Chapter 14: Opening the Secret Door (Thanks to reader ArtoriasW for the tip and extra update)

Pulling out the key ring and walking before the secret door, Snuori fell into deep thought as he faced the keyhole before him.

There were five keys in his hand, all forged from star-iron; the heads of Father God Grungni, the God of War Grimnir, Mother Goddess Valaya, the God of Rune Smiths Thurni, and a Doom Anvil were engraved on the key handles respectively.

The heads of the Ancestor Gods were all in the standard Dwarf style, depicted with eyes wide and roaring; it was not strange that the Doom Anvil, as the most representative object of the Rune Smiths, appeared on the key to the Rune Smith Guild's storehouse.

But in what order should these five keys be inserted? Snuori believed the answer was hidden in the historical knowledge he had learned in his youth.

In Dwarf society, every new life was delivered by priestesses in the temple of Mother Goddess Valaya; these children would be raised by the priests in the temple for three years before being returned to their families.

Valaya's priests were composed entirely of Dwarf women, their age composition primarily elderly and young. Many elderly grandmothers who had lost their fertility but possessed rich child-rearing experience would join the ranks of the temple priests, contributing to the cultivation of the new generation. At the same time, the vast majority of unmarried young female Dwarves would also come to the temple to learn how to become qualified mothers, accumulating experience for raising their own children in the future.

This was because the Dwarf birth rate was quite low, and every new member was the most precious wealth of the fortress; therefore, it was very necessary to let infants receive the best and most professional care during the most fragile stage of their lives.

After being sent back to their families, the children could enjoy a few years of carefree, happy time; soon, when they were ten years old, they would be sent into schools run by their Clan or Shanbao to learn knowledge.

Larger, powerful Clans had the means to open their own private schools, while children of small Clans would receive instruction in schools funded by the fortress lord. Due to the small population, raising the average quality became a matter of vital importance.

The knowledge they needed to learn included, but was not limited to, the Dwarf language, the common tongue, arithmetic, and the foundation of the Dwarf race—mining knowledge.

As a member of the Drazkrad Clan, which traced its heritage back to the era of the Ancestor Gods, Snuori also needed to learn history.

For Dwarves who valued tradition, being able to recount the glorious deeds of the most pride-worthy ancestors, being able to remember the wounds suffered by the Clan and even the entire Dwarf race, and being able to loudly declare that a specific Grudge had been settled when killing an enemy were necessary to become a qualified leader.

After completing their studies in school, Dwarf children would enter the local Miner Association to receive training; after completing their theoretical knowledge, ten years of miner practice awaited them.

For the Dwarf race, who lived in underground fortresses year-round, even if one did not end up becoming a Miner, one still needed to learn how to live underground and how to face and avoid potential risks.

One must know that in the underground world, danger was everywhere; it could be a collapse or flooding from nature, or it could be Goblins or Skaven suddenly emerging from the tunnels; without relevant experience, even the strongest warrior could be swallowed up inadvertently.

It is said that in the Empire of Man, there was a famous adventurer known as the Goblin Slayer; he was renowned for his rich underground combat experience and had once resolved many underground threats that had caused the Empire Knight Order and the College of Magic to suffer heavy losses.

After completing their miner practice, the Dwarf youths, around thirty years old, would enter a guild to begin their apprenticeship.

Which guild one entered depended on the abilities and talents displayed in their previous life; at the same time, the traditions and strength of their Clan were also an important influencing factor.

There were some extremely conservative Clans that did not allow their members to join emerging guilds like the Engineers Guild or the Gunpowder Association, and there were also Clans that would send clansmen with unremarkable talents into specific guilds for the sake of certain traditions.

Although the choice was related to the talents displayed, relatively speaking, the stronger the Clan, the more they tended to let talented clansmen join professional guilds with longer apprenticeship times but higher status after graduation, such as the Rune Smith Guild or the Scholar Association, while members of weaker Clans more often chose to enter the Miner Guild, Warrior Guild, etc., which were easy to graduate from and had lower thresholds, so as to start working as soon as possible.

With his thoughts returning to the keys and keyhole before him, Snuori concluded that these keys should be arranged in the chronological order of the patterns engraved on their handles.

Then, it could first be determined that the fifth key was the Doom Anvil; Thurni, who was both a lesser god and the producer of the Doom Anvil, should be inserted fourth.

But how should the three Ancestor Gods be ordered? According to the tradition of the Dwarf pantheon, it should be Grungni, Grimnir, and finally Valaya, but Snuori knew it was not that simple; recalling the memories in his mind, he thought of the story of when the Rune Magic system was first created.

In the age of the Ancestor Gods, Thurni was born; he was the son born to Father God Grungni by Valaya. As he grew to adulthood, he discovered that compared to his brothers, he was not sufficiently powerful and appeared inadequate when facing the Chaos armies.

Thurni sought help from his parents for this; Valaya taught him a set of alphabets capable of wielding the Winds of Magic, but he discovered during use that this set of alphabets needed to be written with liquid containing sufficiently powerful energy to exert satisfactory power. For this, Thurni sought help from Grimnir, the strongest and most battle-hardened Dwarf.

Grimnir decided to help him; this powerful Dwarf god, together with his son Mogelimu, slew the first Dragon in this world—Drakxion. After an epic bloody battle with this four-legged, two-winged giant beast, Grimnir handed the Dragon Skin Bag filled with Dragon Blood to Thurni. Relying on the powerful strength within the Dragon Blood, Thurni perfected and carried forward Rune Magic and ascended to the ranks of the Ancestor Gods; this bag that had once been filled with Dragon Blood thus became a treasure.

According to the content of this epic, Snuori decided to place Valaya first, Grimnir second, and Grungni last among the three gods. After inserting the five keys in order, the runes on the door lit up with a faint yellow glow, and the secret door opened silently before Snuori.

Entering the door, although he had been prepared in his heart, Snuori was still shocked by the scene before him. The storehouse was not large, about ten meters in length and width; several rows of shelves were filled with forged runes, or to be precise, the various raw materials needed to forge Master-class runes. Borrowing the light emitted by the Rune Illuminator embedded in the ceiling, Snuori began to tour the guild's collection.

The raw materials were mainly divided into three major categories:

Mineral raw materials were based on star-iron, with various precious ores that were hard to find for a thousand gold pieces outside placed here as casually as ordinary stones;

Liquid raw materials were contained in one leather bag after another engraved with runes that acted as preservatives; among them, the worst were the blood of variant monsters like Ice Trolls and Stone Trolls, and the Dragon Blood of various Dragons and the condensates of elemental creatures could also be found everywhere;

The third category, the carrying media for runes, mainly included skins tanned from various magical creatures and scrolls made from their skins; the magical energy inherent in these raw materials could help the runes inscribed upon them maintain their activity.

According to the conventional combinations in his memory, Snuori took enough raw materials, and he also took some extra ones to serve as a distraction. Just as he was exiting the storehouse and preparing to close the door, his vision went black...