Chapter 19: Rune Initiation
After retreating back to his room, Cassian concentrated on the task at hand.
He had bought all the necessary tools and resources to begin experimentation with runes.
Cassian took one of the swords he had forged and laid it before him, before sitting down cross-legged on the ground.
The information regarding the runes came to him in his dreams. At night, he would dream of symbols appearing in his mind and dancing around him, as if beckoning him to grasp their power. But he was incapable, as he had very little control during those dreams.
Hecate advised him to meditate while concentrating on those runes. Maybe that would help him grasp them.
Cassian cleared his mind of all thoughts and sat for 15 minutes unmoving, simply concentrating on his breathing and circulating mana through his body. Soon he started to feel serene calmness overtake him and remaining in this meditative state became much easier.
As he felt that he was hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness, he called the image of one of the runes he saw in his dreams.
The rune looked like a square containing one upwards-pointing arrow but without the shaft. Cassian concentrated on the rune as much as he could and after a brief battle of wills, felt his consciousness penetrate the rune.
He felt awe at the patterns of power that he was seeing and marveled at the connections with the natural world that seemed to warp the line of possibilities.
Cassian started exploring the rune, trying to understand its essence. Soon he felt a trickle of knowledge into his mind. The more his comprehension of the rune rose, the stronger the stream of knowledge became, until finally the interior of the rune pulsed, before being completely sucked into his head.
The next moment, Cassian's eyes snapped open, taking stock of his surroundings and getting over the otherworldly sensations he just experienced. He took a breath and suddenly realized that he knew everything about that rune now.
It was a lesser rune of reinforcement. When etched on an item it increases its durability, making it harder to damage and break. Cassian was quite happy with this rune as it would allow him to make weapons and armor capable of withstanding stronger blows, even if he did not have access to higher-quality materials. And once he did gain access to those materials, maybe with higher tier runes, his weapons would be able to match Durandal weapons.
Now to start the runesmithing process.
Cassian had bought the necessary tools he would need for it. To carve the runic shapes into gear he would need something that could carve metal with precision and without damaging the rest of the gear. For that, he bought an Adamantite chisel for a whopping 90,000 valis. Considering it was the second strongest metal, it should do the job well.
After carving out the shapes, he would need to fill up the remaining empty shape with a magic conductive material, that would be able to channel the rune's power and manifest it into the item. In Witcher verse, that was done with monster essence-infused dusts, so Cassian decided to apply the same principle.
He took the magic stone and the dropped scales of a Hard Armored and ground it down into a powder. The magic stone was a problem, the first one he tried grinding down shattered and evaporated into the air. For the second one, he got the idea to cast Quen on himself, enveloping the stone as well, before solidifying the golden screen with an additional crude mana barrier to stop the mana of the magic stone from dispersing.
The attempt was successful and he managed to grind both materials into dust infused with mana and monster essence.
Taking the chisel, he started carving out the shape of the rune with precision. His previous blacksmith experience and rune-carving talent allowed him to make the perfect cutout.
Cassian then proceeded to insert the monster dust into the carved shape, while infusing the dust with his own mana. During the entire process, he had to keep the image of the reinforcement rune in his mind and channel his understanding of the rune into the runesmithing process. It was a mentally tiring process, and by the end, he was incredibly sleepy.
Finally, the process was done and as soon as the last stroke was applied, the rune pulsed making the sword vibrate for a moment, and glowed with a strong blue light.
(Images for the process)
Cassian watched the glowing sword with wonder and marveled at the first-ever runic weapon he had made. The process, while tiring, made him feel as much excitement as fighting a good battle, and the end result brought him as much exhilaration as winning today's fight on the misty floors.
The sword would be able to withstand a lot more punishment now than before. He wouldn't have to brawl with the hard armored now.
Cassian still had time until it was bedtime and some energy to spare, so he decided to learn another rune. The process was faster and easier now that he had experience in it, and he got the lesser rune of sharpness this time. It complemented the previous rune quite well and would allow him to fight more confidently and effectively, now that his weapon would be capable of withstanding his strength.
He quickly completed the engraving process and it went smoother this time. The sword pulsed with blue light once more and now had two runes on its blade, glowing softly.
'This is probably going to be a problem. A sword with glowing symbols on its blade isn't exactly subtle. The would-be thieves are probably going to go rabid over its exoticness.' Normally he wouldn't care, but if level twos or even threes started targeting him, it would be a problem.
'Tch, it's annoying being at the bottom of the power barrel. Now that we've laid down a proper foundation, we should intensify our dungeon dives to grow faster.' Cassian was considering making their dungeon dives longer and harder.
'Now that I can start equipping us with better gear, we won't have to be so avoidant of more dangerous foes out of fear of our gear failing us, so we can be more liberal about the monsters we fight.' Cassian decided to linger and acclimate to the misty floors for a few more days before moving to the middle floors. That's where the difficulty is actually considerable.
'Hmm, maybe I should come up with a way to make my runes more inconspicuous? Maybe a concealment rune or something? Something to think about later, for now, I'll just be careful about showing it around others.'
With that, Cassian decided to go to sleep. As the runesmithing finished, he felt completely drained. The first attempt took a lot out of him in terms of mental power. He wanted nothing more than to lie down and fall asleep, and that's what he did. Within seconds of his head hitting the pillow he was out.
The next day came quickly and all of them woke up. Cassian felt rested after yesterday's vents and was excited to go to the dungeon and start testing out his new sword.
"Morning" Hecate greeted them with a smile, as they exited their rooms. "Have some breakfast, and then we'll have your Falnas updated."
As they finished eating, Cassian lay down with his shirt off and Hecate proceeded to drop a bit of her blood on him, making the Falna appear and start updating.
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Cassian Suncrest
Strength ~ I - 48 -> H - 114
Endurance ~ I - 42 -> H - 131
Dexterity ~ I - 32 -> I - 56
Agility ~ I - 56 -> H - 102
Magic ~ I - 52 -> I - 85
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"My stats rose by a lot!" Cassian was delighted by the stat growth. Just one day on the misty floors and they already rose this much. It was much more effective when compared to higher floors.
All that fist-fighting caused his strength to surpass his agility and the rest of the stats advanced quite well too. Especially his endurance…
"Guess being used as a chew toy by a monster has its perks." Cassian said with a smirk, but it faltered and fell when he saw the stink eye Hecate was giving him over that statement. "Hahah… Anyway, it's Nico's turn now, right?" He lamely tried changing the subject and thankfully she decided to let him go and start updating Nico's Falna.
Meanwhile, Cassian continued thinking over his stats. All of them were progressing well, but Dexterity was falling behind. It increased decently well through Blacksmithing and now it started to be boosted by Runesmithing as well, however, he would have to come up with more ways to increase its growth if he wanted it to keep up with the rest of his stats.
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Nikolaos Suncrest
Strength ~ I - 12 -> I - 21
Endurance ~ I - 14 -> I - 32
Dexterity ~ I - 21 -> I - 38
Agility ~ I - 35 -> I - 52
Magic ~ I - 83 -> G - 232
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"Nice! My magic stat shot through the roof!" Nico was happy. While his other stats were still pretty low, his main stat of magic rose up by a lot and even entered the G rank.
All that magic training with Hecate helped raise his magic stat by a lot. It seems being freely trained by the goddess of magic, combined with his own aptitude and the nature of his unique magic synchronized and produced amazing growth. Fighting on the misty floors allowed all that training to be used and gain actual battle experience.
Overall, their growth was very satisfactory for both of them.
"Well, let's go to the Babel square now. We shouldn't make Leo wait for long." Cassian started getting ready.
Saying goodbye to Hecate, they moved through the city to meet their supporter. Upon reaching the square, they saw it was swarmed with people, so it would be hard to find anyone there, but Cassian used his sense of smell to quickly pinpoint Leo's location and moved to her.
"Leo! We're here!" Cassian called out to her, which caused her head to snap in their direction and start walking over.
"Good morning, guys." She greeted them with a smile.
"Morning" / "Good morning"
"We're diving into the misty floors again today, correct?"
"Yeah, if you're ready, we shouldn't dawdle anymore." Cassian was a bit impatient to try out his runesword.
"I'm ready, let's go."
With that, they started descending down the dungeon once more.
"The strategy is the same as yesterday. Leo, stay by Nico's side and harvest the monsters in safety. Nico concentrate your spells on grouped-up monsters to make the most of them. Also, if any aerial monsters appear, shoot them down immediately. Especially the Bad Bats. I have no desire to have a repeat of yesterday." Bot Nico and Leo nodded at that.
Cassian didn't use his sword until reaching their target floors no matter how much his hands itched. There were too many people and he didn't want to reveal it around them. So, he relied on his fists and feet, before reaching the 11th floor. The mist here is dense enough that it would mask the sword perfectly for any passerby from a distance. If they got too close Cassian would easily sense them.
Immediately they were set upon by a group of silverbacks and hard armoreds.
"Nico take the gorillas. I've got the armadillos." Cassian ordered before drawing his sword.
He dashed at the armadillos and they answered his offensive in kind. The nearest one stood on its hind legs, drawing back its front limb, it attempted to swipe its claws at the person charging at it.
Unfortunately, it never got the chance to, as Cassian covered the distance between them too fast and swung his sword at it.
The Hard Armored couldn't comprehend what happened as it was bisected in half and died. The prized scales that could block any attack were cut through as if cutting through a thin piece of paper.
Cassian grinned at the corpse lying by his feet, more than happy with the performance of his weapon, before setting his eyes on the rest of the monsters, who undeterred by the death of one of their own were charging at him while roaring.
"Well, time to get to work."
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I wanted to inform you about an important detail that might have caused confusion in the future. Cassian and Nico have only watched the first three seasons of Danmachi, so they don't have complete information about the rest of the verse outside of those seasons. They DO have certain bits of information they got from internet osmosis and spoilers, like Syr being Freya or Dionysus being Enyo and a big threat, but that's it.
So don't be surprised if they don't know things that occurred outside of that.
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