Avery was about to start engraving again, but he was startled to find the spearhead was in a deplorable state. He hadn't detected it when he had been concentrating on getting the strokes right, but the material had undoubtedly deteriorated, becoming frail and brittle. Counting the hours, it had only been slightly less than a month, but the spearhead looked like it had weathered decades at the mercy of the elements.

  It was evident that something horrible had happened, and he risked losing his engraving support. It had never occurred to him that, although metal objects were definitely more resistant to the dragon power than organic materials, it appeared they weren’t immune either.

  He had just gotten to a point where he was earning enough to make a profit, and his only stream of revenue was threatening to disappear along with any chance of survival.

  It had taken about a month for the material to decay to the point it was unusable, and now he needed to buy a new metal ingot at 250pts. He could technically generate a maximum of 200pts a month at his current rate, not too far below the newly apparent expenses of 250pts a month, but he was already at the end of the month having spent a huge portion of points while gaining almost nothing. To expect to gain more than 150 points in the few days left before the spearhead was unusable was but a fool's dream.

  Suddenly, Avery thought of something else. If even metal blocks were susceptible to erosion, what about his stylus? It was undoubtedly an intricate magical tool and should be much more vulnerable, as well as much more expensive to replace.

  He scrambled around in a panic, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, until he grabbed his instrument and verified it showed no sign of decay.

  Unwilling to suffer any more unpleasant surprises, he made a list of everything he had, a list with only five items. A decaying spearhead, a bunch of metal ingots, a torn refining manual, a set of clothes that were in great disrepair, a hammer he never used, and his stylus. Of all that, only his stylus and the hammer were still in acceptable condition.

  However, Avery had one last concern. Even inanimate objects, ones which contained no Qi like his clothes, were slowly being ravaged by the surrounding magic, so what effect would it have on him? Even as a mortal with no Qi, dragon power was probably still deadly to him. Thinking back, the system had claimed it would be “killing anyone who hasn’t attained immortality”, not only cultivators.

  Since he was not currently dead, and it was unlikely he had more resistance than metal, he must have been saved by his use of time warps. From his body's point of view, it had only been affected for a few hours maximum, and that was not enough time for any negative consequences to surface.

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  What terrified him was the prospect of his soul also being injured. He kept his memories after a time warp, so it could not be restoring everything, and there must be loopholes. It was possible the dragon power was attacking him in this way, but since it was dubious he would not have felt any effects by now, he was probably safe.

  This was not enough to abate his apprehension, but there was nothing he could do, so he forced himself to believe the only problem he had to deal with was the lack of material. Instead of wasting time fretting over something that had not happened yet, he decided to make the most of his limited time until the spearhead gave out on him.

  He managed to grab a last couple of points, but two days later the spearhead crumbled away alongside his latest glyph. He checked the ingots he hadn’t used, but they had also disintegrated, leaving Avery with only 87 points, 163 points away from what buying replacements demanded.

  Just like before, Avery suppressed his anxiety and took the time to look through all the options available to him. A quick tour of the shop clearly established he lacked the points required for it to be helpful, but reexamining the blacksmithing diagram sparked an inspiration.

  Although he was technically blacksmithing according to the system’s rules, what he did had very little to do with the materials. The equipment was only the support for him to draw on, and while he certainly couldn't draw on thin air, he saw no reason he would not be able to engrave runic characters directly on the cliff face.

  Avery was slightly concerned something terrible would happen if he messed around with the scales of a terrifyingly huge dragon, but with little choice left he built up the courage to tentatively inscribe a rune on the wall.

  Carving on the wall was actually more enjoyable as he could draw at eye level rather than having to sit down and bend over and squint at his work. Besides, he had so much free space he decided to scale the drawing up to better carve the details. He expected increasing the size of the rune would also increase its consumption, which in turn would increase the time needed to complete it, but he didn’t know if it was worth it.

  As usual, when he carefully carried out the first stroke, he saw the print light up. Avery tempered his expectation, scared of being disappointed at the very end, but it was with renewed enthusiasm that he hurriedly finished the character on the wall. Just like before, the glyph burst into sparks when he completed it, but Avery was surprised to find that the sparks were not consumed by the wall, but were instead bounced off and assimilated into his body.

  Avery didn’t really understand why this would happen, and he didn’t know what the sparks were, but as they entered his body he suddenly felt his mind becoming clearer and more agile, as if he had just taken a nap. This surprised him, and made him wonder whether he was always feeling mentally exhausted not only because of his concentration, but also because whatever was consumed when he engraved had something to do with his mind.

  Theorizing without more information would be useless, so he turned his attention to the system's exciting new notification.

  Ding, congratulations, you have crafted a superior rune. +5 Points.

  Without precise time measurements, he wasn’t sure it was worth it to spend longer for a better product, but he eventually decided to stick with a small format. He felt it would be easier to become more precise and improve the quality of the small runes rather than to make the big runes faster.