Talia said nothing. She reached out and pushed the cut in her skirt armor toward Violet.
"Look at this."
Violet lowered her head. "How did your skirt armor get torn? Didn't you spend half a year weaving this by hand?"
"It was pierced by a piece of scrap iron with no runes on it."
The workshop fell silent for a couple of beats. Violet blinked. "What did you say?"
"A short knife made of scrap iron. There wasn't even a single rune circuit on the blade, and the edge was still stained with apple juice." Talia's voice was utterly calm. "It pierced through my three layers of ancient vine armor and two high-tier defensive runes like it was cutting through rotten wood."
Violet stood there with her mouth open, looking from the cut in the skirt armor to Talia.
"You're bullshitting, right?"
"I thought so too. But it happened."
The silver-haired girl curiously leaned over and sneakily peeked at the incredibly clean cut, then drew back with astonishing speed.
Violet picked up the skirt armor and inspected it inside and out. The more she looked, the more something felt wrong.
"This cross-section... the concentration of aether residue is absurdly high. What kind of person could cram this much aether into a piece of scrap iron? What level of affinity would that take? I couldn't do it even if I forged iron for a hundred and fifty years..."
"I couldn't do it in three hundred." Talia rose to her feet.
She walked to the window and stared stubbornly in the direction of Ginkgo Alley.
"But if this person learns runes—"
She turned around and looked at her sister and the girl who had been blown sky-high by the praise.
"Your record of ninety-three percent probably wouldn't even qualify you to shine