Krinn led the way, and Wen took up the rear with Cairfray acting as the guide.  With her new magic that she unlocked from her ring, she could now easily see through the fog that blocked everyone else’s vision.  During their previous travels through the mist, they had gotten far off the path that they were supposed to stay one and now they were working their way back towards the hills they had seen glyphs on.

As they traveled, Jude walked up by Cairfray to talk to her about the ring.

“This ring, where exactly did it come from?” Jude asked.

Cairfray turned nervous and replied, “It’s… I rather not say.”

“It’s okay,” Jude said.  He didn’t really care where the ring came from, so he didn’t push the matter and assured her instead, “You don’t have to tell me, I was just curious.  Still, it is quite an amazing ring. I would love to know who created it.  It’s possible that he or she was a Spell Analyst.”

Cairfray nodded her head in silence, and they continued that way for a while before she built up her courage to speak something that had been on her mind.

“I think there is something more to this ring,” she said.

“Oh, what is it?” Jude asked.

“I don’t think this ring is an item that has skills in it, but rather an item that teaches those skills.”

Jude shook his head, “I don’t see how that can be possible.  You don’t have the necessary spell circuitry inside you.  If you did, then I could see a possibility of it working that way.  But if what you said was true, then it would have to write the circuitry into your Modicuit.”

“Then watch this,” she pulled off the ring and handed it to Jude.  Then she chanted, “Xirath py ctup cky ckitchdm uc inn blu fir mie py furmein pe apijy ctup cky nary uc ckuet ckarharj: .”

Immediately she turned hazy which was a sign that the spell worked successfully.  They had tested this out before while she was still part of the group, so while she was still a part of the group, they would not be affected by the spell and still see her partially. 

Jude was sincerely surprised.  This went against everything he had learned about both the Modicuit and item skills.  But he quickly adjusted his way of thinking, his small time here in this world couldn’t account for anything.  It wouldn’t be good if he let pride cloud his vision of what could and could not be done.  Apparently whoever made this ring wasn’t just a little bit better than Jude, he was miles ahead.

“May I look into your Modicuit?” He asked.

“Yes,” she agreed.

Jude placed his hand on her head and delved into her Modicuit to see exactly what was going on.  An active spell like should have been easy to find, but Jude couldn’t hide nor hair of it.  But he didn’t let that get him down, and he continued to search.

He was about to give up when he decided to look on the same plane of the Modicuit that his interacted with.  This plane of the Modicuit was vast and empty for everyone, so when he viewed Cairfray’s version of it, he immediately found what he was looking for.

Jude had seen the circuitry inside the ring on multiple occasions, so he instantly recognized the work inside Cairfray’s upper Modicuit.  But it was a strange sight to see both runes and glyphs alongside the circuitry.  He had no idea how such a thing could even exist inside the Modicuit.  The closest thing Jude could get to was runes inside of the Memory Nodes, but that was vastly different than what was going on inside of Cairfray.

Jude released Cairfray, and they continued on their journey while he continued to ponder over these things.

What was the purpose of Cairfray’s ring?  Would the person who made the ring need it to write into their own Modicuit? Or was it used so that the skills they developed could be passed to later generations?  Maybe they could write to the Modicuit, but couldn’t write the glyphs and runes like Jude. Or maybe they weren’t a Spell Analyst at all and did things with an entirely different set of objectives or view.

He had too little information to make the right suppositions correctly.  But he couldn’t help but continuously think about the possibilities of such things.

Slowly his focus turned from the person who made the ring to how he could do the same.  After all, the problem with his current was that it was too weak.  Only by using an item and the corresponding glyphs could he make truly powerful skills.  He also knew that the runes from Cairfray’s ring further bolstered the power of the magic within.  If he could combine both of those into his Modicuit with the skill, he could make strong skills.

But how could he write glyphs and runes into his Modicuit?  Could he recreate the same resonance with his items skills like the creator of Cairfray’s ring had done?  And if so, how could he create such a thing?

To create a resonance, he would need something to connect himself to the item.  It had to become like something that was a part of him.  There were several levels of binding objects to a person.  The most basic level of this was ‘ownership.'  If you owned an item, the recognized that.  Unless you gave it away or a Thief stole it, the object would always belong to you.  One level up from this was soul binding.  These objects were much rarer and only could be found from either dungeons or high-level crafters.

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This line of thinking was slowly bringing Jude to a conclusion.  Using his analyzing skills, he became distracted. He was looking into his new item skills. Perhaps he could—

BAMB!

A came out of the shadows like a ghost and slammed into Jude.  Such an attack could have killed him, but the light of the new magic from the bracers flared in protection.  The purple bubble-like energy field burst from the impact and sent him flying several meters before landing hard onto the ground.

Krinn quickly intercepted the , pushing it back and taunting it.  The rest followed suit with their attacks while Nellie rushed to Jude for healing.  But to her surprise, he was relatively unhurt.

Jude didn’t get up and rush to the fight.  He knew that the others could handle a on their own.  A biggest advantage was their stealth, but the group was used to their tactics, and it wouldn’t be a problem.  Jude was more interested in the burst of insight he just had.

He had been examining the circuitry of the bracer when the attacked.  He could see how the circuitry worked and how it resonated with him.  After all, if the skill was actively protecting him, it had to have some sort of resonance.  But when it was under pressure, did it show its connection.  And that connection as through the mana supplied to it.

Perhaps this is what some of the support glyphs and runes had been for in Cairfray’s ring.  They could use the mana flowed out from a person to backtrack into the Modicuit itself.  But he was still unsure how it would imprint the same thing from the item to the Modicuit.  Maybe the runes did more than backtrack; maybe they also copied themselves.  Perhaps it was something similar to his