Existing from the portal with silent reaper, I arrived at the bottom of a towering structure.
At first glance I knew, we were in one of the four black towers, I saw from outside the city.
Instead of ascending we both kept going deeper into the tower and reached the door at the end of the alleyway, above which 'Testing ground' words were graved.
Silent reaper put his hand on the door and let his mana flow through it.
Click!
Soon a click sound resounded and the door to the testing room opened and a sweet smell of metal infiltrated my nostrils.
'This is heaven of metal.' At first I thought the smell which infiltrated my nose, would belong to some herbs or chemical but the whole room was filled with nothing but rare metals, cores and mana crystals.
The room was rather spacious from inside and contained many tables with different sets of metal, mana crystals and core neatly arranged on them.
In center of the room, a 9 meter circular array was drawn, whose purpose I didn't know.
"I will use all the metal and crystal here to my liking." Merlin informed silent reaper.
"That is fine." Silent reaper said.
"How sturdy is this room?" Merlin asked.
"It can withstand few full power blows from a rank 7 entity." Silent reaper replied.
"Is that so?" Merlin said.
'We will keep the existence of ether hidden because many people in past have seen demon king Lucifer use ether and there is a chance that genesis may recognize it.' Merlin said in my mind and stood in center of the magic array.
'I understand.' I said leaning back on the luxuries throne I had manifested in my sea of consciousness.
Merlin stood in center of the magic circle and soon his whole body was encased in blue lightning.
The rune master symbol on the back of his hand started to emit golden light and his hand started to move so fast that the movements seemed blur.
His fingers emitted a strange golden glow and he started to write something on air, the text didn't evaporate but became runic symbols of unknown language and soon tens and hundreds of runic symbols floated in midair.
The runic symbol soon merged with the magic array beneath our feet and the 9 meter circular array covered the whole room.
"A rune domain?" Silent reaper said out loud.
"That is correct, have you seen a rune master work before?" Merlin asked and he kept producing more and more runes with his lightning fast moments.
"I have seen few rune masters work before but their speed can't be compared to you." Silent reaper said trying to understand what merlin was doing but from him facial expression I understood, he was the same as me.
'What is a rune domain?' I asked merlin.
'It is an rune master exclusive ability, which raises the density of mana in limited area, it also increases the chances of successful forging of runic weapon and support crystals, it prevents runic traps and runic attacks from harming rune master and so on, remind me later I will tell you about it in details.' Merlin said and a familiar screen appeared in front of me.
[Fate point: -100]
I had given merlin permission to deduct fate point for any information he provide me, which costs below one hundred thousand fate point, due to which I was less bothered by system.
'Okay' I said focusing on the beautiful phenomena merlin has stimulated in front of me.
Soon merlin's hands stopped as he took few deep breaths and guided the already prepared runes in all direction.
60 percent of runes merlin has created merged with the walls of testing room lighting it up, while remaining runes created a 3 meter long and wide golden dome in the center of the room.
"I have increased the capacity of protection array placed in this room, as long as mana is provided this room can withstand the attack of a rank 8 entity without breaking." Merlin said and started scribbling his fingers on empty air once again and new runes popped out of thin air rotating around merlin waiting for his instructions.
"Unbelievable." Soon I heard the bewildered voice of silent reaper but my expression was not that much different than his.
I had received merlin's help countless times till now and I was forever grateful to him but today, the feats merlin has performed astonished me once again and I understood why demon king was afraid of merlin's existence.
Merlin stopped for few second after coding all the runes and then threw lightning chains from his palm to fetch few black cubes from the distant table.
"It is cosmium, isn't it?" Merlin asked holding 3 black cubes in his hands.
"Yes, it is the 5th strongest metal on planet amora cosmium, this magic tower is also constructed from it." Silent reaper elaborated.
Merlin threw the 3 cubes into the golden dome he has previously created; throwing more lightning chains in different direction merlin retrieved some beast cores and mana crystals.
Using the identification function of system he threw some mana crystal and beast cores into golden dome and rest of the runes following merlin's instruction dissolved into golden dome.
Soon the temperature in the room started to increase at unbelievable rate due to heat emanated from the golden dome but not long after insulation function of tower activated on its own trying to maintain the temperature firm.
The golden dome burst apart next second and the only thing remained in its place were three multicolor liquid balls.
Making weird hand gestures once again, merlin started to guide the shape of liquid into a weapon and within few seconds all three liquid balls took shape of Black blade, Red long sword and Golden spear.
All three weapons floated toward the silent reaper which woke him from his Trans; he held the weapons in his hands and tried to activate there ability.
[Cost of hiring merlin's rune forging service: 800 Fate points]
All three weapons were successfully crafted with beast cores, mana crystal and unique metal in front of his eyes and it didn't take more than 2 minutes for merlin to craft them.
"You know how to forge weapons as well and that too of such high quality." Silent reaper said praising the weapons in his hand.
This was the trump card merlin has prepared to earn the acknowledgement of genesis because we didn't had any doubts that after seeing merlin's capabilities, genesis will be able to refuse his service.
"Weapon forging is also one of my hobbies." Merlin replied.
Usually Rune master had only job of engraving runes on the weapon prepared by weapon forgers but merlin has performed both the process in front of silent reaper preparing three, rank 4 weapons in less than 2 minute.
"I had seen few rune masters work before in my life but they can't hold a candle to you, you have changed the definition of rune forgery in my mind."
"Thank you and I forgot to mention one thing, within rune domain, the success rate of my rune forging is 80%." As words left merlin's mouth silent reaper was shocked beyond belief and finally shaking his head he admitted his defeat in this game of supremacy.
"Then I look forward to our co-operation in the future." Silent reaper said and merlin wrapped the rune domain he had created.
Even duke elise didn't had the success rate of 80% when it came to rune forging, higher success rate in this field meant lower waste of precious material and thus silent reaper had to agree to whatever condition we put up in the future.
Satisfied by merlin's demonstration of rune forgery, silent reaper led us back to meeting room once again where I would get my new ids.
'Why did you lie him about your success rate being 80%, and what is your actual success rate.' I asked.
'It had to lie, because if I tell him that my rune forging success rate is 100%, won't it raise some doubts in his mind, as to how can a young rune master like me has such high success rate.'
'You have whaaat.'