strictlysupreme Chapter 30 The Spark
Chapter 30 The Spark
When Arthur returned to Camelot from the Trials, it was nearly dusk.
He passed through the city gate and the courtyard. Kai waved to him from afar and shouted something, but it was carried away by the evening breeze.
Gawain leaned against the weapon rack, wiping the Sun Sword. The blade reflected a warm golden hue in the setting sun.
Tristan sat by the well, his harp resting on his lap, his fingertips plucking a string of languid notes, as if greeting the approaching night.
Bedwell stood at the entrance to the hall, a roll of parchment tucked under his silver prosthetic arm, head bowed as he checked something.
Lancelot stood alone in the corner of the training ground, slashing at the air with his sword, each strike as fast as lightning, yet as still as a lake.
Business as usual.
But Arthur knew that some things had changed.
His hands were empty, with the sword in the stone and the sword in the lake hanging at his waist, the warmth of their hilts against his hip bones, one on the left and one on the right, one cold and one warm.
The Dragon Power River quietly spread deep within his bones, and with each heartbeat, the power of the two holy swords was simultaneously pumped into his entire body.
From the heart to the fingertips, from the fingertips to the hilt, and from the hilt back to the heart.
A complete cycle that belongs to him.
But that cycle is undergoing some subtle change.
The countless erosions in the trial grounds had already carved his Dragon Force River deep enough.
It was deep enough that the blue and white starlight of the sword in the stone and the golden radiance of the sword in the lake flowed side by side without interfering with each other.
And now, a heat he had never felt before was slowly seeping out from the bottom of the Dragon Power River.
This heat had nothing to do with the holy sword; it emanated from his own heart.
Arthur stopped and placed his hand on his chest.
The heart of the dragon's furnace is beating.
Heavy, powerful, like the pulse of the earth.
Each contraction pumped a surge of pure dragon power into the riverbed deep within his bones—a rhythm he was already accustomed to.
From the moment he was born, this dragon's heart has been beating in this way.
But at that moment, beneath that heavy and powerful rhythm, he felt another, weaker, more hidden pulse.
It's as if something deep within the heart of the furnace is awakening.
"king."
Arthur looked up and saw Bedivere standing in front of him, his silver prosthetic arm slightly raised, as if hesitating whether to touch him.
You don't look well.
"It's alright." Arthur lowered his hand from his chest. "Where's Morgan?"
"The tower, she hasn't come out all day, she didn't even have lunch."
Arthur nodded and walked toward the tower.
The lobby on the first floor was filled with an atmosphere of herbs and cold magic.
The scent was complex, a mixture of dried rosemary, crushed crystal powder, and some kind of deep purple petals he couldn't name.
And a lingering, chilling aura, belonging to Morgan himself, as cold as winter snow.
Morgan sat at the black stone table.
Her long, silvery-white hair was casually tied back with a dark blue ribbon, and a few stray strands fell beside her face, tinged with a pale gold by the candlelight.
Today she was wearing a simple black turtleneck robe with fitted cuffs for ease of work.
Three different rolls of parchment were spread out on the table.
A scroll depicting the magical ley lines of the British Isles.
A volume of annotations marked with various fairy scripts.
The third volume is an unfinished sketch of a spell, with intricate lines like intertwined vines.
To her left was a cup of tea that had gone cold, and to her right she held a quill pen, its tip hovering above the sketch, hesitant to bring it down.
She didn't look up.
"You retain the residual magic of two holy swords," she said, the quill pen finally falling, adding an arc to the sketch:
"The 'chosen' sword in the stone, the 'salvation' sword in the lake, and a third—your dragon power, but at least 30% stronger than usual. What did you do?"
Arthur sat down opposite her and told her everything that had happened in the trial grounds.
The forging of the Dragon Power River, the transformation of the circuit from a container into a river channel.
The feeling of the deep canyon carved out from the depths of the bones, and the power of the two holy swords flowing side by side through the canyon.
After listening, Morgan put down her quill, raised her head, and stared directly at Arthur with her icy blue eyes.
Give me your hand.
Arthur extended his right hand, and Morgan grasped his wrist, her cool fingertips pressing against his pulse.
Her magic seeped into his body with an extremely gentle touch.
Arthur was already familiar with Morgan's magic; unlike Meryl's, which carried the silvery light and warmth of Avalon, her magic was cold.
Unlike the deathly stillness of the Land of Shadows.
Her coldness was the coldness of the British winter fog, pervasive, penetrating, and silently seeping into every crevice.
The cold mist slowly spread along his Dragon Power River.
It flows from the wrist into the palm, from the palm into the arm, from the arm into the shoulder, from the shoulder into the spine, and then down the spine to the bottom of the Dragon Power River.
Then, she touched the heat.
Morgan's fingertips trembled violently.
"What is this?" Her voice remained calm, but Arthur could hear the shock beneath the calm.
"I don't know," Arthur said. "It started after we came back from the training grounds, like something deep inside the furnace...waking up."
Morgan released his wrist but didn't speak immediately. She stood up and walked to the bookshelf.
Her fingers slid along the spines of the books, pulling out a thick classic with a worn cover.
She turned to a certain page and laid the book open in front of Arthur.
An anatomical diagram was drawn on the yellowed parchment: a cross-section of a heart.
The drawing style is typical of British fairy magic:
Instead of pursuing anatomical precision, the design uses flowing, vine-like lines to outline the "magical form" of the heart.
The atria, ventricles, and blood vessels were all drawn in the shape of tree roots.
And at the deepest point of the ventricle, at the center where all the roots converge, is marked an ancient fairy script.
The shape of the characters resembled a seed encased in flames.
"The spark from the heart of the dragon's furnace," Morgan said, tapping the elven script with his cool fingertips.
"Merry modified your heart at birth, implanting the British Red Dragon factor."
But what she implanted was not the 'complete dragon power,' but the 'seed of dragon power.'
This spark has been dormant, sustaining your dragon power generation in the weakest and most basic way.
The dragon power you are using now is the residual heat that naturally leaked out of this spark while it was dormant.
The true dragon's heart has never awakened.
Her fingertips moved away from the fairy script and landed on the root-like magical lines.
"It is awakening now because the Dragon Force River you forged is too deep."
Every impact and every scouring you made in the trial grounds carved the riverbed into the very bones of your body.
The scouring force not only deepened the riverbed but also penetrated deep into the hearth.
It's like winter fog seeping into the soil along the cracks in the tree roots, eventually reaching the seeds buried deep underground.
The flame, infused with dragon power, began to awaken.