The symbols kept rotating around him like a beautiful tornado before they all converged into a mist that began to approach the mortar. Just as it was about to touch it, it gathered even more strongly before it transformed into a pure transparent liquid that had no smell and flowed with the pitch black mix he was creating.

'Wouaah!' Melvin thought in wonder. The whole process was so magical and shocking that it left him in awe, and the fact that he was responsible for it made him even more excited!

He swiftly brought up his interface, and true to his expectations, his mental energy was used.

Mental Energy: 19/25

After mixing it a little bit more, his hand finally stopped, and with a heart filled with anticipation. He retrieved one of the parchments he brought along and his black quill.

In the same position, legs crossed, he put the Sextodecimo folded parchment on top of his right knee, grabbed the quill with his right hand, put it in the mortar to absorb some ink, and moved it above the page.

'Hmm...' It was then when he realized something important, 'Write a story and weave a rune about it? What the hell does that even mean?' He thought, gazing at the shabby wooden ceiling.

Facing such a simple but seemingly unsurmountable question, he quickly distracted himself, deciding to try if the ink was good.

Moving his hands from left to right, he made a simple horizontal line across the top of the first page until the ink ran out.

'It's a bit too... watery.' He commented, slightly shaking his head.

He knew that the whole process of making ink revolved around the question of ratios, in other words, a question of trial and error. But he was already satisfied with the results thus far, 'At least the page soaks up the ink, so that's something.'

Returning to the original question, he was still confused as when he started. Attempting to glean some new information, he summoned the interface explaining his only class skill.

[Storyweaver(Level 1): The user has the ability to grasp the essence of a story and extract runes from it. The attributes and effects of these runes are dependent upon various factors, including the narrative's weight, way of writing, details, and the materials employed in the process.]

'Narrative's weight? Now what the hell does that even mean?' Melvin questioned himself, still confused, 'Maybe how impactful the story is?'

He decided to try the old cliche, so he soaked up the quill in the ink, and began writing with the new language that he automatically learned since coming here, "It was a dark stormy night..."

Studying his writing, his smile stiffened. "That's actually... unreadable." Melvin muttered under his breath, "If I wasn't the one who wrote this, I wouldn't even know what the hell it was saying."

He knew that it was because of the quill, he had never used such an archaic method of writing, and it was insanely difficult.

The tip of the quill had a twisted edge that made it challenging to write with. Melvin also felt that this feather felt wrong in hand, as if he was going against it.

Sighing deeply to himself, he continued filling the quill with ink and resumed his writing.

He wrote a very crude story about a dog that was transported to another world, and he was shunned by all of the other dogs of that world because unlike him they hated playing fetch, and they especially hated sticks. In the end, the dog was so fed up with trying to win them over, that he no longer cared and played fetch with himself. Until he got depressed and killed himself due to loneliness.

'Seems legit.' Melvin smiled in satisfaction after writing the last line, 'Alright now, for the real action.'

He gently guided his palms above the page where the story was written, and soon another magical process began to unfold.

The previously dead and unmoving ink started to boil, and new arcane symbols with various colors began to swim around, and through the page. The ink then began to separate itself from the page, and the letters followed one another as they joined the swirling dance. Whenever a character floated on top of the parchment, it seemed to absorb the vitality and nutrients hidden in that beast's skin as it would immediately dry up before becoming mere dust that flowed with the subtle breeze.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Melvin's heartbeat quickened in joy, and his mouth felt dry witnessing such an occurrence, but his wide awed smile soon stiffened. All of the symbols instantly disappeared, and the dancing ink landed on both the ground and his red shirt.

'Where the hell is the rune?' Questioned Melvin, but there was no answer nor was there any rune.

After looking around for a while in case it was hidden somewhere, he didn't find anything, even his stats interface was exactly how it was, 'I guess it was a failure?'

That was the only plausible conclusion he could reach, and the more he went through the process in his mind the more it seemed to be true.

Melvin's fingers gently massaged his forehead because a strong headache assaulted his senses out of nowhere, but he dismissed it and continued what he wanted to see, 'I wonder how much mental energy I used...'

Mental Energy: 3/25

Seeing how low it was he was surprised, 'I used that much in the skill?', but then he realized that the headache began as soon as he started the skill and so he considered, 'Could it be that the less mental energy I have the more it affects the mind? I mean it does make sense, it even has the word mental in it.'

This naturally presented him with a very important question, 'What will happen if it goes below three?', imagining the possibilities, he shuddered.

He decided to ask someone else once he had the chance, he knew that he would never try it on himself afraid that something unexpected might happen.

Quickly moving on from that stream of thoughts, Melvin returned to the original point, 'Why did it fail?'

Chin rested on top of his fingers as he sat cross-legged on the ground, he began contemplating the issue. He looked through the whole process in his mind, from beginning to end, and questioned every step of the way, 'Could the ink's quality be subpar?'

That was actually, not that improbable, the ratio of ingredients that he used wasn't exactly what one might describe as ideal. However, he felt that the ink's quality although bad, could work.

'Is it because the story is small and grim?' He ruminated, because of the fact that writing stories was a very novel experience for him, he was a bit overwhelmed by it, and then coupled with the fact that he found it difficult to write with the quill, he had only written a page at most.

Suddenly, he thought of a very important question, 'Stories are usually for other people, to who am I writing this begin with?'

The first thing that came to mind was the being who saved him, but he quickly dismissed such a ridiculous idea. Someone of that level of power wouldn't need his poorly made scribbles that didn't make any sense.

He brought up the explanation of his skill once again, hoping to get some inspiration.

[Storyweaver(Level 1): The user has the ability to grasp the essence of a story and extract runes from it. The attributes and effects of these runes are dependent upon various factors, including the narrative's weight, way of writing, details, and the materials employed in the process.]

Out of everything in there, the first part was the thing that stood out to him the most, 'I have the ability to grasp the essence of a story? That's that word again, essence.'

He could still remember the being's majestic voice echoing through the darkness, talking about the essence of life, but to him, those things were mere abstract concepts. Melvin needed something simple, something more tangible that he could work with.

'If it's strictly the essence of a story, what's the point of good writing then?' He questioned, 'Maybe good writing is complex thus bringing out the essence?... I don't know, maybe.'

'Wait!', He thought, for some reason his mind randomly associated the word essence with flow, and the moment he thought about that word he recalled the feeling he was having when he was telling Karl about what happened to him.

Melvin had never in his entire life felt so engrossed telling a story, and more so being so intuned with the flow of it. Initially, he just chalked it to himself being very excited about the notion of magic, the class, a new beginning, and most importantly it was the fact that he was dying and Karl not only offered him a bath which shortened the time needed by a long a while, but also treated him graciously.

Taking all of those factors into consideration, it made some sense for him to feel very motivated and happy to recount his stories to that person. As a way to both connect with him and also amuse him as a show of appreciation for his help.

'Maybe there is something more involved in that?' Melvin questioned, and then he began going through all of the times he said something that could be considered a story to others. He noticed how in almost all of them the words just effortlessly converged in his mind creating the perfect sentence that managed to grip people, and they in turn also paid more attention to what he was saying.

The more he thought, the more focused his mind became, he felt that that he was on the verge of grasping something crucial, something that would revolutionize the way he approached the skill, and that was precisely what he needed.

With a solemn expression, Melvin in his cross-legged sitting position kept going through all of the details of the stories he told to those people. He wanted to understand them more, what differentiated them from the others.

There were a lot of elements that he found, like the fact that all of those stories were real. He was also personally involved in all of them, he was very emotionally invested in them, and most importantly he understood those stories perfectly because he saw them happening in front of his eyes.

After finally locating the head of the yarn, Melvin felt a surge of joy. With a clear direction in mind, he was eager to methodically experiment with each of those elements.

Creeak-

The door to his left suddenly moved, prompting his gaze to follow.

Two young boys emerged from behind the door, and slowly entered with a bag in hand, 'Great, that's what I needed.' Melvin cursed in his mind.

Seeing him inside, the two were caught off guard at first, and so unaware of how to navigate this situation because of the previous incident, they just froze and kept quiet.

Melvin found this slightly amusing and said, "Why the long face, just go and don't mind me."

Not understanding what the word, 'Long face', was supposed to be, the duo confusedly walked towards the two rugs to the right.