The rumor of the Fletcher’s Coin was a low, persistent hum in the background of life at Greywood Keep. It was a ghost story, a conversation piece for the guards in the armory and the servants in the kitchens. Ray, moving through the keep with the quiet invisibility of a child, listened to his own lie grow and evolve. The coin was now said to be warm to the touch, to bring luck at cards, to have been forged by ancient kings. The truth no longer mattered; the story had taken on a life of its own. But Ray knew a single coin was not enough. It was an anomaly, a curiosity. To build a legend capable of warding off a predator like the Argent Hand, he needed to create a pattern. The first piece of evidence hinted at forgotten wealth. The second piece had to hint at forgotten power.

His plan was to create a relic of the lost House Lumina, a tangible piece of their fabled ‘Aetherial Weaving.’ His medium would be a scrap of ancient silk, and his pigment would be the faint, ethereal glow of the last remaining Moonpetals.

The first challenge was acquiring the silk. He couldn’t just cut a piece from a visible tapestry; it would be noticed. He needed something already discarded, something forgotten. The Eccentric Scholar’s methodical mind recalled a detail from his explorations of the keep: a small, sealed storage room in the attic, filled with damaged furniture and textiles deemed unworthy of display but too historically significant to be thrown away. Getting there was a mission in itself. It was a part of the keep no one ever went to. He used the excuse of wanting to find a quiet place to read, a request his mother, who was showing steady improvement, was happy to grant. She was still sleeping more soundly, her waking hours marked by a clarity that made her smile more and tremble less. The secret palliative was working, a fact that was both a source of immense pride for Ray and a constant, heavy guilt.

He made his way to the dusty upper floors, the air growing thin and cold. He found the door to the storage room, its lock old and rusted. The lockpicking skills he’d acquired during the heist were put to the test again. His hands were steadier this time, his Cognitive Aegis a silent comfort as he focused, a low-level Partial Immersion with the Stoic Assassin guiding his delicate touch. After a few tense minutes, the lock clicked open with a rusty groan.

[SKILL ATTEMPT: LOCKPICKING]

[PERFORMANCE EVALUATION: ADEPT]

[Mastery Gain: Lockpicking +4%.]

The room was a tomb of forgotten glory. Broken chairs, faded portraits with cracked canvases, and chests of moth-eaten fabrics lay under thick shrouds of dust and cobwebs. In one of the chests, he found it: a large, badly torn tapestry, its colors faded beyond recognition. It was perfect. He used a small, sharp stone to carefully cut a hand-sized, rectangular piece from the edge, a scrap whose absence would never be noticed.

That night, in the secrecy of his room, he began the second stage of the operation. He laid the ancient, brittle piece of silk on his desk. He then retrieved the cup containing the last of the Moonpetals. In the candlelight, they still possessed their faint, otherworldly glow. He activated the World-Weary Healer, not for its diagnostic skill, but for its deep, instinctual knowledge of Herbology.

“The essence is volatile,”

The Healer’s voice noted, its tone one of quiet reverence.

“This is more than a simple calming agent.”

“There is a latent magical energy here, a resonance with light and shadow.”

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“Grinding it would destroy the property we seek to harness.”

He needed a binder, something to turn the petals into a usable, paint-like pigment. Following the Healer’s guidance, he mixed a small amount of gum arabic he’d taken from the study’s ink supplies with a few drops of water, creating a clear, viscous medium. Then, with the utmost care, he took the delicate, glowing petals and began to crush them into the mixture with his stone pestle. As he worked, the petals broke down, releasing their stored light. The clear paste began to shimmer, then to glow with a soft, steady, silvery-white luminescence. It was like painting with captured moonlight. The sight was so beautiful, so truly magical, that Ray was momentarily stunned into silence.

With his pigment created, he needed the steady hand of an artist, or an assassin. He maintained the Healer’s presence but layered the Stoic Assassin over it, a Concurrent Immersion that his Cognitive Aegis handled with only a mild pressure. His breathing slowed, his hands became rock-steady. He took a single, stiff boar’s bristle from a discarded brush to use as his stylus. Dipping it into the faintly glowing paste, he touched it to the center of the silk scrap. He began to paint the sigil he had designed, the symbol of his invented house.

First, the open eye, a symbol of observation and knowledge. Then, he painted the seven rays of light emanating from it, each line straight and precise. The glowing paint went on smoothly, sinking into the ancient threads.

The work was slow and required absolute concentration. Any slip would ruin the piece. For nearly an hour, the only sound in the room was the soft scratch of the bristle on the silk and the quiet, even rhythm of his breathing. When he was finished, he held it up. It was a masterpiece of forgery. A small, ragged piece of ancient silk that, in the candlelight, looked merely old. But when he snuffed out the flame, plunging the room into darkness, the symbol he had painted blazed to life. The eye and its seven rays glowed with a soft, constant, silver light. It was not a bright, flashy magic, but a subtle, ancient power. It looked, for all the world, like a genuine artifact from a lost age of illusionists.

[SKILLED APPLICATION DETECTED]

[OPERATION: ‘AETHERIAL WEAVING FORGERY’]

[PERFORMANCE EVALUATION: INSPIRED]

[Host successfully executed a highly complex, multi-disciplinary creative task, combining research (Scholar), material acquisition (Conman/Assassin), alchemical preparation (Healer), and artistic precision (Assassin) to create a flawless piece of strategic evidence. Largest Mastery Gain.]

[Mastery Gain: Herbology +10%, Deception +10%, Performance +5%]

[INSPIRED RESULT: Your deep interaction with a unique magical substance has attuned your system. New Healer Sub-Skill Unlocked: ‘Esoteric Ingredient Analysis’. You can now more easily identify and understand the properties of magically-infused flora and fauna.]

He had his second piece of evidence. Now, he had to ‘lose’ it. The next day, he put his plan into motion. He couldn’t be seen dropping it. The discovery had to feel completely random. He tucked the small, folded piece of silk into his sleeve. The Charismatic Conman had devised the perfect strategy, one based on chaos theory. He spent the afternoon in the main library, near a tall, drafty window that overlooked the inner courtyard. He waited until he saw Rina in the courtyard below, shaking out dusty rugs. Then he waited for a gust of wind. When it came, rattling the old window frame, he acted. He ‘accidentally’ knocked over a small stack of books near the open window. As he bent to pick them up, he let the silk fragment slip from his sleeve. The wind caught it, a willing accomplice, and whisked the small, light piece of fabric out the window.

He watched as it fluttered down, tumbling through the air like a single, large snowflake, before landing softly and unnoticed in a shadowy, moss-filled corner of the courtyard, far from where Rina was working. He had done it. He hadn’t planted the evidence. He had simply abandoned it to fate, creating a discovery that would be utterly untraceable back to him. It might be found tomorrow by a guard. It might be found next week by a servant sweeping the flagstones. It might not be found for a month. It didn’t matter. The second seed was sown. He returned to his ‘reading,’ his face a perfect mask of calm. He had created a whisper of gold, and now, he had woven a lie of pure light. He had given his ghost a history, and now, he had given it a soul. The legend of the last Magus of House Lumina was growing, and he was the only one who knew it had just begun.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep