Chapter 63

[Third Person's PoV]

2 years later:

"I finally did it!" Annabeth exclaimed, holding a golden glowing card with a picture of an owl on the back, in her hand in excitement. She got up from her desk inside the Athena Cabin and ran outside to show Lucian.

Reaching into her side, where a purple pouch resided, she ruffled through it slightly, pulling out another card. Holding the card between her fingers, she put it to her forehead and whispered, "Show me to Lucian."

The card flew from her hand and stopped in front of the Aphrodite's Cabin, a picture of an arrow appearing from the card and pointing at the door. Annabeth grabbed the card and flicked it before putting it back into her pouch. 'What's Lucian doing here?' Annabeth couldn't help but wonder.

She knocked on the door before hearing the words "Enter" being shouted from inside. As she did, she froze as soon as she stepped forward. Lucian was seen sitting cross-legged surrounded by girls in a circle, who were also cross-legged.

One of the girls held his hand as she painted his nails black. Another one was behind him braiding his hair. While he had his eyes closed as another girl was holding his face sitting on his lap as she applied black eyeliner.

"And then I was like, 'Bitch, what did I tell you, he wasn't good for you', but she didn't listen, did she?" Lucian said with a sigh. The girls around him started laughing, "You're so funny, Lucian," they giggled.

The girl that said enter noticed Annabeth standing frozen by the door. "Oh, Annabeth, what are you doing here?"

Hearing Annabeth's name, Lucian's head snapped towards the entrance and he saw Annabeth looking at him with a deadpan expression.

"LUCIAN! HOLD STILL, YOUR EYELINER IS RUINED NOW!" The girl on his lap shouted.

"Heyyyy, Annabeth," Lucian said awkwardly, ignoring the girl. Seeing Annabeth not responding, Lucian picked up the girl from his lap and softly put her down next to him.

Lucian grabbed the girl's hand and gave it a gentlemanly kiss. "I'm sorry, Allison, but we'll have to cut this party short; it looks like someone needs me."

"Awww~" They all whined while Allison pouted. "Will we be able to do this another time?" she asked, still pouting while shifting her blond hair.

Lucian just smiled towards all of them as he got up. "But of course, I had a fantastic experience with you ladies." They giggled once more before they all waved goodbye towards Lucian in a sad manner as if he was going to war and never coming back.

Annabeth just let out a sigh before shaking her head and walking away, which prompted Lucian to run after her. "Hey, wait up!"

Annabeth looked towards him and looked at his smeared makeup, half braided hair, and half-painted nails before realizing he didn't have a shirt on.

"I won't talk to you until you're decent," she declared, turning on her heel and striding away.

Lucian maintained an awkward smile as he sighed. Extending his hand, he summoned forth a book from his shadow—a grimoire he had recently completed after years of research. Adorned in red with golden accents, a golden sun graced its center, with golden skulls at each corner.

(Image)

The grimoire hovered before him, its pages flipping autonomously until they settled on a page glowing with a red-black light. A magic circle materialized beneath Lucian, cleansing him as it ascended his body. After using the recorded cleaning spell, he stowed the book back into his shadow, then utilized his shadow-equip to change into black sweatpants and a hoodie. "There, happy?" he inquired.

Annabeth nodded in approval before gesturing for him to follow her. Once they reached a fairly open field, she put some distance between them.

"Now, I want you to hit me with a spell—any spell. You could use a shadow ball if you prefer," Annabeth challenged, her gaze fixed on Lucian.

Raising an eyebrow, Lucian summoned his grimoire once more. Extending his hand, a red magic circle formed at its end. A ball of wind materialized between the circle and hurtled towards Annabeth at rapid speed. Swiftly, she retrieved the glowing gold card she had crafted and hurled it towards the windball.

As the two objects approached, the card expanded to the size of the windball and stood upright. Instead of clashing, the windball rebounded towards Lucian with double the velocity.

Lucian, caught off guard, watched as his shadow morphed into a mouth, devouring the incoming attack.

"It worked! It really worked!" Annabeth exclaimed, rushing towards Lucian and embracing him, planting a kiss on his cheeks.

Impressed, Lucian remarked, "I must admit, when you gave me that quill, I never imagined using it like this."

Annabeth blushed at the unexpected kiss, her emotions running high, before grinning at his compliment.

She reached into her purple bag once more and pulled out a red quill that looked to be on fire but wasn't hot or burning any, "I didn't either, seriously Lucian, I can't thank you enough for this birthday present"

In Annabeth's hand that red quill was previously the feather of a Phoenix, instead of trying to kill such a mythical and sacred creature just for its feather, Lucian simply captured it and plucked it out before releasing it and running away from it before it got angrier than it already was.

(Image)

Using his mother's skill 'High-speed Divine Words' and his training with Hecate, he was able to successfully enchant that feather into a magic quill.

He enchanted feather with the following enchantments,

Mana Transmute: This enchantment allows the wielder to convert their stamina into magical energy, enabling them to cast spells or perform magical feats by drawing upon their physical vitality.

Glyphscribe: Enchants the quill with the ability to inscribe magical runes or glyphs onto surfaces, enabling the user to create wards, spells, or enchantments with ease.

Whispering Quill: Allows the quill to transcribe thoughts directly onto parchment without the need for manual writing, making it an invaluable tool for recording ideas quickly or for those who struggle with conventional writing methods.

And to challenge himself and successfully create his first ever 4 enchantment item, he inscribed:

Inkwell's Bounty: This enchantment ensures that the quill never runs out of ink, continuously replenishing the supply as needed, making it ideal for extensive writing tasks.

Lucian remembered giving Annabeth the quill, one since it wasn't really that long ago, and because he remembered her crying loudly tears of joy.

For her 9th birthday, Lucian gifted her a purple pouch, which he enchanted with extra storage space, an enchant he had trouble with before but thanks to studying his shadow was able to get it just right.

For her 10th birthday, that was a month ago, Lucian decided to surprise Annabeth and play a prank on her, he gifted her plain empty cards with owl designs on the back, which ended backfiring on him.

He planned to make her upset since he 'Got' Something so useless, but instead she treated it like how she treated the previous 2 gifts, she even gave him a large happy grin when thanking him, which took him by surprise…

So all he could do was sigh and explain the real reason for the gift, those cards were made to hold her writing, which she wrote in ancient Greek, and stores them in it for later uses and have the advantage of not having to stop and write down the words.

Annabeth collected the card from the floor and showed Lucian, "See here I use the symbols in Ancient Greek meaning reflect and counter"

"And the drawback?" Lucian asked

Annabeth sighed as she explained, "If the power of the attack has more power than my writing the card would break, for it to take a much higher damage and reflect it I would need to redo the writing with more magic power, which is difficult for me to do since my stamina isn't all that high"

Lucian didn't get a chance to say anything and looked up towards the clear blue sky, a flash of lightning was then followed up by the sound of thunder hitting the ground creating a dust to fly everywhere.

Lucian simply made a swiping motion, moving all the dust out of the way revealing Thalia dusting away her clothes while carrying a spear on her shoulder.

"Do you have to make such a big entrance every time?" Lucian asked with scrowl,

"You do it all the time, so why shouldn't I" She said with a smirk, while Lucian looked at her with a deadpan expression.

"Because I'm 10 so I'm allowed to think it's cool doing it, while you're 15 and this should be considered childish."

Thalia scoffed, "You're just jealous your entrance are mostly quiet and undetectable unlike mine, which are flashy just screams 'Power'"

"Woah Thalia you're so cool, here you are arguing with a 10 year old about who's entrances are better, you are definitely someone I look up to and want to be someday" Lucian retorted in a monotone voice.

"What's going on?" Annabeth intervened, stopping their usual bantering.

"Chiron is calling us, he said he had something important to tell us, he didn't say what though so I don't know"

"Let's get going I guess" Lucian said waving his hand cleaning up the mess Thalia made as he followed behind her as she led them to Chiron.