The Runesmith

There he was, the professor in the flesh. The fabled person with extensive runic knowledge that could push his progress to another level. The only problem with him was that he was a cat.

“Did a mouse get your tongue? What’s with that expression young man? Did my presence overwhelm you already?”

‘Quite the cocky cat to boot…’

“Ah no, I just didn’t expect you to call me this early or that you would be...”

“I would be what?”

Roland scratched his cheek and started wondering if suddenly Bernir would pop up and say that this was all a prank.

“A cat…”

He said it while not really knowing what this creature before him was. There were certain magical and mystical creatures in this world. Just like Agni that was getting smarter with his evolutions this also might have been someone’s tamed beast that had grown in intelligence.

“You would refer to this Professor as a domesticated pet? Why I never!”

“Ah, you’ll have to excuse my friend Professor Arion, he didn’t mean it.”

Soon Lucille interjected from the side as she could clearly see that Roland was in distress.

“On the merit of being a Runesmith of skill, I will excuse this transgression but remember well child, I am not a mare housecat!”

“Uh, you have my apologies.”

Roland just replied as he did not want to argue about things like this. Still, it looked like he was getting pranked by Lucille. The real professor could be somewhere to the side laughing at his confused face but as they continued to talk it didn’t seem that anyone else would be showing up.

“Well then, Mr. Wayland was it? Young Lady Lucille has told me that you were the one that enchanted that magnificent Runic Shield.”

“I see that it has slipped her mouth.”

Roland was a bit surprised by the reaction of this cat that was supposed to be the runic expert here. This creature clearly wouldn’t be able to runecraft with those cat paws that it had. How it went about using the runes as a Rune Mage was intriguing.

“Yes, quite. I must say lad, you sure did outdo yourself and while at such a young age. If young Lucille hadn’t insisted I would have thought it was done by one of those old drunks.”

“As you can see, I am not a dwarf, just an ordinary human.”

From the cat’s tone, it seemed that he had no love for the dwarven kind. Being that he was a Rune Mage that was interested in runecrafting it made sense. The dwarven union was already giving him trouble now, he could only imagine how bad they would cooperate with a talking cat.

“How did you manage to come to this level of skill? You don’t seem to be that experienced, is it some kind of unique skill or mayhaps some lost knowledge of an old Runesmith master that you have unearthed?”

The cat started walking around while trying to figure out how Roland’s runesmithing skills came to be. The magical crystal ball was on a table and the strutting cat on it was a strange sight to behold. The Professor was right with his first assumption but not like Roland would reveal his secrets just like that.

“This level of perfection is unprecedented, even though they were only common runes, the way that the mana guides through them is quite fascinating but..”

“But? Was there a problem?”

“Oh? You didn’t realize? The Runic Matrix was not as refined as the rest, you seem to have a full grasp when the outer shell of the runic structures but fail at fully understanding the Runic Matrix.”

The Runic Matrix, this was something that he had read about before but just once. It was during his change into the Runesmith Lord Class and only there. When he reached the library he was given the basic knowledge about that term, which he referred to as the runic software.

The Rune Matrix was what made the whole spell structure tick. It was the most important part of them. With it, he could change the runic spells on a higher level than when he only used the outer runic components.

Even a basic runic structure could be turned into many spells with a better understanding of the software. There were still limitations to how much a person could do, only when both hardware and software knowledge was combined to its fullest would Roland finally be a true Runesmith.

“Yes, this is true, my knowledge of the Rune Matrix is still lacking. I can only produce simple spell effects that had already been created by others with minor alterations.”

Roland could look into the runes and copy the code that was inside of this matrix. What he usually did was just copy-paste it and see if something stuck. This was a strenuous process, without a full understanding of what he was doing he could only go with a grueling process of elimination.

“I see, I see. This might have truly be a fortuitous encounter indeed.”

“How so?”

He asked while the cat with the monocle chuckled to himself.

“Can’t you see it, young man? You lack the knowledge to fully access the Runic Matrix while I require a skilled Runesmith that can create impeccable runic structures with no faults!”

The black cat started laughing maniacally for some reason while Roland pondered what he had said. It did seem like a good pairing if what the cat was saying was true. If he could get some extensive knowledge about the inner workings of this Runic Matrix he might be able to produce some interesting spells.

Roland's basic knowledge about how magic worked in this world was quite rudimentary. It was always aided by skills though he somewhat knew what he was doing. He didn’t fool himself though, what he was doing was just remembering and performing the acts while not fully understanding them.

With this approach, he might be able to pass some tests but not apply them to a real-world scenario. To actually become someone that could create and innovate he needed to get more information. If not, he would be stuck experimenting for years upon years, even this golem that he was trying to make was already giving him a headache.

“You are right, I do lack the knowledge when the matrix is concerned but would you be willing to disclose information to someone like me?”

“Someone like you?”

“Yes, an unknown country bumpkin.”

“Ha ha, I see you have taken my little jab to heart, I must apologize for my small joke, I did not mean to offend. You are right. First, we need to build up some trust, what say that we exchange some of our knowledge first and see how it goes from there?”

Roland rubbed his chin a bit as he contemplated. Would it be okay to trust this person that wasn’t even human or any of the other humanoid races? His new friend Lucille trusted this cat but she had her head up in the clouds.

She did see past Robert’s hard outer exterior to see that he was not a bad person inside though. Maybe she was a good judge of character even though she mostly seemed that her head was up in the clouds.

“How would you envision this exchange of information?”

“Yes, how about I send you some rune schematics that I have been working on. If you can correct the faults to the outer runic traces I would be grateful.”

“Then when I am successful at correcting them, will you disclose some information about the Runic Matrix to me?”

“Yes, you do catch on rather quickly. I will accommodate the transfer of schematics with haste!”

The kitty cat started bouncing on the table as if he was quite excited. It raised its tail and started walking away from the magical crystal without really discussing how this exchange would be happening. Instead, Lucille found herself next to the crystal ball with a big smile on her face.

“Wait… how do you intend to deliver the schematics?”

“Oh don’t worry about that Mr. Wayland, we will just use the academy's gales to deliver everything they will arrive at the location of your communication crystal.”

“Ah, alright then…”

He was not sure what these gales Lucille was talking about but if he asked he would probably be teased about being a country bumpkin some more.

“Then, I’ll see you later…”

Soon the connection ended and Roland was left in his home with a lot of information.

‘Did I really spend the last half hour talking to a sentient cat?’

He flopped back into his seat and looked up at the ceiling of his house. After taking a moment to gather his thoughts it was time to eat some breakfast. Then it was time to go back down to his workshop where his only leftover golem core was waiting for him.

“Might as well…”

After getting a good night's rest and remembering what happened yesterday he was willing to give it another shot. Even when he failed there was a mine of golem cores waiting for him down in the dungeon. He could slowly learn through mistakes and progress along the way.

With failure came experience, with experience came skill level-ups. In this world, a person was rewarded for continuously building themselves up. The constant system prompts that reminded everyone that they were slowly progressing only made a person try harder as there always seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

So he grasped the last remaining golem core, this one was the largest and came from the highest level golem that he faced off against. He concentrated and the old monster matrix that was inside of it was slowly erased to make place for his own.

Sweat formed on his forehead as he concentrated. Slowly the light brown core started getting dimmer as it was cleared out of what was left of the old golem.

“Huh?”

Just as he was done with erasing the old data he was shown a prompt of acquiring a new skill. Due to it taking him by surprise the golem core that he was working on started to tremble. Soon it exploded into many tiny shards that collided with the protective goggles that this time he remembered to wear.

“Fuck…”

Roland threw the shattered remains of the core into a container with all of the other failures. Then after calming his nerves he went over the new skill that he had learned.

Runic Cleansing

With this skill, a Runesmith is able to remove old existing runes from various materials without damaging them in the process.

It seemed that the skill would allow him to just erase old runes from items. This might have not seemed that useful at first glance but could prove quite handy. If he was working on costly materials and fumbled during it he could be granted a second chance.

Then where this skill probably had its uses the most was on items like this golem core. When using it on materials that would break easily it would aid in keeping them intact. Probably with a high enough level he would not even need to concentrate while working on a golem core like this.

“That’s nice, but now I need more golem cores.”

Having taken care of the runic weapon backlog the day before Roland didn’t really have anything else to do other than to work on his golem project. He hollered for Agni and both of them descended into the dungeon once more. With having a setup grind spot it didn’t take Roland much to return with six more golem cores.

The sun was already down over the horizon and it was getting dark. Thus when he saw the strange green glow over his house Roland was a bit alarmed.

“Oh hey boss, glad that you are back, that thing has been perched on top of the chimney for an hour now, I was not sure what to do with it so I waited…”

Bernir was there and he was pointing at the glowing thing in question.

“What is that? A bird?”

On his chimney, a nightingale was perched but it was illuminating the night with some kind of greenish glow. The moment Roland had arrived the bird turned its head to him. Soon it zoomed down from there and started circling around him.

This caused Agni to growl but Roland raised his hand up to stop him from making so much noise.

“It’s fine, I think I know what this is…”

He reached out with his hand towards this magical creature and just as he had thought it landed on it. Soon the glow that was coming from this magical bird faded along with it. Tiny green particles of light rose up into the air as a small satchel was left behind.

“I guess this was the ‘Gale’ that the cat meant, sure got here fast…”

The magical academy was quite a distance away from where Roland was located. This magical creature must have been flying at an astonishingly high speed to get here.

“Would you look at that, is this one of your runic contraptions, boss?”

“Mine? No, it’s just a message from the Magical Academy.”

Bernir looked at the small satchel that Roland placed back into his own pocket.

“Oh? Did you make some new friends with those uptight mage types? You have to watch out for them, my father told me that they have no respect for the craft!”

Roland nodded at Bernir and soon headed to his home. There was a certain way that most mages carried themselves, Lucille was the exception to the rule. Most of them were rumored to not think much of the common folk, thinking themselves to be more intelligent than almost anyone.

Back in his room, Roland undid the little bowtie that the satchel was tied with and was created by more bright light. He was lucky that he placed this small bag on the table and didn’t open it in his palm.

After the light faded he could see a few items. The first thing he noticed was a large thick book.

‘The introduction to runes’

It read and after skimming through it he could tell that it was some kind of basic handbook. It explained some basic runic knowledge that he already knew but also delved deeper into some content that he was not aware of. It also included a couple of new rune schematics that he didn’t know.

Besides the book, there was also a letter. It looked quite official with a wax seal and an emblem. It was clear from who this came after he looked at the seal as instead of a noble crest it had a cat paw print on it.

‘To my dearest new acquaintance, Mr. Wayland…’

Roland started reading through it and it was clearly written by the cat. How it managed to write it without opposable thumbs was anyone's guess. Maybe Lucille was the one writing it as the penmanship was quite nice.

In the letter, the cat explained everything to him. He was given a schematic that he would need to correct. When he was done with his work he was supposed to place it on the magical scroll that it came with and activate it. When he did it would transform into another green bird and carry it back to the academy.

‘This scroll, it’s runic in nature…’

The moment he looked at the scroll he could tell that it was a high grade tier 2 spell. From the outside the runes didn’t look at much but what really made it complex was the program inside.

‘So you can make complex spells like that even with common runes?’

Creating something like an intelligent messenger bird like this that could distinguish people and deliver items to the correct person was not an easy task. The magical bird waited for him to get there and only then would he give up the goods while ignoring Bernir.

Then there was the last item. A folded up block of paper which he quickly unfolded. What he saw was a complex runic diagram that he had never seen before.

‘This…”

The runes were somewhat strange as their pathways were overlapping over each other. It was as if there were two separate runes imposed over one another in a stack.

“Wait… could this be… a tier 3 runic schematic?”

Roland licked his lips while quickly attaching this schematic to the board on his wall. With it there he had a clear view of his new task.