Chapter 156: Carving Knife

Exodus Tales Exodus Tales

“What does the constitution potion have to do with offering?” Abel was even more puzzled. He had never used a ‘constitution potion’ due to his golden combat qi and had never inquired about it.

“When you receive the offering, the ‘constitution potion’ will be given to you together with the offering,” Finkle knew by this time that Abel had never received an offering.

“When I come back, you will go with me to take the offering.” Abel then waved to let Finkle out of the way while he makes his way to the third floor of the magic tower, where Camille was waiting for him.

Camille’s reception room was elaborately decorated with elvish paintings on the walls. Although Abel had undergone noble training, he did not have too much knowledge about paintings, and he was very curious about it.

“This is a painting by the elf’s painting Master, Master Alamir. I love elvish paintings so much, when I saw it at an auction house a few years ago with the teacher, I begged him to buy it for me.” Camille saw Abel notice the painting on the wall. It depicted a village painting in a distinctly elvish style.

“Camille, when I get a chance to go to the double moon forest, I’ll bring you some elf paintings.” Abel smiled. He wasn’t joking, because he was really going to take Loraine home when he became an official wizard, and it was actually possible to bring some of Camille’s paintings with him.

“Abel, tell me how many girls you’ve tried to get with these methods at such a young age!” Camille didn’t seem to believe Abel said.

“Camille, I was wrong. If I go to the double moon forest, I won’t help you with your elf paintings.” Abel raised his hands in an innocent gesture.

“Don’t you dare not get me any! As soon as Camille spoke, she could not help but put her hand to her mouth as she began chuckling. Abel laughed too, and for a moment, the room was in perfect harmony.

Abel then took a precious ice magic gem from his portal bag onto the table and said, “Camille, since you like these gems so much, you can have this one.”

“An intermediate blue gem!” Camille picked up the intermediate gem from the table and let out a cry of surprise.

At this time, Joey, Camille’s wizard follower, was bringing up two cups of juice. He also saw the intermediate magic gems on Camille’s hand, and she instantly fell in love with those gems.

Abel couldn’t control himself but shook his head slightly as he thought in his head. All women have the same attitude toward gems.

A moment later, Joey woke up from her gem overdose, as she quickly took a glance at Abel, and whispered, “Mr. Abel, do you know what it means if you give a girl a gem?”

This question caught Abel; off guard a little. When he gave the gift to Camille, he only thought about her care for him, and since she liked magic gems so much, he would give her one as he had just received some from his teacher. For Abel, it was no use to him anyway, so he gave it one to Camille, but Abel didn’t think about anything else.

Abel suddenly realized that many men would give a girl these gems to attain a good impression, but Abel didn’t even know at that time when he gave her the gem. Now Abel’s face was suddenly blushing red.

“You are too talkative Joey. You should go back down now.” Camille then swung her hands towards Joey (telling her to leave), as she promptly trotted off with a chuckle.

Camille turned to Abel with a smile. “Never mind her. I spoiled her too much.”

“Camille, I really didn’t know it meant anything,” Abel explained.

“Anyway, how old are you? Don’t worry about that, but where did you get your intermediate gems from?” Camille knew the value of the intermediate gems.

“The last time I went to Caral City with Camille and you and Carlos, I met a dark wizard. I killed him and got his tower master control card. It was the teacher who took my share of the tower.” Abel explained to her what had happened.

“My God, why didn’t you tell me that?” Camille’s hand was in her mouth, and her eyes were wide open. As a level 4 novice wizard, she certainly knew what a dark wizard with a magic tower was. She couldn’t believe that Abel was able to kill an official wizard during their trip out, she and Carlos didn’t even know as well.

“I didn’t want you to worry, so I didn’t say anything.” Abel pleaded softly.

“No, you just took the magic stone out of that bag at your waist!” Camille remembered something, as she stared towards the portal bag on Abel’s waist, and said, “Is this a portal bag?”

“Yes, I was going to give it to the teacher originally. But the teacher said it was my trophy, so I could keep it for myself.” Abel said, taking the Portal bag from his waist and handing it to Camille.

“May I? Camille, of course, knew that a portal bag was a wizard’s greatest secret, so she was surprised that Abel had placed it directly in her hands.

“No problem, of course, you can look at it.” Abel’s most important possessions were in the orc’s spirit portal bag. This portal bag was just for show. The bag only contained some usual knight’s gear and Wizard’s supplies.

Although she had been a novice wizard for many years, it was Camille’s first experience with such a piece of high-end Wizard equipment, such as a portal bag. She then curiously placed her intermediate level magic gem inside and took it outside the portal bag again, as she fiddled with the portal bag.

“Cough!” Abel waited a moment to see Camille’s restless look and coughed twice.

“Ah!” When Camille heard what Abel said, she blushed at his warning, as she handed the bag back to him, she straightened up and said, “Abel, I promise to teach you the basics of carving knives. Let’s start today.”

Abel’s concentration flickered. Learning how to use a carving knife was the fundamental of rune sign making. Although Abel already had a very good alloy carving knife, it had never been put to use. When he heard that Camille was going to teach him, he immediately felt a sense of excitement filled his heart.

“Normally people only use carving knives on soft material such as soft rocks or woods. However, as wizards, we need to carve on a solidified crystal core. Those crystal cores were almost as strong as a jade, so they were very hard to penetrate and very easy to make mistakes.”

Camille then took a sip of juice from the table and continued, “So it’s important to know how to use the knife properly. Standard carving techniques minimizes errors in the process.”

Hearing what Camille had said, Abel nodded. As he had previous professional knights training, he understood how important the standardized techniques were.

“There are eleven basic methods of carving knives. If you can master them, you can combine them to carve all the runes.”

Then, Camille put the eleven basic knife method summarised by the predecessors to Abel and said: “The eleven basic knife method is divided into straight knife method, double knife method, punching knife method, cutting knife method, astringent knife method, late knife method, dancing knife method, light knife method, buried knife method, flat knife method, and retaining knife method.

Camille brought a pile of jade and began to demonstrate each carving method to Abel, who was too focused on avoiding wasting a single moment of this precious opportunity. The demonstration of eleven knives had just finished in the morning.

“Abel, Now that I’ve taught you all the basics. The rest is up to you. You can continue mastering these skills. I am useless with these jade gems anyways. It will save you some time and money. Here take them all.” Camille then pushed a pile of jade gems on the table that had been leftover from the lesson to Abel.

“Thanks, Camille! Abel had just learned the basics and was thinking about practicing, and the jade gem was just what he needed.

“Oh, and take this book, too.” Camille handed Abel a soft parchment book.

“Is this?” Abel took the book and opened it. It was full of the eleven knives that Camille had just introduced, but how could it be as easy to understand as a face-to-face demonstration?

“I only wanted to give you the book, but since you were kind enough to send me this present, I spent a little more effort and taught you more about it.” Camille smiled as she played with the newly acquired medium bluestone and joked to Abel.

“That’s what I meant when I said you were taking care of me, thanks, Camille!” Said Abel, nodding.