After running his tests, Hohenheim's expression grew grave. He turned to Arthur, his voice low and tinged with unease.
"Master… your blood… it carries an energy unknown to me. Yet, this power is destructive. When I attempted to use my magicraft to analyze it, the spell was immediately broken down, reverting into raw magical energy. When I tested it against the blood of beasts, a few drops of your blood annihilated an entire vial of theirs in an instant. Right now, it doesn't seem to harm your body, but I cannot say with certainty that it will remain harmless in the future. I will need to take a few more samples and continue my research. Perhaps, in time, I can devise a remedy… or at the very least, a countermeasure should it ever become dangerous."
Hohenheim's anxious tone lingered, but Arthur only gave a steady reply.
"I do not believe this energy is as dangerous as you fear. But if it puts your mind at ease, then continue your research. Even if the findings prove of no direct use to me, they may still reveal something of the divine spirits that inhabit in this world."
On the surface, Arthur didn't seem worried. In truth, though, the thought weighed on him. Two things gave him some measure of comfort. First: the system. It might be clueless about a lot of things in this world, but surely it would have warned him if this power posed a direct threat to his life. Wouldn't it?
Second: the blessings. The strange [Heir] skill had come with a blessing-type skill, and Arthur was almost certain the two were linked. The first blessing he'd gained when the town upgraded seemed to stand in direct opposition to it. If he could raise the level of that blessing, maybe it would balance things out or at least dull any harmful effects.
So he stayed with Hohenheim through the evening, watching experiment after experiment end in failure. The only sounds were the quiet fizz of dissipating spells and the steady scratch of Hohenheim's notes, his brow knit tighter with every attempt. When night finally settled over the town, Arthur told him to rest. The work could continue tomorrow.
When Arthur finally lay down, his body weary but his mind restless, a single phrase returned to him. A line from the chant of [Arcus Gaiae]: Son of First Light.
Was that the true identity of his new body? Or did it point towards something deeper? The question burned quietly in his thoughts until; at last, sleep dragged him under.
..............................…
As Arthur woke from sleep, he slipped into his usual routine before heading to his office. Even if the settlement was small, there was always paperwork to handle, whether it was reviewing reports, taking a walk through town to ask about the people's well-being, checking in with Quintus about the fields, or listening to Porucus and his men.
It might sound dull, and… well, let's be honest, it was dull. He couldn't keep gaslighting himself otherwise. Between endless documents and tedious updates, he almost preferred being stuck in some dark ruin, terrified of being eaten alive, to dealing with all this work. Still, he couldn't deny the spark of joy he felt every time the town upgraded. This place was his responsibility. He'd dragged everyone into this world, so he had to take care of them.
As the day wore on, he began to notice something odd. Almost every report was positive. Agriculture, military, hunting, all showing excellent results, So excellent, in fact, that Arthur went around double-checking them himself, half-convinced someone was lying to him. But no, everything checked out. The only department that hadn't reported back yet was the group of hunters sent to search for mineral veins.
By evening, Tiberius finally returned with news.
They had found silver and gold.
Arthur blinked. For long they'd been desperate for iron, yet somehow silver and gold showed up first? Not that he was complaining, but iron was infinitely more important right now. Still, wealth like that would certainly be useful later.
When he arrived at the site, Arthur was stunned. It wasn't a cave so much as a massive crater, its walls gleaming with raw veins of silver and gold. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming. Tiberius had said "large," but this was the kind of vein that, back in his original world, could spark wars between nations.
As Arthur weighed how to manage it, security, labor, the risk of draining resources from town, Hohenheim spoke up beside him.
"Master, I recommend posting guards here, but not assigning miners just yet," Hohenheim advised.
"Why? Is there some problem with the vein?" Arthur asked, puzzled.
He wasn't worried about theft; guards would handle that. And if loyalty meters existed in reality, everyone in his settlement would be off the charts. Even this morning's suspicion, that the glowing reports were too good to be true, had proven unfounded. Every detail checked out. Not a single lie.
It was almost unnatural. So much so that Arthur had begun to suspect the system had brainwashed them. When he told Hohenheim to check if there is a spell or something on the people of the town, the magus found nothing unusual. Everyone was simply… that loyal. Loyal to the point it was starting to creep Arthur out. They followed his orders to the letter, without question.
"Yes, the terrain may look safe, but this crater is actually quite dangerous," Hohenheim said gravely. "I would need to reinforce it with spells before miners could work here safely. And even then, the town can't afford to allocate anyone to mining right now. Every person already has a role. Pulling workers from one department could cause shortages in food, lumber, other necessities. It's too risky."
Arthur let out a small sigh. "Well… you're right. We'll have to think of another solution to the population problem."
The truth was, the town only functioned because everyone stuck to their designated role. Shifting manpower around would unravel that fragile balance. So Arthur's thoughts drifted to another possibility: a Servant. If he chose a relic and claimed it from the system, he could summon one. But that plan would have to wait until the next town upgrade. And for that, they still needed iron. The search continued.
...........................…..
For the next few weeks, nothing major happened, unless you count the increasingly colorful reports piling up on Arthur's desk, slowly eroding his sanity.
The military found gold coins in monster lairs (apparently all the beasts in the forest had suddenly become obsessed with hoarding currency from somewhere). Farmers reported turning up gold coins while tilling the soil (because clearly, gold sprouted from the ground now).
Even Hohenheim was baffled. Gold coins seemed to be manifesting everywhere, haunting Arthur like a smug ghost. What irritated him most weren't the coins themselves, but the fact he couldn't actually use them. Now there was a literal hill of gold stacked in the corner of his office. Hohenheim had caught him staring at it with dead-fish eyes more than once, enough to make the magus start worrying about his master's mental state.
Eventually, Arthur decided to comb through his skills to see if one of them was responsible. And sure enough, he found the most probable culprit:
[Golden Rule] (B)
"The measure of one's fate regarding wealth, prosperity, and fortune, those who possess this skill are naturally blessed with abundance. Treasures, resources, and opportunities flow toward them as though guided by providence."
He'd completely forgotten about this skill, the reward from a mission long ago, because its twin prize had been far flashier, and the whole golden bloodincident that followed had shoved it out of his mind.
Clearly, this was the source of the madness. And worse, it wasn't just affecting him. The entire town was under its influence: sudden surpluses in crops, more docile beasts roaming nearby, animals breeding in unusual numbers, and, of course, the endless stream of random gold, Prosperity in the strangest, most inconvenient forms, And yet, despite all that, not a single iron vein. Every time his eyes fell on the ridiculous gold mound in his office, it was as if fate itself was mocking him.
To distract himself, Arthur turned to magi training. He began learning magicraft under Hohenheim. Normally, studying theory was as dull as paperwork, but this was magicraft. Magicraft meant fireballs, ice cubes for your drink, maybe even lightning bolts if you were lucky. The thought alone made it worth enduring the lectures.
After a few days of basics, Hohenheim agreed to teach him Gandr, a simple Scandinavian curse, often given to apprentice magi as their very first spell if they weren't "special." The structure was simple, the effect modest: a stunning shot, enough to knock someone out, Nothing too flashy, but reliable.
Or it should have been.
Arthur, however, couldn't get it to work the way Hohenheim described. Every attempt felt… wrong, like something was interfering. Just as he was about to give up, he tried tweaking the spell to get rid of that uncomfortable resistance. That time, it fired.
The problem was that it didn't fire right.
Instead of a small curse bolt, his Gandr ripped through multiple trees, felling them like matchsticks. Where the spell should've downed a man, Arthur's version wouldn't leave anything of the target.
Hohenheim stared at the devastation, and then asked Arthur to try again. Arthur did, and the spell once more tore clean through a stand of trees. Examining the scorched, hollowed-out trunks, Hohenheim ran his fingers along the edges of the damage.
After a few minutes, he returned with a grim expression.
"Master, the marks are tainted with the same energy I sense in your blood. It seems to be interfering with your magicraft. Can you lower the output of your magic power, or attempt to cast a weaker version?"
Arthur gave him a helpless smile. "No. If I try to hold back, it won't fire at all. And even so, it shouldn't be this destructive, right?"
Hohenheim looked at the new clearing in the forest. "No. It should not."
Hohenheim's original Gandr did affect the tree, yes, but only left a faint mark on the bark. Compared to Arthur's version, it might as well have been a different spell entirely.
Night fell as they continued experimenting, trying to make Arthur fire with less output. No success. Just more ruined forest.
Later, lying in bed, Arthur couldn't help but wonder: maybe the EX-rank skill and that Noble Phantasm had drained all his luck, and now this absurd situation was the price he was paying. Still, he resolved to keep learning. If nothing else, perhaps Hohenheim could teach him something that didn't accidentally level half a forest.
................................
Days passed. Arthur studied under Hohenheim, and things only grew more bizarre.
Reinforcement? Apparently he meant "explosion."
Suggestion? Ah yes, "brain soupification." (No humans harmed, just a few very bewildered beasts in the forest.)
And that harmless attempt to make ice cubes for his drink? It resulted in the revolutionary new spell: Frozen Office. The maids were still complaining about the cleanup.
At this point, Arthur was certain fate was mocking him. Every spell he touched veered straight into destruction. So he threw himself harder into the iron search, pushing Hohenheim to craft mystic codes, widening scout ranges, anything to focus on something else.
It didn't help. The spells remained broken, the gold coins kept multiplying, and one night while heading into the forest to train, he fell into a hole… filled with gold coins.
Why was there a random hole full of coins? He had no idea. At this point, it felt personal.
Three weeks later, the system prompt arrived:
New skill gained: [The Fool's Delight] (C)
"What is life without a joke? What is sanity without a crack? Laughter is a coin that never loses value, so spend it freely!"
(Settlers gain high morale and resist fear or despair. Strange events pop up at random, some blessings, some nuisances.)
Arthur scowled. 'Great. Another blessing skill, so was this behind everything? Or just a cruel coincidence? If it's a divine spirit pulling the strings, go to hell! I don't care who you are. Just stop!'
It had been two months. Two months of this nonsense! Despite mystic codes, expanded searches, and sleepless nights, still no trace of iron. Where in the world did the enemy camp even get theirs?
And the "random events" weren't stopping, they were escalating!
The coin-filled hole, Birds dropping gold on his head. Gold raining from the sky whenever he stepped out of the mansion. He even tried jumping out a window to avoid it, only for a massive fake gold chunk to flatten him instead.
The town wasn't spared either. A blue calf, red chicks, a green sheep, apparently livestock genetics had decided to experiment. Tools vanished from workshops and reappeared in people's beds. Soldiers arrested the unlucky homeowners, only for the tools to later show up on Porucus's bed. Why was there a hoe on Porucus's bed? Porucus didn't know. The next day, the tools appeared on Arthur's bed.
And then there were the dramatic entrances. Doors and windows slamming open every time he walked into a room, as though fate wanted to announce him like some tragic stage actor.
Arthur buried his face in his pillow. If fate had a sense of humor, it was a cruel one.
He could only hope tomorrow would be better.