The sword needs to be strong enough to cut through the fang tanker’s exoskeleton, Vivi thought. A mass rune would be ideal for this. But the boss isn’t our only enemy. Uundref is too fast for me to hit with a heavy sword. A mass rune would make the sword too clumsy against faster enemies.

Lucius wasn’t listening to what she was talking about. His focus was spent on keeping the ether root active with the correct flow of ether. So far, he was doing a great job.

We’ll go with a strength rune, Vivi thought. We only have a single ether root. That means we can add only one rune. I would like to add a swiftness rune as well, but a strength rune will be our best bet. The sword will be powerful enough to cut through most hard objects. A strength rune will not snap in half against a spirit blade.

The core principle behind runeswords was simple. Grandpa had said it well: “Runeswords are just ether-powered weapons. Metal doesn’t have ether reserves like humans do. Guardsman Doug can’t just push ether into his steel sword, expecting the metal to become magical. With runes, however, even inanimate objects can intake the power of ether.”

Runes were like translators of ether. A mass rune, for example, transformed balanced ether into elements of pressure and weight. These elements granted metal supernatural power and sturdiness. Runesmiths usually carved the runes on the grip of a weapon, where the wielder could easily push ether from their hands into their swords.

A rune by itself was still useless. Runes merely transformed ether. That transformed ether still had to be distributed to the blade. A runesmith’s job was not only to transform ether with runes, but also to conduct that ether into a sword’s metal.

Traditional runesmiths conducted ether by carving lines onto the surface of their swords. The lines were coated with conductive paste that would suck ether from the intake runes, distributing the ether into the metal. The guards’ runeswords used the same method. Grandpa called it the “outside carving” method.

Outside carvings always had a fatal flaw, one that the ancient runesmiths had simply accepted as an inevitable fault for centuries. With the lines carved on the surface of the sword, outside-carved veins strengthened the air around the metal just as much as they strengthened the sword itself. Even the best outside carving techniques only utilized about thirty percent of ether’s true power.

If instead the conductive veins could be placed inside the metal, nearly a hundred percent of a wielder’s ether could theoretically be used to strengthen the metal. The idea had always stayed in the dwarves’ minds, but research never made it anywhere. How could the veins be carved inside a metal? That simply wasn’t possible.

Grandpa and Jonah had figured out the answer. The inside carving method. The answer lay within gardening equipment.

Vivi continued shaping the ether root. As the stalk grew, Vivi separated it into branches, guiding the stalk’s growth with the tuning fork and knives. Practice took control of her limbs. At that moment, she was an artist shaping the perfect veins of a runesword. A single mistake could have screwed up the shape, wasting the adamantite root Eem had presented her.

Slowly, the outside world disappeared from Vivi’s head. She felt as if she was back in Grandpa’s smithy, practicing endlessly, throwing attempt after attempt to craft a three-runed sword. A smithy was a sacred place, where a runesmith’s concentration was tested to its absolute limits. Nothing short of an earthquake would bring Vivi out of the zone.

Einord and Andre both stayed to watch. Andre looked curious. Einord shook his head, looking no less disapproving than before.

***

An hour later, Vivi cauterized the ether root’s growth with her knife. Vivi took a deep breath, then cut the stalk free from its seed. The job had gone well, exhausting though it was. There was a reason why Vivi had required fifteen years of practice to get to where she was now. Shaping veins was an incredibly intricate and taxing process.

Still, the first part of runesmithing was completed.

What Vivi had created were the veins of a runesword. The veins looked kind of like a fallen tree branch—the type of branch that kids would excitedly swing around, believing they’d found some amazing weapon. Vivi had specifically shaped the stalk to look like the best branch ever fallen. Twelve prickly branches, all calculated and symmetrical, poked out from both sides of the main stalk.

She turned to Einord. The smith wore a disapproving look. “Welcome back. I am impressed. I have never seen someone so invested in sculpting nonsense.”

Vivi grinned. The expression came out on its own. She couldn’t help it.

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“What?” Einord asked.

“You still don’t understand what I’m showing you?” Vivi asked.

Einord frowned.

“Pay close attention, then.” Vivi turned to the cluttered metal display shelf. Einord’s selection was good, but also expensive. Vivi would have loved to use crystal mithril for this sword. The metal was light to swing, while remaining surprisingly durable. With a strength rune, the metal would grow incredibly strong, while still being light enough for Vivi to swing. The ingots on Einord’s shelf were beautiful, see-through and blue.

“What’s the hottest your crucible furnace can go?” Vivi asked.

Einord crossed his arms. “Three thousand kelvin.”

“Heat it to eighteen hundred,” Vivi said. “And bring me a crucible. We’re melting crystal mithril.”

“You wish to melt the ingots?” Einord raised his eyebrows, as if Vivi had thrown an insult at him. “My ingots are perfect for forging swords. Melting them will ruin the metal.”

“The process will deform the ingot,” Vivi said. “But the end result will be far stronger. You will see.”

“You’re serious?” Einord asked.

“If forging ingots would create the best runesword, I would forge ingots,” Vivi said. “But that would result in an average sword at best.” She picked up two ingots from the shelf and placed them on a table next to Einord. “Melt them. Eighteen hundred kelvin for two hours will be enough. In the meantime, I will carve the runes.”

Einord studied her expression. To ordinary people, even blacksmiths and runesword wielders themselves, there was something mystical about the process of carving runes. Many believed that runes were a result of some magical work of witchcraft requiring rituals to materialize. People believed that in order to carve a rune, a runesmith needed ancient dwarven genes and an accent so thick that even the monks couldn’t decipher their words.

What a runesmith really needed was a large memory and hours upon hours of practice. Really, runesmithing was all science.

Vivi picked up the obsidian carving knife. She sat down and laid the adamantite veins carefully on top of an anvil. Then, she began carving the shape of a strength rune directly into the veins’ handle—the part where her palm would meet the grip once the sword was finished.

“Are you going to melt the metals or not?” Vivi asked.

Einord looked doubtful. He stared at her for an awkwardly long time. “Fine.” He headed to his foundry furnace. “Eighteen hundred kelvin and on the dot. If I’m going to watch you embarrass yourself, I better at least give you a fair shot.”

“Thank you,” Vivi said. “Now, don’t bother me while I carve the runes.”

Lucius watched her just as curiously as Einord. Ether wasn’t required for this part. Lucius didn’t need to exert himself. “Do you truly know how to carve a rune-core?” he asked.

It’s not so difficult. Strength is one of the easiest patterns to carve. The path is easy to remember.

Vivi felt Lucius blink. “The path? What does that mean?”

It’s all science, Vivi asked. Want me to teach you?

“Well… Yes, I think.”

Vivi smiled. It all has to do with ether itself. Ether isn’t merely an omniscient power that does everything. Rather, each wisp of ether is like a collection of powerful elements. Do you know the three main categories of ether’s elements?

“Aaahm,” Lucius pondered. “The food ether, and the not-food ether?”

The live elements, nature’s elements, and the void elements. Vivi thought. Being edible or not is not an element. Humans and spirits can collect what we call balanced ether. Ether that contains an even amount of all elements and their counterparts. Every element has a counterweight. Strength is counteracted by weakness. Sharpness is counteracted by dullness. This is why the ether in our cores doesn’t explode. It’s all balanced and dormant.

“I’m asking you to teach me!” Lucius said. “Not to make fun of me. I don’t care about ether’s theory. Tell me how runes are carved.”

Ether is runesmithing, Lucius, Vivi thought. Have you ever looked at a wisp of ether with a microscope?

“Obviously not,” Lucius said.

Vivi smiled. If you study a wisp very closely, you’ll see where runes originate from. Every wisp of ether is formed of branches and patterns. These patterns are what contain the elements of ether. Each ether wisp consists of hundreds of branches. Each branch contains a specific element of ether.

“Uhh,” Lucius said. “Sure?”

By memorizing ether’s structural formation, a runesmith can carve the shapes of these branches. Ether itself is where runes originate from. If I carve the pattern of a strength branch, only the wanted elements will pass through, while useless elements are repelled.

Lucius frowned. “So because you’re carving these crooked line-things, your sword will be powered up?”

Exactly, Vivi responded.

“That’s stupid,” Lucius said, then went back to sleep.

Vivi sighed. As always, the science behind runesmithing wasn’t nearly as interesting as the mysticism around it.

Some minutes later, she finished carving the strength runes. All that remained were the two final steps of inside carving: to forge her preparations into a sword.

Before that, Vivi figured she would need to annoy Einord a little more.