The Runesmith

Sparks flew with every strike of his hammer. The echoes of those hits spread through the large sealed of arena space. With one last bash of his smithing tool, Roland was finished. The runic structure was complete and he examined it before putting it to the side.

What he was working on looked to be a simple piece of steel. It wasn’t much to look at, its shape was uneven and more thought was put into the handle than the rest of it. This was the last wand that Roland was able to produce. When he looked up he could see the last grains of sand finally falling, soon the time would be up and the next stage of this test would start.

He whipped the sweat of his brown while sitting down. He began gathering mana from the surroundings. There wasn’t much time left but he would use it to recover at least a bit of his mana. The whole runecrafting process made him take a hit to his mana reserves that were at about 50%.

‘This will have to do…’

Roland thought while meditating in a lotus position. He could feel the abundant mana in this strange virtual space entering his body. The concentration was much higher than what he was used to in the real world. With it being this plentiful he could hope to regain his mana pool past the 70% mark in a few minutes.

He was limited in what he could make in this short amount of time. The mace was to his side, it looked crude but it would have to do. He wedged the casted spiky head part on the shaft for a tight fit. There was even a spare for the head part in one of the molds that he didn’t open yet. The runic structure he went with was the strengthening rune, he feared that this weapon would break easily if he just left it like this.

The next item was for defense, a tower shield with a handle made from leather on the other side. He used some strength to bend it slightly for it not to be just a flat sheet of metal. It could barely pass off for a shield. The part where his hand went into wasn’t reinforced too well. He riveted in another piece of steel to add to the thickness on the inside but that was it. There was a mana shield rune inscribed on it as well.

The rest of his time was spent on creating disposable wands. Those didn’t take much time to make as he only needed to make them large enough to hold the runic structure. He placed common grade attack spells on them while he used the lesser versions on his shield and mace. The wands were disposable but he needed the mace and shield to last a bit more.

He had also created a simple knife. It was also made by hammering a piece of steel into the correct shape, then sharpened to get a workable edge. He couldn’t really call it a weapon much but it would have to do as a last line of defense. He went with the sharpness rune, if he needed to cut a throat it would do.

Soon the sand ran out and Roland could feel the arena rumbling once more. He was sitting in the middle of the workshop part so he felt it moving violently. The whole thing was moving down into the hole that it came from. He quickly grabbed all the gear and started tossing it down from the platform.

Luckily for him, the whole hole that the platform was going down suffered from the invisible wall syndrome. Even if he wanted to go down he wasn’t able to as it started pushing him out along with the items that he made. He was left in the arena with no workshop to speak of, he grabbed his mace and shield and placed the wands on his belt. He had made it with some leather and just tied it around his waist. There wasn’t really enough time to make a belt buckle.

While he was working the scratching on one of those wooden gates got increasingly louder. Now that the timer had run out the noise was at an all-time high. He looked to the door that the noise was coming from and first just prepared a regular spell.

"Source of all magic, heed my call..."

He used his voice to say the incantation, a bolt of energy appeared at the tip of his finger that he pointed towards the wooden gate that was now opening. He could see a couple of clawed hands coming out of there, the monsters in there were quite eager to show themselves.

“Mana Bolt!”

Soon one of them couldn’t wait and shoved its head through the narrow opening while the gate was still going up. This part of its body promptly exploded into chunks of meat and black blood. This wasn’t quite over as Roland used the slow opening gate to his advantage. He was already at the other side of the arena so before any of these enemies got to him he would be able to snipe some of them down.

“Mana Bolt...”

“GUOHh…..”

A high-pitched scream was heard after another monster fell but this would be the last easy target that he got to slay. Soon the monsters revealed their ugly faces and lanky bodies. They were small fiends with leathery bat wings, a barbed tail, and sharp, twisted horns right above their eyes. Their size was about the same as a goblin's and the wings were small, not really meant for flight. This variant had rather pale skin, almost making them look white.

Pale Imp [ L 30 ]

It was the creature called Imp. This was one of the monsters that was linked to the evil demon monsters. They all would start out as those small evil-looking creatures but with time they could transform into giant muscular beings that liked nothing more than to cause pain and suffering.

There were quite some of them in that room, all of them quickly spotted the spell swinging man. Without any rhyme or reason, they charged forward, with them now being aware of his presence landing a hit on them with his mana bolt spell and slow casting time was hard.

Soon they were upon him, he clutched his mace hard and delivered a swift blow to one of the monster’s heads. His weapon produced a dim blue glow as he activated the runic structure. One hit and another of the monsters was down on the ground. They were comparatively low-level monsters to him so he was managing.

His footwork had improved after spending a year down in the dungeons. There were actually warrior skills that could be learned but regretfully he didn’t have a class that could get any of them. With some perseverance he improved still, it might not have had the backing of any special skills but his combat sense did improve tremendously.

Roland was sure to move, the arena was large enough for him to use his long legs. Even with his low agility, he could run faster than these monsters. The trick was to not fight them all at once, it was easier to fight one on one twenty times than one large battle against twenty opponents at once.

The monsters ran after him but they found it troublesome to get near. When they got in range they suffered a bash from the mace or a spell to the face. These small critters weren’t a match for Roland even when outnumbering him by a large number, as time passed there weren’t many of them left.

It was clear that these monsters weren't very intelligent. There were no tactics, just rage-filled charges, mostly with their heads out while trying to aim for a bite. No experience points were getting gained from the kills but soon he had managed to slay the last one.

He activated some of the wands with the lesser mana arrow and mana bolt spells while running away. Due to how easy it was to tell where the monsters would go next, each spell was a sure hit kill. With time the last monster’s head exploded and its pale leathery corpse was down on the ground in a pool of black blood.

Roland leaned up against the wall while wiping some sweat from his brow. All of this running had tired him out but thanks to his high endurance stat he gained after switching to the runic blacksmith class he was fine.

There were about 30 dead bodies on the ground and the moment the last one fell the arena started to rumble. The large gate door started closing back up and the workshop in the middle had risen as well. The hourglass above him had been reset and the sounds of scratching were now coming from two of those doors.

‘I guess sleeping and resting isn’t getting accounted for in this test…’

He looked at his mace that was still in working condition, the things that suffered more were the magical wands that he used up the charges off. They were far easier to fix but he was slowly running dry on mana, replenishing it would be the first thing he would do.

Roland sat down while huffing, he looked at the dead monster cadavers. He expected them to vanish from this area after he killed the enemies. This whole thing felt like an illusion or a virtual game, he thought that they would just go away without a trace and reinforce his claim. But there they remained in place, just dead.

‘Hm… what if I…’

Suddenly he thought of something, before finishing up with his mana replenishing exercise he moved over to one of the imp corpses. He pulled out his previously created knife and turned the monster over. He used the knife on the back, soon a square-shaped piece of leathery skin was removed, blood was dripping everywhere. The blood wasn’t going to be wasted either as he was sure to bottle some of that black liquid.

‘If my assumptions are correct this should work with an evolved imp monster…’

He could feel a faint trace of mana coming from the dead monster’s blood. It was similar to a certain resource that he used for all these years, it was the magic ink he used to make his spell scrolls.

Roland didn’t have time to process this monster skin, he would need to use the freshly cut out lump. A pointed piece of wood was used instead of a quill, he wasn’t working at optimal conditions but he had done this many times before. In less than 10 minutes he had a working runic structure with a spell.

He checked it over a couple of times before moving his hand to the skin flap. After the mana injection, he could see the runic structures light up in orange light. The process wasn’t as fast as with the regular scrolls and magic ink that he was used to but it worked. A bolt of energy flew out from this hastily produced runic scroll.

Roland looked at the magic energy colliding with the wall and quickly sizzling out. This skin and imp blood wasn’t optimal for this and there was a certain decrease in power. Still, now he had another option to go with. He wasn’t sure if this was done on purpose by this trial but he would be sure to use his scribing skills to their maximum.

The mace and shield that he created only needed minor repairs. He also was planning to create a backup with the previously molded spiky head. His hands started getting drenched in the pale imp’s blood. This was a lesser magical being so their blood had magical properties. Luckily these ones didn’t quite have any long-range skills that could contend with his own runic magic.

There was even more work for him to do. The timer was the same as last time so Roland knew what he could or couldn’t do. The fleshy runic scrolls wouldn’t be made as a means of attacking, more as a means of distraction. He had to spread his mana quite thin but with his large pool, he was managing.

With time the hourglass emptied itself out. Even though Roland had spent so much time here without sleeping he didn’t feel tired. He attributed this to being some kind of world frozen in time and with different sets of rules. The strain on his body might have not been there but this didn’t mean that he wasn’t getting psychologically tired from overthinking everything.

With a resounding screech, another set of white looking imps flung themselves out of the gate. Their level had increased by 5 and there was a similar number. This group found themselves stepping into something oily. There was a large pool of grease right outside the gate and Roland was just waiting for it to open up.

The monsters weren’t very smart so they charged towards him but they soon found themselves inside of a grease fire. There was a common spell to create a puddle of grease on the ground, with an addition of some flames it would create a combination called the grease fire. This one burned a lot hotter and could not be doused by water either.

Those pale imps were more susceptible to fire more than regular imps so he used that knowledge to his advantage. While they were burning up Roland used this chance to snipe them from afar. The burning imps weren’t the only problem now as the second gate had opened as well.

Lesser Spiked Devil [L 40 ]

These new monsters were green in coloration and slightly taller than the imps. There were many spikes coming out of their bodies, if you looked closely you could spot some strange green liquid escaping from those spikes. These guys looked like trouble but there were far fewer of them than of the other group. They looked to also be more resistant to the grease flames that were activated in front of the gate they were coming from.

Another game of cat and mouse ensued. Roland was trying to keep the enemies at a distance as that was where he had the advantage. At least that was true before some of those new spiky monsters started somehow ejecting those thorns from their body. He quickly defended himself with his shield while returning fire with one of his wands.

He was sure to activate his mana shield this time around. Those spikes looked poisonous, even when getting a flesh wound he could be done for if he got hit once. Regretfully for the monsters the grease fire that was made proved their downfall, more than half of them suffered a fiery demise through it.

The rest was blasted with ranged spells, the ones that got close enough were bashed in the head with a mace. Other ones suffered explosion wounds from planted mine runes that he had prepared. All in all, he managed to survive the next wave and both of the gates were closed up again.

Roland fell on his butt while looking at the many dead monsters on the ground. There were still two gates left. The monsters were just adding to their forces with each consecutive wave and it looked like there would be more of them coming.

The middle platform appeared once more and he got his butt into gear. There were more monsters that needed skinning and more repairs to be made. The grease fire approach looked to be working but less on the stronger monsters that were appearing.

They were also mostly fiend type monsters that gained fire immunity with their evolutions which made his strategy look bad with the future in mind. He didn’t have any holy attacks up his sleeve though, they were the bane of evil-aligned creatures like these. He would need to figure out a way to get to them with conventional magic.

More scrolls were made as well as repairs for his gear. He had to replace the first mace as it shattered into pieces after colliding with a spiked devil’s skull. With more time on his hands and a plan in mind, Roland was able to expand his protective capabilities.

He hammered a larger sheet of metal to create a half baked breastplate. Some wrist guards and graves with more runic enchantments to boost his defenses. There wasn’t enough time to make anything difficult so he needed to give up on getting any gauntlets to protect his hands.

Soon it was time for the third wave, then the fourth. If he would make it to the last one would remain to be seen...