Aethernea : Soulbound [Book 1]

Episode 39 - Past Expiration Date

In the previous Episode:

Elaru decides not to hold back and to show everyone her true power. For mysterious reasons, she asks Deora a "stupid question" that causes him to make fun of her.

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"Of course, I wouldn't ask that. You have clearly stated that spell preparation isn't allowed." Elaru smiled mischievously. As Zerel saw that smile his eyes lit up.

He recognized that expression. That sly smile was just the same as his when he was about to dupe someone!

"Oh? Good that you were paying attention." Deora humphed. "Any other questions?" He asked just for the sake of asking, he didn't expect anyone to respond.

His face fell when Elaru's hand rose up in the air again. "Would altering the trigger spell be allowed? As long as we are able to activate the testing equipment, it shouldn't matter what trigger spell we use, right?"

Trigger spells were made up spells that had no function. Anything could be a trigger spell. You could draw a flower or write a swear word with dense mana and turn it into a trigger spell. Those bogus spells didn't do anything when cast. The reason why they could activate a magical artifact was purely because the artifact was enchanted to respond to a specific bogus spell.

A trigger spell was like a password. The magical artifact would respond only to the correct password.

Deora's mouth twitched. Is this girl an idiot? If you change the password, of course it won't activate! Why would you even change it? It makes no sense!

If Elaru asked this straight away, Deora would have questioned the purpose of the question and eventually explained the impossibility. However, her previous question didn't leave a good impression on Deora, making him think that the redhead was all beauty and no brain. He thought that explaining it would be a waste of time, that it would be interesting if the girl actually tried changing the trigger. It would elevate his sour mood and entertain him.

He smirked tauntingly. "Sure. Go ahead."

Zerel's face revealed a wry smile, but he said nothing. Technically, there was no rule against changing the trigger spell. In fact, everyone would make slight modifications to the spell while learning how to cast it to make the spellcasting faster. However, this wasn't categorized as changing the trigger spell, it was simply writing it in a different handwriting.

Theoretically speaking, if someone activated the testing equipment with a different trigger, the speedometer would no longer be able to accurately judge the casting speed because it wasn't tuned for that specific trigger spell.

Therefore, although there wasn't a rule against it and the possibility of it happening was non-existent, Deora shouldn't have allowed it.

"Any other questions?" Deora spoke through gritted teeth, his head turning left and right, daring anyone to speak up again. No one had any questions, but even if they did, they wouldn't dare say anything.

"Alright, those 5 minutes start now! Go!" He flicked his hand towards the hourglass on Zerel's desk, and it flipped to the other side as if flipped by an invisible hand.

Examinees fervently started casting the trigger over and over. Yet, Elaru did something completely baffling - she closed her eyes and didn't cast anything.

If other examinees weren't too busy with their own practice, they would have laughed at her and mocked her. However, since they had little time to waste on such a stupid girl, they disregarded her actions.