Chapter 4138: Teacher and Student (Part 1)

The laws of hospitality allowed the Phoenix Guardian to do as she wished without anyone meddling in her affairs.

"I heard everything, Featherlings." It was the reason they found Salaark waiting for them outside the tower as soon as they reached the Blood Desert. "You did the right thing coming to me. Creation Magic alone wouldn’t cut it."

"Do we also need Rebirth Magic, Grandma?" Solus asked, causing an involuntary spasm in Menadion’s left eye.

’This still feels so weird.’ Ripha thought. ’I share no blood with Sally, and we weren’t this close back in the day.’

’And if you call me Sally out loud, I’ll beat your ass.’ The Guardian’s voice echoed throughout Menadion’s head.

"No, you don’t." Salaark replied. "Creation Magic can remove the crystals and runes. To restore the staff’s original structure and remove the eyes, however, you’ll need a few Healing spells."

"Before that, do you mind examining these Balor eyes for us, Grandma?" Lith took six slimy, squishy eyeballs out of his pocket dimension and handed them to Salaark. "They are quite ancient, and I’m not sure they have been properly preserved."

"We trust Malyshka’s ability with Creation Magic, but the cursed staff Stargazer was an ancient relic. We are worried that the outdated method used to extract the Balor eyes and fuse them with the staff might have damaged them."

"A reasonable assumption." Salaark put on enchanted leather gloves before touching the ingredients. "But unfounded nonetheless. The idiot mage that Forgemastered Stargazer knew their craft.

"I can’t find any flaw in them. They will serve you right."

She handed the six eyeballs back after studying them one by one to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

"Thanks, Grandma." Solus nodded. "Now take the Sage Staff, but don’t do anything with it and don’t speak for a while, please."

She moved the Yggdrasill staff from the Armory to the Guardian’s hands, and Lith, Menadion, and Solus flinched, shaking their heads for a few seconds.

They had gotten so used to enjoying the staff’s mind-focusing abilities that every time they were separated from the Yggdrasill wood, they needed a while to get used to their lowered mental capacities.

The three of them felt as if they had a mild hangover that slowed their minds and let countless random thoughts distract them.

"Man, this is never nice." Menadion conjured some water and splashed her face. "I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it."

"Yet you should." Salaark said with a thin smile. "Don’t fall for the temptation to mistake the properties of your equipment with your talent. It never ends well. Are you ready now?"

"Yes." Lith recovered first since he never carried the Sage Staff into battle and was used to handling most situations by himself.

"Not yet." Solus groaned. "You are right, Grandma. I always have the Sage Staff with me, and I’m almost addicted to its effects. I promise that once we get back home, I’ll deactivate the Armory from time to time."

"A wise choice, Featherling." Salaark ruffled Solus’ hair and cleared her mind with the tier one Rebirth Magic spell, Cleanse.

"A few words before we start. When you are dealing with organic materials that are not going to be refined into pseudo cores, you need to treat them the same way as a patient with prosthetics.

"Mana crystals and runes are foreign objects on the patient’s body that you must remove with Creation Magic, but to fix the permanent scarring left by the Forgemastering process, you need Healing magic."

"What about the Balor eyes?" Lith asked.

"Still Healing magic, but this time a mix of light and darkness magic." Salaark replied. "If removing a mana crystal is akin to taking off a prosthetic, removing an eye is no different from harvesting an organ.

"Put on the Eyes of Menadion and look carefully at what I do."

The Guardian used Dismantle to split the Sage Staff from the runes and mana crystals while conjuring the Healing spell, Second Life, at the same time. Salaark used the light element and her own vitality to amplify the lingering life force of the Yggdrasill wood.

The now alive staff recognized the Balor eyes as a foreign organism and rejected them. The Guardian assisted the Yggdrasill wood in the process by severing all ties with the eyes and forming a layer of darkness magic to insulate them.

Salaark performed the cuts with finesse, but always at the wood’s expense.

This way, the removed Balor eyes were mostly unscathed, and Second Life allowed them to consume the little tendrils that had previously connected them to the Sage Staff to fill the gaps in the sclera.

After checking there was nothing wrong with the eyes, Salaark immersed the heel of the staff into wet, fertile soil, giving it everything the wood needed to heal.

"This is the most crucial part." Salaark said. "You must make sure that not only do you restore the lost mass and remove the traces left by the mana circulatory system, but you must also cleanse the material from external mana and life force.

"The prolonged imprint and flow of foreign mana has left a deep mark in the Yggdrasill wood. This is not an issue while an artifact is in use because the mana matches the owner and helps them to control the enchantments.

"Yet during a second Forgemastering process, it would be no different from not cleansing the old enchantments with Origin Flames. You would fail right off the bat at the preparatory phase and make things even harder to fix."

Thanks to the Eyes of Menadion, Lith, Solus, and Ripha saw clearly how Salaark used her breathing technique, Mother Sun, to scan the Yggdrasill wood for foreign energy signatures.

Removing the small gaps left by the artificial mana circulatory system was the easy part. Nutrients and healing magic allowed the staff to heal the scars and restore the grain to its original state.

Dealing with the lingering energy, instead, required a different approach. Whenever Salaark spotted a sack of Solus’ mana, the Guardian recalled her breathing technique and Invigorated the surrounding wood with world energy.

It fueled and reinforced the natural mana flow of the staff, so that it could purge the foreign mana like a living creature suffering from mana poisoning would. Salaark removed the energy left by the crystals, the runes, the Balor eyes, and Solus’ imprint before handing the staff back.

"Take your time examining it and take note of everything I’ve done. This is what a perfectly cleansed Sage Staff must look like." Salaark said.

"Why didn’t you ask us to do the same with the Balor eyes earlier?" Solus asked.

"Silly Featherling." The Guardian chuckled. "I already told you that the eyes Yaga gave you are perfect. You can always study them to see what they are supposed to look like

"Even if you went and consumed six, you would still have three eyes left to examine."

"You’re right!" Solus said, beaming with joy. "Thanks, Grandma. You are the best!"

"Also, don’t think I have missed the double standards here." Menadion clicked her tongue. "We’ve been friends for decades, yet you never taught me anything like this. Not that I’m complaining, but why do they get the free lessons?"

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