Syl

Chapter 138: Rune Etching

The next day, when I arrived in the lesson room, there was a note written on the chalkboard informing me that Gregory would be a little late and that I should take the time to practice drawing circles of differing sizes.

'I mean... How hard can it be?' I thought, intrigued by the unexpected challenge of the task.

I picked up a piece of chalk and began drawing my first circle on the board in almost no time. I then drew another one, slightly smaller, and nodded in satisfaction at the result.

'Am I being weird again? This doesn't seem hard... Maybe I'm just a circle-drawing genius,' I joked to myself.

I wracked my mind, trying to think of a reason why I was finding such easy success in a task that Gregory clearly thought I might have a little trouble with. The only thing that came to mind was perhaps the steadiness of your arm and hands, while I had practically unparalleled and perfect control over my slime as long as it was close to one of my cores. I also tried ordering one of my [Sub-Cores] to control my arm and draw the circle, which they also did with the utmost precision.

'Just another reason to be glad I'm a slime. And to think Mother wanted me to become a spirit. Ha!'

Thankfully, Gregory arrived before I ran out of chalkboard space; he entered the door looking slightly flustered.

"Apologies for being late, Sylvester." He said upon entry. "I hope you haven't had too much trouble with drawing circles-"

He stopped as he saw the board covered in them.

"I can see that." He said, blinking a few times. "And here I was going to recommend you the [Steady Hand] skill or perhaps [Body Control] trait if you were struggling. Or do you already have one of those?"

"I don't have either of those, but perhaps I have something similar?" I asked.

"Well, I would have only been able to offer you [Steady Hand], which is a common skill picked up amongst crafters. With [Body Control], you might need to pay someone from the Adventurer's Guild to show you; it gives you more precise control over your muscles and such. Some people swear by it, but the idea of potentially needing to relearn something as simple as walking sounded far too high of an entry requirement."

"Sounds a little extreme," I said with a chuckle.

"Indeed! But anyway, since your circles are looking spectacular, we can move on to working on your [Rune Etching] skill."

I gave an enthusiastic nod, and Gregory gestured for me to join him at one of the work benches. From his storage pouch, he pulled out dozens of square-shaped pieces of wood of varying sizes before finally pulling out a small tool that looked a little like a metal toothpick.

"So, [Rune Etching]. It's the starting point for all Enchanters, and you'll likely find it extremely limiting and frustrating to work with. Enchantments made with it will eventually burn out; from the moment they are activated, they are on borrowed time. Once you move past it, its only purpose is for trial and error or rush jobs until you unlock [Rune Tracing]."

Gregory held out the long metal toothpick for me to grab, "Essentially, you'll be using this tool to scrape into the wood while letting your mana flow into the tool. It's made of a metal that is conductive of mana, although it's one of the cheaper options. Too much conductivity and you'll overload what's possible for [Rune Etching]. Furthermore, circles created with [Rune Etching] cannot exceed rank three inscriptions. If you wish to practice them, you'll need me to make the circle for you until you get [Rune Carving]."

I nodded along as he kept explaining. The normal progression was [Rune Etching] into [Rune Carving] into [Rune Engraving], limited by inscription ranks three, seven, and ten, respectively. On the other hand, [Rune Tracing] was what I had witnessed Thern do when he traced a temporary enchantment with his finger, and in theory, it had no rank limit as long as you could imbue enough mana into the temporary circle.

Gregory also gave me some practical application examples. A [Rune Etching] would be used for a quick fix lasting no longer than a handful of days, assuming perfect construction. Otherwise, it would barely last a day. Gregory reminisced about when he was still just starting out and how he would sell his services to prevent water damage, in particular bad storms. A [Rune Carving] was expected to last at least half a year, while perfected jobs could last just over a year and was perfect for insulating a house for winter. Finally, [Rune Engraving] was the pinnacle and was expected to last a lifetime unless destroyed. The most obvious application was in constructing magic items and tools. However, Gregory admitted that in emergencies, weapons and armor would sometimes be given [Rune Carving] enchantments, although when the enchantment expired, the weapon would usually be destroyed as a result.

Honestly, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Gregory, and he was undoubtedly very passionate about his line of work. Finally, I was instructed to try using [Rune Etching] on one of the pieces of wood after Gregory demonstrated using it himself and placing a simple strengthening inscription on it. Thanks to [Mana Conception], I could watch as he let out a consistent trickle of mana pour into the tool, focusing on the tip and drawing into the wood efficiently and effectively.

Gregory gave a knowing smile, watching my gaze, "Good to see you have at least a decent level of [Mana Sight], and I hope a decent level of [Mana Manipulation] to go with it. It's been often proven that there is a lot of cross-class skill application for Mages and Enchanters."

I was thoroughly excited when I was handed back the tool and told to copy his inscription. I felt like I was armed to the teeth with all my skills and traits, precise control over my body, and, of course, my direct tutelage. With the tool in hand, I began my work, starting with the circle and proceeding with the relatively simple rune in the center. There was a pregnant pause when I completed the final stroke of the rune, and the entire thing gleamed brightly before the piece of wood began to rapidly grow cold before cracking in half. I was thoroughly disappointed, almost expecting guaranteed success, but Gregory gave a happy chuckle.

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"Well, as far as first attempts go, that was marvelous. I must admit I had to hold my breath there at the end; I thought you had it." Gregory said proudly. "From what I saw and the end result, I'd say you just need to tone down your mana level. You tried to copy my own, but you only have level one [Rune Etching]. Also, you must ensure that your mana is pure; your high ice affinity must have leaked through."

I took the suggestions in stride and began my second attempt. This time, I achieved remarkable success by ensuring I was pulling pure mana and drastically lowering the output. Gregory actually cheered when it succeeded this time, and I found myself caught up in the positivity.

"I'll be damned if I don't get at least two [Apprenticeship] levels when I'm done with you." He said happily.

The rest of the day involved repeating the process. After three successful attempts at the normal size, Gregory showed me an example of enlarging it on a much bigger piece of wood. Once I had demonstrated that three times in a row, he asked me to try reversing that principle and try it out on a much smaller piece of wood. In my mind's eye, I was trying to imagine how it would look shrunk down. I was struggling a little to get a good mental grasp until I thought of trying to copy how my mimicry traits copied parts and applied shrinkage or enlargement. Once I started thinking about slime shaping, I found a much clearer mental image and got to work replicating the miniaturized inscription.

When I completed the final stroke, I overheard Gregory letting out his held breath. He had a big grin plastered on his face right up until the small piece of wood cracked in half.

"So, so close," Gregory said with a slight chuckle. "You got the idea down to shocking perfection; I really thought you had it there. The only thing you forgot to do was appropriately lower the amount of mana. When you copied my enlarged inscription, you also directed more mana into it, so I thought you had understood the theory."

"Ah..." I said, realizing the seemingly obvious mistake. Of course, a larger inscription would need more mana, and a smaller one required less. Once again, I had overloaded the poor etching.

"You seem to have very good visualization. If you can apply the same concept when we move away from flat surfaces, I think you'll breeze through the basics." Gregory said.

He pulled out a piece of parchment with an inscription drawn on it and, after looking around the room for something appropriate, walked over to one of the higher tables and gestured for me to follow him. He crouched down and pointed towards one of the rounded table legs.

"Where would you put the inscription if I asked you to strengthen this table leg?" He asked.

"On the underside of the foot seems the most appropriate," I answered.

"Correct. But for argument's sake, let's assume that the foot was unavailable. It's been bolted to the floor."

I paused to think a bit before answering, "I could maybe fit a really small one if shrunk enough..."

"True. That would be possible, although you'd likely need to create quite a few tiny ones to achieve the desired strength. However, this is one of the more common options."

Gregory then proceeded to wrap the piece of parchment around the table leg; I could see how the inscription was still whole despite being distributed over an uneven surface.

Seeing the realization on my face, he smiled, "Hopefully, this illustrates the importance of having a good mental image."

"Couldn't you apply a marking or ink to get the correct distribution and then enchant it?"

Gregory chuckled at that. "I'm glad you asked so I could slap that foolish idea from your mind. Lesser Enchanters sometimes use stencils to assist them, but the quality is degraded when finalizing the enchantment. The excuse given is that the ink or paper or whatever they use between the enchantment target causes interference, but I say the system knows a cheat when it sees one and applies appropriate judgment."

It was an interesting idea and seemed plausible from what I had seen of Gramps and Mother. After all, they had robbed me of precious [Slime Conversion] and ten trait points! Although part of me wanted to test the limits of this cheating theory, could I do the engraving with my slime? What if I formed the rune shape in slime, filled it with mana, and melted the full inscription in one go? Would that work?

"I can see you've got ideas running around in your head. But learn to walk before you try running!" Gregory said with a chuckle.

We continued with another set of strengthening enchantments and then tried a few of the other basic ones. The one that intrigued me the most out of the basics was one that reduced the weight of the enchanted object; I had no idea such a thing was possible through enchanting. The other interesting interaction was when I added the fire resistance enchantment, requiring me to give a lot more mana for the enchantment to actually stick. It was an interesting thing to witness, and Gregory said there was another entire area of study where people researched the optimal material for each enchantment. Still, in theory, you could simply overcome it with enough mana and grit.

"I think that's enough for the day. Tell me what you've managed to achieve." Gregory said after examining my last piece of wood with a very satisfied nod.

I pulled up my notifications and began reading them to him.

"Excellent. You're clearly getting the perfection bonus. Honestly, I almost wish we could set up shop in a dungeon or something and stack even more bonuses!" Gregory said with a smug, toothy grin.

"Perfection, [Prodigy] and [Apprentice]... Even so, it seems I gained even more levels than yesterday, numerically, and that's without considering the higher experience requirement per level?" I questioned.

"Rightly so! Today, you're actually doing what your class wants you to do! Yesterday's levels were purely from raising your class skills, but now you were doing the job!" Gregory said, giving me a pat on the back.

"Ah! That completely slipped my mind..."

"Don't worry about it. It's your first class where you don't need to kill things to level up; I expect a lot of confusion in the coming weeks."

"Speaking of which... I have a question. I seem to be missing a lot of skill or profession points?"

"Oh. Silly me." Gregory said, tugging at his beard. "You only get a profession point every three levels. Try not to be wasteful with them; I've got an optimal path for you to follow, so please do not take anything until I tell you to."

"Not a problem, Master Greg. I'm quite a point hoarder." I said, grinning.

We talked a bit more before finally departing. Greg said he might soon ask me to do some actual enchanting jobs as it would be a good way to earn experience and some coin. While enchanting random bits of wood was certainly a way to progress, if the enchantments were actually going towards a useful purpose, I'd earn some more experience. I was instantly reminded that I had given Johnathan two levels just for being a "satisfied customer."

'I wonder if that's why Yuzz was always so happy to work on stuff for me... These profession classes are really something else.'

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