Just like that, the night passed in a flash and so did the boring day at work.
Last time, Nuriel tried imagining to not be sucked into the throne room and it worked, suffice to say that was the best sleep he had ever since stepping into this new world.
But Nuriel was not about to let a good sleep get in the way of progress.
As of now, he was in the form of a small finch perched on top of a tree branch. He had some time practicing various forms in the throne room but nothing was more difficult than trying to fly like a bird when you've been human all your life.
Just the gust of the cold wind was enough to topple him over if he didn't squeeze on the soft bark with his tiny claws for feet.
Nuriel stared at Vivienne, who was spying on his sleeping body.
"I was right, she did went out!" he said, however his voice could only be heard in high-pitched chirps.
He had been staring at Vivienne ever since she woke up from her bed, but he had to look away for half of the time, only looking back when he saw her window opening.
When she dropped down and began sprinting towards the College of Magic, Nuriel flew to the air to follow her.
He could barely keep up with her inhuman-like agility, as he erratically flew in different directions trying to get his bearings together.
"It's so weird flapping... and why is she so fast?"
Chirp chirp... chirp?
Pushing through the strong winds, he continued following Vivienne, who was jumping and flipping through the various buildings dotting the campus. Eventually, she arrived at the College of Magic, its tall spire piercing the skies.
Vivienne skipped the entrance and went straight to climbing, using the various architectural decorations as grooves to launch herself in the air.
Nuriel flew higher and higher but the winds were too strong.
'A bird's too slow and weak...'
He began imagining something out of the ordinary, a dragon would've propelled him like a rocket but it was too big and too flashy.
He closed his eyes, imagining himself to be formless yet still existed, something paranormal like a poltergeist.
Transforming, Nuriel felt the normal feeling of his own body but looking down, he didn't see anything but ground far below him.
Flight was so much easier in this form. He flew towards Vivienne who was already near the top.
She climbed and noticed a bay window nearby that protruded from the main structure of the spire. She gripped the ledge of the window and pulled herself up to stand on the ledge, doing so as if there wasn't a death drop below her.
Looking inside, Vivienne saw no presence of people and so she placed her hand on the window.
Ember of silence.
Her hands began to emit white particles that slowly engulfed the window then disappearing, she pushed it open, the metal frame of the window looked old as if it hasn't been opened for decades yet it didn't scream from the rust between its bearings, it was completely silent.
'That's quite something...' Nuriel thought.
She continued, and surprisingly when she looked around, the sight of various artifacts delighted her with the fact that she was already inside the storage space of the spire.
In the center was the masterpiece, the mother of all archaeologists' dream.
[Scepter fragment detected nearby]
Nuriel froze, this entire space was a dream made up inside Vivienne's mind and yet the scepter detected its presence as if it was real.
'Could it be?...'
This goes beyond all logic, but remembering his mere existence alone seemed to balance it out.
Nothing in the future made sense and quickly, he accepted the fact.
Nuriel watched Vivienne approach the artifact. It was encased in a glass box and sat on top of a display stand.
He remembered what the priest said to him when he lived his first day of his new body.
The artifact looked more like a slab of rock than what you would expect from a divine piece of the Steel Witch.
Vivienne circled around the artifact before stopping.
As for Nuriel, he was floating silent near the ceiling, holding his breath and watching closely.
He didn't know if Vivienne was merely replaying her dreams to extract information she missed.
For all he knew, this entire dream scenario didn't match what actually happened in reality, and Vivienne could actually be lucid dreaming.
But playing it safe was always the right choice, the prize was in front of him yet he urged his very being not to rush in.
'What will you do now Vivienne?'
He watched her as she pulled something from one of her leather holding straps that hugged all around her body like a belt.
He thought of various possibilities, another artifact to analyze the artifact? It would be possible for something like that to exist.
Or perhaps a tool to break tougher glass? Or even a pistol to shoot at the glass.
That was likely. He saw the white embers that emanated from her, engulfing objects before disappearing and taking away their ability to make sound.
It was the perfect ability for someone like her. If she could imbue a gun with her embers, they would practically be the most effective assassination tool.
Or perhaps even a cannon. He imagined the scenarios of which it could be used but he quickly stopped delving into that.
He watched as she slowly pulled something from the sides of her hips.
'A... notepad?.. and a pen?'
. . .
'She's drawing the artifact!'
Nuriel could only watch. If his current form had a face, then his jaw would've touched the floor already.
He watched her drawing, surprisingly it was a detailed one despite the small size of the notepad and the artifact being... well, a slab of rock.
After finishing the drawing, she circled around a few more times before heading to a different area in the storage room.
While she inspected the other artifacts, Nuriel slowly floated down near the artifact.
The question now was
'What am I going to do with a piece of rock?'
[Scepter fragment detected nearby]
'I know that! Since you can actually get your messages here in the dream how about you try and help me instead?!'
The entire space began to distort. It was evident that the dream was disappearing. During the moment he was getting more and more anxious.
[Establish a connection]
A connection. That word was such a vague term for Nuriel. But if it was meant to be vague, then it would apply to anything that was related to the word "connection".
If that was the case, then simply holding onto it was a form of connection.
As the space disappeared around him, Nuriel reached for the artifact, phasing through the glass box and feeling the cold touch of the rock beneath his hands.
As his vision blacked out, he woke up sitting in the throne room, a rusted metallic cube floated right in front of him.
Without hesitating he tapped it lightly with the tip of his index finger then was followed with a screen appearing.
[Tainted Scepter Fragment of ???]
[Class: Saint]
– A tainted Scepter fragment belonging to the iron maiden who foresees all of humanity, her spells bringing destruction to all life, her pointed hat covering all in a deep void, and whose mind drives all mad.
[New Scepter detected! Applying new hardware]
[Status]
[Processing speed slightly increased]
[Internal database increased]
[Connection strength has been increased]
[Can now project magic on other scepters]
Nuriel stared at the description before him. This was definitely referring to the Steel Witch, however it was replaced with '???', instead it referred to her as iron maiden, he knew that the scepter intentionally censored that name.
'Do you fear that unknown entity so much? Would you be mad at me if I shouted Steel Witch right now?'
He questioned the system but received no response. Nuriel then looked at the new improvements, the last part made him flinch a little.
'Last time you said that, it didn't work... but projecting magic onto other scepters?'
He remembered meeting Yushin. If there was indeed a scepter inside of him, would it mean that he could project magic, using Yushin as a form of catalyst?
Yushin is a human from the far future, it would mean he could use magic without a problem, but that also applied to Nuriel yet he still couldn't use magic. The only possible explanation would be the mental aspect, after all, he wasn't exactly Nuriel.
Nuriel swiped the screen in front of him, making it disappear.
When he focused his gaze back to the area surrounding him, a sudden string appeared in front of him, same as when the golden string of Vivienne appeared except that it was silver.