Lu Yuan stared at the last few words for two seconds.
Deceiver.
Even the greyish-white text called him a deceiver.
But he didn't show it. Instead, he looked outside the door.
Next to the entrance of the Alchemy Workshop, the Nightwatcher on duty was leaning against the wall. Seeing Lu Yuan look out, he gave a slight nod.
Everything was normal.
He hadn't noticed the short old man standing at Lu Yuan's feet at all.
‘He can't see him.’
Lu Yuan withdrew his gaze from the Nightwatcher and looked back at the old man.
A Dwarf.
Were there other races in this world?
“Stop staring. That lot out there can't see me,” the old man grumbled in dissatisfaction. “If you don't let me in soon, this old man is going to get angry.”
Lu Yuan nodded back to the Nightwatcher and then stepped aside to leave a gap.
The old man squeezed through the gap.
Lu Yuan closed the door.
The Dwarf old man had already found a chair on the first floor and climbed up to sit comfortably. His two short legs dangled, still a good distance from the floor.
He looked around the Alchemy Workshop, his nose wrinkling slightly.
Then he looked at Lu Yuan, his expression turning solemn again.
“The name is Duo Hawke.”
He patted his chest.
“You've reached the threshold for Inscription. I'm responsible for coming over to help you complete your subsequent choices.”
Lu Yuan sat down across from him, watching this existence that had suddenly appeared.
“Are you Dwarves always this generous?”
Duo Hawke chuckled, his white beard swaying.
“Smart. Of course not.”
He held up a thick, short finger.
“Once you choose the path I recommend, it will be of help to me. I'm here to help you, that's true, but it's not for nothing.”
“What kind of help?”
“We'll talk about that later,” Duo Hawke waved his hand. “And once you confirm your enrollment, your craft won't be practiced for free either. You'll be able to take some orders exclusive to us Dwarves.”
He held up two fingers.
“First, it can improve your skills. Our orders come with a quality guarantee—ten times better than fumbling around on your own.”
“Second, you can earn some currency. Later, you can buy some... things you wouldn't even imagine from me.”
Lu Yuan raised an eyebrow.
“What can I buy? Materials? Information?”
Duo Hawke gave a meaningful smile.
“Whatever you might need, I have it here.”
He pulled back his smile and said seriously,
“Alright, that's all beside the point. To business.”
Duo Hawke pulled a palm-sized stone tablet from his apron pocket. The surface of the tablet was engraved with dense, miniature inscriptions that glowed faintly in the morning light.
“The aura of Inscription on you is very shallow; you've only just entered the threshold.” He squinted as he sized Lu Yuan up. “But based on your aura, I can recommend a few directions.”
He tapped the stone tablet four times. With each tap, a symbol emerged on the tablet.
“Weapon Inscription. Large-scale Inscription. Ancient Inscription. Eerie Inscription.”
The four symbols hovered above the stone tablet, emitting a faint light.
“These four are the ones you can choose at your current stage,” Duo Hawke said. “Personally, I recommend you choose Weapon Inscription or Ancient Inscription.”
Lu Yuan looked at the four symbols.
“What's the difference between those two?”
Duo Hawke's expression became serious.
“The difference is huge.”
He jumped down from the chair and began pacing in front of Lu Yuan. His steps were short, but he walked quickly.
“There are dozens of directions within Inscription. Even for us Dwarves, we can only specialize in one at most and dabble in a few others.”
He stopped walking and looked up at Lu Yuan.
“Your situation is very rare. Your main pathway isn't Inscription; it's a Knowledge Seeker, but your talent for Inscription is enough for you to enter the threshold.”
He sniffed the air.
“To be honest, the aura on you is very 'dark.' I don't know which direction you chose, but learning some other knowledge would be beneficial for you.”
Lu Yuan didn't respond.
Duo Hawke continued.
“Weapon Inscription, as the name suggests, is the act of engraving inscriptions onto weapons. Such weapons have a decent killing effect against eerie entities.”
His gaze suddenly fell on Lu Yuan's waist.
“Don't you have one?”
Lu Yuan looked down—it was the enchanted revolver “Flame.”
“The idea is good,” Duo Hawke evaluated. “It's just a pity it's a defective product. The inscription base used for the Flame enchantment is low-end, mass-produced junk. The engraving depth is insufficient, and there are breaks in the rune connections. It will degrade after about a dozen uses.”
He curled his lip.
“You human craftsmen... Sigh, never mind.”
“Next is Ancient Inscription.” Duo Hawke's tone changed, becoming more cautious. “This is an inscription pathway exclusive to the Knowledge Pathway. In other words, one must first walk the Knowledge Pathway and then enter the threshold of Inscription to have a chance to step into it.”
“The conditions are very harsh?”
“It's not that they're harsh,” Duo Hawke shook his head. “It's that it's already been lost.”
Lu Yuan's brow twitched slightly.
“Lost?”
“Yes. Gone,” Duo Hawke spread his hands. “I don't know specifically what that stuff can do. I only know it once existed and was deeply bound to the Knowledge Pathway. But the inheritance was broken, and existing records aren't enough to piece together a complete system.”
Lu Yuan fell silent for a few seconds.
‘A direction he recommends me to choose, yet he doesn't even know what it does?’
Is this old man trying to trick me into choosing Weapon Inscription?
The greyish-white text was right.
“The things on the Bronze City,” Lu Yuan suddenly changed the subject. “What branch of Inscription do they belong to?”
Duo Hawke seemed a bit thirsty.
He flipped his hand and produced a copper cup from somewhere. Then his eyes swept across the Alchemy Workshop, locking onto a bottle of excellent Sanity potion on the table.
He jumped onto the table, unceremoniously grabbed the potion, and poured himself a cup.
Lu Yuan's eye twitched as he watched nearly half of his last remaining potion being poured away.
Duo Hawke took a sip and smacked his lips in delight.
“Good stuff... The recipe is decent.”
Only then did he answer slowly.
“The inscriptions of the Bronze City belong to Large-scale Inscription.”
He took another sip.
“But if you want to be specific, you have to add the word 'Ancient' in front. Ancient Large-scale Inscription.”
Lu Yuan stared at him.
“Is it related to the Ancient Inscription you mentioned?”
“Related, but not the same.” Duo Hawke put down the cup, his expression turning grave. “Ancient Large-scale Inscription is the most difficult of all inscription directions. It's also the least suitable for you.”
He jumped off the table, walked up to Lu Yuan, and looked up at him.
“You have your own knowledge pathway. If you choose Ancient Large-scale Inscription, your path to advancement will be blocked.”
“Why?”
“Ancient Large-scale Inscription carries a knowledge curse,” Duo Hawke's tone was uncharacteristically solemn. “Once you learn it to a certain extent, it will lock your progress in any other knowledge pathway. All experience, insights, and accumulation... everything will be forcibly directed toward Inscription itself.”
He patted his apron.
“It's not a problem for us Dwarves; we only walk the path of Inscription anyway. But for a Knowledge Seeker like you who has a main pathway...”
He didn't finish, but the meaning was clear.
Forbidden Lore would be locked.
Lu Yuan remained silent for a while.
Four directions.
Weapon Inscription—practical, improves weapons, can deal with eerie entities. But this old man is clearly steering me toward it, so he likely benefits from it.
Large-scale Inscription—too difficult, and the Ancient version has a knowledge curse that would lock Forbidden Lore. Excluded.
Ancient Inscription—lost, exclusive to the Knowledge Pathway, but no one knows what it actually does.
Eerie Inscription—the old man barely mentioned it, so he likely doesn't recommend it.
“I'll think about it.”
Lu Yuan looked at Duo Hawke.
Duo Hawke downed the potion in his cup in one go.
“No rush.”
He jumped down from the chair and patted his backside.
“You've already passed the threshold; you can choose a direction whenever you want. But make sure to find me before you choose. Don't go fumbling around blindly on your own.”
He walked to the door and glanced back at Lu Yuan.
“I'll leave the stone tablet for you. It has basic introductions to the four directions on it. Remember to return it to me once you're done reading.”
He reached into his apron pocket again and threw something onto the table.
A thumb-length copper whistle.
The craftsmanship was crude, the surface pitted and uneven, and it hung from a worn, white-ish leather cord.
“I'll leave this for you as well. If you blow it, nearby Dwarves will be able to hear it.”
Duo Hawke had already reached the door, not looking back.
“Of course, whether there are any Dwarves nearby... well, that's down to luck.”
With that, he squeezed out through the crack in the door, just as he had come in.
Lu Yuan walked to the door and looked out.
The corridor was empty.
The Nightwatcher on duty was still leaning against the wall with a calm expression, completely unaware of any abnormality.
Lu Yuan withdrew his gaze and closed the door.
Walking back to the table, he looked down at the palm-sized stone tablet.
The four symbols were still glowing faintly.
Weapon Inscription. Large-scale Inscription. Ancient Inscription. Eerie Inscription.
Lu Yuan's finger paused above the symbol for “Ancient Inscription.”
Lost.
Exclusive to the Knowledge Pathway.
No one knows what it can do.
But the copper pillar underground in the pipe network was covered in ready-made inscriptions.
‘Lost? Not necessarily.’
Lu Yuan sat at the table on the first floor, his fingers tracing the edge of the stone tablet in his pocket.
The Dwarf had just left.
The four symbols on the stone tablet still held a residual warmth, and the faint light pulsed beneath his fingertips.
The Dwarf's words couldn't be fully trusted.
The greyish-white text had put it clearly: deceiver.
But Bolen was different.
The old man was an Inscriptionist on the Nightwatchers' side, and they had gone down to the pipe network together.
On some matters, asking him was more reliable than trusting a Dwarf full of business talk.
Calculating the time, Bolen should be arriving soon, right?
He didn't have to wait long.
The door was pushed open.
Bolen walked in leaning on his cane, a leather-bound notebook tucked under his other arm.
Kail followed behind, carrying a pile of unsorted inscription tools.
The old man leaned his cane against a table leg and sat at the workbench by the window. He flipped open his notebook, his finger pausing on a page from time to time as he muttered to himself.
Kail squatted in a corner nearby, spreading the tools out one by one and beginning to wipe them down.
Lu Yuan sat across from Bolen, not taking out the stone tablet.
“Bolen, does one still need a guide for advancing in Inscription?”
His tone was casual, as if asking on a whim.
Bolen didn't even look up.
“Why ask that, Captain Lu?”
His finger flipped a page of the notebook.
Then his movement slowed.
The old man looked up, his eyes sizing Lu Yuan up.
“Have you been studying Inscription lately?”
Lu Yuan didn't answer.
Bolen stared at him for two seconds before snapping the notebook shut.
“Wait. You haven't... reached the threshold, have you?”
Rate on N.U.
