"What do the runes do?" Valeria said as she moved over with a wooden cup in each hand, placing his to the side.

They had asked the woman, but all she had said was that the designs were essence-neutral, meaning anyone could draw a functioning inscription. Provided they had the talent for it. She stated they were welcome to return the set if that was not the case.

"One is the same kind of diagram found on the Lightstones, and the other creates a one-time attack skill." He replied as he moved the cup further away from any possible accident.

The old woman had not lied, as the diagrams were neutral. What she hadn't mentioned was that the first one could only be activated by someone who used light essence or if you carved it onto the correct type of crystal.

This wasn't so big of a deal for him as he could get Marcus to test any creations, or he might be able to get hold of a crystal or two from the mine.

Interestingly, the diagram omitted certain sections depending on whether you carved it into a crystal or placed it on something else.

It was possible to draw the inscription on a piece of ordinary paper and then have someone like his father channel light essence into the rune. This would then make for a light source, much like a torch.

As long as essence was channelled in, the torch would work.

The only problem was that the material would degrade, and the runic diagram would eventually fail.

Some material types were better than others at channelling essence.

It even varied by types of diagrams used and the essences channelled through the materials. He knew that from reading the books his mother had left over from her father.

The crystals acted like a rechargeable battery and would pull in light essence during the day automatically and store it, only to be used when it was dark.

If the notes were correct, there was a section of the diagram for sensing light density and another that picked up nearby light sources. This meant that having a lit lightstone wouldn't interfere with the activation of unlit ones, as they would ignore the light it sensed from them.

Huh, this is way more complex than I had expected.

To think they even found a way to rule out local interference from other artificial light sources.

I hadn't considered that problem.

"It's not unusual for one of the testing diagrams to involve creating light. The way my father explained it to me was that it was the most commonly known inscription, as everyone wanted and needed them to survive in this world. The other one is more interesting." Valeria said as she looked over his shoulder at the two drawings splayed on the table.

That made sense to him as well. When something was a necessity, it would be something everyone would want and an easy source of continual income for those who could provide it. Such knowledge would spread fast.

The other diagram was a similar mass of interconnecting spaghetti shapes, but it wasn't a channelling type of inscription like the first. This was a one-time use attack skill that could be activated by anyone so long as they input the correct amount of essence.

The problem with the second was that it required certain materials that matched the same essence as the attack skill, and that was water essence. Three thin wooden discs in the pack were from a type of tree that grew in the icy wastes to the north, and these were suitable materials. There just wasn't much of it.

If he crafted a usable inscription on one of the wooden plates, it would fire out a small group of icy spears in the direction the rune was pointed. The activation would cause the rune to break, and the essence passively housed in the material would be used up. It also required a base amount of local water essence in the surroundings, or it would lack some power but not much.

Having read through all his mother's books on the subject and the notes in this pack, he grew to understand how the strength of each inscription worked. The material's quality, the inscription's complexity and the local essence in the surroundings increased the potency.

"What would happen if I carved this on a Coldstone?" He asked his mother, who had moved to sit beside him.

He had visions of him attaching such stones to a staff and walking around like a wizard firing off spells.

"It would explode and possibly injure you if you didn't know what you were doing. Using essence crystals and inscriptions to form attack skills is what formation masters do." She answered, emphasising the danger of doing such a thing.

"I won't do it, I was just curious." He said, and he wasn't lying.

He might try it in the future if he was confident about what he was doing, but it wasn't something he would mess around with right away.

"That's good. Why don't you try and practise with some of this ink and see how you get on?" She replied as she took a pot of black ink and empty paper out and moved it over to him.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

He knew this was part of the training as a prospective inscription master would need to be able to form the required shapes before anything else. This was the first test.

"Do you not want to try?" He asked his mother. He knew she had attempted something similar and failed, but it didn't mean she couldn't try again.

"No. I've tried my hand at the trade and don't have the necessary skills. Though I managed to create a basic inscription, my failure rate was too high, even after much practice and guidance from a family friend. You work on this, and I'll start our evening meal." Valeria replied as she got up and headed to the fireplace that also acted as a kitchen.

He felt some sadness at hearing her words but didn't think there was anything he could say or do about it.

Reaching over, he took the pot of ink and a thin brush, placing an empty piece of paper in front of him as he noted the size of both it and the other parchments containing the diagrams. They were both around the size of an A1 cut back on Earth, so there was loads of room to draw, and he felt he would need it.

The complete diagrams were large and oversized, and he knew he would have to scale it down to fit it into a smaller surface area. The examples were much bigger than needed, and whilst drawing a larger one would work, it would require more essence to power. Miniaturisation was the preferred method, so it needed to be as small as he could make it.

Dipping the brush in the ink, he got to work drawing small shapes, looking up after every one to make sure it matched the example.

It took him half an hour to complete, and he looked down at the squiggly mess before him, letting out an audible sigh.

He had started off well, but the brush was too cumbersome to use, and whilst the ink dried fast, he dragged parts of it all over the page with the brush.

I was never great at painting. I was always much better at drawing.

I wonder if there's a quill in here, or perhaps I can make one?

Rooting through the set of tools, he couldn't find one, so he debated searching for a feather and seeing if he could craft one when an idea struck.

Using the only skill he knew, he formed a basic ballpoint pen similar to the ones he had used all his life back on Earth.

Whoever had created the skill intended it to form duplicate clones to confuse enemies, but he found its uses went far beyond that. Creating simple tools and devices wasn't beyond his ability as long as he understood their function and how they went together.

A ballpoint pen was a simple use of gravity and a rotating ball, so it wasn't hard to form.

He experimented with creating a number of them until he got one he was happy with before forming it again, but this time, he put in more energy to ensure it didn't vanish mid-use.

The set came with a small funnel to refill the pots, and he was unhappy to find it didn't fit into the top of his pen, so he created one that did. It was basically a miniature copy of the one he had in hand. Creating multiple items wasn't much of an issue as long as he had the willpower, spirit and essence to do so.

He filled his pen and watched the black ink slide down the inside of it, and he shook it a little, covering the open top with his finger so it didn't spill. Once he was happy, he gently rolled the pen across the paper and nodded at the line of ink it left behind after a few attempts.

Starting again, he ripped the paper evenly and copied the diagram on the unused side, making it smaller now that he had more control than the brush.

The result was much better than his first attempt, and he was relieved to see the pen hadn't popped out of existence, even with him pressing a little hard at times.

Although it improved his drawing, he still noted issues such as wrongly placed shapes and circles looking like ovals.

He repeated the process on the other half of the empty paper and found that whilst he had improved, many of the same issues remained in other areas.

I wish I had some tracing paper.

As he was thinking of a way to duplicate the design, another idea struck him, and he berated himself internally for not thinking of it sooner.

He used Many Form Mirage to duplicate the diagram and pressed his pen over it, ready to follow the trace, but met disappointment when it impeded the ink.

Forming it again, this time he created more of a stencil outline he could follow with his pen and after a few failures and adjustments, he managed to copy the first part of the design out successfully, but as he had to leave enough space for the nib, it was a little off here and there.

Not to be deterred, he created the stencil again, but instead of using the pen, he moved back to the brush and met better success.

He improved drastically after making several other attempts and felt like he had cracked the code when his mother came over. She asked what he was doing, and he explained and showed her his cheat.

"Whilst that might work to create the design with the ink, it won't work when it comes to forming it for real. You have to lift up from drawing in places, and a genuine inscription needs to be one smooth-flowing motion of interconnecting shapes in certain areas." She said, bursting his bubble, but he felt there was still hope.

It wasn't that it all needed to be done as one, as that was impossible with a pot of ink and a brush. Certain sections needed to be formed in this manner, and he hadn't been doing it. That made him realise something else.

A ballpoint pen is ideal for this kind of work.

He thought about how the ball would constantly turn over and apply ink as it went without needing to stop or refill. So long as he had it topped and primed, he wouldn't need to leave the page with it. So he would change from the brush and return to using his pen.

"There are some inscription masters that use stencils such as these, but they are typically novices," Valeria said after reviewing his work.

"Why's that?" He asked, a little confused.

If this would work, why couldn't he form outlines with his skill and create inscriptions with machine-like precision?

"I'll work for the more basic designs, but the more complex ones are so layered I'm not even sure a stencil would work without it being confusing. The more complex designs often need to be changed on the fly to suit the situation, and you can't do that with this method."

"I would advise you to give up doing it this way for now. You could use it later to craft large batches of simpler inscriptions, but there's no shortcut for hard work." Valeria finished as she patted his arm and walked off.

I guess trying to cheat my way through this won't work after all.