Return of the Legendary Runesmith-Chapter 504 - 503- Evaluation complete

There were seven great continents across the world, and only one of them was ruled under an imperial system.

Noredeim.

Despite being only the second largest in terms of landmass, the entire continent was governed by a single man.

Dorren Drucal Noredeim.

A living legend.

He was the only being in existence to have slaughtered an army of a thousand with a single axe in his hand.

No backup, no rest. He was a mad bull who charged once and didn’t stop until he was standing in the middle of his enemies’ graveyard.

Was it necessary for him to face them alone? No.

Noredeim possessed the largest army among all the continents. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

It was simply a ritual of the north, a trial where the next Emperor had to prove his worth.

And Dorren chose a method that was unprecedented and completely unexpected.

He was a name not to be forgotten, someone who held enough authority to move any governing body or Tower in the world.

And for someone like him, who rarely ever left his fortress, to come here...?

By now, the entire audience had fallen into utter silence.

Those seated in the upper balconies hurried down to join the rest, as sitting above the Emperor was considered a grave disrespect.

Adrian, along with Clark and the others, stood to the side in silence as well.

A chair was brought out for Dorren, though it was far too small for a man of his size.

"P-Please give me just a minute. Someone has gone t-to—" the staff member stammered, words failing him.

Dorren scoffed and sat down on the stage instead, crossing his legs.

Even seated, his torso was so long that he still appeared nearly as tall as Adrian.

The silver-haired man remained silent for a moment, his gaze sweeping over the crowd. Then he spoke.

"If I hear a single word from any of you, I will stomp on your head and make this your last mistake."

A shudder ran down everyone’s spine, several of them paled upon hearing those words.

Adrian sighed, ’As I have heard about this man...he is ruthless and doesn’t care about public sentiment.’

Even back in the North, he is just like that. Cruel, straightforward and unforgiving.

Next, the Emperor voiced, "Lockwood, take a step forward."

Adrian was...startled, to say the least. Does the man know him or was he calling someone from his unit with the same surname?

But then, a soldier turned towards Adrian and signalled him to step forward.

Annabelle, who was among the crowd, stiffened and got prepared to charge.

Adrian took a step forward and calmly greeted the man, "Greetings, Your Majesty." He gave a polite bow.

The man turned to Adrian and reached for something at his belt.

"This," he said, lifting a dagger, "is your creation, right?"

Adrian hummed, his gaze settling on the silver dagger. It had taken a fair amount of damage, yet the runes etched into it remained clearly visible.

He needed only a glance to confirm it. "Yes, I tuned it. But how... you..."

How did you get that? The unspoken question lingered in the air.

Dorren shrugged. "The man you sold it to? He gifted it to me."

Adrian frowned. He remembered gifting it to the Tower Master of the Twilight Vault, so had he requested the armament for the Emperor?

Dorren asked, "How did you tune this armament so precisely, even though this is our first meeting?"

Adrian answered honestly, "I was asked to create an armament for someone with an ice attribute. Since they didn’t provide me with a subject, I used my student as the reference."

Elana, to be precise, had given him her time to help him with it.

Dorren frowned. "And you tuned it so well that it never disrespected me," the Emperor said, his gaze fixed on the dagger, which had weathered far more than one would expect from an item kept with such care.

Adrian said nothing. What could he have said? Praised himself?

Then Dorren turned to him and continued, "You were about to finish your evaluation, right? I’m curious to hear why, even with your support, this tool can’t be used."

It was not widely known that Dorren had any interest in runesmithing, yet the patience in his voice suggested otherwise.

Adrian glanced at Clark, and the latter immediately said, "Yes, please... if that is what Your Majesty wants..."

Adrian sighed, then nodded.

This time, he was granted complete silence to continue his evaluation.

Taking the sword in hand, he continued, "As I mentioned before, the Cortex is not under our control. It’s like a heartbeat. You can sense it, but you cannot control it at will."

After a brief pause, he added, "The Cortex knows nothing about restraint or shared power. It only responds to what the threads and the body demand. That means, if a thread bound to it requires a massive amount of mana, it will supply it without limitation. Now, suppose there are five threads connected to it. What would happen if even two of them demanded a high mana output at the same time?"

His words landed heavily on the shoulders of those who had been blaming Adrian until now.

They glanced at one another, uncertainty clear in their eyes.

Adrian continued, "On top of that, the Cortex continuously supplies mana to nourish both the threads and the runes. So even if someone possesses an armament like this and never uses it, the subject would still suffer from constant sluggishness and exhaustion."

Those words landed as the final blow, completely shattering the facade Clark had built at the beginning when he assured everyone of the subject’s health.

Adrian had been pondering Clark’s idea ever since he met the man’s former assistant and learned about the research.

Was there truly a way to allow unawakened people to use mana with minimal consequences?

The answer was no. No matter how many possibilities he ran through his mind, he could not grasp a single feasible method.

As such, this needed to be stopped from landing in the hands of general masses. Or slowly, this world would have been plunged into a state of no return.

People would have been sacrificed in the name of greater goods.

Life would have been sold for a few gold coins. One’s usefulness would be evaluated based on how long they could sustain the pressure.

And the world would have gotten solely dependent on a single man.

As such, Adrian did the best he could have done.

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A/N:- Thanks for reading. If you have been enjoying the story so far, please leave a review or even a comment.