Silver Crown City, Elven Merchant Association apprentice dormitories.
Elonore was bent over her desk. Before her lay a palm-sized plate of refined steel and a guide needle as thin as a hair.
Her hand was trembling, but the instant the needle tip touched the steel plate, the tremor vanished.
Aether flowed from her fingertips, slowly entering the metal along the guide needle and leaving a fine silver line across the refined steel plate.
The line ran steadily, its turns smooth and rounded, without a single leak.
This was the basic framework of a first-tier defensive circuit. Ordinary apprentices needed three months of practice to reach this standard.
Elonore had taken five days.
Of course, she had cheated.
In her previous life, she had spent two years as Su Li's assistant, then countless days and nights in Talia's workshop. She could draw every node and every line of a first-tier circuit with her eyes closed.
But she could not draw too well.
Being too good would arouse suspicion.
Elonore set down the guide needle, looked at the circuit on the steel plate, hesitated for a moment, then deliberately added the slightest deviation at the final turn.
Not perfect, but good enough.
This was the standard she had set for herself: improve a little every day, but not so much that it became outrageous.
Footsteps sounded outside, and Violet's voice slipped through the door.
"Elonore! Have you handed in today's assignment?"
"I have, Master. I left it on your desk."
The door opened, and Violet walked in with a refined steel plate in hand.
It was the very one Elonore had handed in that morning.
"Come take a look at this." Violet held the steel plate up by the window, letting sunlight fall across it. "How did you make the path of