The Runesmith

‘An orphanage huh?’

Roland awkwardly went into his house while thinking about the conversation that he had with Bernir. With nothing much to talk about, the conversation shifted to Elodia. Bernir had seen her going around the city with some young children not more than five years old.

At first, Bernir thought that maybe the woman was the mother but soon he discovered the truth. Some of the shopkeepers spoke up about how she was a hard worker. How she tends to an orphanage with some other young adults.

‘Did I make a mistake?’

It also came out during the conversation that Armand was apparently also from the said orphanage. Bernir had heard this fact during Armand’s drunken stupor. He had complained that it would be hard to feed the kids while also paying off the house mortgage.

Roland was now second-guessing his decision of kicking the man to the curb. Though he wasn’t sure about the costs of that house, he felt that if Armand managed his money right he should be able to pay for something like that. He didn’t know how many mouths they were feeding or if they were duped into paying too much for the large building. It was apparently somewhere in the city in a more costly part.

‘Well… that woman didn’t seem that mad though…’

He recalled Elodia’s reaction, she even apologized for her older brother.

‘If they work through it, they should be fine…’

“Woof!”

“Ah, I’m coming, wait a moment.”

His thought process was interrupted by a muffled bark. He headed downstairs into his workshop where Agni was sitting in. The small wolf puppy was left here as he couldn’t bring him over to the guild. This was the only place he could leave him while being sure that he wouldn't destroy it.

The inside of the house was not a possibility as he felt that Agni would trash it. Then escape and track him to the adventurer’s guild. The possibility of the little puppy being then slain was high, people could take him for a regular monster. Some others could also try to capture him instead, then sell him on the black market as he was a rare breed.

“I see that I’ll have to air this place out…”

Roland opened the slab of metal that was his door and was hit in the face by a strong smell. It was clear that his puppy had relieved himself here, luckily for him he had placed Agni in a large cage which he could just carry outside and wash.

“Woof!”

Agni ran about three circles around his master before bolting through the opening outside. The small guy was smart to understand Roland’s facial expression as he looked at Agni’s ‘present’ that he left behind inside of his cage.

“Ugh…”

While holding his breath he carried the metal cage outside. Thanks to his enhanced strength this wasn’t anything difficult.

“Hah, maybe we should have taken him with us boss.”

Bernir laughed from the side while Roland doused the cage with one of his water pressure wands.

“Ever since he started eating mana stones the smell has been…”

Roland commented while using some flames on the metal cage to disinfect it.

“Does the mana make it extra fragrant?”

Bernir asked while peeking out of his log workshop. He was busy grinding away at some tools, soon it would be time to get that tier 2 class. Roland had already given him a class change stone which would be coming out of his paycheck later.

“Now that you mention it...“

Roland brought up Agni’s status screen while his wolf pup was running around the backyard. He zoomed in on the page with the skills and was pleasantly surprised.

‘Mana Stone Eater did reach level 9.’

After seeing the skill finally reach the cap he quickly went for the evolution options. After using the costly mana stones on his pet he hoped that he would get another evolution that was even rarer than the Gemstone Wolf.

“Oh, A rare variant of an uncommon Ruby Wolf breed…”

There actually was another option that popped up. He now had an option to pick between two rare variants, a Gemstone Wolf or a Mystical Ruby Wolf.

“Hm… what do you think boy?”

Agni had stopped running around and was now sniffing Roland’s leg. Due to him being in the city for so long he had all kinds of scents stuck to him that this puppy could smell.

“Arf?”

The small wolf tilted his head to the side and then gave out a cute sneeze before walking away to dig up some holes.

“I figured…”

At this point in time, Roland had enough time to go through some monster tamer books that the city had to offer. He had managed to get a more thorough explanation of this Gemstone Wolf variant.

It was a solid pick from what he could ascertain. This wolf was quite tanky, its fur slowly changed into hardened gemstones which could take some punishment. On the other hand, the Ruby variants were mostly known for their high speed and fire type skills. Both types would grow into large wolves that could rival horses after a while but the Gemstone Wolf would be bulkier.

Now with the new variant out there, Roland felt like he knew what to get. What he needed was someone that was fast and not to tank hits for him. He was already a tank and a caster in one, there was no reason for him to have Agni fill that role.

What he needed him for was to discover monsters as a tracker and scout type. Then with the added magic affinity, the Mystical Ruby Wolf could even give him some backline support. He was also trying to create golems, so he had not that much use for more tanky party members.

“Well, Agni… I’m not sure how this will feel… so brace yourself…”

At this moment the red puppy was wiggling his ruby-tipped tail while his head was underground. There was not much around to damage with the wind turbines being a bit to the side.

“I guess here goes nothing…”

Roland focused on the evolution option, it was akin to imagining a button press. The moment he did the status window went blank for a moment before a prompt sprung up.

- Evolution in progress -

He had thought that he had already gotten used to this game-like interface but sometimes he was taken back by its functions. Roland glanced from the status window to where Agni’s butt was sticking out. A noticeable change was taking place as the puppy’s body began to glow.

The small posterior of the puppy began to expand and some of its fur began to shed. It started falling to the ground while another coat of fluff shifted in its place. The hind legs extended and small ruby crystals started to emerge above the paw area.

“Oh? Is Agni evolving? Why didn’t you call me over boss!”

Bernir noticed the shine from the backyard, he had been busy crafting so his attention was elsewhere.

“You looked busy.”

Roland didn’t wish to interrupt a blacksmith during their work as he was also one. All sorts of things could go wrong if a person was interrupted so he just went through with the evolution.

“It's going faster than I expected…”

Within a minute the red glow subsided and Roland was looking at an enlarged backside of Agni. The rest of the body was still stuck underground as he had chosen to go through with this while the puppy was digging a tunnel.

“He did get bigger… should I go pull him out?”

Bernir asked while looking at Agni struggling to free himself from the small hole. After a few moments though the pooch managed to free himself. Agni started sneezing a bit then quickly shaking as if he was trying to dry himself after taking a dip in the river.

Roland could now take a good look at his teenage puppy. The first thing that was characteristic was the assortment of gems on his legs. They went all the way up to his knees. His fur looked more robust and was also longer.

His mane looked a lot bushier and he had a ruby sticking out of his forehead. His ruby-tipped tail got longer and the tip was quite a bit more pointy. The size of this adolescent wolf was close to a large dog, his head almost reached up to Roland’s waist.

“Awoooo…”

Agni gave out a howl after cleaning himself and trotted over to where Roland was. He then circled around his master a couple of times before looking up to him.

“Showing off your new form?”

Roland smiled a bit and placed his hand on top of Agni’s head, after ruffling up his fur he gave the forehead gem a little poke. It was quite smooth and in a circular shape. It was quite small at about two centimeters in diameter which was less than an inch. While petting his puppy he brought up his status screen to see what had changed.

Agni got boosts to his stats akin to when he reached his tier 2 Runesmith Lord class. There was a difference in people and monsters as he could see now. After the evolution was done there was no mention of the previous lesser evolved form.

Only the Adolescent Mystical Ruby Wolf part was visible as if he had it from the first level. Roland also noticed a trait that wasn’t there before.

‘This is similar to that one mana trait that I have…’

Roland had the ‘Blessed by Mana’ trait that increased his mana by a set percentage just like this. It was one of the skills that allowed him to use his magical armor at a high proficiency and without the worry of passing out.

He went through Agni’s skills and noticed something strange. Skills like Ruby Tail Whip had a + sign after it.

It was apparent that these were the advanced versions of those skills. They were probably similar to the ones humans got when basic skills transformed into regular ones.

“Hm, he has this one?”

He was surprised after finding one of his old passives in his tamed beasts' repertoire. It was the skill that caused the original Roland to die and get the mana sickness disease.

There were some skills missing though, there was no Basic Mana Shaping and Basic Mana Regulation was also missing. He took a note of this as this probably meant that Agni would not be able to cast spells quite yet. But this also meant that he might be able to do it after the next evolution.

‘Maybe even this one if the skills get unlocked along the way…’

Roland rubbed his chin while thinking, there could be a couple of ways to unlock those magic caster skills. One of them would be just by leveling the wolf up, they would appear on their own and he wouldn’t need to lift a finger.

Then there was the more realistic one where Agni would need to level up the basic mana shaping skill to the maximum. After that, he might receive access to those two skills, either during this evolution or during the next one.

He thought back to his ‘youth’ when he was training his mana sense skill before the change to the mage class. He had to concentrate quite a bit to get it up, now his tamed monster would need to do the same.

Roland glanced down at the now larger Agni who was getting rubbed behind the ear by Bernir. The long canine tongue was out and flopping about while he had a silly expression on his face.

‘Can this idiot even learn a skill like that?’

“Arwo?”

Agni looked up to Roland with an accusing look. It was as if he read his thoughts the moment he thought them. He then escaped from Bernir’s clutches and stood proudly.

“What are you…?”

Roland wondered if his wolf companion was mad but before he could apologize Agni started doing something interesting. The gem on his forehead began to glow in a faint light.

“Is he actually?”

After focusing on the mana in the surrounding, Roland could tell that it was being absorbed into Agni’s forehead gem. The moment the mana was absorbed the gem started to glow brighter and brighter as to signalize that it was working.

“Heh, good boy.”

It seemed that Agni had mastered the mana sense skill and was even able to absorb the mana from the surroundings into his own body. This made Roland wonder if he could somehow teach Agni his Mana reinforcement skill. Though to get it the wolf would need the other basic mana skills that a mage received. It didn’t look like the gem on the forehead had any uses, for now, it could only glow which could only be useful in a dark cavern with no light.

“He beat me to it!”

Bernir shook his head in indignation as Agni had achieved his new evolution before the half-dwarf could progress to his tier 2 class.

“How long till your level cap?”

“Well actually… I reached it this morning…”

Bernir smiled weakly while lowering his voice.

“That’s great!”

Roland smiled back while looking at his assistant. He knew that Bernir had met all the requirements to get a new class so he should be able to use the class change stone instantly.

“Is everything alright?”

He noticed that Bernir wasn’t looking too happy about it and he probably knew why.

“Afraid that you might fail?”

“Hah, you know me well boss…”

It was clear to Roland that this smithing job meant more to Bernir than it actually ever meant to him. He chose the path of the Runesmith as it was the only one he thought could utilize the skills that he had and not due to him being passionate about it. On the other hand, his assistant was someone that wanted it badly.

“It’s okay, even if you don’t pass on the first try you can try again later.”

He tried to cheer him up as he knew that Bernir did actually have a knack for creating items.

“Thanks, boss… got any tips?”

Roland did previously do some research concerning tier 2 crafting classes but he had already told Bernir what he should expect. If he was going for an armorsmith then the test would be to create a piece of armor. It could be anything, a gauntlet, breastplate, or even a full suit of armor if he was unlucky.

“Think I told you whatever I could, now it’s up to you, why do you think I told you to make all those armor pieces for the past month?”

Bernir nodded while glancing back to his workshop. In it, on the table, he could see the crystal that would begin the job change quest.

“I’ll do it tonight…”

Both of them nodded at each other before going back to their own chores. Bernir continued practicing his craft while Roland went over to Agni. Not today but soon he would need to take his teenage pup down into the dungeon to train again.

“Things aren’t looking that bad…”

He looked over his home that was coming along nicely. The trouble in the city was cleared up and it looked that the peaceful days would follow. Then the memories of certain cultists and thieves came flooding back into his mind and a frown appeared on his face.

‘I should go figure out that golem system…’