Seeing that the system had offered him the skill he wanted, Kaius smiled. It was the last he needed for Runic Lexicon.

Now he just needed to practise. That would come later, first he had to check his latest skill.

Rune Mastery - Simenoan:

Level 1

Rare

Bind chaos, weave stability into the unpredictable. Find calm in disorder and force the mutable to be concrete.

This skill improves the users ability to create Simenoan stabilising arrays, and increases the stability of the arrays themselves.

Each level slightly increases speed and accuracy when inscribing Simenoan runes.

Each level slightly increases stability of Simenoan runes.

Each level slightly increases memory and learning capacity of Simenoan runes.

Kaius nodded as he read the description. Nothing about it was a surprise, afterall, it had the same effects as his previous four Rune Mastery skills.

“I’m guessing by your vacant stare that you got the skill?” Porkchop asked, having readjusted by the hearth to look at him.

Dismissing his notification, Kaius focused on his friend. “Yeah, all done for now. Just need to get them to the cap.”

“So we can take a break and go exploring? As much as I love hanging around on beds and eating cooked food, it's getting a little stale.” Porkchop said, lounging by the fire.

“Sorry.” Kaius apologised. He knew his friend must be bored. Hells, Kaius would be too if he had no skills to work on. Unfortunately, he needed to get this done. “Can you handle a few more days? I want to churn through the early levels as fast as I can. After that I was thinking I could work on setting up alarm wards and the like around the neighbourhood. Explore and scavenge some of the other manors while we do it?”

Porkchop groaned, slumping dramatically to the floor. “Fiiiiine. But you can wait a few hours, I’m hungry. If I have to sit around doing nothing while you scribble on paper, you can cook for me while you do.”

Kaius smiled. “I suppose I could use a break.” He said, stretching before rising from his chair. “C’mon. I wanna show you what a roast is.”

Pretending to be calm about the prospect of an exciting new dish, Porkchop continued to lay on the floor. For all of three seconds that is. Then he tore off, claws clattering against the polished stone floor as he sprinted for the kitchen.

“Race you!”

….

Kaius crouched by the wall of the alley, feeling his mana slowly drain away as he connected another swooping line to a dense nexus of Yosh’s runes that served to interface his central Ykkardian sigil with the rest of the detection formation.

It was slow work, but satisfying. He and Porkchop had been at it for just over three weeks now, and his constant work had pushed his skills nicely. Each and every single one was closing in on level fifteen. The impact of the skills was noticeable now. Runes and formation plans practically leapt into his mind, and he could scribe them out what felt like twice as fast with half the errors.

Finishing the detection formation Kaius stood back, surveying his work. Two dense knots of runes had been scribed at chest height on both of the alley walls. A braided line connected the two, crossing the alley proper.

**Ding! Rune Mastery - Ykkardian has reached level 15!**

**Ding! Rune Mastery - Vhaxanish has reached level 11!**

**Ding! Rune Mastery - High Lothian has reached level 14!**

It was an ugly thing. Inefficient, and cumbersome for a simple alarm, patently unsuitable for regular use. Off of the top of his head he could think of three different scripts that could do the same thing for less mana, less time inscribing, and with less complexity.

Total jank. But it was jank that utilised all five of his runic scripts that he had mastery skills for, so it was good training.

He’d keyed it to both himself and Porkchop, so if anything other than them crossed its boundaries it would let off a hellish shriek that should be inaudible to everyone else. Most alarm formations would have some sort of targeting system. One that would prevent a stray mouse from setting them off, either by coding in specific targets, or having an extensive whitelist.

Trying to do that would have been an absolute nightmare with Vhaxanish, so he simply hadn’t. It wasn’t like he’d seen anything living down here other than goblins, and they were the whole reason he was warding the allies near the manor anyway.

As much as he was pretty sure that the goblins weren’t roaming outside of their little groups, pretty sure was a great way to end up dead in the Depths. No one wanted to wake up to find a goblin rogue gnawing on their throat, after all.

Exploring the area was also a fantastic way to keep Porkchop from complaining while he worked on his skills. Something that was not to be undervalued, as it turned out that his friend was a massive moaner. If Porkchop was to be believed, gnawing your own leg off was preferable to being bored.

Happy with his work, Kaius turned to the complainer in question. Porkchop was waiting at the mouth of the alley. Fully dressed in his barding, the meles was absolutely laden with bulging sacks of goods that they had looted from the other manors.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“All done.” He said, smiling as Porkchop chuffed in obvious relief. “Want to check out another manor on our way back?”

“Yes please! They have so much strange food! I don’t even know how you remember it all.”

Kaius laughed. “Most of it is weird to me too, it’s just that if you cook enough you kinda get a feel for how things should be used. Besides, I do have Explorer’s Toolkit helping out a bit.”

“Still impressive! I wanna see if we can find more of that strange pork!”

Kaius nodded in agreement. He considered himself a big eater, and Porkchop could down quadruple what he could - easily. Without having to ration themselves like they had before, they had absolutely churned through the supplies that had already been in the manor they now called home. That had pushed them to start raiding the kitchens of surrounding manors for choice goods.

About a week back they had found a leg of what Kaius was pretty sure was pork. It was heavily salted, but mouth-wateringly savoury. In the end he’d found it worked best when sliced super thin, and the cured meat had quickly grown into one of their favourites. Once they finished it, Porkchop had quickly grown obsessed with finding more.

Unfortunately, the manors seemed to hold nothing else of value. Candelabras that he would have expected to be silver were iron, and there was a conspicuous lack of anything resembling jewels or ornamentation in the dressing rooms. He supposed the Depths didn’t want them growing too wealthy without a fight.

No matter, they’d been getting more than enough wealth from the Champions.

They left the alley, heading towards an unsearched manor that they had marked earlier.

“How much longer until you are ready to merge? I’m looking forward to helping you with Mana Manipulation. Contested casting is so much fun. Almost as good as wrestling.”

“A week, maybe two. I’m most of the way there, but the last levels are always the slowest,” he explained, peering through the windows of manors as they walked past. ”I’m planning on warding the windows and doors of our base. Doing some unnecessarily convoluted shielding formations should do the trick.”

Porkchop had been asking him that question every second day since he had suggested that method for levelling his upcoming manipulation skills. If two people tried to manipulate the same mana, they had to contest wills to gain control. The added difficulty would be fantastic for skill growth, and Porkchop was competitive enough that he had jumped on the idea.

“I’m going to crush you.” Porkchop said, nudging him.

“I’m sure you are, buddy. I’m sure you are.” Kaius said, laughing as he gave Porkchop a friendly shove. He barely moved.

“C’mon, we’re almost at the manor.”

….

Kaius frowned in concentration as he scrawled runes around one of the massive bay windows that dotted the ground floor of the Manor they had been staying in for the last several weeks. It was the last on the floor, and if he was lucky that last he needed to finish off his runic mastery skills in preparation for their merging into Runic Lexicon.

As he had suspected, the warding formation he had come up with was a hideously complex mess. Requiring that he inscribe not just the window frame, but the very glass itself. Thankfully, with his stylus artefact that he had looted from the warg riding Champion outside of the city, that was not too much of an issue.

The nightmarish mishmash of scripts on the other hand…

It had, however, been fantastic practice. Not just for his skills, but simply getting the feel for how each of the scripts worked in tandem. Runic Lexicon would improve that, and the fact that he had his spell casting formation preplanned would also be a boon. It still helped to grow his confidence. Jumping straight into what was perhaps the most important formation of his life, and one that could seriously injure him if he made a mistake, would have been entirely foolhardy.

Taking a steady breath to hone his focus, Kaius connected the final few lines of the formation. He stepped back, watching it like a hawk as he held his breath. He couldn’t see any imperfections, and considering the growth True Sight has seen due to his scrutiny of his recent works, that was saying something.

The rune sucked in mana from the atmosphere, slowly suffusing the ward. A thin glowing gas syphoning into the collection arrays he had set high up in the frames. It had taken a lot of planning, and a few shattered walls, before he had managed to get a handle on how to modulate its intake in the increased density of mana inside of the Depths.

Thankfully, he’d had the foresight to practise warding in the alleys first, so their base camp was untouched.

The mana clicked into place, formation activating. A thin shimmer covered the window, True Sight revealing the protective barrier.

Notifications streamed into Kaius’s mind.

**Ding! Intelligence has reached level 17!**

**Ding! True Sight has reached level 8!**

**Ding! Rune Mastery - Vhaxanish level 20!**

**Ding! Rune Mastery - Yosh’s Supplementary level 20!**

**Ding! Rune Mastery - Simenoan has reached level 20!**

He’d done it. Finished off the skills, all in record time. He was ready to merge. These last three had been stubborn. Ykkardian had been the quickest. He managed to cap the skill before he even started to ward the manor. High Lothian wasn’t far behind, with the complexity of the noise spells he had been including in the alarm wards in the alleys.

Still, it was finally over. Excitement shot through him, a wide grin splitting his face as he absorbed his success at taking another step closer to his class. His escape.

Turning with a whoop, Kaius leapt towards where Porkchop was waiting, throwing his arms around his friend and wrestling him to the ground. Growling in faux outrage, Porkchop retaliated, tossing him around with his superior strength, pinning him.

“I submit!” Kaius yelled playfully as he laughed.

“It’s done then?” Porkchop asked, looking down at him as he took his paw off his chest.

“It’s done! I’m ready!”

“Thank the gods! Let’s celebrate!”

“Oh?” Kaius asked, giving his friend a questioning look as he pushed himself up off the ground. “What did you have in mind?”

“Stew! With potatoes!” Porkchop said, to Kaius’s complete and utter lack of surprise.

“And I suppose that you will be making it for me? Since we are celebrating my achievement?” Kaius grinned.

Porkchop went quiet. “Look. I have claws. We both know you are making the stew. Just let me have this.”

Kaius laughed, taking the lead to head towards the kitchen. “Alright. I’m ready for a break anyway. Inscribing that ward made it feel like my brain was melting.”

He did need a break. The constant stress on his mana pool from channelling the resource through his stylus was exhausting. Taxing on the mind in a way that only sleep seemed to fix. Trying to merge the skills now would be idiotic.

Tomorrow though? He’d be doing it first thing, no matter how much Porkchop begged for breakfast.