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    Seeing that the system had offered him the skill he wanted, Kaius smiled. It was the last he needed for Runic Lexicon.

    Now he just needed to practise. That would come later, first he had to check his latest skill.

    Rune Mastery – Simenoan:

    Level 1

    Rare

    Bind chaos, weave stability into the unpredictable. Find calm in disorder and force the mutable to be concrete.

    This skill improves the users ability to create Simenoan stabilising arrays, and increases the stability of the arrays themselves.

    Each level slightly increases speed and accuracy when inscribing Simenoan runes.

    Each level slightly increases stability of Simenoan runes.

    Each level slightly increases memory and learning capacity of Simenoan runes.

    Kaius nodded as he read the description. Nothing about it was a surprise, afterall, it had the same effects as his previous four Rune Mastery skills.

    “I’m guessing by your vacant stare that you got the skill?” Porkchop asked, having readjusted by the hearth to look at him.

    Dismissing his notification, Kaius focused on his friend. “Yeah, all done for now. Just need to get them to the cap.”

    “So we can take a break and go exploring? As much as I love hanging around on beds and eating cooked food, it’s getting a little stale.” Porkchop said, lounging by the fire.

    “Sorry.” Kaius apologised. He knew his friend must be bored. Hells, Kaius would be too if he had no skills to work on. Unfortunately, he needed to get this done. “Can you handle a few more days? I want to churn through the early levels as fast as I can. After that I was thinking I could work on setting up alarm wards and the like around the neighbourhood. Explore and scavenge some of the other manors while we do it?”

    Porkchop groaned, slumping dramatically to the floor. “Fiiiiine. But you can wait a few hours, I’m hungry. If I have to sit around doing nothing while you scribble on paper, you can cook for me while you do.”

    Kaius smiled. “I suppose I could use a break.” He said, stretching before rising from his chair. “C’mon. I wanna show you what a roast is.”

    Pretending to be calm about the prospect of an exciting new dish, Porkchop continued to lay on the floor. For all of three seconds that is. Then he tore off, claws clattering against the polished stone floor as he sprinted for the kitchen.

    “Race you!”

    ….

    Kaius crouched by the wall of the alley, feeling his mana slowly drain away as he connected another swooping line to a dense nexus of Yosh’s runes that served to interface his central Ykkardian sigil with the rest of the detection formation.

    It was slow work, but satisfying. He and Porkchop had been at it for just over three weeks now, and his constant work had pushed his skills nicely. Each and every single one was closing in on level fifteen. The impact of the skills was noticeable now. Runes and formation plans practically leapt into his mind, and he could scribe them out what felt like twice as fast with half the errors.

    Finishing the detection formation Kaius stood back, surveying his work. Two dense knots of runes had been scribed at chest height on both of the alley walls. A braided line connected the two, crossing the alley proper.

    **Ding! Rune Mastery – Ykkardian has reached level 15!**

    **Ding! Rune Mastery – Vhaxanish has reached level 11!**

    **Ding! Rune Mastery – High Lothian has reached level 14!**

    It was an ugly thing. Inefficient, and cumbersome for a simple alarm, patently unsuitable for regular use. Off of the top of his head he could think of three different scripts that could do the same thing for less mana, less time inscribing, and with less complexity.

    Total jank. But it was jank that utilised all five of his runic scripts that he had mastery skills for, so it was good training.

    He’d keyed it to both himself and Porkchop, so if anything other than them crossed its boundaries it would let off a hellish shriek that should be inaudible to everyone else. Most alarm formations would have some sort of targeting system. One that would prevent a stray mouse from setting them off, either by coding in specific targets, or having an extensive whitelist.

    Trying to do that would have been an absolute nightmare with Vhaxanish, so he simply hadn’t. It wasn’t like he’d seen anything living down here other than goblins, and they were the whole reason he was warding the alleys near the manor anyway.

    As much as he was pretty sure that the goblins weren’t roaming outside of their little groups, pretty sure was a great way to end up dead in the Depths. No one wanted to wake up to find a goblin rogue gnawing on their throat, after all.

    Exploring the area was also a fantastic way to keep Porkchop from complaining while he worked on his skills. Something that was not to be undervalued, as it turned out that his friend was a massive moaner. If Porkchop was to be believed, gnawing your own leg off was preferable to being bored.

    Happy with his work, Kaius turned to the complainer in question. Porkchop was waiting at the mouth of the alley. Fully dressed in his barding, the meles was absolutely laden with bulging sacks of goods that they had looted from the other manors.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

    “All done.” He said, smiling as Porkchop chuffed in obvious relief. “Want to check out another manor on our way back?”

    “Yes please! They have so much strange food! I don’t even know how you remember it all.”

    Kaius laughed. “Most of it is weird to me too, it’s just that if you cook enough you kinda get a feel for how things should be used. Besides, I do have Explorer’s Toolkit helping out a bit.”

    “Still impressive! I wanna see if we can find more of that strange pork!”

    Kaius nodded in agreement. He considered himself a big eater, and Porkchop could down quadruple what he could – easily. Without having to ration themselves like they had before, they had absolutely churned through the supplies that had already been in the manor they now called home. That had pushed them to start raiding the kitchens of surrounding manors for choice goods.

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