Jacob knew, with absolute certainty, that there was no way he would master such a skill in only a few days. From watching Lazarus alone it was clear that this was not something one could grasp through talent or instinct alone, it required careful dedication, countless repetitions, and above all a great investment of time.

What puzzled him most, however, was the fact that Arthur could already do it with surprising ease.

He could not help but wonder if it was another hidden benefit of Arthur's aspect. Over the past year Jacob had come to understand that the books which described aspects, though invaluable, were incomplete.

He could hardly blame Akashic for this, the very existence of a system that could identify a person's aspect was a wonder in itself, but those same records left much unsaid. They provided only the broad strokes, the most fundamental traits, and omitted finer details that might explain why certain aspects conferred unexpected advantages.

That was why it remained possible for someone's aspect to aid them in ways no book had ever mentioned. Still, even with that in mind, Jacob often found himself asking just how far Arthur's aspect truly went.

He pushed the thought aside and studied Lazarus instead, curious to see how the man would respond to his immediate admission of defeat. He half-expected a disappointed look or some dry remark, but instead Lazarus was smiling faintly.

"It's good that you know your limits," the old man said without hesitation. "Even if you are talented, mastering this in a few days is impossible. That's why I'll give you a month instead."

Jacob blinked, confused. "Huh?"

Lazarus' smile widened. "If a few days aren't enough, then a month should at least be sufficient for you to scrape by. So I'll give you that much time, no more, it's as long as your body can withstand."

With that, he snapped his fingers. Jacob immediately felt something shift within him, a strange sensation that was almost impossible to describe. It was not pain nor even pressure, but a subtle ripple that passed through his very being, leaving behind only the faintest impression that something had changed.

He would have doubted he felt anything at all if not for the atmosphere around him. When he focused on the air and the mana within it, he realized it was sluggish, dulled, as though some unseen hand had pressed down on the flow of time itself.

'He slowed time' Jacob thought in shock, turning to speak to Lazarus, but the man was no longer there.

The realization struck quickly: Lazarus had left him alone. Jacob ignored the strangeness of the empty room and instead lowered his gaze to his saber. 'I should at least test how well I can manage this.'

Placing his palm against the blade, he began to channel mana into the weapon. This time he chose to draw the rune by hand rather than simply calling upon the ones stored in his inner world. There was no practical reason for it, only a personal preference; he found satisfaction in tracing the lines himself.

Minutes passed before the familiar shape of a flame rune emerged, large and steady across the length of the saber's blade. He did not activate it immediately but instead watched carefully, noting how the rune seemed to settle against the weapon, the mana he had fed into its construction seeping slowly into the steel, as if the sword itself were drinking it in.

When he had studied the rune for long enough, Jacob finally decided to activate it. In an instant the blade erupted, a violent surge of fire bursting outward, not wrapping neatly around the saber as he hoped but spewing uncontrollably into the air in a continuous stream, as though the weapon had become little more than a funnel for raw flame.

'This isn't what I want,' Jacob thought with frustration, trying to rein the fire back in, to force it to cling to the length of the blade instead of lashing out at random.

Yet no matter how hard he pushed his will into it, the flames would not listen. They flared and twisted in defiance, heedless of his effort, and it felt less like he was commanding them than like he was standing in the wind and foolishly believing he could order it to change direction. It simply did not work.

'Do you have any advice?' Jacob asked inwardly, appealing to Yggdrasil, but the ancient being gave no reply. Only silence met him. He exhaled slowly, irritation creeping into his chest, and forced his attention back onto the saber.

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And so the first week slipped by. Day after day Jacob stubbornly repeated the same process: drawing runes, pouring mana into the weapon, and attempting in every way he could imagine to bend the flames to his will.

Sometimes he tried sheer determination, hoping his willpower alone would be enough; sometimes he tried altering the rune's construction, testing different strokes and tiny adjustments; sometimes he focused entirely on the sword itself, thinking perhaps the problem lay not with the rune but with the way the weapon received it. Yet nothing worked. The more he tried, the more impossible it seemed.

"The flames don't listen to me, I'm not skilled enough to reshape the runes, and Sir Lazarus didn't even explain what harmonization means," Jacob muttered in frustration one day, the words slipping out before he realized he had spoken them aloud.

Another week passed, and then a third. By the time only one week remained, Jacob's patience had worn thin. He was irritated at everything, at the uncooperative flames, at Lazarus for leaving without explanation, at Yggdrasil for withholding guidance, but above all, he was angry with himself.

If he had managed even the smallest step forward he could have borne it, telling himself that with enough persistence he would one day succeed. But there was no progress at all, nothing to cling to, only failure stacked upon failure until it felt unbearable. He no longer knew whether he was approaching the problem from the wrong angle or if he simply lacked the talent to do it.

At last, the weight of it broke him. His hands trembled as he glared at the saber, its blade still roaring with fire like the maw of a dragon, and with bloodshot eyes and a hoarse voice he shouted, "Can't you just work for one second!" In his frustration he hurled the weapon to the ground, then sank to the floor himself, his body aching from exhaustion, his chest heaving with breath.

For a few moments he simply sat with his eyes closed, trying to steady himself, preparing to drag his weary body up for yet another attempt. That was when he noticed it, the silence.

For days he had grown used to the thunderous roar of fire bursting from the blade, a sound so fierce and unrelenting it drowned out every other thought. Yet now, there was nothing. No flame, no roar, only quiet.

He opened his eyes and found himself staring at the blade, his breath caught in his throat and his heartbeat quickening in surprise. The fire was no longer bursting out wildly but instead was wrapped around the sword in a perfect sheath, the flames coiling in tight spirals as though they belonged there, lending the steel its searing heat and its deep red glow.

What he had failed to accomplish after three long weeks of effort had now been achieved without warning, so suddenly and so completely that Jacob could hardly trust what he was seeing. For a moment he even wondered if he had fallen asleep on the floor, if all of this was no more than a dream, because that was the only explanation that seemed to make sense of it.

With arms that still trembled faintly, he reached down and picked up the saber, immediately noticing the steady drain on his mana as the flames held their form, feeling how the fire clung to the metal not in chaos but in order, as though the rune itself had taken it upon itself to regulate the burning and keep it in balance.

'What did I do differently? What changed?' Jacob wondered, pulling back his mana and watching as the flames faded away and the sword returned to its ordinary state.

'You spoke to the rune, for one,' Yggdrasil's voice finally broke the silence in his mind.

Jacob did not waste energy complaining about the fact that the ancient being had ignored him for three weeks. Instead he focused on the words, replaying them carefully. He had spoken to the rune.

Yes, he had often thought, though always at the back of his mind, that true runes carried a strange hint of personality, subtle impressions that sometimes responded to him, faint sparks of thought or feeling.

But each time he noticed such things he dismissed them, refusing to believe that markings he had drawn himself could carry any kind of awareness. Yet here it was: the rune had aligned the flames with the blade not because he forced it to, but because he had asked.

Even setting aside the troubling implications, the idea itself was extraordinary. If he could simply give the runes instructions and they would respond, then the potential was far greater than anything he had previously imagined. More than useful, it could change everything.

Still, one question pressed on him. 'Are true runes alive?' he asked Yggdrasil.

'Alive? Of course not, that doesn't even make sense. Listen to yourself, runes being alive. Should I say that saber of yours is alive too? Or the stone beneath your feet?'

Jacob flushed slightly, embarrassed at being corrected so bluntly, but he persisted. 'Then how does this make sense at all?'

'Think of it this way,' Yggdrasil replied after a pause. 'When you draw them, you leave a trace of your own will behind. If that weren't the case, if they were perfect true runes, their power would be beyond anything you could manage right now. But since they're your creations, a small part of you is always bound to them.'

'So the reason they obey me is…?'

'Because it's your will, your rune, and therefore it listens when you tell it something. Honestly, you can be remarkably dense. In any case, shouldn't you be using what time remains to perfect this instead of asking pointless questions?'

Realizing that Yggdrasil was right, Jacob quickly bent down, gripped the saber with renewed determination, and began to draw another rune onto its surface. He had a week left in this slowed time, and in that week he resolved that he would master the technique.

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