Did Jacob truly believe the blacksmith could inscribe a True Rune? No, absolutely not. However skilled the man might have been, Jacob could not bring himself to think he possessed that particular ability.

It was not impossible, of course, there was always the narrow chance, but he chose to dismiss it. If the blacksmith had indeed mastered the art of creating True Runes, then his name would already have spread far beyond this place, carried on the tongues of merchants, scholars, and warriors alike, and Jacob would have heard of him long before now.

What Jacob believed instead, and the blacksmith's own words had, in part, supported this, was that the rune had adapted in the instant it touched his mana. It had not been a True Rune when forged, but had become one through contact with him. Was he certain? No. But he had more than one reason to think so.

The artefact came to mind. That peculiar thing with its layered effects, a barrier, a strengthening enhancement, a focusing quality for mana, it had always struck Jacob as strangely efficient, too versatile, too precisely suited to be anything common.

He had never fully understood its described properties. But if he had somehow altered the rune's nature, shifting it into the realm of True Runes, then suddenly its unusual effectiveness would make perfect sense.

"I need to test this," Jacob murmured under his breath, his mind already reaching ahead to what he would need. Any artefact would do, something simple, something that could bear a clear before-and-after comparison.

"Belemir… do you have a barrier on you?"

At his call, Belemir rose silently from the dark shape at Jacob's feet, his figure forming as if out of smoke, and gave a curt nod before producing a small device from within his cloak. Without a word, he placed it in Jacob's hand.

Jacob held it for a moment, letting his eyes take in the rune carved into its surface. He fixed the pattern in his mind, tracing every curve and line in memory so that he could compare it later without doubt. Only then did he channel his mana into the artefact, watching intently for any shift.

At first, there was nothing, only the familiar hum of the barrier being primed, but then, so slowly that it was almost invisible, changes began to appear. A line curved where it had been straight, an angle sharpened to a fine point, a small marking within the rune's body shifted position, and with each alteration the pattern seemed to move further from what it had been, until at last the transformation was undeniable.

The effects were immediate and tangible. The barrier was stronger, considerably so, its solidity pressing against his senses in a way no standard model could. More than that, a subtle energy seemed to flow back through him, easing the tiredness from his limbs and clearing the dull edge from his thoughts.

It was, without question, an extraordinary discovery. The runes on artefacts were being adjusted, transformed into True Runes the moment his mana touched them. And that meant that every properly crafted artefact in his possession might become far more than it was ever intended to be.

That meant, Jacob realised, that if he truly wished to expand his understanding of True Runes, he could do so simply by studying the transformations, comparing the original runes with the altered forms his mana produced over and over again with as many different examples as he could acquire.

"Belemir, you try," he said at last, holding the barrier device out to him.

Belemir accepted it with a faint crease in his brow, clearly unsure of the point but willing to humour the request, and placed his hand on the artefact. A moment later, mana flowed from him into the core, and a translucent barrier flickered into being around his body.

Jacob leaned forward instinctively, snatching the device back almost as soon as the barrier dissipated, his eyes narrowing as he turned it over until the rune was visible once more. It had shifted again, but this time in the opposite direction. The intricate, refined pattern that had marked it as a True Rune was gone, replaced by a more ordinary structure.

So that was it: while his mana could elevate a rune to a True Rune, the mana of others could degrade it back into its common form. The realisation was interesting, fascinating even, but Jacob knew better than to get lost in the possibilities right now.

Without the ability to use True Runes himself, such knowledge was of limited use. And unless he met Samuel, which he didn't want to do, or managed to defeat Dawson, there was no immediate path to learning the craft.

With a quiet sigh, he handed the device back to Belemir and turned his focus to what mattered most. Together they made their way back to the mansion, and Jacob returned to his routine with renewed intent.

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Now that he possessed a sword he could handle properly, he could train without reservation, and with his natural talent, a month of focused work should be enough to reach a level that would at least make the coming challenge feasible, especially if he continued to rely on Knight's Glory, and kept his aura in reserve as his final safeguard.

And so the days fell into a steady pattern. Each morning he woke early, ate a quick breakfast, and went straight to training. He began with warm-ups, followed by strength drills that pushed his muscles to the point of exhaustion, then continued through the fatigue with further exercises until his limbs trembled.

Only then would he rest briefly before taking up his sword, spending hours replicating the forms and movements he had seen Arthur, Alex, and even Dawson perform.

But he no longer practised on the training field. It was not fear of the jeers, though avoiding them was no loss, but the need for secrecy. He wanted Dawson to have no clear sense of his capabilities before their next match, to face him with assumptions that would no longer be true. If he could keep his progress hidden, then when the time came to stand against him, he would do so with the advantage of surprise.

It was exactly one month to the day since Jacob had received his sword, and that night, as with so many before it, he slept, but never fully. Sleep for him was a place of half-consciousness, a muted drifting where his body rested but his mind remained lucid, able to shape what unfolded around him if he wished.

Yet in spite of that control, he found himself returning again and again to the same creation, one that no longer felt like a dream at all but rather a recurring sentence passed upon him, a nightmare that he willingly, perhaps even unconsciously, kept summoning.

He was seated at a small wooden table, a book in his left hand, a cooling cup of tea in his right, the posture of someone absorbed in quiet study. Across from him sat Lucas, or rather, something that wore Lucas's face. This was no living presence but a pale, lifeless imitation, its hollow eyes fixed on him, its stillness carrying the suffocating weight of accusation.

The world around them was one of fire and drifting ash, the air heavy with the low, ceaseless wailing of unseen voices. From beneath the table, spectral hands gripped at his legs, scores of them, cold, insistent, pulling with desperate strength as though intent on dragging him down into the roiling flames below. They whispered to him in jagged fragments, the words sharp enough to cut.

"You killed your brother, yet you sit here reading a book." "The least you can do is die for your sins." "Who gave you permission to enjoy yourself? Who said your punishment was over?" "Coward… you've run from your penance. Go back to your isolation. Good things are not for you."

And there was more, always more, and he had never stopped listening.

Across the table, Lucas remained silent, watching. It was not the silence of calm but the silence of someone weighing whether to speak or to condemn. Jacob kept his eyes on the book, though the pages were empty of words; instead, each one bore an image of Lucas, smiling, frowning, laughing, grieving, moments Jacob recognised as his own memories, laid bare and unchanging.

When Lucas finally spoke, it was barely more than a breath, yet the sound carried more force than the wailing below. "You…" His voice faltered before hardening. "Why? You made me die. If not for you… you and Samuel… but you were there, Jacob. You were there. Why didn't you save me?" His face twisted as tears began to fall, each drop landing with the weight of something Jacob could not lift.

Jacob's hands trembled, and he felt the chair beneath him begin to sink by slow degrees, the legs dipping into the molten fire as though the ground itself had judged him unworthy to remain above it.

His breathing quickened. "I don't remember," he shouted, the words cracking. "I don't remember how! How did you die, Lucas?" The demand turned desperate. "What happened? How did I cause it?"

But the answers would not come. He had once dreamed of it often, knew the dreams had been about it, and yet each time he woke, the memories dissolved, leaving him with only the weight of a guilt he could not name and the knowledge that it was his to bear.

Lucas did not answer. He simply returned to that same, unbearable stillness, and the silence pressed harder than any words could have, driving Jacob's pulse into a frantic rhythm. The chair beneath him continued its slow descent into the fire, the heat climbing up his legs, while the voices of the dead swelled around him until they were almost deafening.

Then, suddenly, another voice cut through the noise, louder, sharper, carrying none of the whispering malice of the others. "Enough! I've had enough of this," it roared, raw with impatience. "I've watched you put yourself through this for a month straight, and I'm done."

In an instant, the flames, the table, the pale figure of Lucas, and the reaching hands all vanished, collapsing into a blank void.

Yggdrasil stood before him, shaking his head with the weary air of someone who had tried, and failed, to intervene too many times before.

"I understand why you do it," he said quietly, stepping closer, his tone more measured now. "You've convinced yourself your nightmares are a punishment. So when they're gone, you build new ones to replace them." His hand settled heavily on Jacob's shoulder. "But what grief could possibly make you choose to torture yourself like this every single night?"

Jacob met his gaze, his expression unreadable. "Goodbye, Yggdrasil," he said at last, his voice low but firm. "I think it's time I woke up." Mana gathered in his hand, a faint, steady glow, and with a single motion the dreamscape dissolved entirely.

He woke with a sharp inhale, his body jolting back into the waking world. His clothes clung to him, drenched in sweat, and his breathing came in uneven bursts. He dragged a hand through his rough, unkempt hair, forcing himself to steady the tremor in his fingers.

Arthur lay in the next bed, sleeping peacefully, even letting out the occasional soft snore, untouched by whatever storms played out in Jacob's mind.

Jacob's eyes shifted to his shadow, knowing Belemir would be watching from there, and then upward to the ceiling, silently aware that his father had probably noticed the disturbance as well.

"Another day of training," he muttered to himself, the words carrying neither enthusiasm nor complaint. He rose, reached for his sabre, and walked to the door with the quiet resolve of someone who had no intention of letting the night's visions slow his pace.

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