Chapter 51 – Nothing is real.

Roland was standing in the middle of the corridor with his hand holding the blade that he previously made. He had looked at it many times before but this was a first.

Thanks to his debugging skill he was able to always see the runic structures of any item that he came across. If he focused on it the skill would show him various colored lines; red, blue, and green.

He had already seen how his blade should look while under his skill and something was very off. The traces were wrong, they didn’t fit the sword that he made and this wasn’t even the oddest thing here.

Roland moved his eyes up and glanced at the walls. He looked at the doors and even the ceiling. He could see them, traces were everywhere it was as if everything in here had runes inscribed into them.

He had come to this place many times and even used his skill before to glance at some items but nothing like this ever happened. Something was really wrong here, even the potted plant that was in the corner had runic components on it.

He quickly ran downstairs, he wanted to ask Zilyana if she noticed something. The moment he got downstairs he saw the elf just standing there, her body consumed by runic traces.

Roland backed away, the elf covered in runic symbols just looked at him and smiled.

“Oh? What’s the rush? Are you sure that you don’t want some tea?”

She giggled and gave him the brightest smile that she could. This only made Roland shake his head, he decided to leave the store for now.

On the outside it was all the same, magical pathways were littering the streets and the buildings. Even the sky was full of them. He deactivated his skill and shook his head side to side while trying to gather his thoughts.

The moment the skill wasn’t active he saw the world as he normally did. Nothing looked out of place. He squatted down and touched the soil, he even picked some up and let it fall through his fingers.

This was strange indeed. Even without using his debugging skill, he should be able to somehow feel the runes in items. Without his debugging active he couldn’t feel the characteristic mana signature that an active runic structure would give out.

‘Illusion?’

His mind wandered in a certain direction as he reactivated his skill again. He now looked at the runic components that were around him. The structures were more advanced than anything he had ever seen.

‘Grand…no…greater rune?’
If it was a grand rune then it would be something on a tier 4 level. These structures were more advanced than common ones but not by that much, this had to be a greater runic structure.

He had diagrams on various runes, lesser and common. Depending on the type of spell the runes belonged to some of the components would repeat themselves. An ice arrow rune would share some components that an ice blast rune had. The same was in this situation as he recognized some of those structures.

Some of the runic formations looked similar to runes that had to do with illusions. There were also some that were from runes that affected the target’s state of mind. He could see something similar to a sleep rune component just more intricate.

From his observations, he deduced that he had fallen victim to some kind of illusion spell. This world that he was seeing was not real, when it happened was a mystery though. He activated his skill when he was back at his workshop so it had to have happened after he left.

Was he attacked in the street or when he arrived at the company store?

Also why someone would even do this evaded him, did he get caught up in another mess of the gnome manager?

It had been one and a half years since the home invasion incident, he had almost forgotten about it till this moment. No item he had could protect him from a mental attack of this magnitude.

‘Am I trapped in here?”

He looked around, his heart pounding fast. He had no idea what the person that put him in this illusion was doing outside. Was he holding a dagger to his throat while he was here unable to do anything?

With the skill activated he started looking around. Even though these runic structures were more advanced, they were still just runes. He had spent years studying them and he knew how to tell the pathways apart from each other.

There was always one prime rune, through which everything connected. Without that rune the whole spell would instantly collapse, maybe if he found it he could destroy or alter it. If he could damage these runic structures was still unclear but he didn’t have much time for a test.

He could see some people walking around, looking at him. In this world he was alone and he didn’t know if it had some kind of defensive mechanism. It would be unwise to alert his enemy to his knowledge, it was better to find the prime rune first and destroy it.

Roland could even see in what direction it was. There were many runic pathways going in one direction, in the direction of his workshop. This world of illusions was probably made from his memories and his workshop had most of them. He would probably find what he was looking for there.

He strapped his sword to his side. Even though it wasn’t real it probably would work against the denizens of this world. He walked while slightly rushing, he could feel strange gazes on his back that were giving him the chills. Was there even anything behind him, or was it just the figment of his imagination?

The walk back to his workshop felt really long but he managed to arrive without anything out of the ordinary happening. He quickly opened up the entrance and ducked inside, closing the reinforced door right behind him and locking it.

He gave out a sigh and quickly quieted down. It was really silent in here, he couldn’t hear anything outside either. He still wasn’t sure what this illusion world was or how it operated. A runic item that could produce something like this must have been made with some high quality materials.

But where there was a runic artifact that was active, the caster was probably not far behind. Some items could be activated remotely and could even run on their own depending on the manufacturing process. There had to be someone to activate it unless he walked into some kind of trap that set it off instead.

Roland activated his debugging skill. The pathways converged into one spot, into his forge. The one he was using was made from bricks but now looked like a Christmas tree. There were various magical pathways some were quite red. Apparently, this greater rune wasn’t quite perfect.

The pathways connected to a larger rune that was in the middle, this was the prime rune. It consisted of many other runic components that were inside a magic circle. This prime rune was on the inside of the circle right in the middle, the other runes and runic components were around it in another outer circle.

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Roland moved towards the forge that was part of this illusion of a workshop. It was really convincing as he couldn’t really notice a difference between this world and the real one, at all.

He placed his digit on one of the runic pathways and tried rubbing on it, this didn’t achieve anything at all. Even when he grabbed a metal tool to scratch the brick material the magical pathway remained in place. It remained floating in the air instead of sinking back into the brick, it was as if the forge wasn’t even there to begin with.

‘I guess it won’t be that easy…’

He moved his finger towards that magical pathway that he tried to rub off his forge. He injected some of his mana into his fingertip before moving towards the runic structure.

As a runesmith he was someone that was able to affect runic structures with his own mana. With the help of runecrafting he was able to repair runes but also destroy them. It was part of the process, you just removed the faulty components and replaced them with the good ones.

The moment he touched the trace and activated his skill he saw it crumbling apart. This was only one of the many that he had to remove before the whole structure became unstable. The moment he did this he could feel the earth trembling a bit, it was as if a small earthquake was taking place.

The magical pathway that he severed with his finger started to slowly mend itself back into shape. It seemed that this rune had some sort of self-repairing property but it was slow enough for him to continue his work.

The more pathways he destroyed the more the world shook. It was as if this illusion was reacting to his interference.

‘I should probably hurry up…’