Chapter 13: Gifts And Artifacts

Lucius was lying on the bed while thinking of the 'Gift's' that he had learned of. From what he understood, they were quite different than magic and did not operate on mana. Some people would be born with gifts, while some would not. The people who had them were called 'Gifted'.

The people who had gifts could do various feats such as creating fire, shooting thunderbolts, fly, heal people, read minds, and many more. The exact ratio of the gifted and non-gifted was unknown and would change over the years.

Currently, Lucius only had a rudimentary understanding of the gifts such that what he had in his mind right now was just a hypothesis. For all he could know, this world had magic too, and he was just unable to sense it and people had just given it a different name.

'I need to wait till I recover so that I can learn more about the gifts.' Lucius thought as he was fed more broth.

Kiana was feeding him spoonfuls of meat broth and was wiping his mouth after each serving. She had a gentle smile on her face as she did this, and it did not seem like she regretted this or had something else that she wanted to do.

"Ah Asher, I forgot to tell you, but your father should be coming to the city in a fortnight. We got the message from a falcon just in the afternoon. He left the battlefield about ten days ago, and it seems like the proceedings for the armistice are going well. There has been no battle for the past three days." Kiana suddenly spoke.

Lucius, who had his eyes open yet could not see, was simply listening to her. His eyes actually went wide as he heard this. This was shocking to him on two levels. One because Count Gabriel Inanis was returning and another, his eyes actually worked when he had his hearing activated.

'I actually felt that… my eyes twitched and my pupils dilated…' Lucius thought.

Now that he had seen his progress in healing his excitement rose by a few times. Kiana had not realized this small change in Lucius, but could tell that he was shocked.

"I know, right? I was shocked too when I heard this. Oh! And if the count is returning, that means that the priest from the Grand Cathedral should arrive a week after him too." Kiana Added.

Lucius had complex feelings for the priest. He didn't know if the gods of this world interfered in the workings of the soul or not, or if there was a specific god that dealt with death and souls. He wondered if they could sense that he was not of this world and had taken over someone else's body.

On the other hand, Lucius could tell that the priest would be able to heal this body rather quick if he were to take the stories that the people had told him at face value.

'Even if they are not, it would be fine. But if even ten percent of what they say is accurate, then I would have the best chance at healing this broken body.' Lucius thought to himself.

"And, there we go done," Kiana said as she finished feeding the bowl of broth to Lucius.

"Now, do you want me to leave you to sleep, or do you want me to read you something?" Kiana asked.

Lucius blinked once to show his stance.

"Alright, I'll leave you alone to sleep then," Kiana replied before standing up and closing the large lamp that hung in the room.

This was another thing that had piqued Lucius's interest. At first, he had thought that the lamp worked on magic, but apparently, it was a product of artificers. Lucius did not know the exact working behind it but knew that whenever Kiana pulled on a string that hung over the corner, the lamp could be turned on and off.

The lamp itself was made of multiple glass cylinders within which a small piece of crystal was kept. It was this very crystal that would light up and illuminate the area. It wasn't like the filaments in the bulbs though, as the glass cylinders were actually open on the upper end.

Lucius had learned of these 'artifacts' about a week ago from a few friends that had come to visit him.

***

A week ago.

"Did you hear, the new section of artifacts will be displayed in the Artificers guild tomorrow?" one of Asher's friends, named Paul asked.

"Of course I heard it! Everyone knows about it, heck I believe even Asher here knows about it, don't you Asher?" The other friend Andrew asked.

Lucius stared at them with no change in his eyes.

"Ehehe… sorry, I forgot you can't respond again," Andrew said as he scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Ah it's fine I'm sure Asher doesn't mind it. At least not when we'll tell him of the various things that they will be having. After all, Asher loves artifacts." Paul said, trying to quell the awkwardness.

'Now this is interesting.' Lucius thought and blinked.

"See! He wants to hear it too." Paul pointed.

"Then we shouldn't keep him waiting. Let me get the brochure that they sent out yesterday." Andrew said before leaving the room and coming back a couple of minutes later with a large book in his hand.

The book wasn't thick per see, but just that the size of its pages was quite large, about the size of a modern A1 size sheet of paper. Andrew showed the cover of the book to Lucius, who saw that it was olive green in color and had the symbol of a Compass, a hammer, a pen, and a sword on the cover.

The symbol was rather unique, and the base of it was the compass. The Hammer and Sword were placed in a cross shape, as if the pointers on the compass. Finally, the pen was placed vertically, passing through the intercept of the hammer and sword.

While Lucius couldn't read the title that was written on top of the book, he could tell what the symbol meant.

'The crest of the artificers guild.'