Nate frowned at the puzzle-box resting on the table in front of him. The troublesome little cube had continued to refuse to give up its secrets. He had tried a plethora of different approaches to try and determine the nature of the sigil that adorned it as well as penetrating the cube itself to determine its contents. The first attempts had been around recreating the sigil. It was the most complicated symbol he had seen so far with tiny details covering it and a far more flowing style than most of his lower tier Sigils. Almost all the Sigils he had worked with so far incorporated aspects of linear geometry. That was to say, there were at least some straight-lines involved in the design. This Sigil was nothing like that and he didn’t think he could detect a single straight line in the entire thing. The more he worked with it, the more he began to suspect that it was actually some sort of fractal. That had made copying the symbol one of his most challenging tasks since he began runecrafting almost a year and a half ago.

He had attempted to copy the Sigil in multiple different ways. The first had been drawing it and if he was being honest, of the three methods he had attempted, it had been the easiest. That wasn’t to say it was easy. Just the easiest. His Dexterity Stat had plateaued and wasn’t increasing which meant while he might be superhuman by Earth’s standards, he hadn’t even broken the hundred mark by the System’s significantly higher standards. Still, he was confident that he had managed to replicate the Sigil. The problem was, nothing had come of it. Conceptual Insight had not reacted, even when he tried to flood the symbol with mana. It was as though the symbol wasn’t a Sigil at all.

After that method hadn’t worked he had tried to directly create the symbol with mana. That had been the hardest of the three. One would think that since his Magic Control Stat was higher than his Dexterity Stat that it would’ve been an easier task to take that approach. That view didn’t factor in that mana wanted to disperse. His paints and ink never fought him by trying to create dispersion fields around the shapes he drew. It was honestly the most challenging thing he had ever done with mana. Even after having devoted hours of his life towards the working, he wasn’t convinced he had managed to perfectly replicate the symbol. That alone gave him a new appreciation for how hard higher tier spells must be to create and the Magic Control required to do so quickly and efficiently. Either way, the method hadn’t achieved any better results than drawing the symbol.

Finally, he had decided to paint the symbol. His first attempt had been harder than drawing the symbol, while being easier than trying to craft it from mana. It had still provided no new information about the symbol. It remained a beautiful swirling arcane image but there had been no buzzing of recognition from Conceptual Insight nor had there been any reaction from the ambient mana. He had found a quicker and easier way to achieve the same result in the future. His Material Shaping Skill worked as he had hoped and allowed him to shift his paint with mana which led him to being able to fix his small mistakes. The second attempt at the symbol was, to his senses, a perfect copy. Either the universe didn’t agree or the symbol was not a Sigil at all. He didn’t know which way he was leaning on that line of thinking, but he had temporarily given up on trying to recreate the symbol.

Instead he had moved on to trying to penetrate the cube using his Farsight of the Runic Artist. That had so far proven to be a lesson in futility as no matter what he did, whether it was attempting to subtly search for cracks to slip his awareness through, throwing his entire mana reserve at the Skill in an attempt to brute force it, or even overlapping his two spheres of awareness to try and give it some extra power, all his methods had failed. The cube had remained steadfast in its refusal to reveal its secrets or contents.

Sighing in frustration he swapped from staring at the puzzle cube to looking over his recent developments in his various Skills.

Empowered Amplified Magic 32 > 33

Conceptual Runic Creation 42 > 43

True Teleportation 33 > 34

Conceptual Insight 43 > 44

Farsight of the Runic Artist 45 > 46

Conceptual Automation 17 > 19

Conceptual Material 36 > 38

Material Shaping 6 > 11

Spatial Empowerment 4 > 7

Conceptual Intent 43 > 44

Empowered Runic Artistry 38 > 40

While the puzzle cube may have been a static island, his Skills were clearly not. The best part was that he was on the cusp of multiple evolutions and unless he was mistaken, his efforts to guide those evolutions was looking likely to pay dividends. Unlike his previous plan to limit his use of his Skill Enhancement Orbs usage to Conceptual Automation, he had instead bitten the bullet and applied one to his Empowered Runic Artistry Skill. His reasoning had been pretty simple. The Skill was of a higher level and as he had seen time and again, the higher the Skill got, the slower it levelled. If he was wrong and the Skill had failed to evolve to Mythic at level forty then he would only get it to Mythic at level sixty, which would mean if there was a tier beyond Mythic, he would be locked out of it till the Skill reached level eighty. That was double the current level, but if he was correct in his estimates, it would mean four to ten times as long to reach that level. Those values were an estimation and if they were even remotely correct, then he would end up having to wait for potentially a decade before having the option to evolve the Skill beyond Mythic. So he had used what he had available to him and forced the issue.

The fact that the Skill had ‘Artistry’ in the name was also a factor. That was still his Path and leaning into it might allow him to get some achievements that could assist him in shifting his Embodiment. That was his hope anyway. With the Skill so close to evolution he knew what he had to do and spent the next few hours in his room creating runic arrays in the air. The only difference between these and his normal runic arrays, was that he tried to focus on using Sigils that he thought would be complimentary in terms of the Concepts they represented. His Conceptual Intent was also involved as he forced them to merge by aligning their Subconcepts in new and unique ways. Fire and Water were merged with the Subconcepts of evaporation and vapour. Shadow and Light were coupled with twilight. Illusion, Dreams, and Soul were mixed together to recreate memories visually. His mana supply for the day quickly dwindled. After what must have been four hours, but had felt like the blink of an eye, the desired notification appeared before him.

Empowered Runic Artistry (L) is ready to evolve.

Evolutions Available! Please Select 1.

Skill Evolution Options:

Conceptual Runic Artistry (M)

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You have lived up to the truth of a Runic Artist, embedding runes within your artworks. You have created things both beautiful and powerful. Now, with your newfound knowledge, take your control of universal Concepts to the next level. Conceptual Runic Artistry facilitates the creation of Runic Arrays. Decrease Mana Cost of Runic Arrays by 10% and apply 10% of Dexterity and 10% of Creativity to Magic Power for Runic Arrays. Concepts embedded in Runic Arrays are 10% more powerful. Mana Cost Reduction and Magic Power values increase by 1% per Skill Level. Conceptual embedding increases by 0.5% per Skill Level.

Devastating Runic Artistry (M)

You have created art and you have created runes. Now, combine the two creating something both beautiful and deadly. Runic Artistry facilitates the creation of Runic Arrays. A sequence of runes in a pattern that agrees with your sensibilities and the multiverse. Decrease Mana Cost of Runic Arrays by 10% and apply 20% of Dexterity and 20% of Creativity to Magic Power for Runic Arrays. All values increase by 2% per Skill Level.

Walk your Path. Reach your Goal. Become One with Mana.

It was hard not to smile at his options. Whether the Skill Enhancement Orb had been necessary was debatable and he would likely never know. That said, he was happy with the results. He was confident he knew which of the two he would pick just based on their names, but he still did some quick calculations to determine the differences between what the two evolutions offered.

Conceptual Runic Artistry played into the rest of his Skills, with the additional effect of the Skill increasing the strength of conceptual elements used in his runic arrays. That was about as close to aligning the ambient mana with the affinities for his concepts used as he could hope for. On the other hand, Devastating Runic Artistry doubled down on his runic arrays ability to passively increase the amount of Magic Power his runic arrays could achieve. At face value, it would mean a doubling of his Magic Power which was a quick way to make him the equal of, or possibly even stronger, than pure Mages. If he chose that option he would be only slightly short of four hundred Magic Power when he used a runic array.

A small part of his mind whispered to him that this was the right choice. The voice told him that with this Skill, no one would be able to threaten or hurt him. He knew it for the lie it was. This Skill wouldn’t protect him from Divine beings. Hells, it might not even be enough to fend off a Platinum tier individual. The voice simply spoke from his fear of capture and torture manifesting in that moment. A Path wasn’t about choosing what was the strongest or the safest. It was about choosing the kind of person you wanted to be. Through all his trials and challenges, through the horror and beauty he had experienced since that fateful night when he had left Earth behind, he had remained true to what was at his core. His desire to create art.

With a small smile, he selected Conceptual Runic Artistry. Focusing his sphere of awareness internally, he could feel as an area on his Class Core changed. The area that he assumed the original Skill must cover shifted ever so slightly, expanding, with the little bumps that marked the Skill’s location and shape changing positions as, he assumed, the new Skill was written over the old one. He could see now that slightly over half his Class Core was covered in the little mountains and seas of bumps that, he guessed, was some form of Skill Imprinting. If the Skills were written using runes, then his current awareness Skill was unable to see it. Which, considering the Skill he was using was Mythic tier, meant that he didn’t even know how to go about achieving what was happening on his Class Core. Not yet, at least.

With his evolution handled he sent a mental message to Frick, “Headed to the Adventurer’s Guild. Grabbing Kiri before I go. How is the workshop fortification going?”

“No problems on this end, Boss. Been burnin’ mana like it’s a witch and I’m a sanctimonious son of a bitch. Will head to the spot to swap out mana gems soon. Want me to meet you at the Adventurer’s Guild?” replied Frick.

“No, that’s fine. I’m just meeting with Aisling and Evindal. Swing by the room and swap my mana gems out too, okay?”

“Will do, Boss man.”

A few minutes later he was crossing the University grounds with his best friend.

“So the Auction House is interested and I am trying to get them to give me some specifics on what sort of custom pieces they would be interested in selling. They’re dragging their feet a little, since you know, you’re an unknown quantity, and to be honest I am letting them take their time. I figured you're pretty overloaded right now anyway and until everything is set up at the workshop that it would be better not to add more work to your pile,” she explained as they crossed the carefully curated grounds.

He nodded along in agreement and muttered thanks with a small smile even as he stared at the green grass that covered the University. He could admit it made for beautiful scenery, especially against the sandstone of the rest of the city, but even now he couldn’t get over the amount of mana wasted to achieve it. He was so distracted by his thoughts that he only noticed the person waiting ahead of them when the man entered his sphere of awareness.

A slight frown creased his forehead as Nate stepped to the side to go around the man only for the individual to move to block their path forward. The slight tensing of Kiri’s muscles next to him was the only sign that his best friend was preparing for a fight. That was when they both sensed an Identification Skill used against them. The strength was somewhat impressive, managing to bypass the veiling items they wore but it still failed to pierce their true veils. Either way, it went a step beyond rude and was an act of aggression as far as he was concerned. Kiri apparently agreed as two daggers appeared in her hands.

“Put those away, Miss Kiri Beaufoy,” commanded the man, his tone smug. “I am Guard Inspector Koriolos.”

The dark haired Guard Inspector was whip thin, with piercing brown eyes and an air of superiority about himself. If Nate was any judge of character, he suspected this man was used to getting what he wanted.

Nate watched as Koriolos’ dark eyes flicked to him, “Can you confirm for me that you are Nathaniel Weber, Silver Badge of the Adventurer’s Guild?”

Before Nate could answer he felt a wave of soul energy try to enclose him. The soul energy was easily rebuffed by the runic Soul Barrier engraved onto his soul energy, but the mere fact that it had happened threw him for a moment. That moment was enough for Koriolos’ eyes to narrow slightly in irritation.

“I’ll also need you to drop your soul protections while you answer my questions. It’s a requirement so that I can determine the truth of your answers,” explained the Guard Inspector in a matter-of-fact tone that seemed to expect them to immediately capitulate to his demands.

Nate didn’t need to have a Skill for reading emotions to sense the fury radiating off Kiri immediately, even as he voiced his own denial to the man.

“We won’t be doing that,” he replied, already pulling mana from his reserve in preparation for a runic array. He coupled his words with his own Identification, Farsight of the Runic Artist crashing into and then through the Guard Inspector’s own veil.

Koriolos

Expectant Soul Mage (R) (55) / Demanding Inquisitor (U) (26) / Inquisitive Swordsman (C) (7)

Nate watched as a look of shock followed by a quiet fury crossed the Guard Inspector’s face, before the man finally settled into a grimace that promised punishment.

“You’re both under arrest. Lay down your weapons or you will be taken in by force.”

Nate didn’t even have to think about his response as he prepared for battle with the level eighty-eight. He was already preparing a runic array to try and restrict the man's ability to use soul energy when a woman's voice cut through the proceedings.

“What do you think you’re doing?”