The Runic Artist

Verian Thavian Mazet, Headmaster of the Royal University of Etrua looked across at the only other person present in his office.

“I am surprised you sided with the Adventurer. Would it not have been better to bring the Earl of Dralogne’s second son closer to your side?” he asked.

“I have no use for weaklings. The adventurer had the power to win, so he deserved his victory. We are nothing without hierarchy and the only hierarchy that matters is power,” replied Prince Bordain, second-in-line for the throne.

“You’re sure this won’t alienate some of your allies?” queried Verian.

“The squabbles of children remain beneath us. They will care more that I remain true to our principles than be concerned over the wellbeing of some weak second son. The strong rule, the weak obey. Don’t ever forget that Verian,” intoned Bordain in his deep voice.

Verian nodded and chose to keep to himself his thoughts that Bordain himself was a second son, and arguably weaker than his elder brother. There were some thoughts that you just didn’t speak out loud.

“Very well. Here are the latest reports,” Verian agreed, handing over a set of written reports on their progress and finances. Starting wars was expensive, after all.

*************

Nate sat down in the lecture hall next to Null. Skill Development had so far been a mildly interesting class and the swordsman was the only other member of the Adventurer’s Guild to warrant an Advanced rating for the course. Next to Null sat Daphne. The brown-eyed brunette had become a fixture next to Null in these lectures and if Nate didn’t miss his guess, a fixture in the man's bedroom as well.

“I heard that you absolutely demolished that Earl’s son. What was his name again? Fabio?” asked Daphne, leaning forward to talk around Null.

“Fabien Lussier,” answered Nate.

“And you weren’t scared at all? I heard he was a Fire Mage. The idea of getting burned is so frightening. Just the thought sends shivers up my spine. Though I suppose Null would protect me!” she gushed, slipping an arm through the swordsmans.

Null took the over the top flirtation in stride, glancing at Nate and rolling his eyes slightly before shrugging a little and replying quietly.

“Of course. It’s what Adventurer’s do. We take the fights others don’t want. You said your Father’s business has used the Guild’s services before?” asked Null.

Nate tuned out Daphne’s answer. He was surprised that there had been so little fallout from his fight with Fabien. He’d expected some of the other nobles to seek retribution for some ‘upstart commoner’ embarrassing them. Instead it had been quiet as the grave on that front. He wasn’t sure if the cause was Prince Bordain’s involvement, a name he’d only learned after the fact, or if they were simply wary of him after seeing how easily he’d defeated the son of an Earl. He found that ultimately, he didn’t care. He was quickly realising that while he had plenty to gain from the Royal University, it was less than he had originally hoped. The same seemed true for Kiri. They were catching up in levels slowly. He’d be able to start purchasing Stat Orbs soon. For Sigils, his work with Professor Marnier coupled with his intended Skill evolution should hopefully see him developing in that area. To top it off, he had his little mana gem factory keeping him supplied with all the mana he could ever need. A quick glance at his Skill development over the last few days reminded him of how close he was to his next evolution.

Empowered Amplified Magic 25 > 27

Empowered Runic Artistry 35 > 36

Runic Creation 37 > 38

Conceptual Intent 41> 42

True Teleportation 29 > 30

Conceptual Material 31 > 32

Runic Knowledge - Concepts 38 > 39

Metal Shaping 8 > 12

Farsight of the Runic Artist 41 > 42

Conceptual Automation 11 > 13

He had made sure that he didn’t keep neglecting some of his newer Skills, spending a little time using Conceptual Material and Metal Shaping to create metal bars with a variety of weak affinities before using Conceptual Automation to animate them. The resulting constructs also gave him a chance to see how the Skill interacted with runes engraved into the metal bars. The most important part was how close Runic Knowledge - Concepts and Runic Creation were to their next Skill Evolution. Both were Legendary Skills and he wanted to try and push them to Mythic if possible. Thankfully, he finally had the time and the mana to devote to such pursuits.

He smiled to himself as the classroom door opened and the Professor walked in. Professor Pressley was a short older woman with greying hair and sharp blue eyes. He had never attempted to pierce her veil, but he was quietly confident that she was one of the most powerful Professors on campus. This had been reinforced by seeing how many of the Combat supervisors and proctors gave her a wide berth and always offered her a respectful nod or word in passing. It made sense that anyone who specialised in teaching how to develop your Skills might be unusually talented at developing their own. In this world, with mana and The System, skill development was akin to guaranteeing you could evolve your Classes up the tiers.

The Professor took the room in at a glance, “Good. You are all here. I’m glad to see some of you are capable of learning about the consequences of tardiness. Now, in the last lesson we revisited the basics of Skill type classification and how it can affect the development pathways when you diverge or converge those Skills. Remember, it is important that you never view a Skill in isolation. Even a Common Class will give five Skills by the time the user has reached the twentieth level and that is important because the Skills you take should work together, feeding off each-other to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Now, I saw a few faces scrunch up at the idea of a Common Class. You have all had elevated opportunities. Most of you probably started at Uncommon. Some of you at the Rare tier. Maybe there is even one among you that started at the Epic tier, rivalling the rumours that surround the Royal Family. Those extra Skills are less important than the tier of Skills offered to such Classes. They present a challenge for you that those with a Common Class will not experience till much later. Who can tell me what that is?”

Daphne’s hand shot up and after a nod from the Professor the excitable merchant explained, “Evolving a Skill up tiers. It’s so much more difficult to make a Rare skill evolve into an Epic skill than it is to take a Common skill to Uncommon!”

“Correct Daphne,” responded Professor Pressley, her blue eyes flicking to one of the nobles who had been in the middle of passing a note. After the moment had become uncomfortable she continued, ignoring the now blushing noble. “But why is that? In theory, a Rare Skill will have more features or more power than a Common Skill. Why then is it more difficult to evolve up a tier when the opportunities for evolution should be greater. For example, a Common Skill that gives a minor enhancement to strength when logging has plenty of options for evolution. However, since you cannot skip a tier, the Uncommon evolution options are far more limited because the amount of mana that the Skill can accept is liable to be significantly lower than a Rare skill. So, I will ask again, why is it easier to evolve a skill from Common to Uncommon?”

“Achievements,” answered one of the noble ladies.

“Correct, Lady Vincenza, but next time raise your hand,” snapped Professor Pressley, ignoring Lady Vincenza’s uncomfortable gulp. “We have plenty of evidence that shows that your Achievements, specifically their Tier, influence the difficulty in evolving your Skills up tiers. As such, without an Epic Achievement it becomes significantly more challenging to evolve a Rare skill to Epic. We also have some evidence that how closely the Achievement relates to the Skill, or the Concepts involved in the Skill, will also heavily influence how easy or hard it is to evolve a Skill up a tier. Now, that is factual and while the calculations involved are hard to determine, due to the many competing factors, we’re confident in these assertions. There is however, a secondary factor that we’re aware of. It’s more esoteric and makes the previous calculations even more challenging. Anyone have an idea what it is?”

No one spoke up and Nate’s thoughts went to his own suspicions. He had more than once managed to evolve Skills in the direction he desired. Now, a part of that was undoubtedly the way he pushed on his Skills but that begged the question, what was he pushing on them with? The answer was his Intent. He knew Kiri was capable of similar from their discussions, though the way his best friend had described it made it sound like it was far more difficult and challenging for her. He had a suspicion that his Conceptual Intent was to blame. A Skill that helped guide his Intent. He had after all, almost always had an Intent Skill. First Runic Intent, back in his first Dungeon, then Imbue Intent to leave his lingering intent his runes and now his Conceptual Intent, which further let him influence Concepts by adding or altering Subconcepts.

When no one spoke up he finally raised his hand, waiting for the Professor’s nod before he answered, “Intent…intent and desire.”

Professor Pressley, normally a stoic and formal lecturer, gave him a small smile.

“I suppose I should not be surprised that someone who managed an Advanced rating in the Enchanting induction might recognise the missing piece,” replied the Professor. “Nate is correct. Your desires and intent play a factor into how your Skill will evolve, which can include moving up tiers if you’re smart enough to push the Skill in the right direction. Now, the question that should be in all your minds is, why? Why would intent and desire matter? We are not certain to the reasons. I want to be clear, not certain does not mean we don’t have any ideas. It’s that we don’t have any proof our ideas are correct. This is due to certain limitations, which I won’t go into, because I don’t want any of you experimenting with this unsupervised. If you prove you can pass this subject and advance to the expert class, we will start to touch on those topics.

“Alternatively, I would advise any of you in the Advanced Mana and Affinities subject to pay close attention. It might just give you a few hints. Now, let's work through a few problems. I will be writing up a list of Skills and their desired evolutions. I want you to list down some known Achievements and methods you can think of to evolve them in the correct direction. One point will be given per correct answer which will go towards grading out of this class.”

With those words the Professor turned the board and began writing, while Nate considered her last words. Why did the Intent matter, and more importantly, how did the Class Core, or The System know what your Intent and desires were? He went back to when he first arrived on Galle. The System had not only recognised that he was from a different universe, but also his encounter with Arikanvil. But both of those experiences happened before he received a Class Core. So it wasn’t the Class Core itself that had recorded those experiences. Was it like Frick? Able to read his mind, his memories? Or was it something else? Worse, what kind of being or existence could read the minds of every single sentient being across the multiverse? The very idea was mind boggling. Assuming that was what it was doing.

He put that thought away to dissect later as he focused on the class and the problems on the board. He chose to ignore Daphne peeking at his and Null’s answers. If she wanted to cheat to stay close to Null, that was her problem. He wasn’t going to prevent her from doing so. Besides, he had his ‘private’ class with Professor Marnier later. More Sigils and more runes. He couldn’t wait.

*************

Daphne glanced at Null and Nate’s answers. It was interesting to see the paths each took to get to the desired result. The differences were obviously taken from the viewpoint of a hybrid fighter and a mage. Nate’s suggested achievements mostly seemed to be based around experimentation. Null on the other hand chose to focus on Dungeons or monsters to be defeated in specific ways or fighting against more powerful enemies. She knew the rumours that Null had an Epic Primary Class and there were a few saying that Nate could match the swordsman in that regard. No one had managed to pierce Null’s veil, but it was already circulating that Nate had an Epic Class called Runecaster.

That explained the rumour that he had been kicked out of the Advanced Enchanting subject. Of course those rumours included that Fabien Lussier had bribed the Professor to do so, but such rumours were unfounded and while she believed them to be true, that was hardly her concern. She was more interested in how he thought and why. She had been mistaken to think of him as a crafter. She knew that now, after having personally witnessed his fight with Fabien Lussier. Sure, the Earl’s son had out-levelled the Runecaster. That was mostly a suspicion, but Fabien had bragged about all the processed mana his Father had sent him, while she doubted an Adventurer could get such ready access to the very essence needed to progress one’s Class Core. But whatever advantage the gap in levels that had created for Fabien had been less than useless. She had watched as Nate had stood calmly inside his barrier, bathed in flames hot enough to glass the sand around him and his blond hair hadn’t even been ruffled. No, he was not just a crafter. He was dangerous. Perhaps even more dangerous than she had first suspected.

She continued to blatantly copy from the Runecaster and her kind-of-boyfriend. Slipping an arm through Null's, she hugged herself to his side, making sure to press her breasts into him. It didn’t do to let a man forget what you brought to the table, and for all the swordsman's affable nature, he was an easy mark. He would be useful, even if for only her time at the Royal University.

Pouting she pointed at the fifth question down the page and whispered, “I don’t understand this progression. They barely relate to each other.” A lie, but an easy one, after all, what man didn’t dream of helping a damsel in distress. And she was oh so distressed! Cue the damsel swooning, she thought with a smile, as Null began quietly explaining the progression to her, as if she couldn’t have achieved the same result in a quicker way. Oh the things she did for family!