Chapter 13 - A Brilliant Idea

Glancing at his stat sheet Nate tracked his progress as he started thinking through plans for dealing with the crab of the lake.

He was very happy with how he was doing. His Magic Power was still terrible, and in terms of physical power and speed, he hadn’t changed at all. But he was tougher and felt fitter. He’d managed to develop his other magical Stats and his Intellect, Dexterity and Creativity were incredibly high from his point of view. He could feel the difference in how fast he could think and how easy it was for him to associate ideas. He already had a good idea about how he was going to lure the crab, or whatever the clawed beast ended up being, out of the lake. But before he talked through his ideas he needed a few questions answered.

Nate glanced down at Frick as his familiar pretended to walk down the corridor next to him. It was obviously pretending because on the uneven stone tiles and red dirt, the actual height the familiar walked at never changed.

“Frick, are you pretending to walk?” he asked.

“Yep. Sure am. It’s part of my Five Step Plan to appear like a real meat sack,” the little blue goblin responded.

Nate paused. He had been about to ask about Frick’s Five Step Plan, or even just the reason he wanted to pass as a ‘meat sack’. But he was certain that the reason was something to do with getting more mana. Thinking about it more, there was a question that was front of mind for Nate.

Looking down at the “strolling” Frick, he asked his question, “Frick, the System reward said you were ‘Assistance’. How is it that you are able to assist me? Like, what do I get out of this contract?”

Frick spun in the air, trying to mimic the appearance of walking backward. Instead, it looked like the familiar was moonwalking a finger’s width above the floor of the corridor.

“You Dead Realmers know absolutely nothing hey? Alright, Familiar’s for dummies. The Familiar contract, that lets me sip upon the sweet nectar that is your mana, offers you a few advantages. Assistance is a good word for it, is that what The System said in its reward options? Ha! Anyway, so assistance. As part of the contract, once you allow it, I can access your Skills. When I use them I won’t get the same power out of them that you do but I can still use them. Which means, you guessed it,” Frick made finger guns at Nate with his blue bony fingers, “that I can do work for you while you sleep. Spirits don’t sleep and all that jazz. Not sure you can manage it yet, but you can also cast spells through me. Also, I can do menial tasks and all that like cleaning and cooking. You’d need to teach me how to cook though.”

Nate nodded along as Frick spoke. Having Frick do work while he slept would save a lot of time, and even when awake, having someone else working on some of his runes would make him more efficient. The more efficient he was, the sooner he could get out of this Dungeon and hopefully find his way back to civilization. The thought made him smile.

“Alright Frick, how far away from me can you get?” Nate asked.

There was a pause before the little goblin answered, “Sorry, I was understanding your distance measurements. Crazy how so many meat sacks calculate it differently. Anyway, a little less than two hundred metres I think. That will go up with your Magic Power, just so you know.”

Nate grinned, “Perfect. At the end of this corridor, it opens up into a valley. I need a bunch of dead wood, both big and small,” Nate moved his hands showing Frick the size of what he wanted. “Can you start collecting it? I’ll meet you on the path that leads down into the valley.”

Frick nodded, taking the request seriously, which surprised Nate given the Familiar’s attitude so far.

“No problemo boss man. You’ll feel an extra drain on your Mana Reserve as I will have to make myself corporeal to interact with the wood. You okay with that?”

All Nate had done was nod when Frick flew off down the corridor. As Nate exited the end of the corridor into the valley he smiled taking in the view. Even knowing the dangers below, it was still beautiful. The blue and green leaves of the trees swayed gently in the breeze and the air smelled fresh. The lake was placid without a ripple and Nate focused on it; his brows furrowed in thought. From his perspective, there were two problems he had to solve to defeat the monster that lurked in the lake.

The first was getting the thing out of the lake. Fighting it in the water was obviously a death sentence. He’d lack mobility, cover and would be in the creature’s element. So, step one was somehow getting it out of the lake. But it was more complicated than that. Given the size of the monster, based on the claw he had seen, it was likely going to be pretty heavily armoured. That had been an issue against the boss mana construct he’d fought where he had struggled to pierce its defences. It was probably going to be a problem against this beast as well. His best bet was setting a powerful trap that it couldn’t escape, which meant not only did he need to lure the creature out of the water, but directly into whatever trap he set.

The second problem was making sure the trap he set was powerful enough to get the job done. Nate reached the remains of his firepit and sat down to think. Trying to link Fire and Earth sigils might have been a method for creating something like magma, but the more he thought about it the less he liked it. Whether it was his own intuition or Runic Knowledge assisting him, he was confident the combination on its own wouldn’t return the result he wanted. That ruined his plan for slowly roasting the monster. Nate laughed softly to himself. Shame about that as it would’ve saved him a lot of cooking. No, there would be no slow burn. Instead, he’d have to go with something more abrupt, more explosive. It was time for a little experimentation.

Frick chose that moment to return, his first bundle of sticks carried precariously. Dumping the sticks Frick turned to head back down the path when Nate noticed he was actually walking on the ground.

“You can’t fly when you're corporeal can you?” he asked.

“Nope! Physical body comes with physical rules, like gravity! Ha! You Dead Realmers at least know some things. Most people probably don’t even know about gravity in this world. Anyway, hurry up and get to work slowpoke. I get the wood; you get the monster. Then I get the mana and you get… the mana, but you know what I mean, you get the processed mana!” Frick responded.

“Whatever,” Nate muttered with a roll of his eyes, grabbing a piece of wood to start on his project.

Fire. Fire was going to be his friend. But first to test a new concept for his Runic Intent. So far he had manipulated properties like size, shape, density, and direction. The question was, could he do something around timing. Pulling out his Earthen Projectile rune he started letting mana flow into it from his Mana Reserve. After two seconds it had enough mana to launch a blast of stone but before it could release Nate focused his Runic Intent skill on the rune.

Picking a direction, he focused his latter three Intents all on delaying the release of the shot. Another six seconds passed before the shot blasted out into the long grass. A notification flashed in the corner of his vision, and he dismissed it, noting the increase in his Runic Intent skill.

The experiment had worked while he was holding the rune, but what if he wasn’t? Nate repeated his experiment, creating a little dirt mound he could rest the rune on facing away from him. Pushing mana into the rune he focused his Intent again on the delayed release and then put it on the dirt mound. When he got the same outcome he grinned from ear to ear. Defeating the creature might be even easier than expected.

Pulling out his pocket knife, he was about to get started carving a new rune when he noted its haggard appearance. It probably didn’t have much time left in it. Using Identification on the knife it was easy to see the problem. Its mana tolerance was rated ‘Abysmal’. What had Arikanvil said? The portal mana that brought him here was what destroyed the train. Seemed the ambient mana in the Dungeon was having the same effect on his poor knife. At the rate of decay, it probably only had another day or two in it. Nate sighed and was about to start carving with it when he had a thought.

Reaching into his spatial storage he pulled out a full gem, this one a vibrant green. Holding it in his hand he let the mana start to flow out of the gem and into his Class Core, activating Improve Material. The improvement to his knife was instantaneous and he saw the Notifications flash as the knife’s rarity went from blank, to Common and then Uncommon in just a few seconds. He took a moment to try and focus on only improving a small section of the blade as he pushed it to Rare, finding he could guide the Skill to not impact every part of the material. That was useful.

Giving the new and improved knife a couple of tries, he found it easily carved into the dead wood. More time saved was always good from his perspective. He paused for a moment before returning to his runecrafting. Glancing down at his clothes he could see they were slowly deteriorating. Improve Material could do the same for his clothes as it did for the knife. Even just raising them to Common would halt the degradation, but was it worth it? Would the world he had been dumped on have clothes similar to the ones from Earth, or would it instantly mark him as different the moment he encountered civilization. He knew if he left the clothes as is, they would eventually fully degrade as the mana broke them down. He snorted to himself, knowing he’d complain about it the entire time too. But that was better than being singled out as ‘different’ because of his clothes. With a reluctant sigh he chose to leave his clothes as they were. He just hoped he wouldn’t be naked by the time he escaped this Dungeon.

Getting to work on his new rune concept, he created the Mana Exclusion rune before moving onto his new idea. Three circles, each one inside the previous, then three squares overlaid over the top, following the same sequence so that the edges of the circles touched the edges of the squares. At each point of the compass, where the squares and circles touched, he drew the sigil for Strongest, one of the first he learned on Arikanvil’s research station, before putting a Fire sigil in the middle of the rune. Wiping the sweat from his brow and working the soreness out of his hands he looked over the notification he had gotten.

Congratulations on creating a Mighty Fire Rune (Journeyman Quality).
Your achievement has been recorded.

Runic Intent Level 2 > 3
Runic Knowledge Level 3 > 4

Walk your Path. Reach your Goal. Become One with Mana.

With the Rune done, Nate got to work using Improve Material, bringing the wood up to Epic quality. Another notification popped up in his peripheral and he dismissed it after noting the increase to his Improve Material skill. As he had worked, the pile of wood had grown as Frick kept making trips down to the forest. With enough to get a fire going, Nate dug out his firepit and piled on the kindling and wood before taking two steps back. Holding out his Mighty Fire rune, he was about to light the fire when he had second thoughts. Maybe standing this close wasn’t the best idea. Taking an extra five steps back he focused a small amount of mana into the rune and exercised his intent on the fire appearing in the firepit.

Less than a breath later, he was glad he gave himself the extra distance as the firepit was engulfed in intense flames. The heat washed over him as he cut off the mana to the rune. Unlike the last time, he had no need to wait for the kindling to heat up the wood. The burst of flame had dried them out almost instantly and the fire burned happily. The mana cost hadn’t been small either and Nate drew on the mana gem to refill his reserve.

He only had to wait a few minutes before Frick returned, throwing some more wood onto the pile near the fire.

“That’s enough wood. Thanks Frick,” said Nate.

“Oh good. That was getting boring. Even sipping on your mana, I was starting to wonder if it was worth it!” Frisk griped, before grinning, “Just kidding. I’d do almost anything for mana! What’s next boss man? We going hunting? Time to get your…. ooo that is an awesome term. Let’s get your murderhobo on!” Frick started dancing around Nate in some weird ghoulish dance, limbs flailing.

“No. Just…hell no. So weird you are getting access to my lexicon. Anyway, that is not the kind of guy I am Frick. We’re not killing things just so we can get mana. If this wasn’t a Dungeon I’d leave that thing alone in its lake as long as it wasn’t hurting anyone.”

Frick opened up his mouth to respond but Nate held up a hand to forestall him.

“I know what you’re about to say, about it killing other animals and me just being another animal, so it would be fine if I killed it, right? But it’s not the same. No matter how much people try to conflate the two. A sentient animal killing another sentient animal for food is part of the circle of life or however you want to spin it. But I am sapient. I am cognizant enough to know I can find other ways to get mana, ways that don’t involve being a murderhobo. Like Dungeons!” Nate finished his rant.

Frick sat down looking at Nate for a long moment, the most serious he had been. “Alright boss man. If that’s the way you want to roll, I guess that’s the way it’s going to be. Just keep in mind, Dungeons aren’t that common nor are they that easy to find outside of a few special classes. But there are plenty of malicious creatures out there. Sapient and sentient. I am sure we’ll find plenty to keep me sated and you progressing. We cool boss man?”

“Yes Frick, we’re cool.”

“Alright boss man. What’s next?” Frick asked.

“I am going to tell you my plan. If you’re comfortable with it, I will teach you how to draw a particular rune, then give you my pocketknife and send you down near the water to carve the rune onto ten trees there . Put them as close as you can get to the lake and keep them clustered in a funnel like this.” Nate drew what he meant in the dirt. “I want to be able to stand at the centre of them and still activate them with my mana.”

Frick nodded and drifted over to see the rune. The Spirit hovered over Nate as he demonstrated the rune before Nate let him try on some dead wood to prove he could copy it. Nate laughed a little watching. If he had the Runic Replication Skill he could’ve let Frick access it and just copy it onto the trees. Ah well, maybe next level. He was close anyway. Satisfied that Frick could copy the rune, he gave him the pocket knife and sent him off.

Sitting down in front of the fire Nate examined his feelings. He was surprised at himself for ranting at Frick like he had about being a murderhobo. It had been an emotional response and one that had come out of nowhere. His improved intellect though made it easy to trace the source and wrap some logic around the reaction. Nate had been bullied. Being an orphan had made him an easy target and there were always those who punched down. He understood there were usually reasons for the behaviour, be it just a malicious nature, or more often, as a way to reclaim some sense of power because they themselves were bullied.

That was what made Nate wary of hunting monsters for the sake of mana or progression or anything else. It felt like punching down, like being a bully, and in his heart that wasn’t who Nate was. If the creature wasn’t destined to be stuck in Dungeons forever until defeated, he would have even ignored this one. The System had its ways of pushing you down a path, it seemed. Nate sighed and stared into the fire, steeling himself for what was to come. Soon he’d face the monster of the lake. The thought didn’t fill him with comfort or excitement, just sadness.