Chapter 9 - Bricks and Mortar

Nate woke feeling well rested, despite his stony bed. It hadn’t taken him long to finish cleaning himself the previous day after his meal of somewhat burned boar. He’d washed his face at the edge of the lake and taken a drink before hightailing it back to his nook. Today was the day he’d explore the other corridor. But first, he needed to prepare a little defence in case he needed to run. Picking up the last piece of wood he had in his stash, Nate commiserated with himself that he didn’t have something better than wood to work with.

His plan was to create a Barrier rune he could carry around with him and power if he needed to create a shield or block a pathway. But he knew the wood in its current form would explode if he tried to fill it with enough mana to be effective. It was time to try his Legendary Skill, Improve Material. He was about to start when he had a thought.

He knew that the Skill improved more than just the mana capacity of the material. What if it also made the wood harder? As in, too hard to carve the rune into it with his pocket knife? Sitting down and pulling out his pocket knife, he got to work, taking care to make it as clean as he could. As with the mana gems, Nate added a Mana Exclusion rune and connected the two runes. He wanted to be able to activate the barrier function when he wanted and didn’t want any ambient mana interfering with that.

Finally ready, Nate pulled out the yellow mana gem. It still shone almost as brightly as when he’d first taken it out of the dimensional storage. Reaching inside himself to the core that contained his Class, Nate focused on what he sensed was his Improve Material Skill and began to feed it mana while focusing on the wood in his hands. Instantly, he felt mana flow out of his core and down his arms before it entered the wood. He could feel the mana inside him dropping at an incredibly fast rate and knew he’d be out of mana in seconds. Splitting his focus was still a challenge, but Nate managed it after a couple of seconds, allowing mana to flow from the mana gem into himself. The Skill itself seemed to guide the mana into the wood rather than the runes, which Nate thought was convenient.

It didn’t take long for Nate to feel a qualitative change in the material, and he cut off the flows of mana immediately. Smiling at being able to use his new Skills, he focused on the piece of wood, activating Identification. Nate smirked as he felt it trigger twice. That was exactly what he wanted to see.

Vine Wood (Quality: Uncommon)
Activatable Barrier Rune (Master Quality)

Clearly the wood was only Common quality normally. Deciding to push for the next tier, Nate got back to work. This time it took longer and more mana from his mana gem, but again, he could feel when the saturation of his Skill was enough to alter the material. Lifting the wood up and down slowly, Nate could tell it had gotten heavier. Activating Identification again, he looked at it.

Vine Wood (Quality: Rare)
Activatable Barrier Rune (Master Quality)

His face split into a grin. Rare was good. But he wasn’t done. Activating his Skill and channelling the mana into the wood, he began trying to push it to Epic. Time burned by, and though he wasn’t sure, he suspected an hour had passed before he felt the change in the wood again. Glancing at the mana gem. He noted it was only half as bright now. Just how much mana was in these gems? Getting curious, Nate activated Identification for the third time.

Mana Gem (Quality: Legendary)
Mana Flow Rune (Grandmaster Quality)
Vine Wood (Quality: Epic)
Activatable Barrier Rune (Master Quality)

Identification – Runic Level 1 > 2

Nate snorted to himself. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that a bunch of mana gems given by someone who claimed to be a God were of Legendary quality. They were probably just curios or rubbish to Arikanvil. He also now had the name for the rune that allowed mana into or out of the mana gem. Mana Flow Rune. Either way Nate was ready.

Testing the Barrier Rune, he let a little mana leak into it. Quickly, it formed a small Barrier that Nate could feel with his other hand. He kept feeding mana to the rune until the barrier was half as big as himself. I’m going to need to figure out how to specify dimensions with runes. That can wait, though. Time to explore.

Nate started making his way down the corridor with his Barrier rune held out in front. Taking his time, he kept an eye out for traps but found nothing as he reached the intersection he’d first passed through. The statue was still there, unchanged, three eyed and holding its gigantic hammer with a pleased look on its face. Nate gave it a nod of acknowledgement before continuing forward into the unknown.

Creeping down the corridor, it looked much the same as the one he’d just come from. The smell was musty, the stone was yellow and, at random intervals, there were alcoves. Like the other corridor some of those alcoves contained statues, all of the same kind of being. They all seemed to have a similar shape, and while their faces and dimensions differed slightly, they all had a third eye in their forehead. Some carried smaller hammers and one even held a spear to its side, but no other weapons or tools were evident.

There hadn’t been much new to see thus far, and Nate was approaching the end of the corridor. He’d begun to wonder if the valley was all there was to this dungeon. As he walked past the next alcove, he immediately noticed there was no statue. Instead, it was another corridor only a few metres in length that then opened up into an antechamber.

Turning his Barrier to face the antechamber, he crept forward to get a better look. Peering out from the corridor, he could tell the room was square with steps leading down from all sides to a small garden in the centre. At each of the corners of the room were large plinths like one might’ve seen in some ancient Roman baths. Or a colosseum, Nate thought wryly. In front of each of the plinths was a statue that faced down into the garden.

Nate studied the statues without entering the room. They didn’t look like the ones in the alcoves. These ones were much more rounded, and he did mean rounded in every sense. The head seemed to be a sphere sitting in an indent in a torse reminiscent of an egg. That sat on thick cylindrical legs, broken up by what looked like more spheres where the knees would go. The arms had that same cylindrical shape with spheres joining them.

It was such a different method to the statues in the alcoves. Those had been artistic. Lovingly carved is how Nate would have described them, with the statues holding poses like heroes. Nate snorted softly. These were like figures made out of toilet rolls. He couldn’t understand why both would be in the temple. Stepping into the room, he checked to the left and to the right with his head. Keeping his Barrier rune up was the only thing that saved him.

Flying backwards a metre, Nate landed heavily on the yellow stone of the floor, grazing his left arm in the process. His Barrier rune shimmered above him, and Nate kept it between himself and the room as he checked how much mana it had lost by judging its decrease in size. It took only a second, and Nate was pleased to see the mana lost in defending him was only slight. Yay for Epic materials, he thought. Getting up quickly, he hugged the wall, keeping his Barrier between himself and the room.

Peering in, he could see one of the far tubular statues had raised its arm and was pointing at his corridor. Its arms ended in a little hollowed space, and as he watched, he could see mana visibly collect in that space before a blast of stone rocketed in his direction. Ducking back at the last second, he heard, rather than saw, the stone impact the wall opposite him. Crumbling dirt and stone fell to the floor as a few pieces of debris pinged against his Barrier.

He considered running then. If one of those blasts impacted him without his barrier, it’d break bones, assuming it didn’t blow a hole through him. But then, if these things were mobile, and the legs suggested they were, then he couldn’t leave them to follow him back to his little nook. He had to figure out a way to handle this. Nate chanced a glance around the corner and noted the statue had started to move, albeit very slowly. Trusting that he would see the next attack coming, Nate focused on his Identification Skill. As he did so he could see the arm raise to point at him again, his Identification Skill triggering a second time as the words flickered in front of him.

Earthen Mana Construct: Level 15
Earthen Projectile Rune (Quality: Journeyman)

Identification – Runic Level 2 > 3

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

Nate ducked deeper into the corridor as another shot blew past him into the opposing wall. That explained why the statue looked like a bunch of cylinders stacked on top of each other. It wasn’t art. That thing was a weapon. Or a guard, he supposed. He was kind of an invader here in this place. Also, he’d levelled his Skill by identifying that Rune. But now was not the time for those thoughts. Now was the time for a plan. Nate glanced back out as the Construct slowly climbed down from where it stood. It looked incredibly sturdy but incredibly slow. Nate’s eyes opened wide as he realised what he had to do.

Turning away from the corridor, Nate sprinted down the hallway back towards his nook. Blasting past it, he stopped at the entrance to the valley only long enough to check for boars before he ran to his dug-up cooking pit. He knelt and quickly grabbed a few pieces of charcoal that remained from the fire before shoving them into the pockets in his hoodie. Turning, Nate ran back the way he had come as fast as he could. The increased Endurance was showing its worth as Nate barely felt winded at all from the few minutes of sprinting.

Just as he was about to get back to the entrance to the antechamber, the Earthen Construct stepped into the corridor. Raising its arm, Nate realised he had nowhere to go. The last alcove was at least twenty metres behind him. Hunkering down behind his Barrier, he braced himself. The direct impact from the stone projectile sent him flying backwards. He landed awkwardly and lost hold of his Barrier rune, the piece of wood flying further down the corridor.

Fear and adrenaline raced through him, and his desire to run conflicted with his desire to win. In a blink that felt like an eternity, the desire to win won, and Nate charged forward towards the construct. Its arm tracked him, and he could see it was starting to gather mana for another shot. Too slow, Nate thought as he ducked underneath the Constructs arm and came up behind it.

It started to turn slowly, but as Nate had suspected, it was even slower trying to turn around than it was moving its appendages. In a fight of brute force, Nate imagined the thing would’ve been incredibly challenging. You’d have needed hammers or something equally blunt to start doing damage to the construct, and that was assuming that the stone of the statue itself wasn’t reinforced with mana. All Nate had was runes. But for something running on mana, runes would be more than enough.

Nate kept stepping with the construct as it tried to turn to face him, his hand moving in careful strokes, applying the charcoal in a rough approximation of a rune. It was going to be almost the size of the things back. Nate wasn’t sure if rune size factored in. As he had that thought, Runic Knowledge pinged, informing him that rune size affected the mana throughput but had no other impact. That was going to be useful in this case, but Nate figured his plan would work either way. He focused on getting the sigils correct, not caring as much about the geometric shape. He knew that would affect the quality of the rune and, therefore, its efficacy. But he didn’t need it to be efficient. He just needed it to work.

After stepping with the construct in a dance for a little longer, he finally completed the rune, The System pinging him a moment later. At the same time mana started flowing out towards him, and Nate pulled it into his core. It took a little longer dancing before the mana finally stopped flowing, and he was forced to jump back as the construct fell apart, crumbling into a pile of dust and stone to reveal a small red, now empty, mana gem inside. The arms were intact, and Nate took a moment to study the runes and commit them to memory. He glanced at the message from The System and smiled.

Congratulations on creating a Mana Flow Rune (Initiate Quality).
Your achievement has been recorded.

Runic Knowledge Level 1 > 2

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

He’d done it. He’d beaten the Construct without taking any major injuries. He could feel the mana roiling in his core. It was hard to tell, but he would guess that he was about halfway to his next level. That just meant it was time to get back to work. Scooping up the empty mana gem, he moved it into his spatial storage before dismissing the Skill Level notification and walking back to the entrance to the antechamber. It was time to lure out some constructs. Thank fuck these things are as dumb as automatons, he thought as he moved into line of sight for the next construct. This was going to take a while.

A couple of hours later, Nate stood over the pile of rubble that had been the fourth and final construct. There had been no danger after the first, but it had taken time to lure each construct away from the others, and he’d been sent for a couple more tumbles, his Barrier proving invaluable. But the rewards had been worth it and the two level ups flashing from The System made him smile. It was time to get stronger again. Every step forward was one step closer to freedom, and, just maybe, a life of art and luxury. Or so he hoped. With that he opened The System messages.