Chapter 62 : Chapter 62

Chapter 62. Hiding

Fulan entered a room in her house that had just been cleared out.

Using Telekinetic Hand, she moved several boxes inside before preparing to begin her work.

She truly did not dare to go outside anymore. She was afraid of being caught by those apprentices carrying tracking insects. She was not afraid of the apprentices themselves, but she feared being caught by their mentors.

Facing the search conducted by the Modification School, she tried to hide as much as possible to ensure she would not be discovered.

When she killed Richter, she had left almost no traces. Even if there had been any, they had probably been crushed into fragments by those two from the Construction School.

Therefore, as long as she did not leave the house and was not caught by those apprentices reacting to the tracking insects, she absolutely would not be discovered.

At the same time, she also had a premonition that as long as she stayed inside, she would not be captured by the Modification School.

When she had used Astrology, she had seen a scene of herself successfully building a steam engine. Yet now she had only just begun the process.

If she were caught by the Modification School during the production process, she would certainly be finished. She would never have seen that future scene.

In other words, within the future she had glimpsed, there was an implicit message: before she completed the steam engine, she would absolutely not be captured by the Modification School.

After completing the steam engine, she was very confident that she could use it to accomplish the spell Equipment Augmentation.

After that, if she went to Habos from the Weapon Forging class and demonstrated this spell, she would certainly gain his protection.

From Fulan’s observations since arriving in this world, the status of a school was extremely high and came with many privileges.

Even First-Tier and Second-Tier mages were merely members of a school. From that, it was clear that founding a school required a much higher level of magical power.

A school master would at least need to be a Third-Tier mage.

By that time, the Modification School would naturally no longer pose any threat.

Of course, she could also seek protection from the Sword Chant School. However, she clearly understood which was more important: a promising apprentice or an apprentice who could already learn First-Tier spells.

Habos was clearly far stronger than Bernit. Just looking at their attire alone, the difference was enormous, not to mention the completely different levels of attention they received.

Therefore, Fulan decided that until she finished building the steam engine, she would not step outside her house.

She opened the boxes, revealing all the materials.

Taking a deep breath, she first used Telekinetic Hand to bring out the mountain copper. She intended to use it to make the piston.

The materials she had obtained were all standard ingots, so she first used a Magical Craftsman technique—Mental Cutting.

The strength and speed of the cut depended on the intensity of one’s mental power. And with the accumulation of several professions, Fulan’s mental power had long surpassed that of ordinary apprentices.

Thus, she quickly obtained half of a mountain copper ingot.

She placed the piece into a small furnace she had purchased, added coal, and began heating it.

Originally, she had planned to buy a spell that could release flames to handle the heating. That way she could practice a spell while getting the work done. Would that not be wonderful?

However, the monopoly of the Elemental School shattered her dream.

How could they even keep the simplest Ignite spell hidden?!

As a result, Fulan had no choice but to rely on the furnace.

After waiting for a while, she felt the time was about right. She used Telekinetic Hand to lift the mountain copper into the air.

[You used mental power to keep Telekinetic Hand from dissipating after taking damage. Telekinetic Hand proficiency +3.]

The mountain copper glowed with scorching heat. The moment Telekinetic Hand touched it, the high temperature nearly caused the spell to collapse.

However, with Fulan’s mental strength, she forced the hand to maintain its vague form.

She lifted the mountain copper to a safe distance and began shaping it using Magical Craftsman techniques.

The mountain copper seemed to respond to an external force. Its originally sharp edges gradually became smooth. A circular shape slowly appeared along the narrow side and continued expanding.

Finally, a wide circular disk appeared before her. The blazing glow had dimmed, though one could still feel waves of heat when approaching it.

[You used Magical Craftsman methods to forge a small component. Forging proficiency +10.]

After the notification appeared before her eyes, she checked her panel.

Sure enough, under the profession column, a new profession had appeared—Magical Craftsman. It also increased her mental attribute by 0.1, bringing it to 2.8.

At the same time, she gained a new trait.

[Clever Hands: Accuracy greatly increases when using Magical Craftsman techniques.]

Although she felt this trait could not compare with the one granted by the Alchemist profession earlier, having something was still better than nothing. Being less likely to make mistakes was certainly beneficial.

Obtaining the Magical Craftsman profession was within her expectations. After all, she had already mastered Forging in theory, so logically it should have formed a profession.

It seemed that she had only known the theory but had never practiced it before, which was why the profession had not formed until now.

If she had studied traditional blacksmithing, she would have formed the Blacksmith profession instead. However, she preferred learning advanced technology, so she chose to study Magical Craftsman techniques.

After all, using mental power to work sounded far more reliable than hammering metal endlessly with a hammer.

Moreover, if she needed to produce many precise components, it would have been difficult to achieve that through traditional blacksmithing.

Looking at the pile of materials before her, Fulan sighed. Although she had successfully made one piston, there were still many things left to produce.

Various small components still required adjustment and testing. She did not know whether the design she had drawn was actually correct.

In addition, there was another extremely important component she needed to build—the water tank used to hold water. That would be her largest project.

The steam engine she was building was somewhat large, which meant the amount of steam required to drive it would also increase accordingly.

She did not know the optimal proportions for each component, so she adopted the approach of producing more energy first.

As a result, she designed a massive barrel three meters tall with a diameter of one and a half meters.

“Slowly, one step at a time.”

---

“Welcome, apprentices, to continue attending my class.”

Habos appeared at the podium. He scanned the seats below but did not find that familiar figure.

He frowned. Why had that apprentice he favored not come?

This time, his lecture covered how to forge weapons specifically designed for certain creatures—for example, what kind of structure could slice through a monster’s hide and what solutions could be applied to produce powerful effects.

The content of this lecture was much simpler, and many apprentices could understand it.

However, the examples he used were far beyond their reach—places such as the Sky Vault Mountains or the Vine River Bend.

These locations were far from the City of Apprentices. Transporting materials from those areas would cost an astronomical amount, making practical experimentation nearly impossible for them.

After the class ended, Habos flashed beside the absent-minded Elan and brought him to the same place where they had spoken last time.

Elan’s vision blurred for a moment, and he suddenly arrived at a place that felt both familiar and unfamiliar.

He was extremely nervous, but when he saw Habos standing opposite him, his expression finally relaxed.

“Have you decided to accept the deal I proposed earlier?” Elan asked with a smile.