Novels2Search
The Rune Mage (In the Runesmith Universe)
Chapter 14 – Choices Choices Choices

Chapter 14 – Choices Choices Choices

Emily found herself back inside her house. With an exhalation of breath Emily walked calming towards her study, it only seemed like few minutes had passed sense she had been here. For other adventures it would have taken months or years to take another class after their second one, depending on how hard they worked at it. Emily was a special case, she doubted that other adventures got stuck on levels they were vastly out leveled on.

Setting down and booting up the computer, Emily followed all the steps until a pixel art of herself was surrounded by grayed out pixel art, only this time two pixel arts were in color, Emily’s warrior monk class and Runic Mage Scholar class.

Warrior Monk had an arrow pointed to Tier 2 Advanced Warrior Monk, the same as last time. Runic Mage Scholar on the other hand had no branching classes confirming Emily’s fear that without affinities she would be unable to advance as a mage.

The Tier 2 pixel art looked more detailed and were 16 bit graphics as opposed to the Tier 1 8 bit graphic art. Emily looked at the Tier 2 class and saw several battle classed.

“advanced warrior monk, runic monk, runic scholar, tranquility?” Emily muttered to herself until she stopped on the Tier 2 Tranquility class. It showed Emily in a lotus position, eyes closed, in deep mediation floating a foot in the air.

“It is not an wind mage class … maybe mind magic?” Mind magic was not an affinity like fire wind earth or water. It was its own unique branch of magic and mind magic was a feared class. It was said that a high level classer could shatter your mind.

“So I do have an alternative to magic. Through I do not want to become a mind mage despite all the mental skills I have.” Emily shook her head. As powerful as the class was it was not for her.

“battle monk, monk scholar, battle scholar?” The verity of the Tier 2 classes stunned Emily. Along with warrior class there were a dozens of Tier 2 production classes. Emily looked those other without much enthusiasm, she liked to battle monsters.

Finally after looking over the Tier 2 classes, Emily went back to Tier 1 classes. There were dozens more than the Tier 2 selections and Emily went through each just to memorize the selection.

“mana warrior, runic mana warrior, mana scribe, runic mana scribe” Emily could take all the Tier 1 mana designated class but without an affinity, beside the mind one, Emily could not advance to a Tier 2 magic class.

“So do I go for a runesmith and take smithing or runic smithing?” Without knowing if her skill runic scholar scribe would substitute the mana scribe class it would be a gamble but Emily had a feeling that her skill would count and she only needed the smithing class to advance.

“So smith or runic smith?” The answer was obvious, always go after the more prestige’s class.

Emily clicked on runic smith.

-----------

Again Emily transition from her house to a white room to a now smithery. Emily looked around and saw a basic smithery with steel hammers and tongs and a large iron anvil with a forge long the wall, unlike Golda’s father’s forge with had mithril tools. An hour glass was already sending grains down and Emily hurried to the book resting on the anvil.

“How to Forge a ladle of Lesser Fire Resistance.” Emily muttered reading the title.

Emily know a lot about forging form watching Golds’s father and usually his apprentices forge weapons and armor at the academy. She also read numerous books on the subject. Still she quickly read the book and studied the rune for lesser fire resistance.

Basic Forging [ Temporary ], Basic Smithing Mastery[ Temporary ], Basic Runecraft [ Temporary ] Gained

Reading the prompt, Emily nodded and dismissed it. It was time to forge.

The basic of forging had much to do with how you swung the hummer. A full faced blow placed the metal fully between the hammer and the anvil. This was used for tapering, drawing, or smoothing metal. The next most common hammer technique was the half blow, only part of the metal was between the hammer and anvil, used to bend a section of metal or to protect another section of metal. The third basic hammer blow was the shearing blow. The shearing blow hit the metal that was over the edge of the anvil to bend it, or you could use the horn or some other tool but it all came back to bending the metal in shearing blows.

Emily found the right swage block. Made of steel and premade with holes in varies sizes the swage block that Emily used was shaped to make spoons and ladles .All she had to do was place a circle of heated steal sheet and hammer it till it fit snuggly in the cup shaped swage block.

Emily proceeded to do just that as the grains of sand became a larger and larger pile on the bottom of the hour glass.

First Emily used shears to cut a perfect circle out of a sheet of metal, then stuck it into the forge to heat. The standard forges burned wood or charcoal and you had to be careful not to let too much air into the forge which increased oxide called ‘scale’ but this forge use magic which was the best fire to forge with because it burned more evenly and use could control airflow better.

Grabbing the heated metal with tongs, Emily positioned the metal sheet over the cup swage block and started hammering. She started in the center then spiraled outward in an over lapping pattern that we precise and even, her ability to judge distance uncanny and almost unnatural even before she came to this world of Terra. After she had a perfect ladle cup Emily set it aside and started to work on the handle part of the ladle.

Emily placed a rod of iron into the flames and waited for it to get a nice orange color. Pulling it out with tongs, she hammered full faced blows onto one end of the rod to flatten it, it would were Emily attached the cup part of the ladle to. After it was nice and flat, Emily place the other end over the anvil and started shearing blows to bend the rod into a nice loop that he ladle called for.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Dunking the hot rod in the barrel of water to quench it, Emily placed it back on the anvil. Setting down the hammer Emily wiped her face of sweat that had been running in her eyes and then picked up the punching tool. Looking similar to a nail but more rounded, Emily proceeded to hammer two precisely aligned holes into the flat section of the rod. Emily used tongs again to transfer the cooled cup form the swage block to the anvil, placing it next to the handle she just forged. Looking at the holes she punched into the handle and the side of the cup, Emily used the punch again to place to corresponding holes into the side of the cup.

Now Emily needed to heat up the rivets that would join the two and make it into a proper ladle. The small rivets took no time to heat up and Emily pushed the first one through the higher of the punched holes in the cup until the rounded head of the rivet was flush with cup’s side, and did it a second time, placing the second rivet into the lower hole. With both rivets in place Emily righted the cup and, picking up the handle, aligned the holes on the flat end of the rod to the rivets. Lighting tapping the rivets through the punched holes of the ladle handle, Emily finally got the flat end flushed with the cup and preceded to hammer the rivets down, bending them to tightly join the two parts.

Wiping her forehead a second time Emily looked at the hourglass and saw it was a little more than half gone. Sighing Emily know this would be where a simple smith would be finished with test but for her, she had to impart her first rune.

Picking up the hammer, Emily activated her rune sight, debugger, and programming language. Lighting hammering the bottom of the cup, she felt her magic start to drain out of her. Seeing red line start to form Emily lightly hammered at them draining even more magic to correct them. Another strange phenomenon happened as Emily was runecrafting, she could see the rune she was crafting take shape, lines and pathways of magic that created the rune, but also Emily could see deeper into the rune script, simultaneously. As she slowly hammered the rune into place, Emily also used her mana to alter the rune script to correct the errors her programming language combined with debugger highlighted in red, father draining her mana.

Emily did not stop to check her mana levels, and focused on the rune and rune script. As Emily hammered and fixed the last part of the rune she became dizzying and her sight dimmed. Without fanfare Emily passed out without seeing the next prompt.

Ladle of lesser fire resistance [Intermediate, Intermediate, High ]

-----------

Sometime later Emily came to and just as quickly turned her head and throw up. Emily had a pounding headache and thought longingly of using a greater health potion but that would be a waste and Emily firmly talked herself out of it, instead Emily begin to meditate and lost herself in the pace that came with it.

Hours later she came out of the meditating refreshed, her mana regenerated, and her migraine gone. Smiling in relief Emily pulled up the prompts that he had missed.

Ladle of lesser fire resistance [Intermediate, Intermediate, High ]

Emily had made an intermediate ranked item on her first try thanks to her eidetic memory and her savants’ Traits. The rune she had worked hard at crafting turned out to be intermediate and the rune script was high, not bad overall for her first attempt at runesmithing. Speaking of smithing Emily pulled up her new skills and stats.

Runic Blacksmith

Class

Increases stamina by 15% and mana by 10%. Lowers mana consumption while inscribing runes.

Basic Smithing Mastery L1

Skill

Increases the proficiency with all basic blacksmithing tools like hammers.

Basic Forging L1

Skill

Unlocks the basics of forging to the blacksmith class. Aids in managing the forge, crafting, and spotting imperfections in created items.

Basic Runecraft L1

Skill

Unlocks basic runecraft which allows inscription of magical runes on various items.

Name :

Emily Warden L 53

Class:

T1 Runic Blacksmith

L 3 [Primary]

T1 Runic Mage Scholar

L 25 [Secondary]

T1 Warrior Monk

L 25 [X]

HP

956/956

MP

2017/2017

SP

1311/1311

Strength

55

Agility

45

Dexterity

71

Vitality

66

Endurance

74

Intelligence

99

Willpower

85

Charisma

13

Luck

8

Emily looked over the changes and smiled at how far she came from her first meager stats. She noticed that only two classes were active and knew from her reading that until she reached Tier 2 she would only change her secondary class once a day; your primary class could not be changed as you were actively using and leveling it.

After Emily reached Tier 2 she would be able to have three classes active. This was important because she would not receive the bonuses form her class that was unselected. This meant that Emily was not receiving the 20% boost to her stamina or the 15% boost to her stamina regeneration. On the other hand if Emily changed her secondary class choice and activated her warrior monk bonuses she would lose the 20% increase to mana and the 15% increase to mana regeneration. Still she was not using her mana and needed stamina more so went ahead and changed her secondary class.

Another significant fact Emily read was that the order of classes was important. The bonuses were calculated based on that order going form traits, primary class, secondary class, and when she reached Tier 2, her Tertiary class. The order she picked would determine the order the bonuses were applied.

Now that Emily had changed her secondary class to warrior monk her mana dropped to 1681 mana, losing 336 mana, and increasing her stamina to 1573, an increase of 262 to her stamina, showing how planning ahead was needed to fully make use of the class bonuses.

Now that Emily was rested and fully caught up on her new class and stats, she got up and, stretching, started up the tunnel and hopefully a way out of the dungeon.