City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Saint Rune

Mountainsea slowly awoke from her dreams, eyes glazed over as her nose sniffed all around her. She struggled to her feet, turning towards Richard’s makeshift laboratory, but the drowsiness quickly won over and she fell back down and started snoring.

In the courtyard next to her, the ogre lord had sat up as well. Medium Rare’s one eye shone brightly, “What is that, it smells so tasty! Do you smell it?!”

Tiramisu scratched his head in confusion, “Tasty? Why don’t I sense it? You’re interrupting my sleep!”

“That thing will help us evolve! If we eat it, we’ll become a legendary lord! I told you before, stop studying magic or whatever. We’re already strong enough, we just need to focus on improving that.”

Tiramisu snorted, “There’s been so many legendary lords in the past, but not one legendary mage. I want to be the first! My name will go down in history!”

The two heads continued to bicker constantly, their voices growing in volume.

Waterflower suddenly sat up from her bed, sweeping across her surroundings while on guard as her hand grabbed the Shepherd of Eternal Rest she had laid beside her. Unhindered by the darkness, she looked around with confusion as she felt something calling out to her; the thing seemed very important, to the point that her instincts were telling her to jump for it. However, the voice in her mind was very distorted and she couldn’t seem to find the source. Sitting silently for a while, she forced her pounding heart to slow down.

It wasn’t just the gods of Faelor; many of the strongest warriors in the plane felt the appearance of the magic soul in tandem.

......

“Whatever, it’s done,” Richard waved off after a few moments of worry. He was currently overwhelmed by immense joy, the hand stretched towards the rune even starting to tremble a little. The glow slowly dissipated as he picked it up, but the pulses of mana within were still obvious and held a spirituality that almost wanted to explode out.

Despite the enormous phenomenon that was no less eye-catching than a lightning storm, he doubted his own eyes for the first time. Activating Insight, he carefully verified the composition of the rune. After repeated inspections, he finally had to admit that the consciousness from the King of Steel had assimilated with the rune’s powers, thoroughly remoulding itself into a magic soul. This was a rune with a soul!

In Norland, such runes had another name. They were called grade 5 runes, or saint runes. In other words, he was now a saint runemaster! There was still a gap with a true saint runemaster— he wasn’t yet legendary— but that only made his accomplishment even more terrifying. In all of Norland’s history, maybe a handful of runemasters had achieved sainthood in runecrafting before becoming legendary mages.

With the magic soul confirmed, he now had to test out the specific abilities of the rune in detail. Ordinary runes were rigidly defined from their designs, the craftsmanship and user only determining the extent of their power, but this did not hold true for saint runes. The magic soul would impart certain properties to the rune that couldn’t be predicted 100% of the time, so different creations of the same saint rune tended to be different. This was the same case with the seven Angels of the Sacred Tree Empire; each set of Saint Peter’s Heaven’s Armour was different.

However, Richard couldn’t bring himself into an analytical mindset at all. Memories started surging through his mind, a certain legendary mage with golden hair flooding his mind’s eye. Sharon was a huge influence on his life, perhaps second only to Gaton and Elena, and the night of destiny had left an everlasting memory in his mind. Today, after decades of dedication, he could finally go up to her and claim equality.

Of course, perhaps even that was wishful thinking. A saint runemaster was worth orders of magnitude more than an ordinary legendary mage, but she was different, unique. With her, it felt like the realm of legends was just a casual accomplishment that only served as the foundation for everything to follow.

He quickly decided that he would visit the Deepblue once the situation in Faelor had settled down, to talk to her once more. He had once made a promise to explore the depths of the myriad planes to finish the grade 6 Deepblue Aria, and now he finally qualified to begin working on that promise.

It was only once he reaffirmed his resolve that his emotions calmed down, allowing him to examine the rune’s ability. He quickly detached his existing Ruler’s Domain rune and placed the new one on his body, not even paying attention to the pain the process brought. As he felt the energy coursing within, it quickly became apparent that the magic soul had retained Lyos’s ability to control metal. This was far beyond ordinary manipulations, standing on par with the laws of the King of Steel. Put simply, he had inherited a portion of Lyos’s laws. This rune’s ability alone would be equivalent to another legendary skill!

With many upgrades, the Ruler’s Domain rune had become an important part of the Disintegrator rune set that allowed him increased mobility and minimised the effects of the environment upon him. It couldn’t be underestimated on the battlefields of despair. However, the loss of that ability came with a huge advantage in any places with metal. This would be no problem; there was no shortage of metals in a majority of the known planes of the world.

Because of its origin and properties, Richard decided to call this rune Kingsteel. A faint green aura spread from his hand as he started to activate it, but he suddenly sensed something and left the room.

Only moments later, Nasia walked into the courtyard, “It felt like you made something great, I came to take a look.”

Just as Richard was about to speak, the earth shook as though a giant was lumbering towards them. At first he thought it could be Tiramisu, but even the ogre lord wouldn’t make such loud noises. Nasia clicked her tongue, “Look, someone sensed it and is coming over now. Let’s guess who it is, a god’s avatar or a legendary warrior?”

As the earth started to shake even more violently, it suddenly felt like an ancient mammoth was charging at them. A savage aura flared out in the distance, so strong that normal people wouldn’t be able to breathe, but there was nothing to be seen on the horizon. However, Richard immediately calmed down and looked back to Nasia; it was a familiar aura, and as it drew closer he could only flash a strange smile.

Klandor’s princess had her eyes closed, relying solely on her nose to lead her all the way towards him. It was a familiar scene, but unlike all those years ago Richard was now strong enough to not be mowed down. Even if Urazadzu was still around, there would have been no way for him to control Richard’s movements.

Moving in her half-asleep state, Mountainsea wasn’t pulling back on the strength of her footsteps. Had he closed his eyes, Richard could easily mistake her for an ancient beast that was charging across the plane. Her beast-like aura was so pure that even Nasia couldn’t help but praise it, “Such a powerful bloodline!”

Richard looked at Nasia in surprise; this woman seemed like she knew everything, and for her to wholeheartedly praise something without a snobbish tone felt almost impossible. At the very least, this was the first time he had heard such sincerity from her.

Mountainsea continued to beeline towards Richard, her nose twitching constantly. It looked like she wanted to have the best of both worlds; she was asleep, but her instincts were leading her to the magic soul. Charging straight into him, she pushed him all the way to the courtyard’s wall.

Richard couldn’t help but chuckle in desperation at her behaviour, knocking her on the head several times to wake her up.

“What did you make, it smells good!” she buried herself into his embrace, “Ahh... Still not as good as you.”

Nasia flashed a smile, “This little monster will grow up into someone great. Careful, she might even eat you after she gets older, you should eat her now.”

Richard snorted at the bad play on words, completely dismissing it as he turned towards another smaller trembling in the earth.

“Boss, you made something great again? Can I eat it?” Medium Rare shouted out, his eye glowing with desire.

Seeing Waterflower appear nearby as well, Nasia was taken aback a little. She mumbled to herself before saying, “You really are something, being able to find so many people with such terrifying gifts. This isn’t all due to luck, is it?”

“That...” Richard immediately stuttered, memories of the past flashing across his mind. Nasia was right; anyone who could sense a magic soul’s birth was an extraordinary being. Their innate talent alone would bring them to the brink of the legendary realm, perhaps even beyond. Very few such people would actually get stuck on the border, unable to advance.

Waterflower might need a bit of luck, but she would eventually become a legendary figure in the future. Tiramisu was already halfway there, while Mountainsea was guaranteed to enter the realm of epic beings. Compared to them, Richard’s own talent was mediocre, his advancements only fuelled by meticulous attention to detail and relentless work.

Dumb luck couldn’t explain the ability to gather a group of such strong followers. In terms of talent alone, so long as one didn’t include the mysterious Mordred, Richard had ended up with a better set than even Gaton. However, this wasn’t all his accomplishment; in fact, it was barely his accomplishment at all.

A pair of pale gold eyes silently opened up in his mind, his heart aching at the mere memory of them. When he had first found Waterflower and his other followers, Flowsand had been present as well. Thinking back to it, she was the one who had guided him on who to pick, even giving him an idea of the realms they would reach all the way back then. She had seen something in the river of time that identified their potential.

However, the laws of time were fair and ruthless. While she had amassed a group of powerhouses around him, she herself had been forced to move away. Perhaps she had been paying the price even since then, but still helped him far more than she should have.

At this time, the imperial castle was stirred up as the rest of his followers quickly gathered together. Everyone was eager to learn just what Richard had created after holing himself up for such a long time.

However, he didn’t answer these questions directly, instead having a rune knight bring over a heap of ordinary blades and armour, several of which were standard issue for the imperial guards. This equipment was made from decent material, but it was in no way great.

“I’m calling it Kingsteel,” he said as he pulled out a random sword and played around with it, “Check it out.”

He moved towards Gangdor and swung down, the brute pulling up his battle axe to block. With a loud screech, one of the axe heads was broken right off!