The volcano dragon was flapping his fiery crystal wings, each flap sending ripples through the thick cloud of smoke around him. His shiny crystal claw with glowing runes was slightly touching the black blade of the reaper’s scythe.
A cold chilly feeling seeped out of the scythe, sending chills through the dragon’s finger touching it.
The reaper, in the form of an old wrinkly man, levitated in the air. The thick white mist seeping out of his body was mixing with the black smoke coming out of the dragon.
Vesuvius was looking at the blade of the scythe. He was thriving to learn how to enchant weapons with his magic.
‘It is not like I will not gain anything out of this. I will see a true master of enchanting in work.’
Arcane enchanting was different from the runic in many aspects. Suppose runic could change or improve the material’s properties, such as conductivity, weight or even durability. In that case, the arcane enchanting could infuse magic or spells into these materials, giving them special abilities or effects.
The reaper raised his wrinkly thin arm, and a magical blue circle with two hundred glowing letters flared up in the air, levitating before his hand.
“Follow my instructions and watch, dragon.” the reaper slowly lowered his hand with the glowing magical circle. As the circle was getting closer to the scythe, it started to glow brighter and brighter, the blue light radiating out and seeping into the dark black metal of the scythe.
Vesuvius just watched as the blade bathed in the light, having no idea what the circle did. Still, his senses caught that something had changed about the scythe. It was like some invisible barrier he didn’t even register until now vanished.
“Now cast an infusion circuit!”
“What is that?…” the dragon felt a pin stab into his heart as if he had just admitted that dragons were stupid. He just wanted to smash the reaper to end the humiliation. However, he bit his tongue before he did something that would start a fight.
Luckily he soon calmed down, ‘It does matter that I don’t know it; enchanting is work for minions, not for dragons.’
Without saying anything, the reaper let off his scythe, which remained hovering in the air without any support.
“Repeat after me.” A second, much smaller circle flared up in the reaper’s free palm. Symbols slowly, one by one, started to ignite, glowing in a pale blue light. It was a slow process as they ignited as if the reaper deliberately slowed down the casting process.
,m The dragon’s reverse-slitted eyes easily caught every move of mana as it flowed through the circuit. Without wasting any time, he pushed his mana into his claw that was touching the scythe. He slowly shaped his mana, forming one symbol after another, replicating everything that the reaper did.
The newly made circuit soon started to tremble, its bright light constantly pulsing. Vesuvius already knew what to do, so he hurriedly lowered how much mana he imputed into it, and the circuit immediately stabilised, returning to its calm glow.
Soon the last magical letter ignited, and the small circuit flared up before him in a bright blue light that started to mix with the darker blue light washing over the scythe.
“Now cast your curse and redirect it into the infusion circuit.” the reaper waved his hand and the infusion circuit that he cast dispersed into motes of blue mana.
The dragon followed the instruction, and an ugly red pyramid appeared in his mind. Evil-feeling red mana seeped out of it, flowing through his veins and bones, travelling into a reverse-shaped pyramid that flared up on his claw.
‘Luckily, I already have experience connecting mana, so I will not embarrass myself this time.’
Vesuvius grabbed a tendril of mana from the last symbols of the reverse-shaped pyramid and nimbly connected it to the first symbol in the pulsing infusion circuit.
The red curse reached the reverse-shaped pyramid, the radiance of each symbol increasing even more. However, instead of releasing the curse, a powerful pulse of magic travelled through the connecting tendril into the infusion circuit.
As if someone dropped a red dye into the water, the blue radiance of the circle got tainted, gradually changing into a bright neon-red colour. The red energy spilled all over the scythe, mixing and interweaving with the magic flowing along its blade.
‘It looks so fragile and unstable like it will disperse with a single strike, so this probably isn’t end to.’
The reaper waved a hand again, and an even more complex blue magical tetrahedron quickly formed in his palm. The three-dimensional magical circuit was rotating in his palm. The symbols arranged into the three-dimensional shape looked so profound and complex that even Vesuvius couldn’t help but admire the reaper’s work.
Even worse, the symbols weren’t forming one by one but started in multiple places simultaneously, with numerous symbols forming simultaneously.
It was for the first time since he became a dragon that he saw such complex magic, ‘Maybe I should give more of my time to magic. It can open so many paths for me. Just levelling will give me a brute force, but it will not replace all of this finesse and mastery.’
The next moment a bright light flashed out of it like a flash from a camera, the red magic whirling around the scythe immediately got sucked into the black metal, not leaving behind any traces.
Finally, the reaper moved his both, palm both of his magical circuits vanishing.
“Prepare yourself. We will repeat it for a few more curses.”
This time dragon’s aura exploded out, and his cold yet loud voice boomed across the mountains, “No, you already got your compensation. If you want more, then I have to get something in return!”
Vesuvius was determined to show that he wasn’t some pushover that could be used. His pride wouldn’t allow it. He was sure that the reaper also wanted to avoid a direct confrontation.
It was no secret that dragons were the worst opponents for reapers to fight as their near-unlimited life energy countered most effects of death energy used by the reapers.