“Prime Void rune?” the three students asked simultaneously.

“What do you mean, Prime?” I asked.

Vylria sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose before looking at her students. “This falls under your oaths not to mention or speak of what you learn about someone while in your care. Do you three understand me? Speak to no one about what you’ve learned about Zeal today.”

“I swear on it, but what is a Prime Rune? Is it because it’s in the center of his Stigmata? I’ve never seen such a large Stigmata before, let alone one with a center rune,” said Khis.

“Zeal was probably born with it. Prime Runes are incredibly rare. Have you guys heard of the Ice Princess down south? She was born with the Ice rune at birth. Her Stigmata formed around it when she got to her class. Those with Prime Runes are extremely gifted in that school of magic and can cast spells well over their Rank. Most believe those with the Prime rune can cast magic from that school at a reduced cost to their mana.”

“You were born with a rune?” asked Rotha.

“Yes,” I lied.

“How did you get a Bond? You don’t look like a ranger variant class,” asked Arnik.

“Rude, to ask him about his class. You can clearly see it’s in the shape of her head,” said Khis, as she pointed down at Luin, who was now curled up next to me.”

I stood up, my energy returning to me. “Can you explain why the hell I felt as if I was burning from the inside out when I tried to heal your arm?”

Vylria looked down at her now bleeding wound before it closed up on its own, no visible actions coming from the lady. She then looked back up at me. “Your affinity with Void is so great. It has all but destroyed any chance of you using the school of Life, Creation, and other schools of magic on the spectrum opposite of Void and Death.”

“Creation magic?” Two of her students and I asked at the same time.

“Very old and a not very well-known school of magic that allows those to create something from nothing, well, something from Mana. Like the Ice Princess, she can’t use the school of Fire or schools close that involve heat. I’m afraid you’ll never be able to use Life magic, Zeal unless you get lucky with a perk or reward from a Dungeon.

“I suggest you learn Alchemy so that you may have Healing Potions on hand.”

“Thank you. It’s good I’ve learned about this now, while I’m in a town, instead of out in the wilderness. Thank you three for trying to help me learn about Life magic as well. I think I’m going to head back to my inn and lay down. I feel like my insiders have been roasted.”

“That will go away shortly. The Mana inside your body that was going to be used for the spell burnt up in your body. The effects shouldn’t last much longer,” said Vylria.

“Papa, better now?” asked Luin.

“She can speak?!” squealed Khis, who bent down to the Kobold.

“Yep, yep. Many Kobold speak common,” Luin replied.

“You’re a Kobold? I’ve never seen one like you before,” said Arnik.

Luin, who was now sitting, gave what I considered a shrug.

“She’s a different type of Kobold race from far away. We bonded out of necessity when we were close to dying, and she's been my travel companion since,” I lied.

We left shortly after. Even though she said the effects wouldn’t last long, I still felt exhausted. We walked back towards the park, which Luin had played in days before, and grabbed food from a street vendor on the way.

I let Luin play with the other children for a couple of hours while I closed my eyes and tried to relax. When Luin was tired out from running around with the other kids, we left and headed towards the crafting district. I wanted to see what I could get for my crude bag and maybe see if they had patterns I could buy.

The grumpy bag merchant gave me five gold for the bag, saying only an adventurer would buy it, and no noble would be caught dead with it on his person. The shopkeep had no patterns for sale and suggested I go over to the leatherworkers for training instead.

After making a few stops, I finally found a leatherworker willing to sell me the patterns they used. At a few gold apiece, I bought the pattern for a nice hip bag, like the satchel I had made, but much, much nicer. I also picked up a pattern for a travel sack, what they called backpacks around here.

We were about to leave the crafting district when an odd sign caught my eye. It was a rune inside a triangle. A Circle was centered on the points of the triangle. Walking in, it looked like I had entered a pawn shop. Every nook and cranny of the shop was covered in various items, from swords and shields, to what looked like a refrigerator.

“No touching the merchandise! I can do custom work. Tier 1 starts at fifty gold,” came a voice from the back of the shop.

It dawned on me this was an Enchanters shop. We made our way towards the back of the shop, where a man no taller than a meter was working on a leather jerkin. He was carving a rune near the neck of the piece.

“Be done, in a jiffy. Looking for anything particular?”

“Afraid not. I came into your shop out of curiosity to see what it was.”

“Happens all the time. Not many towns outside the capital have one of our shops.”

“What is it you are doing?”

“Prepping a cool rune. Bunch of ijits going over the mountains to explore the desert to the far west in search of fame and glory. All want cool runes to make the journey bearable.”

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“I heard about them when I arrived here. I heard Enchanters can add soulbound to bags?”

“Six hundred gold. I’ll do it for two hundred if you bring me the Amber Core.”

“Out of my price range, but I’ll keep you in mind. Thanks anyway.”

“Well, if you’re not here to trade, best be going. I need to prep another twenty of these. Have yourself a good day, lad.”

We walked out of the shop and headed back to the Tallow and Flame. I wanted to do some more crafting. I was also sure Luin was craving her fifth meal for the day already.

After grabbing a quick second lunch downstairs, we headed up to our room, where like a cat, Luin immediately curled up on the bed and went to sleep. Even in her larger form, she still acted like a young kitten or puppy most of the time. I worried about what would happen if she evolved too quickly. I could probably handle a teenage version of Luin, but not a child in an adult body.

Taking out the pattern for the bag, I began to trace it on one of the leather rolls. Cutting it out, edging, hole punching was quick and almost effortless. Using the same runes as yesterday, I marked and carved them out of the inside parts of the bag. With no errors that I could see, I began to lace the bag together. I added the straps that would keep the flap closed when tied together, and the bag was finished. Now to turn it into a magic bag.

As soon as I began the process in my mind, the four runes snapped into my mind, and I began to fill them with the Void nodes. Soon my Mana began to pull from my body, and I sat back and waited.

After thirty-four boring minutes, I felt the Mana drain stop. I flipped the lid and stuck my hand inside to have the sixteen by sixteen grided window pop up into the air. Removing my hand, I pulled up my Full Status and was again surprised to see my mana sitting over fifty percent.

I gained two mana back every minute, and the bag seemed to have drained twenty-two and a half in that same minute. Doing the math, I concluded that the bag had only cost me about seven hundred and sixty-five in total. About forty-five percent of the total seventeen hundred the bag should have cost. My Prime Void Rune gave me over fifty percent off my Void spells.

That would solve my money problems. I wouldn’t have to waste cores on coin any longer. I might have to keep more in stock for the Mana recharge. I wonder if I could take this a step further and have the cores ready to refill my Mana as I was in the process of creating the Void bag. I had pretty much done the same thing back at the hive when I kept the portal open.

Then it dawned on me. That’s how I was able to keep the portal open for so long. My Prime Void rune had allowed me to spend less than half the Mana required. If I hadn’t been given the rune, Kiszo and the others might not have survived that day.

I would do another test. If I used the fifth-ranked size rune, the grid system, liquid, and coin runes, it should cost me twenty-three hundred Mana. With my Prime bonus, that came to just over a thousand Mana.

The downside is like the previous bag, which took the full thirty-four minutes to drain the required amount of Mana. The next bag would take forty-six minutes by my calculation. Checking my pool, I had just over fourteen hundred Mana still, more than enough to create the next bag. I’d have to be careful and not go under the twenty percent threshold or under four hundred mana. Or I’d get put into a state of numbness and fatigue again.

With more time on my hands, I began to work with the backpack design. This design had far more to it, with a few extra side pockets on the sides and front of the backpack. I would have to cut out each individually and sew them onto the main bag.

Wait. Could you create multiple Void storages on a single item? Could I add smaller ranked sizes on the side pockets? There were six total extra pockets on the backpack. I took out the notebook Kizso had given me and the metal pen with the block of green ink. I began to scribble down some ideas.

Main opening: 50 + 1000 + 1000 + 200 + 50 = 2300 * .45 = 1035

Side bag: 50 + 400 + 400 + 50 = 900 * .45 = 405 * 6 = 2430.

That wouldn’t work with the side bags using the Rank 2 size runes. I scribbled down the math using Rank 1 sized runes without the coin upgrade. I wanted to keep the grid system still.

Side bag: 50 + 200 + 200 = 450 * .45 = 202.5 * 6 = 1215.

Main bag = 1035

Side bag * 6 = 1215

Total = 2250

Even with the deductions, I wouldn’t be able to create the bag with all six pockets turned into Void storage as well. I could remove two of them and solve that issue, but what two? Maybe the two facing away from the owner. They wouldn’t be able to get into them if it was on their back anyways.

I spent the next two hours cutting out the leather with the pattern. Edging took much longer with the amount of material the backpack used. Lining up the hole punches was far harder as well and took all my time and patience.

Finished with the prep work, I began to draw the runes on the main part of the opening, then the four smaller openings at the sides of the backpack. Satisfied, I looked back at my notes to ensure I had done the math correctly.

Main bag = 1035

Side bag * 4 = 810

Total = 1845

Satisfied I wasn’t going to burn out my Mana channels. I began to carve the runes out of the leather. Almost an hour later, they were done. The seventeen runes looked perfect upon closer inspection.

I began to sew the bag together, happy all the punched holes lined up. When the bag was fully assembled, I was proud of myself. The system seemed proud of me as well, as my right hip began to burn with the familiar sting of accomplishment. Standing up, I pulled my pants to the side to see the same backpack I had just assembled tattooed on my hip.

It had no runes, just the detailed outline of the backpack in bright white. I pondered the meaning, but at this point, I assume it just meant I had the proficiency of a Tier 1 Leatherworker.

I awoke Luin, and we went downstairs for dinner. We skipped our baths for the night, and she went back to sleeping in her curled-up spot at the foot of the bed. I waited another half an hour for my Mana to completely refill and sat on the floor, the backpack sitting between my legs.

Grabbing ahold of the pack, I closed my eyes and willed the seventeen runes to fill my mind. I could picture the openings of all five storage locations and their runes. I began to fill them and began to feel tired after I finished filling in the last one. I wish I could copy-paste the runes in my mind. I would have to try that out next time.

When the massive construct was completed, I willed it to begin and prepared to sit there for the hundred and eighteen minutes I calculated it would take. All at once, I felt a massive amount of Mana drain from me after the first minute. Snapping my eyes open, I willed my Full Status to open and looked at my Mana pool. I was sitting at a smidge below fifteen hundred Mana. Why had the first minute drained away five hundred mana?

I tried wracking my brain on what could have caused such a vast Mana expense. Another minute went by, and I felt another massive Mana drain. I was under a thousand Mana now. I let go of the slightly glowing brown backpack and felt the connection cease.

Then I watched as the backpack I had been working on for the better part of the day turned to ash.