The time sure flies fast, especially when you try to master the enchanting and alchemy. You know the thing about enchantments not being permanent is a lie? You just have to make an enchantment that will make itself permanent, as well as other enchantments, but it will limit the maximum amount of enchantments to... well, that depends on the item in question, it's size, material and the quality. Engraving however, it is... a bit of a fucked up theme. I'd say it's 'rune carving', not just 'engraving', as you can't just engrave a flower motif on the sword and expect the blood to be turned into all the colors of the rainbow. Oh no, if you engrave a flower, it's just that, a sword with a flower motif, unless you use it to hide the actual engraving under it. And you have to use specific tools, with special cartridges, or in some rare cases, they might allow usage of the user's mana, usually limiting the output of engraving, making the process tedious and annoying. Well, the ones I acquired through trade guild are utter shit, but at least I managed to find out how they work, before buying one set from shop. Took me buying another book from the shop, considering that the book on engraving I got from the traders was a really basic stuff, like a couple of designs that some people might find useful, increased durability, or force, and it was so complicated that it felt like it was more of an encryption than something useful.

Anyway, engraving goes like that: you find a necessary rune you want to engrave, usually you have to make an 'outer' rune first, which is usually the mana gathering rune, or even mana generating rune. Generator works best, it works everywhere, it is extremely useful, but it only works on certain materials that themselves generate mana, so it can be used on living tissue, or unliving, probably, it just must not be completely 'dead'. Some stones, gems and metals also allow the generating rune, and that's it. It can also support only a few extra engravings, or inner runes. Like you can get one generating rune, one major, two common and two minor runes, but you can't swap runes. It also will never run out of charge, so to speak, but it might take some time to fully activate.

The mana gathering, or absorption rune, is less efficient, but it has a couple variations, the common one, and the ones that are used for more major, common or minor runes. Also it can be outfited with 'auxiliary' runes, unlike generator runes, so in some cases the gathering is superior to generating. In some cases, as the 'gathering' part comes both from the surrounding area, and from the person that uses it. The auxiliary runes are kinda weird, but the ones I found useful are the limiting rune, which limits the amount of mana siphoned from the user, but at the same time makes the engravings weaker, or the OP rune, which, again, consumes way more mana, but makes the engravings stronger. Or semi-passive rune, when you don't give your mana away, unless you expel it.

Now to the rune types. Most of the major or common runes are an upgrade from the lower tier rune, like resistance runes, empowering or whatever. I personally like the idea of weapon secreting poison from it's tip, and while it's totally possible, it's not as efficient as using other runes. Also it's always better to have one common than three-four minor runes. Then there are the runes unique to common or major tiers. Common ones include the simple color shifting, illusions, sharpness, durability, extra power, etc. Major ones include shapeshifting, self-repair, specific magic, or environment immunity, and some other things that I don't fully understand, but I guess one of those should be called a 'sacrificial' rune, though it's purposes elude me. Oh, and some runes don't stack with themselves, like the expanded storage, or weight reduction. Well, major runes also don't stack, even with their lesser variations, which is kinda a bummer, as I wanted to have a robe that repaired itself when it got exposed to fire damage. Still you can make a robe that is resistant to fire, and repairs itself over time, or even completely invulnerable to fire. The only drawback is that you can't make an item indestructible, just really hard to break. Also you need to lay pathways so the whole item benefits from the engraving and not just some piece of it, but that's a given, right? Sure, you could just make a giant engraving throughout the item, but... well, it's actually possible, but not that efficient in terms of actually making an item, not to mention that the item can't be flexible in that case. So, instead, you just make a localized engraving, and then make pathways, if you want, with flower motiff.

Enchanting doesn't use runes, and instead it has some sort of an 'array' or something, made from various mana types. It dissolves over time, and unless it is 'repaired' once in a while, it will cease to exist, and the enchanted fire stick +10 will become a regular stick. There is also a limit on enchanting, sort of. You can make any number of enchantments on the item, but the more you use, the more unstable enchantment becomes, to the point it can outright explode in your face. Or dissolve harmlessly along with the item. In some cases engraving wouldn't work, and it will become impossible to engrave item, but that's about it. Maybe one can remove failed engraving, but I'm not interested, it is easier to just refund the item for 50% of the mana I used on creating it and then start it over.

Now as to what my armor looked like, well, ever saw an inquisitor? Fantasy type I mean? Well, maybe not exactly like that, more like cotton and kevlar suit, similar to my first armor I used while operating in Africa for a while, but this time it was reinforced with mithril chainmail, must say that my idea with plate sucked, as it was a bit too hard to move, as the plate constricted my movements quite a bit, and while the chainmail should've been noisy, I managed to insulate it with kevlar strands, allowing for slightly lesser mobility, but increased protection, still better mobility than plate, but worse defensive capabilities. Then I added some mithril platings over the created suit, also boots and gloves, while I had to make mask out of refined saphire, not diamond, it was a pain to work with it, with mithril frame and silk covering the outside, while cotton was on the inside. Not that good I must say, but considering that my helmet was made out of less than ideal mana conductive materials, and was studied in Academy, I had to go with this. Hood was also there, reinforced with kevlar and mithril. All that was covered by a large wyvern leather cloak, that was the most mana conductive leather I had the blueprints for.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Anyway, behold my new outfit, it is immune to fire damage from all sources, or major fire resistance, self-repair function, with cleaning function is a part of self-repair common rune, limted shapeshifting, again, common 'fitting' rune, and increased durability, with minor electric resistance, mithril dagger, with self repair common, increased durability major, as well as common poison and minor paralyzis and freezing damage, took me a while to find the necessary runes for it, as well as sledgehammer with the common engravings for repairs and durability, minor force and fire, and major lightning . Not quite mjolnir, or 'rehabilitation' rod, but I reckon it's going to be a temporary paralysis and a few broken bones on the receiving end, unless some certain person gets the buffs from electricity like a certain character. It was a pain in the ass to actually make anything with mithril or kevlar due to the increased mana costs, but I had a lot of time to do all this stuff, all between the boring lectures, hunting and training. Had to work with regular absorbtion runes, so these items aren't the best, but still quite good, if you can spare some mana.

Now as to as to what else I have done during the recent months? Well, you see, I am capable of controlling elemental, and while it's quite surprising, I can use my abilities, but to an extent, and one of which extents allows me to place beacons while I do whatever the hell I do. Neat, right? So, now I have a beacon established in the two cities of Albion, or to be precise, near them, as well as being on my way to the dwarf kingdom. Dwarven kingdom? Whatever. Time to move out anyway, considering that this tutorial city doesn't have much interesting going on, and academy is getting on my nerves. It's so boring, read, listen, train, hunt, eat, sleep, mix it up, repeat.

Out of all things the academy did for me, I find the alchemy one of the best subjects. Let me tell you this, alchemy is actually quite hard, so many preparations made for something as simple as healing potion is a bit of annoyance really. All this grinding, diluting, extracting, condensing. Well, at least now I have blueprints for... basically everything on the lower end, and some higher end alchemical reagents. Hell, I can even make potions with magic, but you require quite a bit more mana comparing to just making their reagents, which is actually quite weird. Well, you do have to infuse some mana into potion to make it's effects stronger, if you can, though it doesn't always work.

Once I was finally done with my armor, I decided to do the first test run, and kingdom of Albion, like hell I am calling it an empire, it's too small for it, was the perfect spot. Why you might ask? Well, it wasn't only the enchanting and alchemy, but a bit of a necromancy too. I smile as I switch my form to that of a half-dragon, and wear the meteorite full plate armor, which is yet to be engraved, and appear just a few kilometers away from one of the northern villages. Yeah, I know, north is big.

“Ok, that's unexpected.” I look at the rising smoke in the distance. Raid or something else, I wonder? Might want to wait with my undead swarm experiment. I move on to the source of the smoke, expecting to find either bandits or a feast, but instead I find what was once a battlefield. Corpses everywhere, what left of the army in dissarray and the thing that devastates the small village is one big ass ape, like king kong, only... only I don't see it's face, it has large claws and comically small legs. Oh well, guess I'll try to use my swarm against it. I summon from my interdimensional storage a whole load of rats, about a few hundreds of them to be precise. What did you expect, I was in the sewers, not some sort of Ratville. These rats are mindless undead, well, zombies. I order them to go and attack everything in the village, including knights, militia or whatever, and this big ape.

I start laughing expecting some sort of carnage, but instead, I see how these small rats can't do anything to these knights, who wear plate armor, or the ape, which probably has hide way tougher than iron. Oh well, time to- {Screech}. I drop down...

“Oh fuck, my head...” I look at my health, which is still on the pathetic six thousands, and then I notice how some sort of shadow comes over. “Huh?” I look up to see a face... or something. It doesn't look like an ape though, more like some sort of horrible monstrocity with two rows of mishapen teeth and tiny eyeholes. I blink away, and prepare to use my beholder eyes on him, but... I can't seem to use them. Is he blind or something? I blink away just in-

You have died.

Revival in progress.

I swear, I managed to blink away from that bastard. Well, should've teleported, but meh. Alright, new goal, kill... whatever that was.

You have died and your body had been reconstructed to the top condition.

You lost all the experience towards the next level.

You are no longer Irradiated.

Oh, good, finally got rid of this debuff. Still, losing six thousand health in one hit is a bit... too much I guess? I wonder how much did that have on it. I also lost my meteorite armor. Just great. Well, at least I didn't engrave it. Now, I wonder how much time had passed, but judging from the sights, it seems it was recently. Better teleport away before this behemoth finds and eats me again. And then I'll get a bath.