Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2052

2052 /2448

Something similar, but at the same time different to what Master Alice had done to the arrowhead was taking place there.

The tapestry of a complicated spellweave was taking shape inside the armor. Only it wasn't forming all at once, as it had been with the bone arrowhead — instead, the process was more similar to how Sunny would have done it, one step at a time.

It was just that the speed with which the separate strings formed the patterns was astonishingly great… so great, in fact, as to seem instantaneous.

Nevertheless, the result was far worse than what Sunny would have done. The patterns that formed with tremendous speed were crude and messy, almost sloppy. There was no harmony to their flow, no intricate order. It was like a spellweave made by a dilettante.

At first glance.

Then, something strange happened. A pattern which had already been formed suddenly dismantled itself, the constellation of ethereal strings retreating like a tide. That, too, happened in an instant.

A few moments later, the pattern reassembled itself once again, this time looking a little more neat than before.

The process repeated several times. The strings would shoot forward to form a pattern, drift in the void for a few moments, and then retreat. The tapestry expanded and contracted, almost like the beating heart of a living being.

With each iteration, the messy spellweave seemed to improve a little. After a while, it became cohesive enough that Sunny could vaguely guess its purpose, staring at the strangely beautiful spectacle with a neutral expression.

There was the foundation of a durability enchantment, a heat-resistant enchantment, a strange friction-related enchantment, a weight enchantment…

Master Snow was certainly ambitious with his current project.

'How interesting.'

Sunny tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

The process was completely different from the Forgery Master Alice had demonstrated.She had simply transferred a quality of [being a Memory] from one arrowhead to another — as such, her Aspect power acted in a straightforward manner, without involving the Nightmare Spell.

But Master Snow was attempting something far more ambitious. He had indeed initiated the change inside the armor, allowing it to grow… quite like a living being would.

Currently, he was trying to guide that growth in a particular direction.

And the Nightmare Spell was assisting him.

It was very much like it had assistant Sunny, and even more so like she was assisting Cassie… and all Awakened, in a sense.

By now, it was clear that the direction of the growth an enchanted item experienced depended on the intent of the Spellsmith. Master Snow had called it guiding the form of an item to a more flawless state, and there might have been some truth to his statement. But to Sunny, it seemed like a large part of the change was still dependent on the Spellsmith's own vision, ability, and will.

Master Snow wanted to reshape the armor into a Memory that possessed a number of specific enchantments. However, he could not envision such a spellweave — he was incapable of seeing one, after all, let alone deciphering the complicated and mysterious logic that guided the patterns of essence strings.

What he could envision was the effect he wanted to achieve, though. The toughness of the armor, it's ability to repair itself in the owner's soul, withstand the merciless heat of Godgrave, and so on. Perhaps he knew enough runic sorcery to imagine how these enchantments would have had to look if expressed with runes, or perhaps not.

In any case, the Nightmare Spell was taking his intent… and simply translating it into the language of weaving. Just like it translated the insights Cassie received into runes, or the languages of the inhabitants of Nightmares into one that modern people could understand.

That was how Spellsmiths were able to create Memories.

The true powers of this branch of the Valor family most likely lie in special perception, an ability to unlock the potential of things, and then both guide and enhance their growth… at least of those things that were born from craftsmanship, conscious design, and skill.

It was a beautiful representation of the intersection between several domains of War God — craft, intelligence, and progress, all expressed through a struggle akin to that of life itself... to be used for war.