Chapter 71 – The Sound of Bellows and Things Unsaid.

The walk between the Bastion of Greed and the Forge District cut through one of the quietest side avenues in the south sector.

That morning's air carried the habitual scent of warmed dust and dry willow leaves, mixed with steam rising from the subterranean city's vents. The pale cobblestone sidewalk was nearly empty, dotted only by a few merchants unloading crates of medicinal roots from carts pulled by four-horned beasts of burden.

Diana walked with her hands in the pockets of her long dark leather jacket. Beside her, Seraphina held with both hands a reinforced case of iron and velvet, where rested the most valuable materials they had ripped from the bottom of the Amethyst Labyrinth.

The young summoner adjusted her round glasses every ten steps, visibly uncomfortable with the weight of what she carried. It was not a physical weight—the case weighed less than five kilos—but the consciousness that inside that compartment lay the Heart of the Emperor of Level 38 and three imperial-grade cores which, combined, were worth more than all the noble carriages crisscrossing the avenue.

Diana glanced sideways at the girl in purple robes.

“Have you always carried that silver grimoire in your lap, Seraphina?” Diana asked. Her voice sounded calm, devoid of the dungeon command tone, yet with a surgical curiosity that left no room for evasive answers. “Most casters in the Second Circle prefer long staffs with a crystal focus at the tip. Why did House Vesperis stick with bound tomes?”

Seraphina blinked, surprised by the direct question, but adjusted the case's strap and answered in a low voice:

“Staffs serve to channel and amplify direct mana into impact spells… like your ice lances and arcane arrows, Commander. But my family's magic doesn't create spells out of thin air. We make contracts with spirits that already exist within the structure of the earth.”

She touched the spine of the silver book she carried secured to her belt by a thin chain.

“The grimoire functions like a house. Every page holds the true name, resonance frequency, and pact of a quartz or amethyst elemental spirit. My grandfather used to say you can't just point a staff at a spirit and command it to obey as if it were a slave; you need to offer it a stable structure to inhabit while it fights for you.”

Diana listened to the explanation in silence, absorbing the magic mechanics and mental-filing them alongside the alchemy formulas she had already mastered.

“And how many pages in that book of yours are filled?”

“Currently… only two active with real combat spirits.” Seraphina let out a timid, bitter laugh, looking down at her own boots. “The Quartz Titan and the Amethyst Wolves. There were six other pages with ancestral spirits of Level 40 and above, but when the Council of Nobles executed the archive's debt, they confiscated the anchoring cores that kept those pages open. Without the ancestral core, the older spirits simply fell asleep and do not answer the call.”

“How many hours a day did you spend in that archive before it was taken?”

Seraphina paused for a moment, surprised by the detailed question.

“Practically the whole day…” The summoner murmured, her eyes drifting distant behind her lenses. “After my parents died on an expedition in the Third Circle when I was only twelve, I didn't leave the property much. I stayed in the library, dusting stone shelves, reading about magic botany, and talking to the lesser spirits that floated through the hallways. When my grandfather passed away last year and town hall officers put the red seal on the door… the entire house became quiet in a way that hurt your ears.”

She clutched the case against her chest, her voice issuing with raw honesty:

“I descended into the Amethyst Labyrinth alone because I thought if I died down there, at least no one would watch me fail. Staying alive in an alley watching my family's name be erased felt worse than becoming gargoyle food.”

Diana continued walking in silence for a few meters.

She offered no sweet words of consolation. Diana didn't know how to be sentimental, and any attempt at it would sound fake coming from her mouth. But the black-haired girl understood, with a mathematical and visceral precision, what it meant to be the sole living person responsible for not letting one's own history be destroyed by those with more power.

“People born with everything handed to them think honor is a pretty poetic concept.” Diana said, her voice slicing through the street air with icy firmness. “But in the real world, if you don't have teeth to bite back with, you lose even the air you breathe. You were reckless going down alone into a Level 36 dungeon without potions, but you had the guts to risk your neck instead of signing a servitude contract with some cowardly noble.”

Diana looked into the summoner's eyes:

“Now that you are in the Arcane Greed Faction, you no longer need to worry about dying in silence. We are getting your grandfather's core back. And if some aristocrat tries to put a seal on our door, I guarantee I'll break his fingers one by one.”

Seraphina stared at Diana. There was something in that human girl's posture, a confidence so absolute, so cold and stripped of all hesitation, that made the weight on the young summoner's shoulders suddenly feel bearable.

A small, true smile appeared on Seraphina's face. “Thank you, Diana.”

—Look at you playing protector of orphans… The System's voice mocked in Diana's head, floating in discreet black gold. But I admit: knowing your recruits' emotional background makes manipulation far more efficient, doesn't it, my dear Commander?

It's not manipulation, trash can. Diana retorted mentally, without changing her facial expression. It's knowing exactly where a pillar's structure might crack before putting weight on it.

***

Upon entering the Forge District, the temperature of the air shifted immediately.

The smell of glowing coal, sulfur, and molten metal filled the narrow street. The sound of heavy hammers pounding on anvils resonated like continuous thunder among the black stone warehouses.

Master Volkan's workshop had its iron doors flung wide open. The demon with four volcanic-rock arms was hunched over the main forge, adjusting the leather bellows with two hands while using his other two hands to hold tongs gripping a red-hot bar of dark steel.

Hearing Diana's and Seraphina's footsteps on the entry gravel, Volkan turned his fiery head, wiping sweat from his stone forehead with his forearm.

“Aha! The Commander of Greed and the summoner of the silver grimoire!” Volkan let out a thunderous laugh that made the pliers on the wall vibrate. “Word in the plaza is you cleared the entire third floor of the Amethyst Labyrinth and tore off the Emperor's head!”

“The rumor is accurate, Master Volkan.” Diana said, approaching the central stone workbench.

Diana gestured to Seraphina, and the young summoner set the iron case on the table, popping open the three magnetic latches with crisp clicks.

When the case lid opened, the dark interior of the workshop was swallowed by a flash of pure violet light.

The light emanating from the Level 38 Heart of the Amethyst Emperor and the three Level 36 Imperial Cores was so dense it made the orange embers of Volkan's forge look weak and washed-out by comparison.

Volkan froze. The iron tongs he held slipped from one of his hands, hitting the ash floor with a metallic clink.

The old smith approached the workbench with slow, almost reverent steps. His four rock eyes examined the purple diamond sphere pulsing in the velvet's center, feeling the gravity around the ore lightly pull dust particles off the table.

“By the seven abysses…” Volkan whispered, his thunderous voice reduced to a raspy breath. “This is no ordinary dungeon drop, girl. This is an imperial core of four hundred years of compressed mana. The purity of this amethyst doesn't have a single thermal stress fissure.”

He raised one of his rock hands and touched the cold surface of the Emperor's Heart, feeling the magical resonance crackle in small blue sparks against his stone knuckles.

“What do you want me to do with these jewels, Diana?”

Diana leaned her hands on the stone workbench, her dark eyes shining with the precision of someone who had already calculated every millimeter of the design.

“First: I want you to use runic diamond saws to cut one of the Level 36 Imperial Cores and create the definitive socket for the spine of Seraphina's grimoire. I need the mounting metal alloyed with Asmodeus's magic silver to reduce mana conduction loss.”

Diana pointed to the Heart of the Emperor in the center:

“Second: I want us to begin the purification and forging process of the Crown of Arcane Sovereignty framework. The frame should be made of fine volcanic steel interspersed with magic silver threads, with the Heart of the Emperor occupying the center of the tiara.”

Volkan stared at the human girl for long seconds, his four arms crossing over his chest as his master blacksmith mind processed the complexity of that labor.

“Working with Level 38 ore requires starflame catalysts and pure diamond drillbits that I use only once every ten years.” Volkan said, his voice turning serious and professional. “The usage fee for my master tools, smelting solvents, and elemental coal for these two pieces will cost ten silver coins.”

Diana didn't hesitate. She reached her hand into her reinforced belt pouch, pulled ten gleaming silver coins, and stacked them with a clean metallic chime upon the workbench stone.

Ten silver coins. Exactly one pure Gold Coin handed over without a single complaint.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

[MASTER FORGE AND CATALYSTS PAYMENT]

- Runic Tools and Level 38 Cutting Fee: -10 Silver Coins (1,000 Bronze).

[CURRENT VAULT BALANCE: 315 SILVER COINS (31,500 Bronze / 31.5 GOLD COINS!)]

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Three hundred fifteen silver coins safely maintained in the faction vault. More than Thirty-One and a Half Gold Coins.

Volkan scooped up the coins with a wide grin of iron teeth, grabbing his thickest manticore-leather apron and lighting the secondary bench's arcane blowtorches.

“Tie your hair back, Diana!” Volkan hollered, pointing to the second anvil. “Cutting an imperial core with Metallurgy Level 12 is gonna require you to hold the cooling pliers with both hands without shaking a single muscle!”

***

For three uninterrupted hours, Volkan's workshop was overtaken by a spectacle of sound and light.

Diana worked side by side with the old master, applying her Intelligence 151 to regulate the thermal cooling flow while Volkan operated the runic diamond saws. Purple sparks and glowing amethyst dust flew through the air at every millimeter-precise cut.

Seraphina watched everything leaning against the stone wall, her heart racing, watching her silver-leather grimoire carefully dismantled and fitted with a purified magic silver frame on its spine.

When the last retaining lock clicked into place, the Level 36 gem fitted perfectly into the silver book.

A gentle wave of violet light washed over the ancient pages of the grimoire, making the House Vesperis runes glow with an intensity Seraphina had never seen in her entire life.

The summoner picked up the book with trembling fingers, feeling the imperial core's mana flow directly into her energy channels, cutting the maintenance cost of her sentries in half and expanding the range of her spiritual command.

“It's… perfect…” Seraphina whispered, her eyes glowing behind her spectacle lenses.

Diana wiped sweat from her forehead with her jacket sleeve, looking at the Heart of the Emperor now resting in Volkan's slow-tempering cauldron, where the framework for the Crown of Sovereignty would begin to be shaped over the coming days.

“The grimoire is ready, Seraphina.” Diana said, her voice calm and firm as she put away her tools. “Now you have the foundation you need to fight in Level 40 dungeons.”

The two left Master Volkan's workshop in the late afternoon.

As they walked back along the avenue beneath the gas lamps that were beginning to ignite, Seraphina held her glowing grimoire close to her chest, her posture far straighter and more confident than when she had left the Bastion that morning.

Beside her, Diana walked with firm, silent strides, feeling the weight of the gold in her vault and the absolute certainty that every piece on her board was right where it needed to be.