Chapter 133 – Runic Shield.

‘I should get this over with first…’

Roland was back home with the shield in hand. After coming back he reprimanded his assistant for being a pervert. Bernir just explained that he just gave the woman from the shop a little tap on the posterior as she was bending down in front of him.

He started fearing for Bernir’s safety as that beastwoman would probably be able to crush Bernir’s neck like a ripe melon if she wanted. He had glanced at her classes and he noticed that she had leveled a warrior class at tier 1 together with the blacksmith class.

She had a bit of unique class distribution as she had gone through 25 levels of weaponsmith and was now an armorsmith with 20 levels to her. This meant that at level 100 she would be able to switch classes again, to what he could only speculate. She seemed open to doing business with him and might have had some ties to non-union merchants that could help him.

It seemed that he was universally disliked by the dwarves in this city. There were some good blacksmiths that outranked him, some might have even been tier 3 but there were no runesmiths besides him.

This would normally give him a big boost to his wares as he had the first adapter privileges here. The problem was the dwarven union that controlled a big chunk of the market. Most of this could be counteracted by him having a deal with the adventurer’s guild.

Even the union could not go against them as they required adventurers as bodyguards to protect their merchants and more. This didn’t mean that Roland wanted to procure everything through the guild, it felt a bit constricting. Being reliant on just one source was always an unwanted turn of events.

“It feels as if I was gone for a year…”

Roland opened up his workshop and was greeted by the usual stuffy air. This was quickly alleviated by pressing a button on the wall. One to turn on the light while the other turned on special runes that purified the air.

“What you can do with some frost and wind runes.”

He took a deep breath and could feel the fresh air entering his lungs. This rune that he developed would make any AC manufacturer jealous. It only used up renewable energy and was actually good for the environment.

This also brought an idea to Roland’s mind. If he had a contract with the guild he could probably convince the guild master to use some of his runes.

From his conversation with Lucille and after going through actual runic knowledge he realized something. The Runesmiths here weren’t very flexible. They stuck to the old schematics and didn’t even try to innovate.

All the runes on the weapons were all the same type and they just varied by grades. There was so much a runesmith could do to affect the runic structures. They could still make a highest rated rune but turn down the output for someone that had low mana reserves.

They could also do the exact opposite and crank it up. This would allow people to pick and choose items to fit their builds more. Ones liked to spam many attacking skills while others aimed for that one big attack that hit at that one right moment for maximum damage.

This could be done with the basic sharpness rune. It could turn a blade into a one-hit kill skill by using up most of the user’s mana. The regular rune on the other hand only used a small fraction to keep the blade in working condition and the rune from breaking.

With that in mind, he could burst out onto the market with new innovative weapons. Weapons tailored to specific classes that took into account their unique characteristics. Ones that had multiple features for every occasion and even ones that abandoned all safety for that one last-ditch attack. Everything could be done but it would take some time till he gets a feel for the market.

‘Time to get to work…’

Roland placed two books on his workbench. One looked more like a binder with strings tied through old scrolls. This ‘book’ showed him how to build the Runic furnace in which he would be able to melt the mana stones. The other one was a lot thinner as it had the recipes for some alloys.

These magic alloys would work as if they had an implanted mana stone in them. Thanks to them being a mix the runic structures would actually work much better. He would also save a lot of space as making the specific runic structure for the mana stone socket would not be needed.

This would also allow him to make runic items of smaller weapons like throwing knives or throwing stars. Those kinds of disposable weapons could turn into deadly bombs while also benefiting from their user’s throwing and aiming skills.

He could also add paralyzing effects and even poison ones that didn’t require the thief to dip the knives into any liquid. Thanks to this it would be quite safe to handle them even by someone that was not particularly dextrous.

‘Making this smelter will take some time.’

Roland gave out a sigh while closing the books filled with crafting knowledge. Instead of the smelter, he needed to get this shield up and running. He placed it on the same workbench and examined it again first.

His analyzing skill had gotten a lot better. Thanks to it he could even tell the strength requirements of holding it. Tier 1 classes would have a hard time holding it in place as it was quite thick and bulky. Thanks to this bulkiness he would have something that would hold the runic structures for quite some time.

Also thanks to this he could insert the mana stones into the rear side of the shield by just drilling into it. The holes would be shallow but it would be enough to place the mana stones in strategic positions. Thanks to the glue made by the alchemists from this world it would stay in place. Previously he needed to wedge it inside and have it physically stick in but now it was much easier.

With that in mind, he got to work. First, he needed to design the runic structure to fit this shield. His brother liked the idea of having a multi-purpose elemental runic shield. With how large this one was, there was enough place to allow Roland to do this.

He drew four circles around the handle that would be then drilled out to house the mana stones. Each mana stone would come from a specific elemental creature which would ad a boost to the elemental runic structure.

There was no end to red mana stones as the dungeon was fire-based and the brown earth mana stones were also plentiful. The rarest kind would be the ice one which he had to take out from his mana stone safe.

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The spell trigger points would be placed by the shield handle. Depending on which digit Robert used it would activate the corresponding spell effect. Besides these four there would be another special effect that would be activated by injecting the mana through all four points at once.

Roland learned a few special ways that he could activate the spells which didn’t require all separate trigger points. Thanks to this he saved up on space while being able to make more combinations without running out of finger space.

For people, without the mana sense skill, it was a bit hard to learn to control these types of items. Everyone was able to inject their mana into runic items but it took some time to be able to do it with their fingers and not the entire hand.

Within a few hours, he had the schematic drawn up on a large piece of parchment. Even without his debugging skill, it was at the intermediate level. Bringing it up to the highest level gave him more experience as always but at his current level, this wasn’t much.

Soon the shield found its way on the drilling table. It was clamped down in place for safety reasons and was ready to be drilled in.

The drilling table that he created was still utilizing his old drill. It possessed a crank on the side with which he could lower the drill down. With a couple of movements, the drill bit descended to the previously sketched on hole. Soon four identical openings that were in the shape of a tilted square were around the handle.

With those now in place, it was time for some hammering. Before he could move to runesmithing the shield needed to be heated up. Even with his enhanced skills, it would be hard to force the runic structures in without previously softening this shield up a bit.

The heated-up shield was grasped by Roland. He did not use any tongs as he had made special fire-resistant gloves for himself. With them on he would not be afraid to stick his hand into a burning fire.

His grip was as strong as a vice which meant that he did not have to worry about the shield moving out of place as he hammered it.

Soon the workshop was filled with the noise of the face of his hammer hitting the deep steel shield. The traces slowly took shape while glowing bright red before settling down and becoming hard to see.

Roland’s mana started being drained at a staggering pace but it took a while before it dropped below fifty percent. At this point, he needed to take a breather or suffer the onset of the mana debuffs.

‘This will probably take two or three days to make. Even when my skills increase, if the material gets better, the time it takes stays about the same.’

While Roland was busy with crafting this runic shield time continued to pass. The nobles mostly remained in the better part of the city with not many of them wandering outside. This was not due to Percival not allowing it but by their own volition.

There were not many nobles like Lucille De Vere that were interested in the way the commoners lived. With her knight, she was seen going around the city which caused problems for the mayor and guild master.

This was also why when they came to Roland’s luxurious home out in the boonies they were together with two familiar faces.

“Why are you here?”

“Hey Wayland, how’s it hanging? Do you wear that armor even at your home? Isn’t it hard to work in?”

An extroverted half-elf called out to Roland from behind Lucille. For some reason, Lobelia was together with these two nobles and to her side was his favorite idiot.

“I’m not here because I want to, blast that old fart.”

Armand complained while frowning, it was clear that the guild master had forced him to be a bodyguard for this pair of nobles. This was probably the right call, having a noble be snatched up for ransom would be not something that he would want.