The Ruined Death Knight

Once Danzel found his room, he brought out all kinds of items from his storage ring.

He put the most important stuff on the table, them being books and magic items that he found on the various people that he killed. Unfortunately, they weren't that impressive.

He also had undamaged items of those masked magic casters from Arcana. They had the most impressive enchantments of all.

Sadly for some reason, they had some kind of protection that didn't let others activate the enchantment. Back then he found it weird how much 2nd-tier magic caster could use the spell of flight. But it turns out they simply relied on their equipment.

For now, he simply had it for the sake of collecting it and didn't have any plans to figure out how to deactivate the defense enchantment.

His strongest, functional magic item was one called [Amulet of Burning Will], which simply improved one's focus on the fire element by a small amount. It was an amulet with a big red mana crystal.

He had some difficulties in carving the [Rune of Mana] into the crystal, but he succeed and improved the magic.

That item was taken by a 3rd-tier magic caster and for most of the item, he didn't wear it and simply use it as a learning tool.

As for the less important items, such as various weapons and armor, he let them rest on the corner. This will be his supply for his runesmithing.

With his room looking now like a junkyard and his storage ring mostly empty, Danzel seated down on the floor and picked a random piece of armor, and started carving runes.

Immersing himself in the colorless world by activating [Rune Vision], Danzel started practicing the knowledge of the newly acquired runes.

Being a tireless immortal being, Danzel started working like a workaholic on his craft, trying to refine it to an acceptable level.

Without worrying about some noble learning about his craft or having to stay alert, he finished armor pieces with the [Rune of Iron Fortress] one after the other. The first came as [Poor] quality just like the second piece of armor.

But each new attempt has small improvements that after several attempts increased the quality of the rune.

That continued for hours, and once a day passed, another one soon followed.

Isolating himself in his room in the pursuit of his craft, the time he went out to interact has become minimal.

Only when he was out of supplies of armor pieces did Danzel walk out of his room to meet Azrael was also hearing the recent news of their group.

Apparently, his sister beat up a noble close to death on the day when he separated from her and met that Lich. As far as he heard, the noble wanted to recruit Vanessa to be a "mistress" of his. A word that he was unfamiliar with.

And that Agares took Shiro out to continue participating in the war, guessing to earn enough favor of Velkir to enchant the staff that he gave me to carve runes.

Gaining the supplies of alchemic weapons and asking around, he then went to check on Skull Claw that was brought back. He didn't stay much as he was busy, but Skull Claw was excited to see him.

Next, he went to meet up with Velkir to talk about the Lich that he met and what was the council. Unfortunately. he came empty-handed as the Lich didn't tell him what he wanted.

All he learned was that the Lich Kingra'mash and he were working together.

When he asked about the council, he refused to tell him anything because of his capability of runesmithing.

Unsatisfied, thought at the same time too busy to care, Danzel simply nodded and left the Lich to do his business.

As Sartan and Vanessa were apparently out there flexing their muscles and beating each other while calling it training. By that, he remembered the first time they came out after their training session.

Sartan missing a whole arm and Vanessa beaten senseless.

What they were doing, he didn't care, but the exotic duo leaving towards the war was some pleasant news for his wallet.

After all, the quality of the runes that he was carving wasn't sufficient enough to earn him any XP, making him to still remain poor.

Motivated to change this fact, he walked back to his room and continued working on improving his runes.

The closer he went in making a [Good] quality rune, the longer he spend in his room.

For a change, he alternated between learning the [Rune Mana Essence], [Rune Iron Fortress], and [Rune of Þolian Repent].

Other than the first one, he was eager to learn the two others as he planned to use them on his items.

And as time continued to pass and XP was starting to come on his own wallet.

A total of 4 months passed before Danzel finished and was able to push all 3 three runes into the [Good] quality.

****

Seating crossed-legged in front of a table, a large half-naked skeleton was carefully guiding his finger on the surface of black plattings. With two dancing ethereal dark green flames serving as his eyes, his head wasn't that similar to a corpse.

The eye sockets of the skull weren't round but were bent down as if it was constantly staring hatefully at something.

Moving away his finger from the armor, the large skeleton picked up the armor and started equipping it around his body with the last being the helmet.

"Let`s see if Vanessa is somewhere around here." Danzel said before standing up and moving out of his room.

Having finished improving his own armor and finishing the items that Azrael wanted for him, he planned to deliver the finished product to Azrael and ask where his sister was.

He planned to finish his promises with all of them by today or early tomorrow. Though he would be carving an epic rune of just [Good] quality in their items, Danzel found it sufficient.

Aiming for the [Well-done] quality for runes of epic quality would probably take him another set of months. Months that he wasn't willing to spend.

After all, he was eager to finish the mission and evolve.

By now, with Azrael sometimes going out and Agares with his granddaughter constantly participating in the war, the XP that he accumulated was enough to bring several skills of his own to tier 4 and upgrade his main class.

If it wasn't for the limit of his body holding him back, he would have long ago graduated from being a [Black Guard].

At this point, he was thinking twice if he should break his decision of upgrading his skills only after he evolved.

He could always find new skills to cultivate, but he kept himself from doing that.

XP, as easy as it came by the use of [Rune of Harvest], was still a resource that was used on an endless bit.

He would never have enough.

Because he understood that, he kept himself needlessly spending it.

He simply learned the 5 scrolls and bought them as his skills.

The five scrolls gave them the following 5 skills.

[Innate Blood Absorbtion], a spell that enchanted one's weapon to absorb blood to restore the wielder's mana.

[Blood Puppets], a spell that directly controlled corpses like a puppet by using their blood.

[Bleed Verocity], a targeted skill that forcefully pulls a large amount of blood from the target's wounds.

[Blood Sense], a passive skill that allowed one to sense blood and its condition.

And [Vampiric Gaze], also a passive, that makes one gaze feel more predatory.

All of them were a nice addition with [Bleed Verocity] being a tier 3 skill and the others of tier 2.

While some were clearly better than the others, he was still happy to have the 5 on his arsenal.

[Innate Blood Absoption] could replace the solution that he tried to find out in one of his runes.

One could say that he tried for years to make a rune that consumes blood to use as a resource such as mana or to fuel another rune. This spell though gave him the solution that he searched for so long.

And he wasn't satisfied with that.

After all, he tried for years to think of a solution and to create the such rune. Maybe if he put his entire focus on the subject, he could have already figured it out.

But that simply wasn't visible with his busy schedule.

Maybe if his old sword, Veren, wasn't destroyed, this job would have been much easier.

Out of stubbornness, he decided to find out a rune that does the same if not better than this [Innate Blood Absorption] spell.

Thinking around those lines, Danzel entered Azrael's room, half expecting him to be missing.

"Hmm? Did you come to pick up another supply?" Azrael said without even looking at Danzel, too focused on the papers he was reading.

"No, I came to ask where your sister is." Danzel said as a matter of fact.

Hearing that, Azrael's whole body froze before moving his gaze off the paper and locking it on Danzel.

"My sister? What do you need her for?" Azrael said with a frown.

"I reached a sufficient level with my runes and to carve her runes. By the way, here are the items you requested."

Bringing out Azrael's request that was wrapped in a large cloth and putting it on the ground, Velkir eyes flashed with light.

"Did anything go wrong?" Azrael asked.

Danzel simply shook his head.

"I see, that's good to hear. As for Vanessa, she is currently out with Sartan and should be arriving later..."

Groaning in annoyance, Danzel looked at the cursed wittled spear.

"Well, nothing to be done about it. How about I finish your spear first then?"