The Runic Artist

Nate glanced at his Skill improvements from the last week as he started packing up his notes from the class on Concepts and Embodiment.

Empowered Amplified Magic 27 > 28

Empowered Runic Artistry 36 > 37

Runic Creation 38 > 39

True Teleportation 30 > 31

Conceptual Material 32 > 33

Runic Knowledge - Concepts 39 > 40

Metal Shaping 12 > 15

Farsight of the Runic Artist 42 > 43

Conceptual Automation 13 > 14

Since it had been a week since his last delivery of manerium and as this was his last subject for the day he intended to head to the Den shortly to make good on the weekly drop-off. But first, there was a question that had been nagging at him throughout the week, and he was hoping that Professor Kandel had the answer.

“Excuse me, Professor, can I have a word?” he asked as he stood.

“For my best student, certainly,” answered the Professor, pausing in her walk towards the door to wait for him by the board with today's problem scribbled all over it.

“Best?” he queried in confusion. Surely some of the nobles were better educated on the topic, even if there weren’t as many of them in this grade of the subject as there were Guildies and merchants.

“Fishing for compliments doesn’t suit you at all, Nathaniel. I much prefer the eager and astute student. But that wasn’t the question you wanted to ask and my time is limited, so what is on your mind?” replied Professor Kandel, an amused twitch of her eyebrow taking any sting out of her words.

“I was wondering about higher tier Sigils. Obviously they’re incredibly rare, but that got me to thinking, does every Concept have Sigils in the higher tiers?”

“That is quite the question. Worse, it’s a difficult one to answer. You’re obviously exposed to the dearth of Sigils due to the hoarding of knowledge. Not a surprising trait in people when in the case of Sigils knowledge has a direct correlation with power. Do you know the most common method for Sigil discovery?” asked the Professor.

Nate thought about it for a moment. In the end he realised he didn’t know. He had mostly gotten his Sigils from other people, other runes or books. He only had the one he discovered on his own and it had been the lowest tier there was. Initiate quality. So where did people normally discover new Sigils? When he couldn’t come up with an answer he shook his head.

“Spells. Usually from new spells received as Dungeon rewards,” answered Kandel. “Normally you’d learn this in the Spellforms subject, but I happen to know you’re not taking that class just yet. An interesting choice, for a mage, if I do say so. Do you know what a spellform is? How and why a spell works?”

He shook his head and he saw a moment of indecision on the Professor’s face before she sighed and pointed to a seat.

“Sit. This is going to be quick because I have another class to get to. But they can wait a few minutes while I explain this. I will start with a question. What is the purpose of mana affinities?” she asked.

“In a material?” he countered.

“In anything!” she stated, a knowing smile on her face.

He had never really considered the question. He knew, academically, that he personally had a high affinity for spatial mana and that it was a requirement for his Realmwalker Class. But beyond that he’d never considered his personal mana affinity. He also knew Kiri had more than one decently high affinity. Soul and Shadow of a certainty. Maybe others? Did that mean on a cellular level he had sigils in his molecular structure? That seemed…doubtful. Following that line of thinking he started considering other crafts beyond his own runecrafting. Blacksmithing, alchemy, even something like carpentry or tailoring. What was the benefit of affinities to them for materials? Obviously, if they only worked with specific materials, like a blacksmith working with metals, having better materials would improve the outcome. A stronger metal meant a stronger sword.

Kiri’s reward choice from the Tournament had been a sword that empowered Skills or Spells used through it due to its affinity for mana. That idea broke down when it came to alchemy though. They used…everything, as he understood it. The size of the materials they used were smaller and he’d heard that most of the effects of alchemy were temporary. But that still didn’t explain how they could take something solid, with an affinity, and distil it down into a liquid. Maybe a Skill to bridge the gap, but even that wasn’t a certainty. Before he could continue down the rabbit hole of his thoughts Professor Kandel snapped her fingers to get his attention.

Shaking her head she smirked, “Too clever by far. And too expressive. You should consider getting a Social Skill for that if you can. Watching your face I could literally see you jumping from one idea to the next. So let me stop you there. Let me pose two different questions to you. Hopefully that will lead you to the answer. What is the most important Stat for a Mage and why would a higher affinity be the difference in power between two Mages with the exact same Classes, Skills and Stats?”

His gut reaction was to say Magic Power, but he backtracked on that immediately. His guiding light towards the answer was Luc. Luc had more than once hinted that his highest Stat was in fact Magic Control. What did a higher Magic Control do? It improved your fine control over mana. And Spellforms were just shapes built from mana. Complicated shapes. Three-dimensional by their very nature. But still, just shapes. He almost wanted to facepalm as he came to the realisation.

“There are Sigils embedded in the Spellforms and a mana affinity that aligns with the Sigil or Concept would enhance the spells power.”

It was just like his runecrafting, in a way. Their Magic Control let them create the exact shape rather than the mana dispersion fields he used. They saved on mana in that way but the price was the higher control needed to form the exact required shapes. Thinking about it he suspected it would become incredibly difficult at the higher tier of spells, where the shapes required were likely incredibly complex. It also meant a mage was for the most part limited to spells of a type they had a mana affinity for. Worse, the level of their affinity would be a constant impact on how efficient or powerful their spells were. Unlike him, who used the affinities of physical materials. It also explained why his physical creations were far superior in terms of power and output when compared with his dynamic rune creation using his robe.

“Exactly! And so by studying new spells, we are able to learn new Sigils. That being said, that still tends to limit the grade of Sigil we find, which brings us full-circle to your question, does every Sigil have higher tiers? My answer is, we don’t know, but we suspect not. As you move into the higher conceptual realms, ideas and meaning tend to converge. At the lower tiers, the idea of ‘Dripping’ makes sense as a Sigil. They’re specific, but weak. But tell me, can you think of anything besides a liquid that ‘drips’? It’s a small piece of a larger puzzle, that puzzle being…how do liquids behave. Would it make sense for there to be a Master Sigil for the idea of Dripping? Probably not. But, I will emphasise this again, we do not know this for fact. Does that answer your question?” the Professor asked.

The notification in the corner of his vision was answer enough, but the Professor deserved better than that.

“Thanks Professor. That answers so much more than the question I asked. I really appreciate you taking the time to go through that with me.”

“Think nothing of it. You’re one of my favourite students. I look forward to seeing you in the Advanced Class in the next month.”

With the implied farewell, the Professor exited the classroom while Nate hurried back to his room. It was time to go over his latest Skill Evolution options.

Frick glanced up from where he was sitting on the bed, slowly working on the new and improved Runecrafted Barrier Bracer.

“Got it, Boss man?” asked the blue goblin.

With a nod Nate brought up the notifications for them to read over.

Runic Knowledge - Concepts 40 > 41

Runic Knowledge - Concepts (L) is ready to evolve.

Evolutions Available! Please Select 1.

Skill Evolution Options:

Conceptual Insight (M)

As a Runecrafter, knowledge of runes is important. But a rune without Sigils is just a fancy-looking weak mana gathering array. This skill allows the user to peer into the infinite depths of reality and slowly but surely extract meaning. By focusing on a Sigil this Skill will give hints on related Subconcepts and even higher tier versions of the Sigil. Reality becomes meaning and meaning becomes Power. This Skill will store excess mana which can be used to forcibly increase the tier of a Sigil. Amount of mana required is dependent on the difference between the tier of the Sigil and the improved tier. Speed of excess mana absorbed by this Skill increases by 1% per Skill Level. Additionally this Skill increases the users Intellect by 10%. Increases by 1% per Skill Level.

Conceptual Awareness (L)

As a Runecrafter, knowledge of runes is important. However, Sigils are necessary to create runes and such knowledge is often hoarded. This skill will allow the user to extract Sigils from imbued materials, such as enchanted items, alchemical concoctions or even materials with an affinity. Sapients conceal truths but the universe whispers them to you regardless. Complexity of Concepts and Subconcepts that can be extracted increases with Skill Level. Additionally this Skill increases the users Intellect by 5%. Increases by 1% per Skill Level.

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

“Easy choice, right Boss?” asked Frick.

“Not like the last two evolutions,” agreed Nate. “Being able to learn more Sigils is interesting. But it’s not going to get me higher tier Sigils, and without those my hopes of some higher tier Achievements to shift my Embodiment might as well just be delusions.”

“Easy choice then,” Frick repeated.

Since his anti-scrying ward was already out and powered by some of his stolen mana, he continued to voice his thoughts even as he selected Conceptual Insight.

“I wonder why the Skill needs to store the excess mana to let me see how to improve a Sigil’s tier?” he asked out loud.

Frick sat still for a moment thinking, “What if it’s not about the mana?”

Nate’s eyes narrowed at the question. His Familiar had a point. In theory, the amount of mana the Skill should be able to take should be finite. You could forcibly overpower a Skill usage by flooding it with more mana…but there was always mana wasted doing that. A Skill could only take so much mana at a time. More importantly, the description said it was storing the mana. If that was the case, why would it function like a Mana Reserve…and worse, why did it not have a defined limit? Was it doing something to the mana, or using it for something else, to get what it needed to ‘reveal the infinite depths of reality’? Running his sphere of awareness over his own Class Core didn’t help. No new hints came from his observation. Even now he couldn’t sense the runes carved into the surface of his Class Core as more than rigid and bumpy areas of the otherwise smooth sphere.

Without a better idea on what might be going on with his new Skill, he instead settled in to work on one of his other projects. He had an idea for a material for his next Conceptual Automation. The Skill had saved his life, quite literally, but from his experiments he had learned that a large portion of the power that had been exhibited by his Constructs had been driven by the processed mana. He wished he had some on hand to test just how much the exact difference was with two identical materials. The plan was to collect some on his next Dungeon run, which was a couple of weeks away. This time they were going with Coralie and Flash. A concession he had made for Kiri as he didn’t want to exclude her new girlfriend, even if he preferred working with Null and Britt. Null, because he was just a great guy and incredibly competent. Britt because she was competent too, and he supposed, because he did enjoy the attention. Even if there was unlikely to be any opportunities for other things while in a Dungeon. Maybe on the ride there though? Depended on how far away the Dungeon was. Useless thoughts though.

Working with Coralie and Flash would be an interesting change. Neither were the defensive types. They made up for that though with their excessive damage output he suspected. That and Coralie’s ability to control the battlefield. It was shaping up to be an interesting trip.

Shaking his head he focused back on the issue at hand. His new idea for a material to act as the substrate for Conceptual Automation. A version of his Gravity Control rune. He continued to channel Conceptual Material into the metal bar as he aligned the molecular structure to his Sigil for Gravity. It wasn’t as powerful as his Barrier Sigil. But it was a match for his Shadow one which he hoped would indicate how powerful it would be. While channelling he continued to work with Runic Creation, carving multiple versions of his Gravity Control rune into the surface of the metal. His hope was that by giving it three different control runes it would be able to control three instances of gravity at the same time. The idea he had in his mind was that the Construct would be able to both push and pull simultaneously. That way it wouldn’t need to worry about how hard the ground was to crush something. It could just push on it from three different directions.

He intended to test a Rare tier version of it first to confirm that the idea worked before he would attempt to make a Legendary version. That was less about the mana required and more about the time. Even with the improvements to his Conceptual Material skill it would still be a two to three week job to raise a bar of metal from Common grade to Legendary. A vast improvement on what it had been previously, and more than the Skill bonus alone accounted for. He suspected the difference came from his Stats. But even with that vast improvement, it was still time consuming and his time was finite.

The time it would take was worth it though. This would be his first ace in the hole, along with the Barrier Bracer Frick was working on. Because if he had learned anything, it was that when he was properly prepared, he was unbeatable.

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

“I’m telling you, boss, two ain’t gonna be enough,” explained Lothar. “The rumours on this kid is he’s good. Real fuckin’ good. We need a third suppressor.”

“He’s barely into the University. A level forty or so. How fuckin’ good can he be? Kali and Phira have been enough for every other job. ‘Sides, it’ll cut into the take if we have to hire outside help,” replied Darren.

“Boss, we go with two, my gold says he escapes the net. Then we’re fucked.”

“Fine! But if the thirds a waste, it’s comin’ out of your cut!” grunted Darren.

“Like fuck it is! Unless you’re giving me your cut if it turns out I’m right?” answered Lothar.

Darren stared down at him. They had worked together for years now. The man should know to trust his instincts.

“Fine. I’ll get us a third. You better be fuckin’ right Lothar.”

“Aren’t I always?” he answered smugly. His Epic Skill Threat Analysis always worked. Even on veiled noble asholes. It would do for some Guild kid.

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

Fabien stared across the desk, his thoughts in turmoil. How had it come to this? How had some trumped up commoner been able to defeat him so soundly. All he had needed to do was get Nate to leave the University. Torching his room and getting him kicked out of the Enchanting course had just been the start. He had planned to continue making the adventurer’s life hell until he finally quit the University. Why his benefactor wanted that they hadn’t said, but that had been the goal. Then, that foul little bastard had put up those drawings, dragging Fabien’s good name through the mud before his peers. He’d let his rage get the better of him. He could see that now. But even then, he should’ve been able to beat some commoner who was likely ten levels his junior. He just didn’t understand how he had failed so badly. But it wasn’t over yet. He may have been forced out of the University, but he still resided in the city. There was still a chance to get back at that insolent bastard.

“I want him dead!” he demanded.

“And you’ll get it. But only after I get what I want. Understood?” answered the person sitting opposite him.

“And you’ll still give me what we agreed?” asked Fabien, hating that his voice sounded like he was pleading.

“....yes.”

Perhaps, he thought, if I return with this to Dralogne my Father won’t consider me a complete failure. It was a lie, but he’d rather believe the lie than accept the truth, that his Father would tell him he was a failure and a disgrace, just like he had always been.