Chapter 246 - Grand Runic Array

Nate sat atop the cliffs overlooking Pinoreth, bathed in paint. With a rune made of the Shape, Paint and Control Sigils he kept the different colours of Mythic paint separated around him, like multicoloured islands. Not too far away, Kiri was working through attack patterns that made use of her new shadow and echo Skills with Frick playing the part of dutiful dummy or, in this case, pincushion. If it wasn’t for Kiri using another of her Skills to enhance Frick’s durability, the little Spirit would already have been banished. However, the interplay between his sister and his Familiar wasn’t what was holding his attention. The tub of Mythic-tier paint surrounding him was.

For months, he had been slowly developing the design for his replacement robe. His previous robe had been his second ever Dungeon reward, the first having been Frick himself. That robe had lasted him roughly two years and had become a symbol of not only who he was, but his Path. Studded with stars it had grown with him, literally, letting him store runes and sigils that had ultimately influenced how he used his Skills. It had been everything someone could desire: self-cleaning, self-repairing, and keeping him comfortable in all climes. He’d slept in that robe and, in retrospect, the only times he didn’t wear it were when he bathed and sometimes when he was with Britt. 

With those factors in mind, he wanted his new robe to be better. His previous robe had aligned with his Path, but imperfectly. The art aspect had been based on the threads, and Nate was no tailor. While it was capable of storing his Sigils and runes, the robe itself had been enchanted, not runecrafted. Finally, it had not been adaptable, which while not something he normally considered, was a factor in his Path. Perhaps it would be better to say that its adaptability was far more limited in scope.

His new robe, or should he call it armour, or maybe clothing—whatever word he ended up using to describe it, the item would not only be Divine, like him, but eminently adaptable. He listed off the requirements in his head as he went over the current design. Two things were at the top of his list: alignment with his Path and being incredibly comfortable. If he was being honest with himself, he might have mixed up the order of priority. Aligning the design and materials to his Path had been the barrier to solving his lack of appropriate clothing earlier, but with his Mythic Art and Paint Sigils ready, that problem had been identified and overcome. As for comfort, he felt he had gone over and above with his designs on that front. The only way the results could be more comfortable was if he somehow got his hands on a Divine-tier Cloud or Comfort Sigil. He was sure they existed. For now, he would settle for Gentle, Clean, Cool and Heat Sigils all linked into a Control Sigil. 

The next question had been how to make his designs adaptable without impacting the structure of the runes themselves. Making clothing that could change shape would mean the runes would need to be able to shift without compromising the structure and careful balance of the runes themselves. It had, in many ways, been an almost impossible problem to solve. Since he had (in theory) solved it, perhaps improbable or not-worth-it would have been a better description. He’d had the idea of storing the runic structure within the clothes in something like a flexible metal scaffold, which might have worked. Then he’d considered the possibility of the Time and Recall Sigils, so that he could store the runic configuration and simply restore them after the clothing had shifted by using the memory of their shape. Both were technically possible, if a little bit over-engineered in his opinion. That line of thinking had made him realise a risk in his designs that he hadn’t considered initially. Damage to the clothing could break his runic structures and it was entirely possible that without failsafes, the failures could propagate, destroying the clothing. Worst case scenario would be if he was wearing them when it happened.

In response to the risk, he had pivoted his approach. Now he stared at the result of his pivot, held gently within his outstretched hand. The Unending Black Pearl was melded into a silver necklace. The silver necklace itself wasn’t anything to write home about, merely imbued with an affinity for Durability and Reinforcement to make it incredibly difficult to break. As for the Unending Black Pearl, it still emitted the Concept of the Depths, albeit faintly, as the secondary affinity Nate had imbued it with overpowered much of the original Concept, incorporating it into its own idea. Space pulsed within the shiny, black pearl, creating a hole into a miniature world. It was that world that Nate was focused on.

Within the pearl was a spherical space as though Nate stood within an incredibly large ball. The outer wall was made of polished wood and along its inner surface ran the most complicated runic structure Nate had ever designed. In his opinion, it was more complicated than the portal he had created to access this Wild Realm. 

The number of Sigils present across the wooden wall were well and truly in the hundreds. Embedded within the structure were mana gathering arrays with Mythic gems at their heart. Those gems then powered the other runes. 

There were runes for comfort, controlling temperature, cleaning, and repair. There were runes for shaping his clothing. Those runes contained Sigils for Illusion, Empower, Shaping, Durability, and Reinforcement all bound by a Soul Control rune that would let him mentally design his clothing or empower it as needed.

Then there was his newest addition, a Divine Barrier Sigil. With that present, he would be able to project his barrier from his clothing, rather than needing his bracer, which led him to his next plan for his new garment. His original robe had been a growth item. The growth had been a simple one, that used his own Creativity Stat as a way to empower the robe, increasing its slots that could hold Sigils. He had a rough idea how that had been accomplished, but for his own creation he wanted to take it a step further. 

Throughout the inner sphere, woven between the other runes, was an unending Life rune that combined the Sigils for Life, Recall, Drain and Empower, all bound by another Control Sigil. With his ability to manipulate Subconcepts, Nate had heavily shifted the interpretation to evolution through consumption. The result, he hoped, would be that he could feed items that contained affinities to his grand runic array, using them to nourish the rune, incorporating new Concepts and new runes, growing the grand runic array and ultimately adding new capabilities or empowering existing ones. That was the idea, anyway. Whether it worked as intended was yet to be seen.

That brought him to the last necessary elements for his grand runic array and first Divine item. Those elements were both many and few. Many in that it was going to be insanely expensive and that he didn’t actually know just how costly. Few in that they were really just the last pieces of the puzzle.

The first was the need for the actual clothing material. In this case, he had truly been thinking out of the box. The medium was what he was currently bathed in. Paint would be what the clothing was made of and how it connected to the grand runic array. That was where his expenses started. For this to truly be a Divine item, the material needed to be Divine, which meant he needed to raise his Paint Sigil to Divine and then use Multi Conceptual Material Shaping to imbue that Divinity into the Mythic paint. That meant it would cost him thirty units of Divine Energy to improve the Sigil tier, then however much Divine Energy to create Divine material out of the paint.

Then there was the alignment with his Path. Along the outside of the wooden sphere was a partially completed second grand runic array that would hold the Divine Energies within the sphere, allowing them to build over time, but also concealing the item’s Divinity. That rune was mostly just flowing whorls and lines connected to geometric shapes that, for now, were bereft of Sigils. But there were four Sigils that were intended for that particular runic array. Barrier, to keep the energies within, along with Close for a perfect seal, all bound by his yet to be created Divine Sigils of Art and Paint linked to an Empowering structure. That meant he would need to spend another thirty units of Divine Energy on raising his Mythic Art Sigil to Divine. 

The Empower Sigil had been raised to Grandmaster from Journeyman, courtesy of Conceptual Insight, but it was still the weakest part of the grand runic array and had needed multiple layers of reinforcement to prevent it from simply burning out due to the presence of so much Divine Energy. At least, that was what Nate estimated would happen. In the future he would raise the Empower Sigil to Divine as well, but he simply couldn’t afford it right now because Art and Paint were not the only Sigils he needed to raise to Divine. The whole item was predicated on the small space bound to the Unending Black Pearl, and he was concerned it would fracture under the weight of so much Divinity. So, it too needed to be raised to Divine, which meant he needed to not only raise his Space Sigil to Divine, but needed to then improve the pearl itself to Divine. Another thirty units of Divine Energy plus however much it cost to make the pearl’s material Divine.

The result was ninety units of Divine Energy, plus whatever it cost to raise the materials and he had one-hundred-and-fifty to work with. Probably enough, but also, possibly not, after all, there was a lot of paint. A lot, and yet not enough, which was why there was a rune for Create that was awaiting the Divine Paint Sigil so that it could create more paint as needed. Though, he wondered how much it would be able to create the Divine Paint on its own and how much it would need to feed on other sources of Divine Energy to do so. For that, he wouldn’t know till he was done.

The end result was that he expected he would be almost out of Divine Energy by the time he was done. That was why Kiri and Frick were nearby. He was about to use more Divine Energy than he had received when he and Kiri had ascended. That Divine Energy had been enough for Lesser Divines across Galle to sense them. Which meant the same was almost certainly true in this Wild Realm. And while Nate was finishing the two grand runic arrays, he would be entirely focused on balancing the runic structures as he incorporated each piece, lest the entire construction become unstable and wreck all his work and maybe him with it. 

He and Kiri had considered performing the creation steps in his own little spatial realm, until he had realised how much mana it was going to consume and that the Divine Energy of Reality had to come from somewhere. The risk that it came from his spatial realm had been too much after all the effort he had put into it. Not to mention his flying ship. Better to do it out in the greater Reality and deal with the consequences.

There was also an argument for doing it piece by piece. However, that came with its own problems. So far, almost all of his Divine Energy gathering and use had been within sealed spaces or internally. Raising his Skills and Levels using Divine Energy was all done within the Class Core itself. It was only when he was gaining Divine Energy through his discoveries and learnings that there had been a sense within the environment of what was happening. When he had done so within the Depths Walkers Temple he had been sealed inside of a formation. In the Dungeon, well, he was in a Dungeon. Only once or twice had he done so outside of those places, and then, he had only gained ten Divine Energy each time. Likely not enough to be sensed at a distance.

No matter what, the actual Divine item creation would be felt at a distance. Raising three Sigils to Divine would also each be felt at a distance, meaning doing so would give any Divine sensitive time to plan and prepare. He could of course try doing so in a sealed location, but that meant a Dungeon. He couldn’t ask it of the Depths Walkers as he already sensed that Reciprocity would demand too much from him for using their formation, not to mention it might negatively impact their own Divine Artifact, shifting the Concepts within ever so slightly.

So instead, it was an all or nothing venture. He could live with that.

Sitting in naught but his underwear, with paint lapping at his knees and feet, kept in motion by a Fluid and Flow rune, he looked to Kiri.

“How long do you need to recover?”

Kiri paused mid-swing and darted over towards him, an excited look in her eyes. Whether that was for him and what he was about to accomplish, the almost certain battle that was about to start, or both, he did not know.

“You’re ready?” she asked.

“Yep. Everything is all set. But once I start I probably can’t stop and it’s not going to be quick. Who knows how long each step is going to take, and the paint needs to remain outside while I raise it to Divine lest it break the runes inside before they are all set up.”

“Give me… ten minutes. I was taking it pretty light so it shouldn’t be long till I’ve restored most of my Spiritual Energy. Mana’s not worth mentioning. What do you want to do if it gets to be too much? That barrier around you might hold up against any Mythic beasts for a while, but it’s going to pop like a bubble under a Divine attack.”

“It’ll hold,” Nate stated confidently. “At least for a few attacks. I can change the Sigil in my Barrier to the Divine version if any Lesser Divines show up. I’d need to power it with Divine Energy… it could get rough but I think I can manage a balance there. And we should be safe from any Greater Divines, since they’d be violating Reciprocity if they attacked. You sure you got this?”

Kiri scoffed and grinned at him in response.

“What about me, Boss?!” yelled Frick excitedly.

“You too. You sure you want to do this?”

Frick nodded vigorously, Kiri’s own excitement mirrored in his eyes.

Nate and Frick had discussed what they had learned in the Temple of the Depths Walkers and how it might allow Frick to skip tiers at the next evolution. Changing the Spiritual Energy that made up Frick to better align with his Embodiment, something he had yet to share, was something that Nate could, in theory, offer. However, doing so fell outside of the Familiar contract, which meant Reciprocity was at play. 

The cost was somewhat ameliorated by the fact that Nate wanted Frick to keep up with him and Kiri, but it wasn’t completely wiped clean. Frick would be undergoing a permanent, qualitative change. While this increase in power and ability would certainly increase the help Frick could offer Nate, there might come a time where Frick was no longer bound to Nate. A situation that was likely to occur given Frick was functionally immortal in terms of lifespan. That gap created a debt and Reciprocity demanded satisfaction. Something needed to be offered in exchange. Multiple somethings was what they had settled on, though Nate wasn’t entirely comfortable with the approach.

When Frick manifested himself in the Physical Realm, he did so while maintaining his true body within the Spiritual Realm. That meant that even when his physical representation was destroyed, which happened semi-regularly, he would merely be blocked from returning to the Physical Realm for a time. A small price to pay really for another version of pseudo-immortality. However, that meant there was very little risk for the little Spirit. That lack of risk, and the fact that doing such fell within the scope of the Familiar Contract, meant there was no additional exchange possible using that method.

That didn’t mean Frick couldn’t fully manifest in the Physical Realm, though. But, doing so would put him at risk of a true death. Dissolution might be a better description since he was basically a sapient collection of memories and ideas given life, or some version of it anyway. 

Manifesting fully would mean Frick would be significantly more powerful, since he could still augment his strength through Nate’s Skills and, to an extent, Stats. In addition Frick would have full access to his own Stats and Skills, something that wasn’t normally the case as he was merely a projection. 

That was how Frick had decided to create a debt between them so that Nate could start fusing the idea of whatever Frick’s Embodiment was into the little Spirit. Nate didn’t like it, but it wasn’t his decision to make, and he would respect his little goblin Spirit's desires.

Looking from Kiri to Frick, he nodded as ten minutes finally passed during which he improved the Barrier Sigil in his bracer from Grandmaster to Divine.

“We’re ready. Let’s begin.”