The Runic Artist

Nate sat outside his Skill Development classroom. He had a couple of hours till his next class and it had been impressed upon him by his fellow Guildies that given the attack on his room and the lack of reaction from the University staff, that he shouldn’t be wandering the grounds alone. So instead he got to sit and watch the after-class discussions of a few students while he waited for Null. It didn’t seem like Null was going to be done any time soon as he chatted with the merchant's daughter they’d met near their dormitory. It took him a second to remember her name. Daphne.

While they chatted he pulled up his Status to look over his Skill improvements he’d made in the first week of Classes.

Empowered Amplified Magic 22 > 24

Empowered Runic Artistry 33 > 34

Runic Creation 35 > 36

Imbue Intent 37 > 38

Awareness of the Runic Artist 36 > 38

Runic Knowledge - Concepts 35 > 38

Conceptual Material 30 > 31

True Teleportation 27 > 28

Stats

Physical

Mental

Magic

Strength

12

Intellect

285

Magic Power

140 (26)

Dexterity

78

Charisma

17 (3)

Magic Control

53

Agility

23 (10)

Creativity

143

Channelling Speed

69

Endurance

60 (3)

Willpower

32

Mana Reserve

171

Constitution

30

Perception

167

Mana Absorption

69

Classes

Primary Class - Level 20 (40)

Secondary Class - Level 1

Tertiary Class

Wandering Runic Artist (M)

Wandering Realmwalker (L)

…

Skills

Runic Knowledge - Concepts (L) Lvl 38 - (+43% Intellect)

Conceptual Material (M) Lvl 31 - (-15.5% Mana Cost, -40% Time Required)

Awareness of the Runic Artist (M) Lvl 38 - (+84% Perception, +18% Creativity, 19m Sphere of Awareness)

Imbue Intent (L) Lvl 38 - (35 Intents, 17 Imbued Intents, +19% Intellect)

Runic Creation (L) Lvl 36 - (-70% Mana Cost, +15% Creativity)

Empowered Runic Artistry (L) Lvl 34 - (-43% Mana Cost, +95 Magic Power for Runic Arrays)

True Teleportation (M) Lvl 28 - (280 metres teleport range, +18% Magic Control)

Empowered Amplified Magic (L) Lvl 24 - (+38% Magic Stats)

Conceptual Automation (L) Lvl 11 - (-8% Mana Cost, +57% Power, +28% Duration)

Metal Shaping (R) Lvl 8 - (-18% Mana Cost)

Spells

Minor Spatial Lock (R)

Status Effects

Divine Translation Spell (Permanent)

Familiar Contract (Permanent)

Illusory Class Core Veil Soul Engraving (Illusory Class Core: Runecaster (E) (39) / Space Mage (R) (1) ) (Temporary, Legendary)

Obfuscated Mana Soul Engraving (+40% Bonus to Hiding Mana Signature) (Temporary, Legendary)

System Contract - Luc Crozier & Evindal Ravalynn (Temporary)

He was happy with his progress and some of his Skills were finally catching up to his level after it jumped ahead during his kidnapping. The memory caused a shiver to flicker up his spine.

The Fourth Hell had been horrific. The worst part, besides almost dying to the unfair attempt on his life, had been the constant barrage of negative emotions, eroding his sense of self and worth. Surprisingly, when he woke up at night from the bad dreams, it was always the emotions he remembered. Not the desperation of the battle. Not the wounds he took. Not the viciousness of his enemies. It was the emotions given off by everything in the Fourth Hell and how they enhanced his own. Jealousy, anger, greed, despair, sorrow…they all twined together in his dreams. They were getting better though. The dreams that is. He doubted anything could fix the Fourth Hell.

As for his Skills, there were three that were only three levels away from their second evolution and one that was five levels away. Imbue Intent, Awareness of the Runic Artist and Runic Knowledge - Concepts were all at level thirty-eight while Runic Creation was at thirty-six. He was already pushing each of the Skills and had been since his return from the Fourth Hell. His plans for each were quite simple, and the Skill Development induction had reinforced his ideas.

Awareness of the Runic Artist was arguably his greatest skill. Perception was his third highest stat and the abilities provided by the Skill had effectively been the cornerstone of much of his development. It had let him save Kiri, find Dungeons, defeat Xalvoloth and uncover the Unseen. It was also the first and only Mythic Skill he had received, his others gained through Skill evolutions. But, as amazing as the Skill was, it had lost something when he’d synergised it with his Spatial Awareness Skill.

While the distance it was able to cover continued to grow, it could be years before it could cover a hundred metres. Something his Spatial Awareness had covered with ease. At first, he’d considered whether he could push it to grow the distance, but he immediately recognised the problem with that approach. When he compared his sphere of awareness with, say, Luc’s metal sense, the biggest differing factor was in fidelity. He could sense muscle contractions, mana movements, dust in the air. The reason for that was because of the higher mana cost.

Luc likely could have developed his own skill in the same direction, but why expend the extra mana when all he really needed it for was to sense his needles. His mentor had already needed a mana gathering array so he could satisfy his high mana needs.

If Nate expanded the area his Skill covered, the mana cost was likely to balloon with it. Alternatively, he could’ve tried to reduce the mana cost slightly. There were a couple of ways to do that. Either focus on having the Skill make use of ambient mana, converting it to being part of his Skill using his own mana signature, or alternatively, lowering the fidelity slightly to save on cost. Finally, making the Skill more efficient would’ve been an option to also bring down the mana cost, though he suspected the result wouldn’t have been as impressive. All of this would require two evolutions though. The first to save on cost, the second to increase the range. That meant he wouldn’t see the results till the Skill was level sixty and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed to solve the problem. It really depended on how much extra distance the evolution added.

There was another option he had come up with though, and the idea had come from meeting with his mentor in the Den. He’d called the item he was using an anti-scrying item. That gave Nate an idea. What if he pushed for a second sphere of awareness that wasn’t centred on him, but instead, was mobile. A sphere he could move, just as he moved his own mana. It would effectively function as a form of scrying, depending on how far away from himself he could send it. He could scout without ever having to physically get close to his targets. More importantly, he could even use it to break veils without being anywhere near his target. An information gathering Skill on steroids. That was the path he was going with for Awareness of the Runic Artist, and he’d already had some minor successes. He was confident by the time the Skill evolved in the next couple of weeks he’d be ready.

The second Skill that was closing in on evolution was his Runic Knowledge - Concepts. The solution to this one, he thought, was obvious. The Skill already helped him identify Concepts and Subconcepts. It even whispered at him when he was missing something when a strong Concept was at play nearby. But the next step was to force it down a path that he’d only managed once before. Uncovering the Sigils for higher Tiers. So far in his journey as a Runecrafter, he’d been using the Sigils revealed by others. Sigils taken from Arikanvil’s space station, from the constructs in his first Dungeon, from the goblins in the Firth Forest, the Guild libraries in Helmfirth and the Capital, even other Enchanters. That had worked so far, and would likely continue to work for a time. But that path had an end in sight. The Sigils he’d taken from Arikanvil had been Master tier. The equivalent of Legendary. Despite having a Mythic Runecrafting Class, he didn’t have a single Mythic equivalent Sigil. Let alone anything higher.

Eventually, he was going to run into a wall unless he could start exploring the unknown, developing his own Sigils. It likely meant he needed to have a greater understanding of the Concepts he chose to develop, based on what he learned in his Concepts and Embodiment lecture, but that was fine. Greater complexity just meant it would take longer, not that it was impossible. That was why he was focusing Runic Knowledge - Concepts on being useful in improving the tiers of his Sigils. He’d done it once. He would do it again. And again. And again. Until it evolved in that direction.

Then there was Imbue Intent and in many ways it was the Skill he was most excited about, assuming he could pull it off. Imbue Intent had been used to redefine how his runes worked. It was, honestly, the only reason he could fight in combat with any reasonable level of skill. Without his Intent’s ability to let him dynamically alter his runes, how they functioned, and in some cases, even what Subconcept they aligned too, he would’ve been defeated over and over again. It had let him shape his barriers since that first Dungeon. Had let him create his Shadow Prison that had sent Xalvoloth back to the Fourth Hell, then allowed him to realign his Shadow Prison from the Subconcept of Preservation to Devouring while kidnapped in the Fourth Hell. It had saved his life, both of those times, when it had let him move the positions of his Skills on his Class Core, giving rise to some incredibly powerful synergistic Skills.

But there was a limitation he’d encountered, first in the Guild Tournament, and then again in the Fourth Hells. Something he hadn’t previously considered. How many runes could he maintain at once? He thought he’d seen some Mages, who likely had significantly worse mental Stats than he did, maintain upwards of four spells at once. He’d barely managed three runes at once in the Tournament and while he could match that now, it still wasn’t comfortable. Four was likely his new maximum, but he wouldn’t be able to maintain that many for long. Maybe it wouldn’t be an issue if his Channelling Speed was better, but it wasn’t. That would be handled slightly due to receiving two per level in the Stat while levelling his Wandering Realmwalker Secondary Class. However, without investing Free Stats or Orbs into the Stat, it was unlikely to ever make him competitive enough that he could spin up and launch runes fast enough to make up for the limitation on the number of runes he could maintain at once.

That was where his idea came in. Imbue Intent was ultimately taking his desires, his thoughts, his feelings and repeating them, over and over again. With the way his Intents were currently used, his regular Intents were what he used to alter runes on the fly while his Imbued Intents were what he used on crafted materials so that they maintained an effect even if others used the runecrafted items. However, he’d never tried imbuing his intent directly into the mana itself. His runes that were used in battle were often made up of mana themselves. Mana for the scaffold, mana to power them and Intent to guide them. But what if he could also use his imbued intent to maintain the runic structure and shape? To maintain the rune even after he stopped focusing on it, so long as he continued to feed it mana? That was where he was intending to push the Skill. It seemed worthwhile to him, as while he could have taken a more crafting-focused approach, he’d been considering his Path…his Embodiment. The new direction for this Skill aligned with his new goal, and that may have been the most important aspect of his choice.

Finally, there was Runic Creation. The skill that let him create his runes in the first place, or at least, create them quickly and easily. If it wasn’t for Runic Creation, every new rune he created would take hours of carving, though perhaps his new Metal Shaping skill would change that. Even so, it also let him manifest runes in the air without storing them in his robe first. It was also fast approaching the point where it only needed ambient mana to work, so it was a decently impressive Skill. That said, given the direction he wanted to take his Embodiment, he saw only one way to push the Skill to align with his Path. That Path was creating a synergy between Runic Creation and Conceptual Material.

It was obvious that materials could take on an affinity. That was driven by their molecular structure and it explained why high rarity materials were so, well, rare. Sigils got more complicated the higher the tier, so they were less likely to naturally occur in materials in the environment. Yet they still did. Epic grade manerium was a perfect example. It could be found as a Dungeon reward, but it could also be mined. But when it was dug out of the ground, the manerium wasn’t all Epic grade. They had to sort the manerium based on the different grades, but from what he’d understood in his Mana and Affinities subject, the closer the manerium was to a mana flow, the more likely it was to have a higher grade. That alone indicated that the presence of mana was influencing the structure of the metal ore. Taking it a step further, he could look at his own mana. It had a strong affinity for space. Following the logical pathway, that meant something about him, his body, or his soul, or maybe even something else, was aligning mana that he touched towards space. The source of the change was unimportant for now. But the fact that it was possible was very important. His plan was to see if he could make Runic Creation forcefully align the mana it used to an affinity of his choice. That seemed to be the best path forward for what he wanted. Of his four Skills, he felt it was also the most challenging. The couple extra levels of leeway he had before the Skill evolved would hopefully be enough, but he could admit to himself that if it failed, he would just try again and hope it would evolve in that direction once he got the skill to level sixty-one.

He was jolted out of his thoughts as Null approached, the hole within his sphere of awareness informing him of the swordsman’s position.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Nate, you know how it can be,” Null said with a confident smile.

Frick chose that moment to appear, popping out next to Nate, “He doesn’t! Get this man laid!”

Nate smacked the back of his Familiar’s head even as Null chuckled at the little Spirit’s antics.

As they walked away Nate pointedly ignored the considering stares he got from three different women in the merchants faction and one from the nobles. Apparently some of the nobility weren’t above slumming it. Maybe if he said yes to one or two of them Kiri would stop teasing him about older women. He sighed, which earned him a confused glance from Null. Who was he kidding, Kiri was never going to let that go. Well, Combat was next and he could definitely use it to work out some stress. Then tonight, it was finally time to return to his roots. It was time for the Phantom Artist to strike again.