“Hey… what’s wrong with you today?”
“What do you mean? I’m the same as I’ve always been… I think, or was I different before? My memories are a bit cloudy…”
“Did you mean to say that out loud? Also… why is Agni acting like this?”
A confused Elodia was looking at a large ruby wolf peeking through the entrance door. For some reason, Agni was unwilling to enter the house when usually it was hard to keep him away from his owner. She was also in a strange situation as Roland was acting quite clingy today, more than ever.
It was to the point that he was even following her around the house and breathing over her shoulder while she was cooking breakfast before work. It was clear that there was something wrong, the change in his appearance was also apparent to someone like her. It would be strange if she didn’t notice the change in his physical appearance after knowing him for this long. There were only a few reasons that she could come up with for such a change but speculating about it wouldn’t change anything. It was better to prod for some answers and perhaps force it out if he didn’t come clean.
“Oh, perhaps he is going through puberty or something…”
Roland replied while also moving his head to smell himself which made Elodia even more confused. Before she could prod for more she was actually suddenly grabbed by the man of the house that was acting suspiciously. This was the first time that he had been this clingy as he had actually pulled her into his lap. It wasn’t like she was against the skinship but the timing was a bit off.
After breakfast she was supposed to open up the store and get to work, little Marcie was already here and doing a preliminary sweep of the shop. The young girl was quite helpful and even decided to hang outside the shop to greet the potential customers that wandered from within the forest.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“You know… why don’t you just take a day off…”
“You want me to take a day off? What about you?”
“Oh I’m not in a rush, I haven’t had a break in years, I could use a vacation.”
“A vacation?”
She was shocked to hear Roland speak of a break. He was like a possessed workaholic that very rarely left his workshop. Usually, it was her that had to pull him away from his underground workplace. She didn’t really like to be there, the magical light that illuminated the corridors felt somewhat off. It was much better to stay outside where the sun was shining and the air didn’t need to be filtered by runic equipment.
“Are you sick? Perhaps we should go to the church and have you examined, perhaps someone put a curse on you.”
“A curse? No, I’m fine…”
“Then tell me what’s wrong, you’re acting strange, are you hiding something from me?”
She narrowed her eyes while trying to pick up any fine movements in Roland’s face. After living around him for a while Elodia had managed to ascertain a few things. It didn’t always work but if she focused hard it was possible to tell her when he was lying or at least trying to hide something from her. This time around it was a bit harder as his handsome face was a lot more distracting than it usually was.
“Hiding something? Oh right, just look at me through your identification item.”
Roland replied while removing the pendant that was usually around his neck even when he was bathing. This was something that he never did and she knew that he was trying to hide his noble birth and true name. There must have been a reason for this so Elodia was quick to activate the effect of her glasses that could mimic an analyzing skill.
“What is this…”
“Yeah, I’ve gone through a small change.”
“A small change? You better explain yourself to me and start from the beginning!”
…
Roland didn’t leave anything out, it was actually nice to talk to someone real for a change. Even now he wasn’t sure if everything around him wasn’t an illusion but by the way Elodia was acting it felt real. The wooden people didn’t show as wide a range of emotions as the woman before him. Normally he would have probably withheld some information about the trial, the part about it taking more than a year to not trouble her. However, this time around he felt that he needed to dump some weight off his shoulders for once.
“More than a year? What kind of ascension trial takes that long? I’ve heard of them taking a few months but a year…”
Just as expected she was shocked by the length of this trial. Elodia was someone that had worked at the adventurers guild for some years. She had to pass multiple tests about the theory behind passing ascension rituals if the need arose to explain. Beginners could need the information but even gold adventurers that were attempting the plunge could come asking for help.
“Yeah, this one was special, I sure hope I won’t need to go through something like this ever again also… did I change that much? You keep looking at my face?”
“What? You must be imagining things…”
He wanted to smile as Elodia pulled her face away. After she got a read on his status screen through her glasses, she unconsciously started looking at him as if he was some type of rare animal. It was probably the first time she heard of a class called the Runesmith Overlord but it was the same for him too.
Normally he would have taken precautions to not leak information like this outside. After spending so much time in the trial area, he realized that doing everything alone wasn’t the way to do it. Having his strange prestige class be known to others wouldn’t be the end of the world. Some people like the platinum adventurers he met carried those classes like a badge of honor. They actually wanted to show that they were on the side of the elite as a lot of doors opened up before them.
“Maybe I should really close the shop today, the after-effects of a prolonged ascension trial on the human mind could be devastating.”
“Ah, sorry didn’t want to make you worry, I just haven’t talked to someone for a while that wasn’t made out of wood.”
During his explanation, he described the whole trial to her. He did leave out the part about him getting a wooden child for obvious reasons though. It was rather cute to see her so interested in the conversation. There was probably no other ascension trial recorded that was similar to his. She was still someone that used to manage adventurers so this was an interesting topic to speak off.
“A whole nation of wooden people… that sounds like something the kids would like.”
“Now that you mention it…”
Roland was far too busy working on passing the test than processing the information about the world he was in. Now when looking back, it was something that he would have probably remembered until he died. Just the way the whole world worked with the wooden people was quite interesting but the real one was much better. There was also no imposed clock pushing him to do things he didn’t want to.
‘Wait… it’s been so long that I even forgot about that…’
The emotions of seeing Elodia and coming back to this world had taken over his mind. Now after getting it out there by talking, memories of his current situation were flooding back. Yesterday after taking a bath and having some small talk through the crystal ball, he just passed out on his bed. When he woke up Elodia was already around the corner so he forgot about the current situation.
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“Shit, I forgot!”
“Huh, what is it now, are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine… how about we don’t close the shop for today, I remembered I need to do a few things!”
Suddenly he lowered Elodia down from his lap and started to storm out of the room while leaving her in the dust. She was left there along with a confused look. It was soon replaced by a smile after she realized that Roland was just back to his old self as he stormed off into the workshop area.
“Well… have fun, I’ll be in the shop if you need me…?”
Yet to her surprise after Roland had left, his heavy footsteps echoed back. He appeared back in the dining room where the two were having a conversation. Before she could ask about what he needed, she found herself getting embraced by the large man.
“Thank you, you know… for everything, I’m not good with these things but I’ll try to be better from now on…”
“Ah, yes?”
Just as quickly as he returned to give her the hug, he was back to running back to the entrance of his workshop. The speed was truly superhuman and something that only a tier 3 class holder would be capable of. Her face was left a bit rosy after the gentle embrace and wondering if perhaps she should have him do those trials more often.
‘What if they make a move now? I just made it into tier 3 but I haven’t been able to prepare anything! What should I do first? What are my options?’
Roland noticed that his body was feeling really light. When he was storming back into the room to give Elodia a hug he felt the wood straining under his feet. His power had multiplied to an unfathomable level. When giving the hug he realized that he needed to be really careful to not apply too much strength. If he did then he could have actually cracked a few bones in the process.
‘First I should get this in check…’
Overlord’s Organs
Trait
Advanced organs of an Overlord, enhances the robustness of internal organs.
Overlord’s Muscles
Trait
Advanced Muscles of an Overlord, enhances the robustness of muscles.
Overlord’s Skin
Trait
Advanced Skin of an Overlord, enhances the robustness of skin.
Overlord’s Skeleton
Trait
Advanced skeleton of an Overlord, enhances the robustness of bones.
Overlord’s Tendons
Trait
Advanced tendons of an Overlord, enhances the robustness of tendons.
Overlord’s Nervous System
Trait
Advanced nervous system of an Overlord, enhances the nervous system and everything related to it.
Overlord’s Circulatory System
Trait
Advanced circulatory system of an Overlord, enhances the circulatory system and everything related to it.
This was one of the quality changes that a tier 3 person went through and it was making his movements strange. His body was now filled with power that was not there before. Even his skin was a lot tougher than before, when he arrived in his workshop he decided to give it a few tests. To his surprise, an iron dagger wasn’t able to pierce through it unless he applied quite a bit of that enhanced strength, even then most of the time only scratches were left behind.
‘The multiplier isn’t the only thing that makes tier 3 people more powerful, these enhancements to the body make them… us a whole new breed.’
Even the lowest tier 3 class holders had traits like these. His theory behind these strange advancements was the large increase in various fields. First, there was the multiplier that at least doubled. Secondly, there were various skills that would triple, quadruple, or even quintuple someone’s power. Without the advanced skeleton and skin, the body would sustain damage. The bodies that people of the races were born with had their limits and after getting to tier 3 they were broken.
Swiftness I
Trait
Enhances balance and perception during rapid movements.
He had also managed to finally go past the two-hundred-point threshold with his agility stat, this gave him this new trait. It wasn’t the only thing he received as there was a new trait that went along with gaining all seven traits in his main stats.
Equilibrium I
Trait
A balanced body is a strong body.
‘What is that even supposed to mean?’
This new trait was one of the cryptic ones. Luckily, he had prior knowledge of what this skill actually meant. It offered people with it some hidden resistances that came with having a good balance with their stats. By how much it was unknown but it would give out a hidden buff to almost all resistances.
True Runic Sight L1
Active Skill
Reveals the truth of the world to its user. The side effects of using this skill are decreased.
‘That one changed for the better…’
This was one of the old skills that had allowed him to study divine energies. Now that it was upgraded he noticed a large change. At the moment he was actually down in his workshop and looking at one of his golems. When this skill started out a level 1, he was unable to even glance around without getting a migraine. Now he was actually feeling normal, there was no pain and his eyeballs weren’t twitching.
‘With the upgrade to all of my organs, blood vessels, and nerves, I won’t be straining my eyesight as much, should I give it a go?’
Before even trying out to craft a greater rune he needed to go through some tests. This new body of his was something that he needed to get used to. Without knowing his own limitations it would be hard to progress so while he had the time, it was time for some testing. When thinking about this skill two things entered his mind, one was the divine runes that he failed to fully grasp, and the other was spatial runes.
‘I couldn’t really examine this before, what about now?’
In the underground workshop, he had one of the lesser spatial bags on the table. This one only doubled the size of the bag and wasn’t worth that much. When he activated the skill, the spatial enchantment was translated into runic symbols that he could actually understand. With his current knowledge of greater runes, it became clear, spatial runes all had elements of greater runes in them. Without being at tier 3 and having the corresponding upgraded runecrafting skill, there was no way of creating them.
Expert Runecrafting allowed a Master Runesmith to stack several runes on top of each other. In easier terms, it was like moving from crafting on a flat surface into a three-dimensional model. While to the naked eye the runes wouldn’t look that much different, they contained a lot more Ethereal Pathways than a tier 2 rune ever did.
It was already hard to cram all the miniaturized traces into the runes he was producing now he had to do the same on multiple layers. The moment he was forced to go through reading the skill books in the trial area he was stunned. It was truly a difficult task to perform the rune crafting procedure without making any mistakes. His brain needed to somehow calculate how it would look in a 3D space before the process started. Then a runesmith needed to actually somehow force this rune into a block of metal without losing their concentration.
‘This begs the question… what should I make first?’
Now that he was out of the trial there were several things that he wanted to do. First of all, his old forge needed to be upgraded to handle greater runes. Then probably getting himself a new set of armor that contained all his new knowledge would be in order. However, before that Roland needed to test out his newly gained skills on something less expensive. All that red Mythril ore that he saved up would not last him for more than one set.
Then he also needed to test out all of his newly gained Runesmith Overlord skills. Perhaps this new Forgefire Control skill he received could allow him to work through a lesser forge. If he could keep the flames from melting the furnace while he was working on Mythril then he might not even need to upgrade it. There were also skills like Overlords Might that needed a test run, he could see himself going through tests for at least a month before attempting to produce something worthwhile.
“At least this doesn’t feel like working this time around, I want to make that one rune…”
While Roland was just freshly out of his test, for some reason he felt invigorated. With so many possibilities laying bare before his fingertips, there were just too many fun combinations he could create. It didn’t really feel like he was back to work, this time it was as if he was just expanding on his hobby. This was actually what he was here for, crafting runes and not leading nations to victory. His passion for the craft had been reinvigorated and it was time to delve into it once more, when he was done a new world was waiting.