Xius froze, looking at Angel in confusion. He had already decided Angel was merely being stubborn, yet Angel was now certain it was a rune? Had his earlier judgment been wrong?
While Xius was suspicious, Angel lifted the leather case and pointed to the "bearing corner" he had repeatedly mentioned earlier.
"This pattern formed by the stitching is indeed a bearing corner."
"If this is a bearing corner, then where are the runes? The shell of this leather case is clearly smooth as new." White Bear looked puzzled.
"Yes, there are no runes on the outer shell of the leather case. That is because... the runes are not on the outside, but on the inner wall of the case, where we cannot observe them." As Angel spoke, a faint glow lit up on his fingertip, and he traced several connected streaks of light across the outer surface of the case.
This was an illusionary projection, an application of basic illusion arts.
"You can try running your fingers along these light marks."
The moment Angel finished speaking, Xius took the leather case first and ran his fingers along the glowing traces. When he felt carefully, he clearly noticed that the pressure beneath his fingertips felt distinctly different over the light marks than elsewhere.
"These light marks I drew are the raised patterns on the inner wall of the leather case." As Angel spoke, he casually added several more strokes to the glowing pattern. "Now look carefully. What is this?"
What had originally been merely a few scattered light marks became, after connecting with the marks he added, a corner of a rune that everyone recognized well.
"Fire?" Sanders murmured softly.
Angel nodded. "That's right. The meaning represented by this corner of the rune is flame."
Following the several strokes Angel had