The Runic Artist

Nate leaned back in his chair, finally finished his runecrafting session. The moon shone through the window, its soft light mixing with the constant luminance from the Light rune placed by the coffee table. He’d worked in a fever to design runes for eight different Sigils and the notifications blinked in the corner of his vision, waiting for him to review them. They had been ignored until now, as they were just distractions from his actual work.

Congratulations on creating a Powerful Flow Rune (Master Quality).

Congratulations on creating a Powerful Mana Rune (Master Quality).

Congratulations on creating a Powerful Exclusion Rune (Master Quality).

Congratulations on creating a Powerful Release Rune (Master Quality).

Congratulations on creating a Powerful Projectile Rune (Journeyman Quality).

Congratulations on creating a Powerful Gathering Rune (Journeyman Quality).

Congratulations on creating a Powerful Life Rune (Journeyman Quality).

Congratulations on creating a Powerful Drain Rune (Journeyman Quality).

Your achievements have been recorded.

The quality was divided up based on the quality of the key Sigil involved. Flow, Mana, Exclusion and Release were all Master quality Sigils he’d memorised from the mana gems gifted to him by Arikanvil. Life and Drain he’d garnered from the goblins staff, with Projectile coming from the simpler constructs in the Dungeon he’d found himself in. Finally Gather had come from the Guild’s library here in Helmfirth.

As the quality of those Sigils was lower, so were their runes. He was actually decently pleased with the results since a few of those Sigils had only been Apprentice quality but he’d manage to raise them to Journeyman by incorporating the Power Sigil. Each rune was unique in the geometric design and the resulting mana distribution pattern, but that wasn’t to say they were incredibly different. The differences arose based on the number of sigils used and their placement. It came down to the Power Sigil. Too much and it seemed that the Concept of ‘Power’ started to override the paired Sigil, instead of enhancing it. That wasn’t the only notification however, as he looked with a smile at his Skill improvements.

Runic Creation 16 > 19

Enhanced Magic Power 5 > 8

Eyes of the Runic Artist 19 > 21

Between his mad runecrafting session and his training with Luc earlier, he’d finally pushed Eyes of the Runic Artist over the threshold for evolution. He quickly started reading through his options.

Eyes of the Runic Artist (M) is ready to evolve.

Evolutions Available! Please Select 1.

Skill Evolution Options:

Eyes of the Runic Artist (M)

The Eyes of the Runic Artist reveal the truth of reality. The signature skill of the Wandering Runic Artist, this Skill lets them peer into the underpinnings of the world we live in, be it runes, sigils, spellforms or concepts. The user will receive advanced information about whatever they focus on, parting the veil and revealing the truth. Information revealed grows with Skill Level, Perception & Intellect. Enhances Perception by 10%. Perception bonus increases by 2% per Skill Level. Additionally increases Intellect by 18%.

Eyes of the Runic Artist (M)

The Eyes of the Runic Artist reveal the truth of reality. The signature skill of the Wandering Runic Artist, this Skill lets them peer into the underpinnings of the world we live in, be it runes, sigils, spellforms or concepts. The user will receive advanced information about whatever they focus on, parting the veil and revealing the truth. Information revealed grows with Skill Level, Perception & Intellect. Enhances Perception by 10%. Perception bonus increases by 2% per Skill Level. Additionally increases Creativity by 18%.

Walk your Path. Reach your Goal. Become One with Mana.

Frick floated down next to him as he sighed unhappily. The evolutions were alright. An eighteen percent bonus to his Intellect or Creativity Stats was nothing to sneeze at. But it felt like a bit of a letdown given how awesome some of his other evolutions had been. He had heard the saying hindsight was twenty twenty, which was a nice way of saying it was easy to see what the right choice would’ve been after the fact. He didn’t completely agree with that sentiment but it did hold some value, as it was easy for him to see the mistake he had made.

For the other skills he had evolved, he had - for the most part - pushed them in particular directions. Improve Material becoming Conceptual Material was completely driven by him and his experimentation and ultimately forcing the initial skill to apply a Concept to a material as part of its ‘improvement’. Spatial Sensitivity becoming Spatial Awareness had come about due to the way he had used the skill to sense minor spatial changes at close range, as well as trying to force it to recognise objects moving through space nearby. The latter was not strictly speaking, a spatial alteration. It had pushed the limits of the skill, and as he had been told many times, The System had recognised his attempts and given an option to alter the skill in that direction.

But when it came to Eyes of the Runic Artist, what had he done? Nothing to push the limits of the skill, that was for sure. He hadn’t focused it down a particular path. Hadn’t pushed its limits. He’d used the skill as intended, based on the description. That wasn’t to say the skill wasn’t amazing. He could see that the skill was basically a cheat. A Mythic Tier cheat. He was barely level twenty two and yet he could see mana, soul energy and whatever the fuck that red energy the demon had been using was.

He could, with enough time and focus, recognise inherent Concepts in things, even if he couldn’t tell what the sigils they represented were. His eyes could see further and in more detail. All of those things were amazing on their own. Together, well, as he’d said, they were an absolute cheat. But deep down, he knew he could’ve tried to push the Skill further. Dug deeper. His lack of ambition had come back to bite him in the ass on this one. The evolution was going to be alright, but not great.

Had this happened a few weeks ago, he probably wouldn’t have cared. But that was before he knew he wasn’t as rich as he had thought he was. He’d thought he was already on the way to a life of comfort, where all he would need to worry about was making art. A world where Kiri was so far behind him that keeping pace with her, with his higher rarity classes, would’ve been easy. Then everything had been turned on its head. His best friend almost died, and when she came back she was a blank slate, ready to match him step for step, tier for tier. He discovered his so-called riches were a drop in the bucket. The luxury he experienced now, out here in the distant countryside, was about as good as it was going to get if he wanted his wealth to last long-term, because it wouldn’t cut it in one of the Cities of Etrua, let alone the Capital.

He’d gotten a taste of the good life. The life he’d always dreamed of back on Earth. Good food, comfortable lodging, enough money to make whatever art he felt like, whenever he felt like it. It was everything he’d ever wanted and it felt like it was slipping through his fingers. That had ignited his ambition. He wasn’t an idiot. He could see multiple paths forward that involved making use of his skill to generate wealth.

His Conceptual Material skill on its own could achieve that. Supplying other crafters with Legendary tier materials with inherent affinities was an easy path to wealth. It was also incredibly risky and dangerous. If anyone was to learn how the materials were sourced, he could very quickly find himself locked in a room and supplied mana to make materials. A slave in every sense of the word. He could even see now that telling Aisling and Deverell about that particular skill had been a huge risk. His nature was too trusting. He still hadn’t adapted to a new way of thinking in this new world. Might made right here. The Nobility of Etrua’s stranglehold on the populace proved that.

He had other paths to wealth, of course. Making materials was just the easiest one. He could start making equipment to sell instead. He’d effectively be acting as an Enchanter. He recalled when he’d tried to visit the Enchanter in Helmfirth and been quickly turned away at the door by the owner. It had taken him a moment to realise why. The man had seen him as competition and didn’t want him getting a glimpse of his work. When it came to Runecrafting and Enchanting, most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but that didn’t mean no one could.

He ran a similar risk of becoming a slave if he got into the equipment crafting business. Aisling has never talked much about the Crafters of the Guild, but considering how much his work had seemed to impress her, he guessed it wasn’t a focus. Maybe that meant there were Crafter Guilds out there he would be competing with, or possibly even Nobility owned interests. The Adventurer’s Guild might be able to shield him from reprisals if he started developing in that direction, but who knew if they had standing agreements with such entities, if they even existed. He just didn’t know what he didn’t know.

Looking back at the two evolution options for his Eyes of the Runic Artist skill, he weighed them against each other out loud. After all, he wanted Frick’s input.

“Going with Intellect would be a powerful boost to my Imbue Intent, but as a stat, it’s not really struggling and I already have two Skills that are boosting Intellect. On the other hand, Creativity has nothing boosting it currently and given my plan for using Runic Artistry in combat, adding more rune slots to my robe seems like it’s going to vastly improve my capabilities,” he said, pausing for a moment before nodding to himself. “I’m leaning towards the Creativity boost personally. It’ll give me one extra slot now but it’ll really enhance the acquisition of new rune slots if I can get a few levels in Dungeons on the way to Capital.”

“I think you’re right, Boss. There’s something to be said for specialising, but Intellect isn’t like Magic Power where hyper specialisation might let you just blast through the defences of others,” Frick replied, blue ears flopping as his Familiar grinned with sharp teeth. “As much as it would be goblin as fuck to see you just lay waste to whatever you encounter, you seem to be dead set on making yourself as adaptable as possible. Creativity it is then, Boss?”

“Creativity it is,” agreed Nate, immediately making his selection.

A moment later a seventh star bloomed on his robe in silver threading. As enchantments went, he had to admit that one was quite amazing. He had no idea how the enchantment on his robe linked to his Creativity stat, but he was looking forward to learning how to replicate it in the future. That brought him back to reality. The future. He was on the cusp of evolving Runic Creation, and just like Eyes of the Runic Artist he had not pushed the skill. It was too late to try now. He was so close to evolving it that any attempts to alter the skill would likely result in him evolving it.

He considered trying anyway but just sensing the skill in his Class Core told him that it would be futile. Even making one more rune with the skill would likely push it to level twenty. That meant he would have to settle for another decent, but not particularly exciting evolution. He supposed at least he would get another chance to improve both the two Skills by level forty. That gave him a while to consider the directions he wanted to push each of them.

Feeling sorry for himself wasn’t going to get him anywhere so he moved on to his next task, picking out which runes to include in his robe. He had seven slots to fill, which until earlier today had felt like plenty. Now, knowing what a fool he’d been about using his Skills to their fullest, he could see it was nothing. Even twenty slots wouldn’t have felt like enough. Two slots were earmarked for his Barrier runes as always. He’d been mistaken for a Barrier Mage before and he had no intention of changing that. Barriers were just too useful, for both defence and offence. He could corral his opponents, trip them, block attacks, redirect them. If he’d been forced into being a Mage, he was pretty sure he would’ve wanted to be a Barrier Mage. That took him from seven slots down to five though, so he needed to make those five count.

The best way to make them count was to look for synergies. If he could choose five runes that all had interactions, especially if they had stacking interactions, that meant that he could use three or more of the runes in a single array, then that would improve his diversity of attacks. The next thing to consider was his opponent. Obviously he had no hope of beating Luc, but that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to try and push Luc to do more than casually sit on his ass and read a book while the older Adventurer put Nate through his paces. That meant the Life rune was out. Life and Drain runes would be a necessity for Dungeons as it was Nate’s only real way of healing himself, but against Luc it would be pointless as the man could simply shrug off any such attacks.

Flow and Gather were high on his list of choices. Gather was obvious as it was a way to empower his attacks. He could force something, anything hopefully, to gather and build on itself before releasing it. He was hoping that with his Imbue Intent applied, it would work kind of like condensing the attack, building it on itself to empower it. Flow on the other hand was about improving his control over the movement of the elements. Making a Barrier that could shift and flow, or the Earth, or even Fire. With Flow he suspected it would be easier to rapidly change the speed of his runes as well, making them flow fast or slow which would be a way of making his attacks more unpredictable.

That still left him with three slots. He was leaning towards three elements that he hoped would be capable of interacting. Earth, Water and Fire were his choices. He had considered adding in Wind, and perhaps he would later, if only because he thought it would make it easier to convert Water into Ice if he mixed the two. The reason he’d chosen those three though, was because of the various ways he suspected he could mix them together. Earth and Fire had some obvious outcomes and even if he couldn’t turn the two into magma by linking them in a runic array, he figured hot earth was dangerous all on its own.

Water and Fire were so he could practise using mist for concealment. The steam should be enough to make it harder for people to see and without a detection skill, like his Eyes of the Runic Artist, any opponent should be at a disadvantage. Finally, he wondered if by mixing the three together he could create something along the lines of fired clay. That was a stretch, but he sure as fuck was going to try. With his selections made he headed for bed. Tomorrow he was going to impress Luc, but more importantly, he was going to push himself. He may not already have the wealth to create the future for himself that he wanted, but he had the tools to achieve it, as long as he had the ambition to pursue it.