The Runesmith

‘I should get this over with first…’

Roland was back home with the shield in hand. After coming back he reprimanded his assistant for being a pervert. Bernir just explained that he just gave the woman from the shop a little tap on the posterior as she was bending down in front of him.

He started fearing for Bernir’s safety as that beastwoman would probably be able to crush Bernir’s neck like a ripe melon if she wanted. He had glanced at her classes and he noticed that she had leveled a warrior class at tier 1 together with the blacksmith class.

She had a bit of unique class distribution as she had gone through 25 levels of weaponsmith and was now an armorsmith with 20 levels to her. This meant that at level 100 she would be able to switch classes again, to what he could only speculate. She seemed open to doing business with him and might have had some ties to non-union merchants that could help him.

It seemed that he was universally disliked by the dwarves in this city. There were some good blacksmiths that outranked him, some might have even been tier 3 but there were no runesmiths besides him.

This would normally give him a big boost to his wares as he had the first adapter privileges here. The problem was the dwarven union that controlled a big chunk of the market. Most of this could be counteracted by him having a deal with the adventurer’s guild.

Even the union could not go against them as they required adventurers as bodyguards to protect their merchants and more. This didn’t mean that Roland wanted to procure everything through the guild, it felt a bit constricting. Being reliant on just one source was always an unwanted turn of events.

“It feels as if I was gone for a year…”

Roland opened up his workshop and was greeted by the usual stuffy air. This was quickly alleviated by pressing a button on the wall. One to turn on the light while the other turned on special runes that purified the air.

“What you can do with some frost and wind runes.”

He took a deep breath and could feel the fresh air entering his lungs. This rune that he developed would make any AC manufacturer jealous. It only used up renewable energy and was actually good for the environment.

This also brought an idea to Roland’s mind. If he had a contract with the guild he could probably convince the guild master to use some of his runes.

From his conversation with Lucille and after going through actual runic knowledge he realized something. The Runesmiths here weren’t very flexible. They stuck to the old schematics and didn’t even try to innovate.

All the runes on the weapons were all the same type and they just varied by grades. There was so much a runesmith could do to affect the runic structures. They could still make a highest rated rune but turn down the output for someone that had low mana reserves.

They could also do the exact opposite and crank it up. This would allow people to pick and choose items to fit their builds more. Ones liked to spam many attacking skills while others aimed for that one big attack that hit at that one right moment for maximum damage.

This could be done with the basic sharpness rune. It could turn a blade into a one-hit kill skill by using up most of the user's mana. The regular rune on the other hand only used a small fraction to keep the blade in working condition and the rune from breaking.

With that in mind, he could burst out onto the market with new innovative weapons. Weapons tailored to specific classes that took into account their unique characteristics. Ones that had multiple features for every occasion and even ones that abandoned all safety for that one last-ditch attack. Everything could be done but it would take some time till he gets a feel for the market.

‘Time to get to work…’

Roland placed two books on his workbench. One looked more like a binder with strings tied through old scrolls. This ‘book’ showed him how to build the Runic furnace in which he would be able to melt the mana stones. The other one was a lot thinner as it had the recipes for some alloys.

These magic alloys would work as if they had an implanted mana stone in them. Thanks to them being a mix the runic structures would actually work much better. He would also save a lot of space as making the specific runic structure for the mana stone socket would not be needed.

This would also allow him to make runic items of smaller weapons like throwing knives or throwing stars. Those kinds of disposable weapons could turn into deadly bombs while also benefiting from their user’s throwing and aiming skills.

He could also add paralyzing effects and even poison ones that didn’t require the thief to dip the knives into any liquid. Thanks to this it would be quite safe to handle them even by someone that was not particularly dextrous.

‘Making this smelter will take some time.’

Roland gave out a sigh while closing the books filled with crafting knowledge. Instead of the smelter, he needed to get this shield up and running. He placed it on the same workbench and examined it again first.

His analyzing skill had gotten a lot better. Thanks to it he could even tell the strength requirements of holding it. Tier 1 classes would have a hard time holding it in place as it was quite thick and bulky. Thanks to this bulkiness he would have something that would hold the runic structures for quite some time.

Also thanks to this he could insert the mana stones into the rear side of the shield by just drilling into it. The holes would be shallow but it would be enough to place the mana stones in strategic positions. Thanks to the glue made by the alchemists from this world it would stay in place. Previously he needed to wedge it inside and have it physically stick in but now it was much easier.

With that in mind, he got to work. First, he needed to design the runic structure to fit this shield. His brother liked the idea of having a multi-purpose elemental runic shield. With how large this one was, there was enough place to allow Roland to do this.

He drew four circles around the handle that would be then drilled out to house the mana stones. Each mana stone would come from a specific elemental creature which would ad a boost to the elemental runic structure.

There was no end to red mana stones as the dungeon was fire-based and the brown earth mana stones were also plentiful. The rarest kind would be the ice one which he had to take out from his mana stone safe.

The spell trigger points would be placed by the shield handle. Depending on which digit Robert used it would activate the corresponding spell effect. Besides these four there would be another special effect that would be activated by injecting the mana through all four points at once.

Roland learned a few special ways that he could activate the spells which didn’t require all separate trigger points. Thanks to this he saved up on space while being able to make more combinations without running out of finger space.

For people, without the mana sense skill, it was a bit hard to learn to control these types of items. Everyone was able to inject their mana into runic items but it took some time to be able to do it with their fingers and not the entire hand.

Within a few hours, he had the schematic drawn up on a large piece of parchment. Even without his debugging skill, it was at the intermediate level. Bringing it up to the highest level gave him more experience as always but at his current level, this wasn’t much.

Soon the shield found its way on the drilling table. It was clamped down in place for safety reasons and was ready to be drilled in.

The drilling table that he created was still utilizing his old drill. It possessed a crank on the side with which he could lower the drill down. With a couple of movements, the drill bit descended to the previously sketched on hole. Soon four identical openings that were in the shape of a tilted square were around the handle.

With those now in place, it was time for some hammering. Before he could move to runesmithing the shield needed to be heated up. Even with his enhanced skills, it would be hard to force the runic structures in without previously softening this shield up a bit.

The heated-up shield was grasped by Roland. He did not use any tongs as he had made special fire-resistant gloves for himself. With them on he would not be afraid to stick his hand into a burning fire.

His grip was as strong as a vice which meant that he did not have to worry about the shield moving out of place as he hammered it.

Soon the workshop was filled with the noise of the face of his hammer hitting the deep steel shield. The traces slowly took shape while glowing bright red before settling down and becoming hard to see.

Roland’s mana started being drained at a staggering pace but it took a while before it dropped below fifty percent. At this point, he needed to take a breather or suffer the onset of the mana debuffs.

‘This will probably take two or three days to make. Even when my skills increase, if the material gets better, the time it takes stays about the same.’

While Roland was busy with crafting this runic shield time continued to pass. The nobles mostly remained in the better part of the city with not many of them wandering outside. This was not due to Percival not allowing it but by their own volition.

There were not many nobles like Lucille De Vere that were interested in the way the commoners lived. With her knight, she was seen going around the city which caused problems for the mayor and guild master.

This was also why when they came to Roland’s luxurious home out in the boonies they were together with two familiar faces.

“Why are you here?”

“Hey Wayland, how’s it hanging? Do you wear that armor even at your home? Isn't it hard to work in?”

An extroverted half-elf called out to Roland from behind Lucille. For some reason, Lobelia was together with these two nobles and to her side was his favorite idiot.

“I’m not here because I want to, blast that old fart.”

Armand complained while frowning, it was clear that the guild master had forced him to be a bodyguard for this pair of nobles. This was probably the right call, having a noble be snatched up for ransom would be not something that he would want.

“Good morning Sir. Wayland. I must say, this wall and that barbed wire look imposing.”

Lucille curtsied a little bit while hiding in the shade of her umbrella.

“Can those two stay outside?”

Roland pointed to Armand and Lobelia that frowned.

“Hey Wayland, what is this favorable treatment? Let me see your house, don’t be stingy!”

She protested while Armand didn’t seem to care.

“If Sir. Wayland is against it…”

Lucille looked over to Robert who just nodded and then to her two bodyguards. Lobelia just pouted and stomped her foot on the ground while Armand decided to squat down.

“Great, come in then.”

Roland moved to the side and let Robert and Lucille enter through the gate. He was sure to close it afterward and also gave Agni something to do.

“Watch the entrance, if those idiots try to come in, bite their ankles.”

“Woof!”

Agni stood up proudly while guarding the entrance, Lucille chuckled while giving the older puppy a few pets.

“I’m going to miss you Agni, here.”

From inside her pouch, she pulled out a large meaty sausage that she promptly gave to the tamed beast.

“Don’t overfeed him…”

Roland grumbled while moving towards his house. Robert and Lucille started looking around. They could see the opened log cabin with a red-haired half-dwarf in it. The moment he saw the girl he was quick to get up and run over.

“Greetings M’lady! This Bernir is at your service!”

He bowed his head quite low, unbeknownst to Lucille he was checking her out. The girl was wearing a long dress but this didn’t keep the horny dwarf from licking his lips. Roland was aware of this and hoped that Robert would not be.

“Bernir, go fetch the shield.”

“Ahh… sure, I’ll go get it!”

Bernir straightened out and went back into the wooden shed. In a minute he was back with a runic version of the shield that Robert picked out for himself.

“Here, try it on.”

Roland took the shield from Bernir and then handed it to Robert. The knight clutched it tightly while trying to get a good feel for it. Robert could see that the shield’s rear side had changed and now had four mana stones around the handle.

“It fits my hand well.”

“Great, let me explain the runic structure to you, how about we move here.”

Roland pointed to the side as he wanted Robert to activate some of the spell effects. Doing it right next to his house could cause some damage so they all moved to the backyard.

“Sir. Wayland… What are those? Windmills?”

Lucille pointed to the two large wind turbines that were spinning around in his backyard. After a week of work, they managed to clean the backyard out from the debris and all the wires were placed back into the ground.

“Ah… it's something similar, let's test the shield though.”

Roland moved his head towards Robert as he didn’t want to have Lucille snooping around those turbines. He feared that she might start asking him more questions which would prolong their stay here. His plan was to just hand them the shield, take the money, and wish them good luck in their life.

He wasn’t even sure if he would ever contact Lucille with the magic crystal ball. This runic professor sounded like an interesting person but this would mean that he would need to get involved with nobles yet again.

“Good, now try infusing your mana into the shield with your index finger.”

Robert nodded and while gripping the shield tightly he tried to infuse the shield with his mana. The runes on it started glowing for a moment but then the light faded away without anything happening.

“Not like that, just your index finger, you are still using your whole hand, give me the shield for a moment, I’ll show you.”

Robert’s brows furrowed a bit but he gave the shield away. Roland held it out in such a way that his brother could see how he was gripping it. When he used his index finger to inject mana now the shield started glowing red and soon a red shield of flames appeared.

Then to show off the features he used his middle finger which changed the shield into one made from green wind energy. While this shield was active a lot of wind was produced, while it wasn’t as solid as the other shields it could be used to blow things like poison and smoke away.

“Can you see?”

Robert looked at the magical shields that were created and his eyes seemed to lit up. While he was focused on Roland holding the shield, Lucille was seen walking away from the two.

“Hm?”

Roland turned his head towards this blue-haired noble girl. She was clearly going towards one of the wind turbines that were further in the backyard. These turbines were about in the middle of the backyard, the same one that had mine runes buried in it.

‘What is that idiot doing...’

His lovely assistant was nowhere to be seen as he could hear sounds of hammering in the log shed. Roland was far too busy with his work to pay much attention to the backyard, Bernir knew how to restock the mines and Agni would not set them off at this point.

The mines were refilled after the fiasco with the thieves but before letting Robert and Lucille in he did have Bernir tie a rope to block the path further towards the backyard. He even hung up a ‘Don’t enter’ sign there. Lucille apparently ignored this sign and slipped past the rope while Roland was showing Robert the new shield.

“Stop, don’t move you idiot!”

His voice was loud but this didn’t stop the girl from moving forward. The only thing he could do was to activate a somewhat unfinished agility boost that was only crafted into the armor covering his arms.

Robert was stunned for a moment as he saw Roland run towards Lucille at full speed as if he wanted to ram into her. Almost at the same time of Lucille stepping into one of the mines, Roland managed to arrive next to her.

The runic shield was still in his hand so he protected the ice mage from the explosion while holding her closer towards his own body. The explosion was somewhat mild but if Lucille stepped into it, her foot would have been gone.

“What do you think you are doing? Didn’t you see the rope and sign?”

“I...I’m s-sorry Sir. Wayland I just saw the runic symbols and couldn’t cont… huh?”

“Eh?”

“What?”

Robert was closely behind Roland but instead of helping Lucille up, he was looking at Roland’s face. While unsure what was happening Roland noticed something. He could feel that something was missing, something that was previously on his head...