The Ruined Death Knight-Novel

Underground the church.

Dashing forward, Danzel cut through the stone wall in front of him before going to the next wall.

With both his body and sword being surrounded by mana, he moved so fast through the room, that normal people would have difficulties properly taking a look at him. Once they thought he stopped moving, he disappeared right next after.

Und such a feat was Danzel doing while casting new stone walls to rise, only to be fated to crumble a moment after.

Though such intense training helped him to get more used to his fairly new skills, [Swift Movements] and [Cursed Blade], the main reason why he was training as such was for a single reason.

[You received 5000 XP]

"Finally hit the mark... I guess that´s it for today." Danzel said as he looked at the mess that he created.

`Let´s just put the stones in the corner of the room and pretend they weren´t there in the first place´ Danzel thought as he seated to the ground where his stone table was.

"Status..."

[Status]

Name: Rue Danzel

Level: 40

Race: Wight

Class: [Black Guard Lv. 1]

Sub-Class: [Runesmith of Undeath Lv.10]

Health: 8910/8910

Mana: 1419/1419

Attribute points: 0

Attributes: Strength:192 Agility: 189 Intelligence: 129 Endurance: 161

Talents: [Superior Undead] [Sin of Wrath] [Reinforced Soul] [Superior Unique Concioness] [Rune Vision] [Dead Rune Knowledge] [Undead Carver] [Dead Mana Affinity] [Dead Mana Resilience] [Undying][Lower Class Death Magic]

Skills: [Intermendiate Weapon Mastery Lv.1] [Stone Wall Lv.1] [Leap Lv.1] [Silent Steps Lv.1][Undeath Corruption Lv.1] [Swift Movement Lv. 1] [Shield Charge Lv.1] [Gale Mana Blade Lv.3] [Greater Sense Danger Lv.1] [Curse of Exhaustion Lv.1] [Penetrate Lv.1] [Mana Arms Lv.9] [Vanguards Defense Lv.5] [Armor Mana Plating Lv.1] [Cursed Blade Lv.1] [Death Influence Lv.1] [Coating Miasma Lv.1]

[Remark: A Undead that recently became a Wight. Although he lacks knowledge about Death Magic. His Strength alone makes him much stronger than your usually 3rd-tier Undead.]

[XP: 865 025]

"Hmmm... I gathered quite enough with that beast in the forest. But would it be enough I wonder..."

Tapping with his finger on [Runesmith of Undeath Lv.10] another window showed up in front of him.

[Runesmith of Undeath]: 20 000 XP + 1000 XP per upgrade

"Let´s hope it gets maxed at the 30 levels..." 

Pressing on the upgrade window, multiple images appeared one by one in front of him.

[Runesmith of Undeath level has increased from Lv.10 to Lv.11]

[Runesmith of Undeath level has increased-]

...

[Runesmith of Undeath level has increased from Lv.29 to Lv.30]

[Inteligence increased by 60 and Agility increased 40]

[You gained 40 Attribute points]

[You reached the maximum level of Runesmith of Undeath class]

[To advance into a higher tier class a mission has been assigned]

[Mission]: Create a functional rune using purely your knowledge.

[Mission Completed!]

"I am starting to think that those missions are just for effect there..." Danzel thought to himself.

It wasn´t like he was complaining about the mission being so easy. Why would he even?

If he could spare the extra work that those missions were willing to put up on his plate, he obviously would.

"My mind also feels like it got more clear with those 60 points in Intelligence...I guess the more expensive something is the better it gets" Before he was able to get used to the changes, the messages were still coming.

[Please choose your mastery as a Runesmith of Undeath]

[Choose 2 out of 5 talents to permanently gain]

[Mastery of Himself]

[Past Rune Mastery]

[Rune Learning Mastery]

[Pure Mana Carving Mastery]

[Affinity Carving Mastery]

"As expected, I get to choose one more talent that before" Nodding to himself, he right away went ahead in reading them.

[Mastery of Himself]: Though the belief of learning what you are good at. Your understanding of runes using your Affinity had increased, thus improving their overall effectiveness. The chances to get runes of your affinity increase by 10%, together with the rune's performance.

[Past Rune Mastery]: Perfecting the art that you already surpassed, the understanding of runes from a lower grade than you are capable to learn increases together with their effectiveness. The increase in understanding and rune performance is 20%.

[Rune Learning Mastery]: Knowledge is power, thus the one who possesses more should be the more powerful. The cost of all runes is reduced by 10%.

[Pure Mana Carving Mastery]: Since carving a rune require any type of mana. Learning how to turn your mana purer, the effectiveness on every rune goes by 5%.

[Affinity Carving Mastery]: Through the study of your own mana, you learned how to carve with the mana that is most suited for your body. The effectiveness of runes using your affinity goes by 15%.

Reading through the presented talents, Danzel grumbled to himself as the familiar feeling hit him.

"Couldn´t it make it easier to choose for me?" He thought bitterly as he read carefully on each one of them.

"Though It´s the most practical out of all of them, I got to scratch [Rune Learning Mastery] out of the list. Though it would save me quite some XP, as undead I got enough time to gather the XP. It´s better to maximize the effect of the runes than to get more..."

As such, he also crossed the [Past Rune Mastery].

He found it kinda pointless using runes of lower grades. Though currently, he was using mostly runes of lower grade, he already experienced the effects of a rune that is a grade higher up them.

[Common] Runes were generally only passive ones, but the [Uncommon] ones showed signs that they were active effects, for example being [Rune of Uzal] and [Rune of Eniv].

"I guess those two should be the best choice..."

Having made his choice already, he gained two new talents.

[You acquired the talent [Affinity Carving Mastery]!]

[You acquired the talent [Mastery of Himself]!]

[Your talent [Dead Rune Knowledge] has been upgraded!]

Showing up in his status window, he suddenly realized a bit more of the undead runes that he had and some mistakes that he done by carving them.

"It´s better this way..." Mumbling to himself, he opened the status window in front of him.

[Status]

Name: Rue Danzel

Level: 40

Race: Wight

Class: [Black Guard Lv. 1]

Sub-Class: [Runesmith of Undeath Lv.30]

Health: 8910/8910

Mana: 2079/2079

Attribute points: 40

Attributes: Strength:192 Agility: 229 Intelligence: 189 Endurance: 161

Talents: [Superior Undead] [Sin of Wrath] [Reinforced Soul] [Superior Unique Concioness] [Rune Vision] [Dead Rune Knowledge] [Undead Carver] [Dead Mana Affinity] [Dead Mana Resilience] [Undying][Lower Class Death Magic] [Mastery of Himself] [Affinity Carving Mastery]

Skills: [Intermendiate Weapon Mastery Lv.1] [Stone Wall Lv.1] [Leap Lv.1] [Silent Steps Lv.1][Undeath Corruption Lv.1] [Swift Movement Lv. 1] [Shield Charge Lv.1] [Gale Mana Blade Lv.3] [Greater Sense Danger Lv.1] [Curse of Exhaustion Lv.1] [Penetrate Lv.1] [Mana Arms Lv.9] [Vanguards Defense Lv.5] [Armor Mana Plating Lv.1] [Cursed Blade Lv.1] [Death Influence Lv.1] [Coating Miasma Lv.1]

[Remark: A Undead that recently became a Wight. Although he lacks knowledge about Death Magic. His Strength alone makes him much stronger than your usually 3rd-tier Undead.]

"Gaining so many stats at once still feels weird..." After punching the air a few times, he opened his [Dead Rune Knowledge] and took a look at the new options being[Rare].

"So that how the new grade is called..."

Pressing on the [Rare] option, a number that made him freeze appeared in front of him.

"Seriously..."

[Rare]: Cost 300 000 XP to learn a Random Rune

Seeing that the cost has increased by a whole of six times from the [Uncommon] rune, he felt really surprised.

It was as if the number was saying to go out and kill another six earth lizards or work your a*s off for days worth of time.

He originally had thought that it would go to the 100 000 cost range, but he never had expected that it will come to be 3 times the expected amount!

"And here I wanted to see an undead rune of the [Rare] grade..."

By far, his best runes are undead ones, and him already picking the [Undead Carver] talent. Made him decide to go ahead and get the set talents that mostly affect the undead runes.

Since the increase that [Pure Mana Carving Mastery] was giving was too low for his taste, he went for the much higher increase for runes that were better suited for an undead to wield.

"Such a bit... I was pretty excited to try the better grade rune too." Shaking his head in disappointment, he closed his status and looked at the ceiling.

"Right, I am supposed to deliver all the runed items to Honor today..." Clearing his ring of storage, he caster [Mana Arms] to help him gather the items that he was going to send.

"Convenient as always, after taking a glance on the [Rare] graded rune I should start increasing my skills..." 

Having put everything that he is going to send to Honor in front of him, he pulled out his [Mana Pen] and started to write the following effects of each rune, so that Honor can recognize what item does what.

"That should be good enough..." As he stood up to go to the stairs, he glanced at the mana crystal that he once draw a rune and decided to put it inside his ring too.

"Let´s hope that Honor is capable to sell this useless mana crystal somewhere..."

Having finished packing up, he walked towards the stairs.