CH371 Exchanging Wedding Trinkets

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Merlin stepped forward once the vows had been exchanged.

"Exchange trinkets," he announced solemnly.

Alex reached behind him and lifted the small jewellery chest he'd brought along. From it, he drew out three smaller boxes and placed them reverently before the three women.

When they opened the boxes, their eyes brightened with matching smiles —surprise, delight, and affection flickering all at once.

With an approving nod from Drake, Merlin, and Ceasar, Alex shifted forward on his knees and began the exchange himself.

He started with Udara.

For her, Alex presented a pair of tactical fingerless gloves — forged from Earth Drake leather and reinforced with fine metallic inlays and layered runic arrays. The gloves were designed not just for protection, but to amplify a fighter's internal energy flow and striking power.

They were peak Tier III artefacts, carefully crafted so Udara could wield them throughout her current rank and well to Sainthood. With the right rare materials, the gloves could later be refined into Tier IV quality, pushing their usage further through the Saint rank.

Alex had wanted to push them to this rank from the onset — to the level of a true Saint Artefact — but the Forgesmith had advised him against it; such power would overwhelm Udara unless she reached the higher stages of the Elite rank.

He slipped the gloves onto her hands himself.

They moulded perfectly to her grip.

Udara clenched and opened her fists experimentally, feeling the subtle thrum of power coursing through the runes.

But the true gift wasn't the gloves themselves — it was the small gemstone set into the back of her left palm, glowing faintly with inner light.

Next, Alex turned to Eleanor.

For her, he had crafted a choker necklace, also made from supple Earth Drake leather. At its centre gleamed a SunHeart Bloom-shaped gemstone, identical in essence to the one embedded in Udara's glove.

As Alex fastened the choker around her neck, a playful smile tugged at his lips.

The design wasn't typical of Eleanor's dignified style, instead it was her Navia Almion persona that it complimented perfectly.

That said, the piece added a subtle fragility to her poise, making the Flower of the Empire shine even brighter — an effect Alex had no doubt intended.

Eleanor, aware of his teasing smirk and the knowing glint in his eyes, barely restrained the urge to pinch him then and there. She settled instead for a composed smile, saving her vengeance for later.

The artefact was also a peak Tier III piece that would see Eleanor through both the Elite and Great Healer ranks. But just like Udara's gloves, the choker was merely a vessel—a disguise for Alex's true gift, the gemstone it bore.

Getting a SunHeart Bloom-shaped gem was no easy feat, and that alone spoke volumes about the effort Alex had put into acquiring what seemed like a simple trinket.

The artefact itself enhanced Eleanor's stamina and mana recovery—two traits indispensable for any healer, whether mage or warlock-type.

Finally, Alex came before Zora.

For his Empress, nothing seemed more fitting than a phoenix crown hairpin. Unlike the other two gifts, this piece was not made from the Earth Drake materials harvested in Dankrot Forest, but from a rare metal called Cryophyre.

Cryophyre was a metal linked to phoenixes in Pangean mythology—said to form at the exact place where a phoenix perished in extreme cold and was reborn through frostfire instead of typical flame.

The legend reminded Alex of Zora's Ice Phoenix bloodline, and so he used every means at his disposal to acquire it.

The metal wasn't particularly expensive, but it was exceedingly rare. It was only ever sought on demand, since it was considered impractical to mine—its properties could easily be substituted with more abundant metals.

However, Cryophyre possessed one unique characteristic that kept it relevant: it was a stabiliser and amplifier of phoenix bloodlines. Hence the myth surrounding it.

Of course, Alex wasn't hoping to amplify Zora's bloodline—the Ice Empress's bloodline was already perhaps the purest possible without her turning into a true phoenix.

What he desired instead was its stabilising property. If it could help Zora's body maintain balance a little longer in her human form, it might buy him precious time to find a permanent solution to her bloodline issue—and the looming threat of her death that came with it.

He had the Cryophyre forged into a phoenix crown hairpin set by a Master Jeweller.

It wasn't that Alex didn't want to hire a Grandmaster; rather, no Grandmaster would accept such a commission due to the nature of the material.

It was simply overkill for one of their calibre to handle Cryophyre—the metal's properties were too limited, and whether a Master or a Grandmaster worked it, the end result would remain the same.

Alex carefully gathered Zora's long, icy-blue hair into a bun and secured it with the phoenix hairpin. Then, with a steady hand, he completed her look by placing the phoenix crown atop her head and locking it in place.

The ornate headpiece transformed her entirely—making her appear every bit the regal figure Alex saw in his mind, a true Ice Empress.

Just like the other two, Zora's phoenix crown and hairpin bore a familiar gem.

Once he had placed the crown, Alex sent a silent command through his Beta Bracer to OmniRune.

"Sub-Admin identified. Limited access granted."

The calm, mechanical voice echoed directly in the minds of the three women.

Their eyes widened, shock evident on their faces—especially Zora's, who understood better than most Alex's unique path.

Alex hadn't just given them wedding trinkets. He had given them access to his greatest creation—OmniRune.

He had spent some time experimenting and searching for ways to share aspects of his path with others, eventually discovering a method that worked—albeit with limitations.

The gemstones embedded in the jewellery were not ordinary gems. They were crystallised constructs formed through energy compression using a unique runic access formation, similar to the process behind the Coinage Moonstone, which had been born from an Interspatial Runic Formation.

This particular formation served as a mental access key, theoretically allowing the three women to interact with OmniRune the same way Alex did—directly, through thought.

Unfortunately, the results had fallen short of his hopes.

According to his tests, the gemstones granted the women master control accounts—akin to sub-admin privileges. These accounts allowed them to use OmniRune's capabilities through any physical construct connected to it, but not directly through mental commands as Alex could.

In other words, they couldn't communicate with OmniRune telepathically, but could still fully operate its functions through linked Rune-Tech devices.

For example, using a Rune Phone, they could request a hack on a specific Rune Phone ID; or through a Rune-Net Server portal, they could pull data from the Rune-Net—the vast interconnected database containing all knowledge uploaded to Arcane Library crystals across the continent.

Basically, functions not available to anyone other Alex, OmniRune's Admin.

The only catch was simple yet significant: they needed to know what functions OmniRune was capable of before they could use them.

**(21/70)**

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