The Runesmith

Roland wasn’t even that much interested in his final grade while looking at the door that appeared next to the TV screen. It looked like a regular wooden door with a regular handle, he just needed to reach out with his hand to open it yet he was considering if he really wanted it.

This would either take him to the exit, perhaps a similar area with books like on his previous trial, or to a new area with more testing. The first four tests added up to about two weeks of time spent with the last one adding another week of constant work and no rest. While for some reason his body wasn’t feeling tired he was reaching a boiling point.

By the way these class change tests were structured he expected this to be the end. It was a bit easier than all the other trials that he took but this was something that he expected. Tier 2 class change quests were more difficult at tier 1 as they didn’t scale as well when a person at a higher tier was taking it.

If he had to take this trial when he was at level 75 he wasn’t so sure that he would have been able to pass it. At that point in time he didn’t really have that much knowledge concerning golems or their cores, nor did he have the stats to help him manufacture multiple weapons at once.

With his Runesmith Lord class, he was able to quickly copy the runes from his memory. This helped him immensely during the tower defense section of the test. Without the diligent studying that he had done throughout these years, he would also be unable to pass this easily. It was more thanks to his diligent work that he was able to somehow breeze through here and not an indication that the class was useless.

Now he had a decision to make, does he walk through this door and claim his new class or would he try to fail. How would he fail this class trial after solving all the problems? From what he knew there would be some ways to not finish the trials after passing most of them.

One of them would be to just wait it out, these things did have a time limit but how long that would be he didn’t know. The fastest way would be to get would be simulated death, he would need to die within the trial ground. Pain was felt in the same way as if he was in the real world so he would rather not have it go that far.

‘Will that Runic Golem Designer be any better…’

He didn’t get any information about what skills he would be getting from neither of the two classes he was interested in. The name was the only thing that was a hint along with the little sprite on the TV screen.

The Runic Golem Designer class was probably part of the dwarves' heritage. It would probably be impossible for him to get anything out of them. The thick-skinned crafting race never appreciated outsiders within their field of expertise. He wouldn’t be surprised if they bought up all the skill books and pieces of knowledge that allowed others to go down this path.

What he could expect to find in the trial of this class would probably be golem crafting. Perhaps the trial would be similar to this one where he only needed to assemble parts and have his creation battle with other ones.

He expected it to mostly focus on just that while this Runic Engineer class was more broad in scope. Only at the fifth iteration of the test was he given golem parts to play around with yet he would require similar skills to pass both class tests. The big question was if he should specialize or broaden his horizon. Did he only want to make golems or utilize different techniques for more varied runic creations?

In the first place, the Runic Engineer Class was already focused on one field that was runes. Not like he would be spreading himself too thin and becoming a jack of all trades master of none. His main discipline would still be runes and crafting he would just be able to apply them to more, perhaps together with the Runesmith Lord class his Tier 3 options would present him with something unique.

‘Are there any engineers in this world other than me?’

While Roland had gone through a second-rate college he was still an engineer with a degree. He was stuck repairing computer parts but thanks to that he was convinced that this class was somehow tailor-made for him. Probably without the skills that he gained from his first life he would be unable to get this option.

With that in mind, he took a step towards the door and placed his hand on the handle. After moving it down he pushed the door open, a bright glow greeted his face that quickly faded away to show him the inside of this room. Without doubt clouding his decision he finally took a step towards his new destination.

….

……

“Ugh…”

Roland collapsed on the ground while holding his head. A splitting headache was taking over as the stress from the class change trial flooded into his head all at once. It was as if it was waiting for this very moment to knock some sense into him.

After passing through the door he arrived at a study. It was very similar to the one he saw during his last class change trial. There he was given books to study runic engineering that allowed him to gain new skills and traits.

The biggest problem was that he needed to go through the books one by one and study them. This caused him to spend even more time without getting to rest his mind there. Luckily one of the passive skills that he received would help him in the future as it was stress resistance.

After the moment of weakness, Roland managed to gather himself off the floor. The pain quickly subsided which could be thanks to his new resilience skill. He felt that his headache had become numb and while there were some aftereffects he wasn’t feeling that bad.

Engineers were sometimes forced to work long hours without sleeping while constantly tinkering on their machines. Thus they needed to be resilient while also resistant to bouts of stress that could cause them to fumble.

Together with the skills that allowed him to go without sleep for days, he felt like he was turning into some kind of robotic existence that could work for days without end. Now it seemed that even if he didn’t sleep his mind would not be fatigued anymore nor would he feel a need to rest. After leveling those new skills high enough he might be only limited by his body while his mind would never falter.

Then there was the strange creativity trait. It was supposed to help him come up with new ideas? The explanation was vague but creative people seemed to be able to find ways of going around problems that were previously not there. Perhaps with the help of this trait he would be able to create new runes from old ones?

The last skill was also quite interesting Runic Restructuring. It gave him the possibility to alter his runes in a more drastic way. It was a skill and would be quite instantaneous, which during a battle could save his life.

For instance, if he had a runic wand that could only produce a frost spell. During a battle with an enemy that was susceptible to fire, he could alter the runic structure during the confrontation to alter it. Probably the rune would degrade slightly in the process but if he leveled this skill up further the damage done to the runic structure could be erased.

This wasn’t the only boon that was offered to him in the trial. He was given several books on runic constructs that he could read up on. With their help his manufacturing capabilities were now boosted, there were also some secrets concerning golems that he had not heard of before. With the help of this newfound knowledge, he would be able to fashion golems with improved operating systems.

‘While I have gained some new knowledge and useful skills, there isn’t anything, in particular, that would affect the golems or at least not yet.’

This was just the beginning, his new class was still fresh. Even though there were no new abilities aimed towards his golems there could be later when he gained a few levels. The quite painful eye skill that he received was only delivered to him at the end of his last class. Now with the resilience skill in his bag of tools, he would probably be also able to use it for a longer period of time.

After glancing over his new boost in stats and confirming that his two times multiplier was still there he decided to get a move on. His body didn’t feel tired but the experience of not getting any sleep for a whole month was somewhat weighing on his mind. But with the help of his new skills, he was able to waddle outside into the living room.

There he found some leftover food on the table that he was quick to gobble up. anything that he could find was taken in to replenish some of that lost mental energy that was slowly returning to him. Even with the new resilience skill, he found himself spacing out in the chair for a few moments before finally hearing a voice calling out to him from the side.

“Are you okay?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s you Elodia, yes I’m doing fine just give me a minute.”

Roland waved to her while smiling weakly.

“You don’t look fine, why are you so pale.”

“Oh well, I just need to walk it off, I’ll be fine in a minute or two, must be the side effects of the class change nothing to worry about.”

He did not hide the fact that he had managed to change his class from her. Previously they even had a discussion about the possibility of him attempting it. While there was no danger of dying from such a trial some of them did weigh on the people taking them and this Runic Engineer one had been one of them.

“Why are you like this? You need to take care of yourself more, how about you go rest?”

Elodia shook her head around while getting closer. The first thing she did was place her forehead against his to check if he had a fever. Roland remained in place as the gesture was quite soothing to his tired mind. Yet while some dirty thoughts flooded his mind to use this situation he was really too tired to act on them.

“Yes, I should probably go to bed… what time is it anyway?”

After so much time had passed during that trial he was somewhat confused about the time of day. Was it the beginning of a new day or was Elodia closing the shop down for the day? He was sure but when he asked her about it she started looking more concerned. After some struggling, he was shoved into his bedroom to rest.

“Now get some rest, Agni don’t let him leave this room even if he orders you.”

“Awooo!”

Agni that had now become bigger and was a dire wolf gave out a resounding howl that caused some of the glass windows to vibrate. It seemed that he was pleased with his new guard duty as he curled up before the exit door while Elodia left to go outside. The rest was kind of a blur as Roland quickly fell asleep.

….

“Ugh… why do I feel so heavy…?”

At the break of dawn, he opened up his eyes, while he felt somewhat refreshed he also felt somewhat sweaty. There was something on his chest and it was far too heavy to be his girlfriend. When he opened his eyes were greeted by crimson fur that belonged to a certain Ruby Dire Wolf.

“Agni, what are you doing? Get off me, you’re getting too big for this!”

It seemed that his tamed beast had crawled into bed with him while he had passed out. This was something that occasionally happened but with each new evolution, it became harder and harder to stomach. Now when Agni was beginning to weigh more than even he did it start to become a problem.

“Woof?”

The moment Roland raised his voice he was hit in the face with something rather hard. It was the ruby tail of his wolf that was randomly swishing about. While Agni was quite happy to hear his owner's voice he was going through pain as his face was smacked around. for one reason or another, Agni’s posterior was resting on Roland's chest and after a few swats of the tail was promptly removed with a forceful push.

“I said, get off me!”

The thud was heard along with Roland’s shouting. Agni landed against the wall but he quickly adjusted to fall down onto his four legs. Instead of a punishment, it seemed that he took it differently as he just jumped back onto his master while attempting to lick his face.

Roland found himself dodging the rather long pink appendage while using his parallel thinking skill. Regretfully some slobber got onto his shirt as the attack was quite abrupt. Not even he could have seen this rude awakening coming.

“Okay, run along now…”

After washing his face he released Agni outside. It was still early in the morning and it would take a few hours until Elodia arrived to open the shop. For the time being, she mostly spent her time at the orphanage while shortening her stays at his home. He did not complain though as he had other things to worry about, like the golem that he needed to produce.

‘I guess I can stall it anymore, I need to make that golem.’

First impressions were important so he intended to put as much of his skill into this new golem variant as he could. But after the test, he had been through he thought that he would be easily able to come up with some nice improvements over the old models.

Though before he grabbed his blacksmithing hammer he took some time to think about a new possibility. From the corner of his eye, he saw a small black satchel. It was just your average spatial bag with the smallest enchantment possible on it.

“This will either give me the biggest headache I have ever had or will be one of the biggest discoveries…”

He grasped the satchel in his hand and slowly headed downstairs, his target being the empty room where he previously tested his rune eye skill out.