Chapter 339 - Runes and Characters

Sofia had been teleported directly inside of her closed room.

“So much for a strong barrier around my room…”

She shivered. I can’t believe I did that. One of these days my big mouth is going to get me killed.

Should I go find the students?

No, best to let them sleep this trip off, I’ll go check in on them tomorrow.

Pareth looked at Sofia and Sofia looked back at him.

“What now?”

Sofia did not expect an answer but she actually got one, Pareth summoned his weapon of light in the form of a small dagger, and mimicked cutting his wrist.

Still not going to talk? Well, this is already better than before.

“Train the venerable physique? It is quite far from completion… Let’s do that then… But before, why not choose a new classless skill? Since I have a free slot? I can still forget [Identify] for the teleportation later as well. Any recommendations?”

Pareth seemed to hesitate, or that’s how Sofia interpreted his stillness, at least. Eventually he raised a hand, and his weapon of light changed into a small round-ish rock.

Rock? I’m surprised that it even qualifies as a weapon for your skill, but you did use that giant pair of scissors once, so… I don’t get what you mean, though.

Pareth came closer, showing the ‘rock’ in his hand to Sofia. Under the mastery of his skill, the rock became smoother and smoother until it was a perfectly round ball.

Oh, I get it now. The pearl thing, uh? I did think about it. I searched about it in the academy library too, but found nothing on that skill. My main issue is still about how large of a pearl we are talking about, and where does it come from?

“Hey, don’t look at me like that, I know you don’t know either, still…”

[Crystalized] ♢ : Your body will slowly produce mana pearls (Growth speed linked to mana regeneration), which can be used as ritual fuel or eaten to provide a temporary 100% bonus to thinking speed.

“Ah, whatever. Surely it can’t be too bad.”

You have acquired the classless skill : ‘[Crystalized]’

Sofia felt a surge of heat rise within her chest, looking down, she saw the runes from [Runeforged Overlord] shifting around, making space for a new mana circuit around the top of her sternum. Her skin around this spot took a strange blue hue like the Exidians’ skin, it had clear borders and spread slightly in all directions with root-like tendrils. It contrasted a lot with her skin, but all in all was not too bad, the center part only being about as large as a gold coin and the thin tendrils about the length of half a finger at their longest.

“It kind of looks like a badly poisoned wound… Well, at least it’s not too weird of a spot. The pearl shouldn’t be too large considering the size of the spot, what’s left is to see how long it takes to grow now.”

With that and the bonus from March of the Envoy, I’ll be thinking three times the speed, pretty nice. Could be four times if these are multiplicative but somehow I doubt that.

Sofia scrolled through her system logs and status.

I should add a new skill category.

Name : Sofia Aphenoreth

Age : 21 ♢

Class : [Saintomancer] ♢

Level :  249 ♢

Health : 80 980 / 80 980    (20k + (20/level - 4k) + 60k)

Stamina : 8552 / 21 047   (20 067 + (20/level - 4k))

Mana : 416 047 / 417 100       (319 100 + (2k/level- 400k))

Main Specialization : [Eclipse Skeleton]

Alteration chance : 100%

Secondary Specialization : [Heat Death]

Active Skills (8 / 8)

[Spine of the Black Sun] - Level 209

[Summon Blood] - Level 207

[Maiden Banshee] - Level 249 (Lv.249)

[Graveyard of the righteous] - Level 211

[False immortality] - Level 3

[Skull Choir] - Level 213

[Reign over shadows]

[Saintess’ madness] - Level 1

Passive Skills (7 / 8)

[Blessing of the Deep] - (2/4)

[Vakariazrehafin of Sorrow] ♢

[Exalted Exoskeleton] ♢

[Venerable physique of the primeval void] ♢ - Second step Light forging realm

[Bone dominus] - Level 2

[Erredian Rot]

[Runeforged Overlord] ♢ - Level 249

Classless Skills (7 / 7)

♢ [Dreams Of a Demon which Gods Envy - March of the Envoy] ♢

[Identify] - Level 2

[Mana manipulation] ♢

[Radiance] - Level 71

[Quintessential] ♢

[One with Suffering] ♢

[Crystalized] ♢

Special Skills (1)

[The Book of Skeletons] ♢

Wildcast Skills (4)

[Angel’s Bolt Exploding ver.]

[Angel’s Bolt Piercing ver.]

[Heal Undead / Holy light]

[Summon Elemental Sprite]

Summoned heroes (4 / 4)

• Lv.249 Pareth (Holy Boneplate Mauleur Eclipse Skeleton)
• Lv.249 Alith (Alith)
• Lv.249 Book of Skeletons (Book)
• Lv.249 Ihuarah (Heartless Shade)

[Mark of Aphenoreth]

A few skills have leveled up, nothing noteworthy. What I’m really waiting for is the third level of [Bone dominus]. It leveled up during the fight against Victory and I have been using it non-stop, it should go up soon. [False immortality] too.

Let’s progress with VPPV, still only at 112 drops but I should be able to make it much faster now that I mostly get how it works. Let’s go until tomorrow morning.

[Venerable physique of the primeval void] ♢ - Second step of the Light forging realm :

Your blood becomes light (1100 / 126 441 drops converted)

It took a while but I have a consistent one drop every fifty seconds now. Still not good enough, but at least I could get through it, I just need a hundred days…

She looked up at Pareth, who had been dutifully guarding her all this time.

“Aren’t you bored?”

No answer, uh.

“Say, Mr. Scribe, does Pareth have his own Scribe? If not, shouldn’t he? Why does he not have a complete status sheet like everyone else?”

Again, nobody answered her.

“Well damn. I’ll make one myself then. The book said, to open a new empty document… Think about the word File, then New, then Data Array…”

Holy shit it works! Who is the absolute madman who ever found that out?

Let me write up a nice Status sheet for you Pareth!

Name : Pareth

Age : 3(?)

Class : [Holy Eclipse Skeleton]

Level :  249 ♢

Health : 995 100 / 995 100   (2 905 692 With sanctified grounds and halo)

Stamina : 403 399 / 403 399  (1 177 925 With sanctified grounds and halo)

Mana : 49 800 / 49 800      (200*level)

Active Skills (6)

[Sanctified grounds]

[Flying shields of light]

[Chains of the four seals]

[Gravity well]

[Purification]

[Greater Heal]

Passive Skills (6)

[Stellar corona]

[Shapeless weapon of light]

[Shapeless armor of light]

[Higher magical damage negation]

[Space magic resilience]

[Displacement skills immunity]

Special skills (5)

[Bone Density Up +200%]

[Silent Bones +200%]

[Teleport to Sofia]

[Negate hits of less than 10% Max Health]

[Quadruple Damage Against Undead]

Summoner skills (5)

[Blessing of the Deep]

[Soul link]

[Shared senses]

[Bone Dominus : Blessed Construct]

[Runeforged Overlord Aura]

Enchantments (3)

[Generosity of Sun]

[Avian magic : Fighting sense]

[Avian magic : Air steps]

[Blessing of bloating]

[Mark of Aphenoreth]

[Best Skeleton ♡]

“There you go! I think I didn’t forget anything. It turns out you have almost as much stuff going on as I do when it’s laid out like this. What do you think?”

If Pareth thought anything, he did not show it, but Sofia was happy either way.

Now imagine how messy a level 500’s status page must be.

Done being sidetracked by her system interface, Sofia left her room. The teachers’ tower was empty. The corridors were the same, devoid of life, for the most part, with only the cleaning personnel lazily mopping around. Walking past the library, she stopped and turned back. There was only one clerk in the library instead of the usual six, a relatively old-looking level 199 Exidian man with round glasses.

“Hi! Can you help me find a book about Divine runes? Is there something like that?”

“Oh, I recognize you, new teacher, right? We have literature about divine runes, yes, but if you’re looking for the makeup of a rune in particular, then we don’t have it.”

“Is there any reason why?”

“Drawing a divine rune is like calling out to the God themself, one should not use them carelessly,” the old librarian explained, “We usually do not record them so as to avoid upsetting Them. I do know a few I could share, though, as some Gods do not mind, Sun, for example, is very well-known, since the elves like to wear the rune as jewelry.”

“I am looking for Scripture’s rune specifically, is that something you know of?”

The librarian stroked his beard. “I have heard of that God, a few decades ago, but… No, I have never come across His rune. Your best bet is probably to ask one of His high-priests, the Saint or the Oracle if you can find one.”

“I am the Saint.”

“Oh. And He has never communicated His rune to you? That is quite a bad sign…”

“Scripture has been trying to get rid of me, actually.”

“No wonder, then, luckily for you, there are protections for Saints provided by the system, so ditching a Saint shouldn’t be that easy especially for a God long past their prime like Scripture. For the rune though, I cannot help you. But if what you said is true, that might be for the better. Just being near Scripture’s rune would open a channel between Him and you, although a weak one, but who knows what terrible things that might bring. You are better off never seeing it.”

“What if I only see it in the Spiritual plane? That’s further from the Gods’ plane, right? So it should be safer.”

“Hmmmmm… It might be safer, yes, though I still would not risk it if I were you. Perhaps if you could reach the plane of the Recessed… But that is a place hardly ever entered by mortals.”

Sofia left the library soon after. She summoned Zangdar’s ring and the Book of Skeletons and held them next to one another.

“A high-priest, right? I’m going to need a trustworthy source of mana.”