Chapter 261: Tongs and Rites

"The revered god Thurni instructed the first generation of Grandmasters in the use of the Rune Tongs, allowing them to work with ease when crafting the most powerful runic artifacts. These legendary treasures played a crucial role in the great victories achieved by our kin!"

Sinuoli wanted to interject, but Krag Master kept talking while pinching the two halves of the Rune Tongs. He could never have dreamed that Sinuoli knew no less about this treasure than he did.

"After the Ancestor Gods departed, it was passed down through the generations in the guild; its role in forging is similar to our Doom Anvil. But you know, the smaller the object, the harder it is to engrave the same number of runes! Bestowing such great power upon such small tongs was the result of the Ancestor Gods working together."

Sinuoli nodded in understanding; the Doom Anvil was low-difficulty and could be mass-produced, and powerful Shanbao could be allocated multiple units, but these Rune Tongs were one of a kind.

"We discovered that it is an important aid when engraving rune sets; most of the treasures of the Golden Age were forged with its help. But it was lost in the Dark Age! Since then, the number of legendary treasures that have appeared can be counted on one's fingers."

At this, Krag's face twisted; what a great shame it was for an ancestor's supreme treasure to be lost. That period of history was almost a blank in the Rune Smith Guild, and one Rune Master after another shaved their heads and took oaths to become Slayers.

"Every generation of guild masters dedicated themselves to retrieving it, until I, on a certain night, received a slight hint from Thurni and organized an Expeditionary Force to storm into Karak-Azgal to take back its fragments."

That expedition by Krag Master had been a hot topic in the taverns of the Mountain Kingdom for hundreds of years; every clansman speculated on what had made this powerhouse, who could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ancestor Gods, so eager, and why he was so tight-lipped about everything that happened after his return.

Krag Master refused to talk about anything regarding the expedition. But how he used the Rune of Wrath and Ruin to shatter mountains and bury half an Orc warband, how he easily countered the spellcasting of an Orc Seer and caused its brain to explode, and how he swung the Warhammer in his palm to turn the warlords who dared to block his path into dust had always been sung by bards.

Sinuoli now understood that it had been an expedition to settle grudges and wash away shame. But the recovered treasure was only fragments; the entries in the guild's Book of Grudges could not be crossed out, so how could his master publicize it?

"Sinuoli, take the oath with me, in the name of the Grandmasters; recasting it is the responsibility of every Rune Smith!" Krag said, but a smile appeared on the corner of Sinuoli's mouth.

"Perhaps it doesn't have to be that troublesome, give it to me, Master!" Sinuoli said, taking the pair of fragments, tapping lightly in the system, and the Rune Tongs were directly recast in a shimmer of light.

"This, this?"

Krag Master took two steps back, then lunged forward to grab the restored Rune Tongs. He stroked this Artifact, and the energy radiating from it could not be fake.

"How did you do it?"

His master pressed him, but Sinuoli did not answer directly; he closed the Artifact Vault, switched to the Rite System, and with the recasting of the Rune Tongs, the Ultimate Thungni Rite became available.

"The more interesting part is yet to come!"

As Sinuoli released the rite, Krag Master, who was pulling at him and asking questions, suddenly froze.

Sinuoli took the opportunity to introspect within his body; he felt the activity of the runic energy within him increase by twenty percent. In actual combat, he could charge runes faster and thus strike them more frequently.

"There are kin who say your power comes from the Old Ones; I didn't believe it before, but now it seems it's true!"

After a long while, Krag Master recovered; he took out a bead and wiped it lightly to activate the Master Rune upon it. Sinuoli judged by his senses that this thing served to isolate detection. And what it was meant to isolate was clearly not power from the Mortal World.

"This is a change in the essence of life; let alone Thurni, even the Ancestor Goddesses don't have such great ability!"

Krag Master said firmly; the effect of the Ultimate Thungni Rite applied to the entire Dwarf race, but it was difficult for others to spontaneously capture the core of it.

The lowest-level Apprentices were like infants on the path of Rune Craft and could not feel the change; formal blacksmiths were like teenagers and would think this was the natural growth of their own strength; Masters were mature Rune Users, and they might feel this was a breakthrough in strength that came naturally after tempering and accumulation.

But Krag Master was different; he was already an Olympic champion in the adult category. Having developed the path of Rune Craft to the extreme, he was passively pushed a step further, and he immediately realized this was a change in the essence of life.

"Essence of life?" Sinuoli was very interested in the transcendent realm. He should pay attention to this aspect now.

"Simply put, the first batch of ancestors were completely different from us on the inside, other than looking the same. They were created directly by the Old Ones, and the three main gods had the most prominent indicators among them."

"Perhaps their indicators were like the Queen Spider, but they still looked like a Dwarf?"

"They were Dwarfs, but their strength was like the Queen Spider, or their wisdom like a Slann," Krag Master corrected the causality.

"And then?" Sinuoli led his master to say more.

"The Old Ones used the performance of that first batch of ancestors as a reference to define the fluctuation range of our various indicators, though very individual cases can break through those preset limits by chance. I count as one, and Agelimu should count as one too."

"Then?"

"What you just did can be seen as an adjustment directly to the fluctuation range of the energy affinity indicator, and from this, I confirmed the source of your power. The kin were discussing abnormalities in reproductive ability before, it should be the same, right?"

"Why, you don't feel anything regarding that ability of yours? It wouldn't be?" With double happiness, Krag was in a good mood, so Sinuoli simply made a joke.

"Don't you have any changes every morning? Or is that little bit of change enough to make you feel like you've become different? It's quite pathetic to have only that little bit of ability; fortunately, you haven't taken a wife yet—it's better for one person to be pathetic than two." Krag Master countered easily.

"Let's talk business; you should need a piece of Legendary Armor containing an Expansion Rune. I didn't have a good way before, but now with these Rune Tongs, I can give it a try. Gaoyuanbao has no raw materials and the production conditions are a bit poor, so I have to rush back to the headquarters at Everpeak to handle it."

"How did you know?" Sinuoli was startled.

"When I was working on your previous armor, Aoruimu asked me; his iron-welded brain couldn't understand it at all! Heh, when the news that you could turn into a stone statue came back, I guessed it. If you had come to me back then, perhaps I could have engraved one more ordinary one."