‘Runesmith Lord’
Roland stopped while looking at the moving pixel art that only had three frames of movement. It looked like a more armored variation of the Runesmith Class, it was clearly some kind of evolved version and it was available to him.
‘Didn’t I read something about this...’
When he was back in the Arden estate he went through the library several times. With no internet or games, there wasn’t really much to do in this world. As an adult, he was past his childhood days so he didn’t waste time on kid games like tag. The only thing left for him was training and reading books.
He recalled that one of these books had a passage about some ‘hidden’ special classes. One of them was the mana related classes like ‘Mana Warrior’. They were quite easy to get with a corresponding aptitude for mana. Past those were the prestige classes like Runic Scribe or Runic Blacksmith that he had gotten along the way.
Then there were ones that were even rarer. The way that this class appeared on this screen here showed him that it was one of those. He had no way of knowing how good this class was though, it could be worse than a Runic Armorsmith or Weaponsmith for crafting purposes. It could not bring much to the table for him who already had one cheat skill in the form of debugging.
But there it was, what looked to be another rare class option that he didn’t think would be there. He was hoping to get a class that mixed combat and crafting in some way, could this one be it?
Roland looked over the other class choices, there was another one that he originally hoped to get. It was the Runic Battlesmith class, it was there with the basic variant as well. After leveling up his basic weapon proficiencies and gaining a lot of experience by fighting monsters this was also unlocked. Now it didn’t seem like the obvious choice anymore, there was a new contender.
This left him with five choices: Advances Runic Mana Scribe, Runic Armorsmith, Runic Weaponsmith, Runic Battlesmith, and finally Runesmith Lord. He didn’t even take the original Runesmith class into consideration as it wouldn’t really give him anything new. There were no mage type classes available to him and depending on his tier 2 class he might be able to level up some of the basic skills past the threshold with a different class.
‘Will this Runesmith Lord let me advance my scribing skills past the basic ones? I feel like the ‘Lord’ part implies something...’
He hovered with the mouse cursor over this class but also looked at the Runic Battlesmith one. After some deliberation, he decided to go with the ‘Lord’ variant. This world had a thing about putting noble titles above all other things, so it might have been the same with these classes.
‘I can always fail the class change trial on purpose if it seems lackluster…’
With the infusion of money, he could just go buy another class change crystal. It was normal for some people to look into the trials and judge if the class was a fit for them. The trials more or less showed what the class would be about. The crafting classes required a person to fashion items of various kinds while the battle classes required you to combat. What would this one force him to do?
Maybe he would need to craft a full set of runic armor along with a weapon? That would actually not be a bad thing as he would get some free experience and knowledge with the trial.
‘Here goes nothing…’
He nodded and clicked on the icon, the PC did its thing and the VR headset popped out. It looked slightly different though, like a more advanced model. Roland looked over it before placing it on top of his head. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the tier 2 trial but that might have been the case.
Roland hadn’t been here for some years, the last time was his Blacksmithing class change. He had to get used to the flash of white light as he got transported into the trial next trial room. The first one was a smaller library where he just needed to scribe down a simple glowing rune. Then there was a smith’s workshop where he had to produce a magical ladle. Both those classes made him produce something and that is why he was confused about the trial area that was produced this time around.
He looked around and noticed that he was in some kind of large arena. It was similar to a roman coliseum that he saw in some movies. There were differences though, for one thing, there was no place of an audience anywhere, just walls.
This arena was circular in shape, the ground was covered in plain sand. There were a couple of eye-catching things here. For one there were four large gates on each side, two were made from wood while the other two from metal. The walls were quite high and stretched up to the ceiling for a good hundred meters. The area inside was about the size of a football field. There were many torches on the arched walls that lit up the place quite nicely.
There was another thing that was out of place. A lone column stood close to the center of this arena. After looking around Roland couldn’t spot anything that was similar to the other two trials. There were no instructions, no books that he could read, nothing that indicated what this trial would be.
The only tip was this place, being an arena it indicated that this would be a combat-related task. If that was true then there was another problem. He didn’t have any weapons, what he was wearing was just a random tunic. He had leather boots along with pants but he couldn’t spot any weapons anywhere, was he supposed to fight here with his bare hands? Was this Runesmith Lord class some kind of grappling profession?
‘That doesn’t make sense… there is something on that column.”
He spotted something red sticking out from that misplaced column. After walking over he recognized it as a large red button. This thing looked quite out of place, it was bright red and placed on a rocky pillar.
It had a certain magnetic feeling to it. The more he looked at it the more he felt like pressing it.
‘If I press this the trial will probably begin…’
He walked back for now, before pressing that red button he took some time in examining this whole arena from top to bottom. He looked over every gate, even pressed his ear to it to see if he could hear something. But they all had a similar feeling to the apartment building, he couldn’t really touch it and the texture that looked like wood felt off.
The rest of the arena was similar, he started running into invisible walls, and climbing the ones that were going up was also impossible. Soon he returned to the big red button, feeling like he just wasted ten minutes on nothing.
With a slight sigh, he moved his finger on the button. It was pushed in easily and it took a moment to see a reaction. The entire space he was standing in started to rumble. The pillar with the button began to sink into the ground while another platform directly in the middle of the arena appeared.
Roland stepped back and watched. The ground started shifting, it looked like the earth in the middle of this arena parted to the sides. There appeared a large hole, before he could go over to see if there was something down there a platform started to rise up. On it were several items that he was very familiar with.
“Huh? Is that blacksmithing equipment?”
He called out in surprise as he saw a large working forge along with blacksmithing tools show up before him. On this moving platform, he could see a forge, smelter, workbench, anvil, and all the other things that he always used for crafting.
The rumbling continued, apparently this wasn’t quite over. The noise this time around was coming from the ceiling above. He looked up to see another hole opening there, then a familiar object appeared. It was a giant version of the hourglass that he had seen in the two previous trials he took. This one was quite large, the sand was dropping slowly which indicated that he would have some time before the timer ran out. The big question was, what was it for?
“It’s different this time around…”
There was one thing that was bothering him. There were no books in this workshop that appeared here. What was he supposed to do? The other trials had instructions for building items but this time around there was nothing. There were all the resources and tools to craft weapons and armor but no clear indication of what kind.
Started picking up the tools and looking over them. There was no indication or clues, it was as if this trial wanted him to craft something but the choice was up to him. He stopped for a second to rethink this, if he took too long the timer would run out before he made a single item. Luckily for him, the answer to his question came in the form of a sound coming from the distance.
“Huh?”
He looked to one of the wooden gates, there was a strange sound coming from it. He listened closely while wondering if he was hearing things but there it was again. Some sort of scratching or clawing sound was coming from one of those large doors.
“What is that… are there?”
It dawned on him then, what this test was all about. The sounds coming from there were probably monsters, this was an arena meant for fighting. He put one and one together and got his answer. He was supposed to craft his own weapons and armor, then face the monsters lurking behind that gate.
“This is going to be one of those unconventional trials...”
He tried recalling the books that he had read. They all stated that the tests were class specific but they mostly were segregated into some categories like crafting tasks, combat tasks, and fetch tasks. The latter consisted of having to go through a course to procure an item.
This one seemed to be an unconventional one that combined two separate professions. Even the Battlesmith class wouldn’t require crafting to get through the trial. At most the smith would be able to repair the weapons that he or she was given.
There was also another peculiarity about this trial compared to the other ones. Roland didn’t receive any temporary skills that would belong to this Runesmith Lord class. He had no idea what this class was about without those. The trial was pointing at it being a hybrid crafting and combat class at least.
Roland didn’t have any time to stand around anymore. Now he knew that there was something lurking behind that door that he would need to kill. He had no weapons or armor, this problem he would solve by fashioning himself a weapon.
“What should I make… a sword or a mace?”
These were the two weapons that he was the most proficient in. A sword would be better on softer targets and also more nimble. The mace was good for larger slower enemies and ones that were armored.
“I would prefer a sword… but will there be enough time?”
He asked himself while going through the materials. He felt that a sword could be better for the fact that he could utilize the sword runes he knew. The mace had one advantage though, it would be easier to make and required no sharpening or pinpoint precision crafting. It was more or less just a blunt metallic club.
To make a proper sword he would require a lot more time. With the mace, he wouldn’t even need to make a separate handle or pommel. He could probably just get a wooden handle and just produce a mace head. This all depended on what materials he had, besides the mace he needed some protection.
“A mace… and a shield for now.”
The plan was made, he needed these two items as a bare minimum. If he had more time he could look into making some armor with added runes for spell casting. He was also hoping to have enough time for a few magic paddle wands.
He grasped a hammer from the side and noticed that it was made from deep steel. It was better than the hammer that he was currently using back at his home. The metals he was working with here were bronze, iron, and steel. There were some steel rods here and there but they were a bit too thin to be used as a handle. It looked like this trial wanted him to work with the thicker ingots.
There were several hardy tools that he could punch holes with preset here but first, he would need to fashion the handle. This could be done by directly molding an ingot through precision hammer blows. The next part would be the crown part, it could also be done like that but there were other options.
There were several molds here to the side. He could save some time by using one of them for the head part. Why would he do that if the end product could come out more brittle than through a regular forging method? The answer was reusability.
There were many of those gates around him. He felt like this trial would have several stages where the doors opened one by one, maybe even many times. If he made a mold for the mace crown he might be able to use it again. At least the wooden part that was made for the spikey ball imprint.
He chose to go with steel as it was a superior material compared to bronze and iron. With the molds here he could also try casting a sword directly from them. The problem would still be with the sharpening of it, a blunt mace with some spikes would be far easier to fashion. The hourglass was very slow which meant that he had a lot of time, at least for now.
First came the hammering of one of the heated up steel ingots. Thanks to his smithing skills being maxed out the hammering process went rather smoothly. Roland found how the skills in this world work to be astonishing. They kept a person at a certain level of ability, whenever he picked up a hammer or a sword it all came back to him. He knew where to hit and how hard to do it depending on the item that he was working on.
With time the shaft started taking shape. Next came the griff along with the handlebars that were on the top and bottom side of the mace, between the griff part. This was all done with skillful hammer hits all while the metal was nice and heated up. He had already worked on something like this before so the motion was practiced and natural. With time he was done and could move onto the molding phase. He needed the spiked ball of the mace to fit into the shaft and that’s why he made it first.
For some reason, there were various wooden objects here as well. One of them was already similar in shape to a spiked mace head. Maybe the trial was making things slightly easier for him. There were also various carving knives that were enough for him to get a proper spike shape for his next weapon.
The time continued to pass, there was a lack of scribing materials here though. Roland would have to forgo his spell scrolls for this test. Instead, he could make some magical wands that worked in a similar way the problem was his mana reserves. There was a certain lack of mana stones here so he would have to forget about lessening the strain on his MP.
With time the wooden version of the spiked mace head was ready. He fitted it on the thicker weapon handle from the bottom to see if everything was in order before putting it into the mold. The smelter was heated up by him beforehand, he did it to save some time.
The red hot metal dribbled down into the prepared mold that was shut tightly. It was a similar mold case to the one he used to make his first bronze sword. While it was cooling down he went around to pick up a thick enough plate of steel. He would make a quick shield with the leftover time.
This shield wouldn’t need that much forming as he could just stick to a tower shield design and would just need to rivet the handle part from the back. At the end, he would be preparing the runic structures, without them these ‘weapons’ that he made wouldn’t really be cut out for much.
Time was of the essence, the large hourglass above his head was a constant reminder of that. Soon he would have to face against whatever was behind those gates and the weapons that he had time to produce wouldn’t really be anything special. He could only hope that the added runic enchantments would let him squeeze out more from them...
Cool trial, I was expecting it to just be another "try out the skills of this class" trial but this is certainly better. Can't be a lord if you don't gain your power yourself.
Thanks for the chapter!
It probably two part test first test worth of his crafting skills and fighting under stress, then next is actually learn of class skills or is if only part to it may get something like passive buffs but for a lord titled class just fell lackluster if just buffs
@DemeanCosmos Given the 4 doors there are probably 4 rounds. Each round might give him new skills and materials to work with.
Or maybe he'll only get the skills after he passes the trial.
it might be a skill that only applies in combat or when engraving the runes
Hey,
Just popping in to say how much I appreciate your growth as a writer over the course of this series. From an admittedly very rough start which made me consider dropping this series to the point now where I'm actively enjoying reading it, a lot of progress has happened.
For one the MC is a lot more of what he was described to be - analytical and calm with an approach to problem solving that relies on his intelligence more than brute force.
The way you do time skips also improved a lot. The last one was downright smooth. The period before the time skip didn't outstay it's welcome and the period after goes right into the establishment of the new arc.
I know a lot of people are griping a lot about the lack of side characters (especially female ones), but frankly, this loner style is far more fitting. He has a goal and he tirelessly works towards that goal. And on his arrival in this world he got used to being alone, he is somewhat paranoid (for good reason) but able to relax a bit more as he grows in confidence and finds his place in life.
The time for socializing can come after he can live out in the open as who he is.
Wonder, if skills bring knowledge and experience, would someone still become a master at a craft without having any level in it, for me the skills seem to be only a crutch, because as he said, skills bring the knowledge and experience to him whenever he "wields" the catalyst of the skill, meaning that if there were master swordsmen out there who gotten good with the skills and then one who mastered the sword through his own effort of understanding and research, would mean that if the one with skills were to lose his sword, he would be a punching back since he forgot everything about swordfighting, while the one who still has all the knowledge and lost his sword, would still be able to have a good amount of grasp over the other party and maybe counter him a few times too.
.....why not use the obviously superior deep steel hammer as, oh I dunno, a hammer and fight with it and simply focus and making a good shield? Use your head Roland!
Somehow i get the feeling Roland didn't think this whole mace/sword quality thing through to the end. He already noticed he'd have mana problems and then takes a weapon that relies heavily on its runes (for stronger/faster impact/more damage) and which he wants to reforge several times to counter the high wear and tear(through having to use the runes constantly)?
Considering how much mana runes need(to create them) that's pretty idiotic. With this strategy he'd go into the trial stages either with very low mana, has to wait for the mana to recharge after repairing his gear or with damaged gear. The last one would probably be the least problematic if the gear wasn't in danger of falling apart from the previous trial stage through its abyssmal quality....
Not to mention how little he'll be able to do against fast enemies. There's a reason the sword was the main armament in medieval times after all
Quite frankly i hope he fails this trial because of this half-baked thinking process he always uses. At one point this half-baked things simply have to fall back on him
The reasoning wasn't that mace was better than a sword but that he could cut corners with a 'club' sort of weapon than with a balanced sharp sword type of weapon.
@Kuropon
Yeah. I got that. My problem was that he's always cutting corners and at one point it should just bite him in the ass. For example just in this chapter: he's going for bad quality and reforging things again after each trial stage. But what happens if he doesn't get time to reforge his equipment? If he has to prove both that he's capable of fighting, and quality smithing? Or what should he do about a fast enemy? A mace isn't exactly fast.
And the reforging means he has to apply the runes again as well which will drain the valuable mana(at least if i undertood it correctly).
At one point he cuts a corner to much and i think it would be better to have it here instead of a gigantic clusterf*ck just to show he's not getting away with doing everything halfbaked andhalf thought through.
And he's cutting a lot of corners in this chapter tbh.
@matze3 I understand, I guess he needed to make a choice and he went with the mace as he thought it would be faster. He is someone with a large mana pool so that's a less serious issue, he is also only using the lesser runes that don't use up that much of it.
I guess he made a choice between the two weapons that he had the highest skills in. While maces are slower they would also work better against enemies with armor. He also has a mage class, so he can use ranged spells and even some for close range so that's an option too. His mana won't just evaporate after a few uses.
@Kuropon
Am i remembering false about runes costing a lot of mana to create then? At least i thought it was like that if you apply them to metal. Could be i confuse it with another crafting story but i think it was your story which mentioned he needed multiple pauses to let his mana recharge for his first project. Even if his mana pool increases he's planning to make half a dozens runes before the fighting phase even starts. I can't imagine he's got much mana left after that
@matze3 Well yes, when he was starting off and his Runesmithing was at L1, but he had progressed since that time, making lesser Rune structures like these isn't as hard for him. It was also harder without a hammer for the crafting process but he has one here. He also has some other skills that lower the requirements and also a lot of mana so its not that bad.
@Kuropon
Maybe it isn't hard but look at the amount he wants to make: For the mace, shild, armor, wands and then everytime he reforges something and during battle to use the runes.
The trial should be at least somewhat challenging. Roland's thinking just seems half-baked at best to me. If one thing doesn't go his way he'll fail.
No time between trial stages to reforge->weapon and armor falls apart
Fast enemy->too slow with a mace and armor
using magic against fast enemies->little or no mana
Overall his strategy isn't bad if he knew there were just multiple small encounters or with one heavily armed enemy per trial stage with breaks between to repair things and recharge mana. But he doesn't know that.
It doesn't fit perfectly but if i had to put it somehow(in english) i'd say he's to focused on the mana aspects and doesn't think about flexibilty in close combat. the moment he can't use a spell against multiple enemies they'll rip him apart because he is to slow with a mace and armor to dodge or avoid beiing outmaneuvered.
@Kuropon I had more or less same thoughts @matze3 had, but it had never occured to me Roland can choose what kind of quality runes he will do.
He had always strived to do highest-quality scrolls with his red-comet stamp, so I thought he will try to make at least medium or high grade runes. Nothing stops him from making lesser runes, right. It's just T2 class after all. :D
@matze3 He can always try again. I'd say there is not much he can plan for anyway, as he has no info about the rules or the enemies. He doesn't really have the time to think too deeply about it either.
Going for making decent equipment asap is a good plan, as he doesn't know when the enemies, he knows nothing about other than the sound they make, will come. He won't know what would work untill he faces what the trial throws at him.
@matze3 Well that might be true but you're forgetting that he isn't that worried about failing. When someone fails a class change quest they can retake it later ( At least that is what he read and is convinced ) So going in one direction with shield+mace combo where maybe a long spear could have been better isn't bad in his mind
@Kuropon Are you implying that he'll fail and will have to take a different class?
So can one only take a specific test once? Or does this only apply to special classes?
@Al93we I believe Kuropon is implying that some "class change quests" can only be attempted once.
@matze3 I think you've got it wrong.
He already said that he'd prefer a sword since he has more rune spells for that type of weapon, the thrust/slice and other new element spells he showed earlier, but that's it.
Without those spells the sword will be less valuable. Meaning the usefulness of the sword depends on if he can make it in time to add the runes.
WHEREAS, with a mace, it's SEFL-SUFFICIENT, the only rune he needs to apply is the impact one at most, and even without it, its mass is enough to damage an enemy.
But with a sword he still needs to sharpen it and make sure it has good balance to be usable, and it's not like his swords skills are enough without rune spells.
As for mana, I think you're mistaken, just because club is heavier and has more surface area doesn't mean it will take more time and mana, those things don't affect the runecrafting process "negatively". A wider surface area allows more space to inscribe runes tho.