Julian did not argue. Instead, he took out his quill and notebook and carefully wrote the information down, because while it might not seem especially important on the surface, to him it was invaluable for his experiments in organic smithing. He had been troubled for some time by the way different types of wood always seemed to show different levels of resistance to different enchantments. True, he had not yet managed to successfully enchant a wooden ring beyond the magical grenade he kept inside Greed, but his experiments had already shown that wood, much like animal parts, possessed its own natural affinities.
Ollivander then left the storage room and stepped into the workshop, which looked very different from Julian's own. Most of the tools there were designed for woodworking rather than metalworking.
"This piece of wood is large enough for me to make two wand housings from it, so pay close attention," Ollivander said seriously as he approached the workbench and picked up a drawknife used for stripping bark from trees.
With practiced precision, the old man shaved away the unsuitable portions from the outside of the wood. After that, he took up a small blade with a curious spoonlike shape and carefully began peeling thin slivers of wood from the center of the block.
Before long, a smooth U shaped groove had been carved into the middle of it. At that point, Ollivander picked up a nearby axe and hammer. Setting the axe directly into the center of that groove, he struck the back of its head with the hammer, splitting the wood neatly in half. He set one half aside, then took up a block plane and began removing excess material from the remaining piece.
Once it was trimmed down to the proper size, he switched to sandpaper and carefully shaped it into the form of a wand while smoothing the wood at the same time.
Soon, a wand shaped piece lay on the workbench, and only then did Ollivander speak again.
"All of this work is done by hand to ensure that as little of my own magic as possible enters the wood during the process. If I used magic to hasten any of it, the core might reject the wood because it would carry my magical signature," he said seriously.
Julian made certain to record the entire process from start to finish along with Ollivander's explanation.
"Next, I will split the wand housing and inscribe the runes required to turn it into a wand, which unfortunately I cannot allow you to see because this particular arrangement was developed through many years of research by my family," Ollivander said apologetically.
Julian shrugged. "I don't mind. I'm not here to steal your family's secrets. But I can still watch you split the wood and place the core, correct?" he asked, wanting to be sure.
Ollivander nodded. "Yes. Those are essential parts of the process, so missing them would be a problem. The runes, however, will already be hidden by then," he said calmly before splitting the wood with a spell and having Julian step out of the room.
A few minutes later, Ollivander called him back in, but no matter how closely Julian looked, he could not actually see any runes, even though his magical senses clearly told him they were there.
"My family designed this runic sequence so that it integrates perfectly into the wood itself, meaning no visible runes remain even if someone were to split the wand open again. Now watch carefully as I place the core into the housing, because that part of the process is the same no matter what kind of core is being used," the old man said.
Julian watched with absolute focus.
Ollivander carefully removed the core from the split remains of the old wand, which turned out to be a white braid made from several strands of hair, and laid it into the center of the new housing along its entire length. Then he canceled the splitting spell, causing the wand to close fully around the hairs.
A shower of sparks immediately burst from the tip, startling Julian, though Ollivander only chuckled at his reaction.
"That is simply the wand purging the traces of my magical signature that entered it during the process. Perfectly normal, I assure you," he explained.
Julian found the sight astonishing, because an inanimate object was actively choosing to reject someone's magic.
That was a major revelation, since it implied that advanced magical objects could in fact possess a kind of pseudo sapience.
"Do not make the mistake of assuming all wands are born like this. In truth, it is only after finding a master that they begin to develop such qualities, because their master's magic nourishes them and allows them to grow alongside it. To this day, no one knows why. Only that it happens," Ollivander explained, correcting Julian before the wrong conclusion could settle in his mind.