stared with their maws gaping and eyes wide as she broke them with seemingly little effort.

"Is that all?" Only when her question fell did they regain their senses. They shared a look and then abruptly their bodies shook with what seemed to be sudden enlightenment.

With utmost effort they controlled their mouth from blooming into a grin, however, their excited aura gave their true feelings away. Still, they continued posturing. They cleared their throats and with an air of the wise, older generation they informed Elaru they needed to privately discuss her performance.

Thus, they huddled together like a group of bandits, set up a sound isolation barrier, and turned their backs to Elaru to conceal their crafty grins. Seeing their hunched backs and heads almost pressing together, even an idiot would be able to tell that they were up to no good, let alone Elaru who had spent the majority of her life beating up scoundrels.

Briefly, she pondered whether it would be worth the effort to concentrate her Aethernea of Sight on their mouth and attempt lip reading. But in the end, she decided against it. They didn't seem evil, merely a bit mischievous, like oversized children. And they didn't have any enmity with her, on the contrary, they seemed to be very satisfied with her abilities. They were probably thinking about which hard to break artifact to bring out next.

Meanwhile, under the sound barrier...

"Quick! Where is the list of things headmaster asked us to break by the end of this week?" Mustache slapped his thighs.

"I've got it right here." Eyebrows hurriedly searched his pockets and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

Beard snatched the paper right out of his hands, wet his thumb with his tongue, and quickly unfolded it.

The three pressed their heads tightly together reading down the long list for several seconds.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Mustache was first to speak up.

"Hehe, if you are thinking that we'll be hard-pressed to finish all this by Monday then yes." Beard chuckled coyly.

"Indeed, indeed, imagine how much sleep we'll lose. This stress isn't good for our old bones." Eyebrows added with enthusiasm that created a sharp contrast with the severity of his words.

"Might cause hair loss too." Beard was better at controlling his facial expression thus he nodded gravely. Unfortunately, the lightness of his voice didn't match the heaviness of his face.