The Ruined Death Knight-Novel

[Read Author´s note]

In the basement of the church.

Through the darkness of the room, only a small green light lighten the entire room with hundreds of weapons and armor pieces lying around.

Each of those had many kinds of characters engraved on the metal.

While some had the same characters, if one were to look carefully around he would notice that they were at least 15 different recognizable combinations to see.

Of course, without any kind of dark vision such difference could be easily be passed by without even noticing them.

But if you were one of the few like the one undead seating in the middle of the room carving in silence more of those characters possessing dark vision, that would be a whole another thing.

[Common Rune Ser successfully engraved, Rating: Well-done]

[You received 3000 XP]

"Finally...."

De-activating his [Rune Vision], he raised the sword to the air and stared at it for minutes to pass.

"To think that I made such mistakes all this time along." Danzel said as pushed himself up.

"Stonewall." Raising his hand while casting, a small three-meter wall of stone was raised from the ground.

Swinging the newly made runed sword, the wall was cut in half at one go clean.

"It´s indeed much better than before, if I were to remove the Veren runes from the Veren sword then this sword might be better..." Danzel mumbled to himself.

Although he was happy that he finally managed to make rune of the higher grade, the process he went to do it made him shake his head.

Although the [Good] and the [Well-done] grades were working just fine, in the end, they were fakes of the real deal and he knew it.

Comparing the two grades to each other, he saw many mistakes on the [Good]. By fixing such mistakes and trying to better himself overall, he managed to create a [Well-done] rune.

But what did this mean to Danzel?

It means that the [Well-done] grade, although superior, also had mistakes that Danzel couldn´t wrap his head around.

It was similar to how one would answer a question on a test full of confidence, but in the end, you forgot to mention a small detail that would had given you the full points.

Although most of it was correct, it wasn´t the perfect answer.

And Danzel knew that.

Putting the sword to the side, he pulled Veren out of his sheath and looked at it.

"Neither this rune is perfect..." he mumbled to himself.

Though the recently simply that the kids above brought for him, he could finally continue to practice his runesmithing once again in a quiet place.

Although he had to give those annoying kids his [Ring of Spatial Storage], it was only temporary.

And with him practically holding the other kids in the church as a hostage, he didn´t doubt that they will run with it.

Nevertheless, with the huge supply of stuff to engrave runes with, he started to buy common runes in frenzy.

Since he started to realize that the closer he went in understanding some runes, the hard it was getting to progress.

For that, he decided to learn other common runes and try his luck on them.

Hoping that they will be able to help him move forward.

And in the end, they did make him have a greater understanding of the runes generally.

Although his current goal was to replicate the Veren runes that by his guess we're on the uncommon level, common runes did help him.

Some of those runes made keeping poison in blades much easier, making your armor pieces waterproof with many other ones increasing the resistances of magic and weapons generally.

Since he had lots of XP stored, affording so many common runes wasn´t a problem for him.

But those runes whereof the uncommon quality...

"This place starts to feel much crowded with all these items around... I got to tell that guy Honor to start selling those." Danzel said as he stared at a particular sword that had a similar length to Veren.

That was his first attempt to create the Veren rune.

But in the end, it turned into a rune called [Rune of Varon] which would suck one's blood out and turn the blood into mana that would wrap his sword around.

"I have the blood converting method, I just miss the repair part and I should be able to make a similar rune that of Veren, but..." Frustrated, he threw the sword to the ground.

Although it was his best attempt at Veren, in the end, the rune just wrapped the sword in mana with some extra steps.

He himself could wrap a sword with his own mana, why would he need a sword that needs blood just to do the same thing?

He didn´t even have the capabilities to use the mana in the first place, so what was the point?

"I got to find a way to make mana replace the steel, but how..." Pondering, he went to one of the crates to pick another sword to practice his runesmithing.

"Huh? Don´t tell me that I already used everything to carve runes..." Cursing internally, he pulled out his [Sun Timer].

"Ugh...The other supplies will come in three days in time if I am right. What should I do now?"

Sitting in front of the stone table, he pulled all kinds of different things out of his ring of storage.

"Should I train-No, I have already done that for a whole week. Maybe finish those books that I have gotten not long ago, but..."

As he was thinking on what to do next, one his ethereal eyes he spotted the badge of the mercenary association of him being a B-ranked mercenary.

"Mhmm, I should change my routine." Picking the badge, he made his way towards the association building after explaining to the kid Kayn where he will be going.

Making his way towards the association building, not sort after he arrived at their front door.

"This place hasn´t much chanced the last time I was here..." Walking to the board where all kinds of missions were, he looked at them one by one.

"Bodyguard duty, Helping training one's kid with swordsmanship..." Danzel read as he shook his head in disappointment.

They were many missions that either took way too long to finish or weren´t just for his taste. 

As he read the last quest in disappointment and was about to leave, he heard a similar voice from behind him.

"Hey, Danzel! I haven't seen you for ages, how are you doing?" The bulgy giant Hannes came and patted Danzel's shoulder with a smile on his face.

Looking at the familiar face, Danzel nodded in response.

"Well, I been trying to find a quest to do to just pass some time, but nothing here meets my criteria..." Danzel said solemnly, not sure how to handle the huge muscles of positive energy.

"Hmm? Do you want to take a job? Are you sure you haven´t looked at every single one? What are you searching for?"

"Well, something that can be finished max at three days and that isn´t looking after someone..." 

"Hahaha! So you basically are searching for a quick fight huh? Let me see..." Hannes laughs before focusing on the board.

"Hmm, my friend. It seems there truly is nothing for you here..."

Hearing that, Danzel shrugged his shoulders and prepared to go back to the dark place he came from.

"But worry no more, as I have the best solution for you!" Hannes quickly said.

"Hmm, and that is?" Danzel asked in curiosity.

"You see, me and Serran together with some other guys are planning to go hunt a beast in the forest that has been creating problems for certain people. Using a carriage to go there  and back here will only take one day in total!"

"To the forest huh...what kind of monster is it?" Danzel asked as he didn´t want to blindly accept to face a enemy he didn´t know.

"Ehm...I am not sure what they are called. For as long as I remember it´s just a big turtle. You can ask Serran for details if you want."

Looking at Danzel with shining eyes, Hannes said.

"So, will you join us at the hunt? Having a reliable person like you would really help." Hannes said.

`Should I accept...` Danzel complained if he should join them or not.

Although he quite disliked hanging out with the living, humans mostly.

Going out to blow up some steam wouldn´t be so bad.

As the magic caster, Serran and Hannes were at least tolerable. He nodded his head.

"Alright, as long as we are in three days back here, I don´t mind joining you guys."

Hearing that, Hannes laughs out loud before showing Danzel the way.

And the moment that Hannes left with Danzel the building, from upstairs came to a group that instead of wearing the mercenary badge, wore the adventurer back.

"Sigh...are you sure that he is in this down short feet?" A girl holding stuff said to a guy wearing small daggers around his clothe armor.

"Don´t start blaming me, that guy managed to leave Bernes without anyone knowing where he went. If that was as easy as waving that wooden stick of yours, we would already found him."The short man said.

"You!"

"Enough with you Pickering, let´s go eat something, I am starving over here." A man with a huge shield said to the duo.

Grumbling to each other, they seated at a random table in the building.