The Runesmith

A high pitch whistling sound filled the cavern along with a blue glow. The light soon took form as it spiraled around in place to form a drill of azure. This energy construct quickly vanished from sight as it rocketed forward towards an ugly-looking monstrosity.

Roland moved the still glowing magical staff to the side. It was producing a lot of smoke while looking somewhat used up. It was showing signs of runic erosion, the glowing symbols weren’t as clear and the magical spell that he produced had diminished in power.

‘I guess even Durasteel can’t handle altered runes like this…’

The spell that he produced was probably something between a tier 2 and a tier 3 rank. It had enough power to kill off stationary targets like the ones inside this grinding spot but was inefficient. It required for the caster to fill it up with their mana for too long, thus causing the runes to deteriorate faster.

‘That creature’s regenerative skills were far too high…’

First, he came across the Infernal Skeleton Champion, then he also saw a lich but the monster that stayed in the corridor was this Ghoul. While Ghouls were seen as a lesser version of a more intelligent monster that was a Vampire, they were not weak. Some could even overpower their more conscious brethren in a fight.

They were undead creatures that could mend their own wounds in a matter of moments. With no other targets that he could choose from, he was left in a prolonged ranged battle where he slowly overwhelmed the creature with his runic magic.

This of course overloaded the weapon he created while also made him use up quite the amount of mana potions in the process. For the time being, it did its job but the next time he attempted this venture, he needed a change in weaponry that wouldn’t drain him of his magical energy.

‘Best if I leave this one be…’

The dead Ghoul was already decomposing into a pile of flesh. The moment it was dead and unable to regenerate itself its body started to break down. The only usable part would be the tier 3 mana stone it had but regretfully another monster had decided to stay in the room.

It was quite a surprising sight, it was the Lich type that showed some interest in its dead comrade. The monster did something that he didn’t expect, it picked up the sparkling mana stone from the ground into its bony hand and then promptly ate it.

While Roland wasn’t a specialist when it came to monster behavior he was sure that this was not something ordinary. The monster couldn’t see him but even after eating that mana stone, it continued to stay in that corridor while staring in his direction.

After maxing out his level there was no reason for him to kill more tier 3 monsters other than farming their bodies for materials. The staff he made was still operational and he could always repair the runes but for the time being he decided to close the opening to the other dungeon. Instead he would use the rest of the time to gather up more of the ores.

Thus he placed some boulders in the opening to not have to see the ugly flaming skull of the Lich. With his new level also came a nice surprise, he had gained a new skill when his Runesmith Lord class had maxed out.

‘That’s kind of vague, what is this truth? If it’s the truth, why is this skill called the Runic Eye of Truth and not just Eye of Truth?’

He had many questions about this skill but the fastest way of discovering what it was about, was just to use it. As with all the skills that came before, there was a sort of implantation of knowledge the moment he received it. How he could activate it was known to him but what it did was another thing.

The spider droids were back at work and Agni was patrolling the area so he had time to test things out. Without much reservation, he decided to activate the skill. This time around he would learn an important lesson, not all skills were the same and some like this one had drawbacks.

First, the skill activated and he could feel a large chunk of his massive mana pool being drained in an instant. While he couldn’t see it, his left eye began glowing as something appeared before him. This something were runic components and they were everywhere.

At first he was baffled by what he was seeing, the dungeon walls, the lava pool, even the air was covered in runic symbols. It was somewhat similar to the world of illusions that he witnessed all those years before but he was certainly not in an illusion.

Roland didn’t get much time to figure out what this new skill was trying to show him. After a couple of seconds, his head felt like it was hit by a sledgehammer. He was burning up and the longer this skill was activated the blurrier his vision became, then just before he was about to pass out he managed to cancel the effect.

He dropped down to his knees while clutching the left side of his head. He could feel something dripping down from this side and when he pulled his hand away, there was blood. His left eye had suffered an injury and he was bleeding from it.

The pain was sharp and his vision blurry before him, without a second thought he moved his hand into his satchel to take out a greater potion of healing. With haste he poured it over his eyes while also drinking the rest. Thanks to his quick thinking the pain started to subside and his darkened vision also slowly returned to him.

“...”

“Awoo?”

“Ugh… my eye…”

Roland felt something moist touching his forehead which turned out to be Agni’s nose. He had collapsed on the ground and actually passed out for a few minutes which gave Agni a scare. His head was killing him and he felt like puking.

“I’m fine Agni, just give me a moment.”

Slowly he moved over to a larger rock that he could lean against. There he tried waiting it out, the piercing headache that he received didn’t subside even after he drank some mana restoring potions along with the healing ones. Only after half an hour did he find himself released from the sharp pain that felt like the worst migraine he ever had.

‘What the hell was that…’

Roland placed his palm over the left side of his face where the skill was activated. His eye was still pulsating but thankfully he could see through it. This was the first time something like this had happened to him. He heard of skills injuring their users but not by this much on the first try.

After calming down he thought back to the moment he activated the skill. The world seemed to shift into something different and most of the surroundings turned to runes.

‘Runic Eye of Truth… wait…’

He tried to figure out this new skill but his memory was somewhat hazy after the splitting headache occurred. But thanks to his high intelligence he was able to go back and remember.

‘Not everything was covered in runes…’

Agni was there not that far away and he did recall the ruby wolf moving into his line of sight. His wolf was not composed of runes while almost everything around him was.

‘Maybe it doesn’t work on living beings?’

After some time to deliberate, he came to a few conclusions. He wasn’t totally sure but considering that the dungeon was covered in runes could be attributed to its magical nature. That would somewhat explain why everything was composed of runic components. This eye skill was somehow translating everything into runic language but the strain on his eye was too massive for him to use it.

‘That could be the case, but I could also be wrong, perhaps the skill didn’t work on Agni because the level was too low?’

He wasn’t sure what to make of it but after suffering through that sharp pain he wasn’t too keen on activating it again. Perhaps if he left the dungeon and tried it out in a location devoid of mana and magic he wouldn’t suffer that much of a backlash. Perhaps if there were fewer things in his range of vision he could alleviate some of the pain.

“Ugh…”

Finally, he decided to stand up but found it hard to keep his legs from shaking. Even with all his stats and a rather high level, the new skill put him through the wringer. For the time being, he decided to seal off this new ability as he clearly couldn’t handle it yet. Perhaps he would need to increase his level to actually be able to stomach it.

It took him several hours to get a hold of himself, the potions that he had with him didn’t do much to alleviate the sick feeling he experienced. There were still more ores to mine before he could leave. The spider drones continued to drill holes near the ore deposits as he decided to take it easy and just pick up what they mined out.

After venturing here once he had worked on the mining software of these golems. They were able to distinguish between the more worthwhile minerals now which made this expedition a bit more lucrative.

Thus he continued his work while feeling somewhat exhausted. Only after about a day was he back to his old self and working along with his golemic creations. With this being his second mining expedition he had managed to bag a bit more than previously while also minimizing the size of the more useless volcanic chunks of the dungeon.

His way back was uneventful, just like last time he waited for people to clear out while looking at his radar that he expanded as wide as he could. No bandits or robbers greeted him this time around, probably the people from the thieves guild would be more careful after one of theirs never returned that day.

When he returned home it was early in the morning. The mule golem slowly lumbered behind him as he entered his house. Even though he spent less time on this expedition he felt much more exhausted than last time. He wasn’t sure if it was due to the new skill he used or the mana spent on blasting the tier 3 creatures.

There were two things on his mind, the first one was the new skill while the other one was his new class. Finally, he reached level 125 and his Runesmith Lord class had reached its maximum. Now he would finally be able to change it but to what he wasn’t quite sure.

Before he attempted the change, he kind of wanted to test this new eye ability out. Perhaps he would need to for the coming class change. But for the time being, he decided to go to sleep, it was early morning and the shop was closed tomorrow so he could relax.

“...”

“Huh?”

Roland opened up his eyes to discover a familiar-looking ceiling. His body was bare and surrounded in water as he had fallen asleep in the bathtub yet again. After raising himself and wrapping a towel around his nether regions he noticed a note on the bathroom door.

‘Please stop falling asleep in the bathroom, you’ll catch a cold. I also left you some food in the runic cold box.’

It was a note from Elodia that apparently visited him when he was out cold. It was late at night and he had slept through the entire day. When outside he found some sandwiches in his refrigerator that he quickly devoured.

After a day’s rest, he felt rather refreshed and ready for more work. First came the unloading of the mule golem, with more durium he would be able to create the golem for Arthur now. But before that, he also intended to attempt a class change. The only thing remaining would be to visit the Sun Church and get a few class change crystals, perhaps more than one if he finally did fail. Even if he had more, Bernir or Elodia could always use them instead as they were also slowly leveling up and reaching higher levels.

Before even attempting this change he decided to see what was up with this Runic Eye of Truth. If his theory was correct the best way to use it was in an environment devoid of magic or many magical items. For his testing ground, he decided to use an empty storage area that was recently built.

There wasn’t anything in there for the time being and the walls were thick. Even though the walls were reinforced via magic they weren’t constantly radiating mana like in the dungeon he visited.

After some preparations, he closed the door to this room while also placing down a wooden box. On this box was a small card which had one of the most basic spells on it, a mana bolt. If this skill was affected by the number of magical items and their grade, then choosing something on the lower spectrum would make it easier on his eye.

‘I guess here goes nothing…’

To the side, he had some recovery potions, one of the bottles was already open so that he could pour it on his face if his eye started bleeding again. Then there was another tiny bottle that he instantly drank, it was a pain-numbing solution for just in case.

Besides the box and the card, there was a single chair on which Roland sat down. After going through the pain just a few days before he was really not keen on activating it again but he needed to know if he could use this skill in any way before moving on.

‘Here goes nothing.’

With his mana being full he activated the skill once more. This time around the pain wasn’t as bad as before. His eye started glowing while he focused on the runic spell scroll before him. Just as he had theorized if he didn’t move around and just focused on a smaller point before him the skill was somewhat usable.

Even with that, his MP was dropping rapidly but he had enough time to see what the skill was doing. This time around the only object that was covered in runes was the spell scroll, the wooden box remained just as it was. What the skill showed him was similar to what his debugging skill did but just in uniform color.

‘Hm…’

Roland thought to himself while quickly canceling out this mana-hungry ability. While the first test was over, this wasn’t over. If the skill was just a worse debugging skill then it would be something to laugh about. But he had an idea of what it could do to help him with future endeavors.

For the next test, he brought out a simple dagger. It looked old, the material it was made from was also not good. But this didn’t matter, what mattered was that this was an enchanted item instead of a runic item. It was an old dagger one of the adventurers left behind after buying a superior one from his shop. Now it would be useful and show him if this skill could be used.

Thus as before he activated the skill while staring directly at the dagger. Then just as he had speculated, he saw it, instead of enchantments he saw runic structures. These structures he recognized as they were for the sharpness rune that he had runecrafted many times in his life.

‘Hah…’

Just as his mana went below half he quickly deactivated the skill. While he would need to test the eyes on higher quality items, it was clear what this skill was really doing. It was somehow translating the magical language into runic.

But this wasn’t over yet, one more test remained. There was another usage that this eye skill could have that he was itching to find out. Thus he quickly drank some mana potions while taking a small break. After two uses his eyes started getting slightly strained but he was able to continue.

“How did it go… ah yes… Source of all magic…”

He began chanting, it was time to cast a spell. Even now he felt a bit silly when uttering the chants but after seeing other mages do it, he somewhat got used to it.

A ball of blue light appeared in the middle of his palm as he finished casting. Then, quickly he activated the skill and to his surprise, he was also able to see them, runes. The ball of blue light had a runic structure that clearly was a direct translation of the same spell.

“Hah! It really works, I can use it like this!... Oh shit, it hurts.”

His joyous outburst was short-lived as his left eye started burning up once more. He quickly canceled out the skill and doused his face with a healing potion along with the pain-numbing concoction. Even though his face hurt and he felt like puking, this discovery brought a smile to his face.