Amadeus was brought into a secret door that looked no different than the wall surrounding it. A quick tug of a torch and a couple lights scanning Varrulir's body opened the door and revealed a well-lit hallway. It was just like the castle walls, but Amadeus could faintly see runes shining on the walls. With Varrulir, taking the lead, Amadeus followed the former through the hallway and through a series of stairs only to reach a large array within a hall.
The array was about 5 metres in diameter and was filled with many runes and shapes. Crystals of light lit the empty room up as they hung on the walls. Before Amadeus could even ask, Varrulir started to talk about it,
"The forge of eternity is not here but in a different location. You will know once we get there."
That was all he said when he started channelling his mana into the array circle once Amadeus was also upon it. In just a couple of seconds a bright light filled the room and the two had disappeared from their positions.
When Amadeus regained clarity, he realised that he was surrounded by an unfamiliar image. Gone was the empty room but now they were in a rather large room that had giant crystals hanging from the ceiling, lighting the room up. Feeling around himself, he realised that the feeling of the sun and moon never felt so feeble. The ground was unnaturally hot, and they were surrounded by rock on all 6 sides.
"We are near Orbis' core."
Amadeus seemed like he was sure of it, but he was actually asking a question. Varrulir replied to query,
"Incorrect we are not near it; we are right on top of it."
This finally got some reaction form Amadeus as one of his eyebrows raised. Finally remembering why they were here, Amadeus started looking around for the forge of eternity. Seeing the size of this room, was the forge massive? was it heavily jewelled? Was it…?
Many thoughts went through his mind as he his eyes landed on a simple black anvil surrounded by a couple other simple tools to aid in the art of forging. It was simple and even slightly crude but the way Varrulir looked at it was telling Amadeus all of it.
That was the forge of eternity.
While Amadeus was looking at Varrulir, the latter started walking towards it and stopped right before it. Then suddenly all the materials, Amadeus had given him appeared surrounding him. After he grouped the materials together, he waved his hand and Amadeus watched the anvil and the tools surrounding it float towards Varrulir. Once they were all set down, Amadeus was even more confused with the way Varrulir treated the anvil with such crude methods.
However, his questions were soon answered, as the anvil landed and Varrulir got to work, runes stretched out from the ground and the anvil was enveloped with them. Realisation dawned on him, the anvil wasn't the forge of eternity, the forge of eternity was the room they were standing in.
"Amadeus come here!"
Surprised by his name being called out, Amadeus quickly moved forward and stood next to Varrulir.
"I will only need you for two things, right now and later near the end. I don't know how long this will take but for now, just pour your energy into the anvil until the first hammer strikes."
Amadeus did as instructed and two different coloured energies left his hands, one scorching hot and one freezing cold. He directed the energy towards the anvil and saw how it got absorbed. Varrulir got the Meteoric metal and placed it on top of the anvil. Taking out a hammer, it was also enveloped in a similar fashion with a similar set of runes before he smashed it down and the process of the creation of his weapon came to a start.
As Amadeus stopped pouring out his energy, he stepped back and watched how Varrulir shaped his future blade, adding materials whenever he got a chance. It was a beautiful process, seeing the sparks flying out like fireworks…until a couple minutes later when Amadeus got bored. Looking around, he found that there was nothing else to do but just sit there and watch. They looked to be in a giant natural cave that was abnormally large.
Knowing that this process will take some time, Amadeus thought it was best to train into the new technique he got. Nepuko's illusions.
Nepuko's illusions walked the path of the fine line between reality and illusion, what was reality and what was illusion. It was a powerful are that had no attacking capability whatsoever but used rightly it was more dangerous than a sword. Theoretically, he could get someone to think that they were walking on a simple path but in reality, they were walking off a cliff.
Another perk of this technique was its cloning feature, with a simple thought, Amadeus closed his eyes and reopened it only to see an exact replica of himself standing right in front of him. He then caused it to morph into various people, Caesar, Lily, Atia, Arius and others. However, when he tried to morph into granny, there seemed to be something blocking it causing the illusion to shatter.
The illusion wasn't a real figure so one could walk right through it, but Amadeus was able to share its vision. However due to the current restrictions he was facing now, he couldn't further test his illusions abilities.
Opening his eyes, he saw that Varrulir was far from over, so he started training in his other techniques.
While Amadeus was at the forge of eternity, back in Emerald city, Arius was training with a boy around his age. The boy had black hair and green eyes with a cute face that looked similar to the imperial guard's captain, Lionel Braxton. He was Lionel Braxton's son, Rex Braxton. The two boys were sparring with wooden swords and they seemed neck and neck. While Arius was relying on brute force, Rex was relying on technique to match him. As the two collapsed sweating like a waterfall, Rex looked at Arius,
"Arius, where's his highness gone?"
"Elder brother?"
Rex nodded while Arius propped himself up and received a glass of water from a maid,
"Mother said that he is gone to get his own weapon by the chief of dwarves."
A look of awe surfaced on the two boys as Arius clenched his fist and threw it into the air. Rex surprised by this action looked at his best friend's face,
"I also need to work hard."
'Work hard?'
Rex looked confused but waited for Arius to finish.
"Work hard so I can help elder brother in the empire's nach-o-nal aff...aff...affa…"
"Affairs."
A familiar voice finished his sentence as Arius looked at Rex who also had a smile on his face. The five-year-old kneeled on the ground,
"Whatever your choice Arius, no, your highness, I will always follow you."
Seeing the solemn atmosphere build up, Arius also got a serious look only to be destroyed by someone's air breaking.
"Pfft."
While Arius tried to hold back the laughter, Rex' face started getting more and more red.
'It was supposed to be a serious moment.'
To add to his shame, Arius couldn't hold back his laughter and started laughing while rolling on the ground. Desperately clutching his stomach, he started laughing while pointing at Rex. Tears came out and Arius failed to catch a breath as Rex started to look like a tomato.
"Dammit, don't laugh!"
Crude language rung out from Rex as he picked up his sword. Arius was barely able to catch his breath and also grab his sword as soon as he saw Rex lunge at him. The former couldn't see his eyes but when their swords clashed tears were pouring it out of them in a comical fashion. This resulted in Arius to burst out in laughter once more.
This irked Rex even more and he started to swing about his sword wildly, all of his refined techniques gone out of the window. This made it easy for Arius to dodge and laugh at the same time, only adding insult to injury for Rex.
Seeing the two playing around, Baldrik was standing there looking at them with a smile while Lionel, next to him had an embarrassed look on his face. Just as he was about to open his mouth to say something, Baldrik beat him to it,
"Don't worry about it, it's just two child's banter."
Lionel gave a helpless smile and returned to watching the two kids playing.
Back in the dwarves' capital city, Eriko and the group of maids were training Velia. The latter was sat in front of a desk with piles of paper in front.
"The first thing you need to know as a maid is to read our master's intentions…don't speak out of line…keep a stoic face every time…have a discerning eye…"
Velia didn't shy away from the work though, although she was a klutz and a foodie, she was still young and energetic. She wanted to repay her prince because if it wasn't for him her father would be dead and she would probably be sold to some noble with weird fetishes. She also wanted to help support that lonely back she saw that night.
Eriko could see through the thoughts of the young girl as a small smile blossomed on her face. Remembering the first time she became Amadeus' head maid until now, she loved her life. From begin a nameless maid, she was lucky enough to become the crown prince's maid. However, she didn't think of it like that, for her, Amadeus had become an unrecoverable part of her life. From when he first walked to his first words she was there.
The smile that had briefly shown was seen by all the other maids. Yet none of them felt any different, they had all joined Amadeus' maid group at different points and now they were all sisters.
In an unknown location, Caesar sat on a throne surrounded by many other figures. The youngest of them was a middle-aged man and the eldest was a bald old man with a large beard. They all looked respectfully at Caesar who had his eyes closed apart from the four eldest men that also had their eyes closed. They were sitting on seats just below Caesar's. As these four opened their eyes Caesar followed and that was when the air in the hall became still.
A serious look that even Amadeus hadn't seen, masked Caesar's face. Vertical slit eyes of different colours looked at each before they looked at Caesar's direction. That was when Caesar opened his mouth,
"The seal is weakening."
"Already?"
The eldest man questioned.
"It seems that the other side are speeding up the process."
The halls descended into silence before Caesar spoke again,
"What have the other clans said?"
A dragon walked out,
"The phoenix clan said yes as it was now time to put our differences aside as we all shared a common enemy, the turtle clan also said yes, and the white tiger clan also said yes albeit begrudgingly. They are still pretty annoyed that their princess is a maid here."
"Well she is Amadeus' maid and it was her choice there is nothing we can do."
Smiles appeared on the group of dragons while a prideful look appeared on Caesar at the mention of his grandson.
"The little lass doesn't even know of her real identity."
"When do you plan to tell her?"
"The one that would be telling her is not me but Amadeus, she is his maid."
The four older dragons shook their heads before the group was dismissed. Once the hall was cleared, Caesar also left and arrived at a cliffside looking at the stars in the sky.
"What is that stupid brain thinking about?"
Caesar continued looking,
"It would hurt once in a while to show some love to your husband."
"Shut up."
Atia walked next to him as the latter just smiled.
"I'm worried."
"So am I."
"But we all have our duties, we will defer the truly powerful beings while the war will continue. The best we can do is to prepare Amadeus and put all our hopes into his success."
Caesar didn't say anything, but he knew that deep down, Atia was closer to Amadeus, so he couldn't think what she was going through. He was right though, despite what she was saying, a look of worry also covered Atia's eyes.