The Ruined Death Knight

*Tuck!

Throwing the current armor that I had to the ground together with the sword, making them both crack and get destroyed, I equipped the new armor that was given to me as promised.

Seeing the enchantments on both the equipment, he did regardless of leaving himself wide open in case of Nersan´rah attacked him.

Flexing his body, Danzel nodded in satisfaction at the new armor and sword that he had.

The longsword was of a similar style as the one that Nersan´rah made for him constantly with his sand magic, making him think that Nersan´rah planned to give him this sword.

A sword that could very well have been for his brother to use.

The armor that he wore in comparison to the black one was now a grayish-blue color made, from a metal that the description didn´t say much about, to his surprise.

Although it wasn´t as high as his ones before, he could feel how the armor that he had now was much tougher and more durable.

Considering how strong they would be after he carves a few runes into them, he couldn´t help but grin to himself.

Raising his sword up high, he swung through the air with all his strength, resulting in a gush of wind to push the nearby laying sand away.

The sand that was flying away though came suddenly to a halt.

Soon after, the sand started to fly back towards where Danzel was. With the gathered sand, he raised his hand with the palm open and made the sand levitate above his palm in a ball shape which was rotating slowly.

A feat that wasn´t possible, was thanks to his new longsword possible.

He was able to control the sand similar to how Nersan´rah did.

"Now as I kept my part of our deal, how about we talk about business. Rue Danzel." Nersan´rah said.

Glancing towards him, his expression before turned stone cold.

Removing his will towards the floating ball of sand, the fell through his fingers and splashed to the ground.

While he was letting the little remaining sand fall of his hand, Danzel pointed his blade towards Nersan´rah.

"That fact that you are making, Nersan´rah. I can recognize it." He said with a cold and plane tone. Similar to how he would comment about something obvious.

Of course, Nersan´rah couldn´t understand what Danzel meant by that.

"My face...? What do you mean by that?" Nersan´rah said as he touched his face which had a frown.

"..."

Maybe it was because Nersan´rah was in a mortal body that he recognize the way Nersan´rah looked at him was no different than the way Gerak, the dwarf blacksmith, and Hanson, the shadow merchant.

Or rather to be more specific, Gerak, the dwarf blacksmith found his runecrafting awe-worthy and something he wanted to have into his work, while Hanson, the shadow merchant looked at him like a tool.

Though those two different waypoints were totally different.

To Danzel it could be one and the same.

And how Nersan´rah was looking at him was a mixture of those two.

That´s why Danzel imminently understands what Nersan´rah meant with "business".

While still keeping his arm up high and the other pointing the blade at Nersan´rah, Danzel looked at him with his ethereal dark green eyes.

"Although we might have known each other for some amount of time, the craft of runesmithing doesn´t come out cheap." Danzel said with a cold voice.

With his face turning serious, Nersan´rah´s glowing dark golden eyes stared directly at Danzel's ethereal eyes even with the fact that he wore a helmet.

"So I have already been figured out, huh..."

"..."

Seeing the unresponsive Danzel, Nersan´rah sighted internally.

"It´s indeed true that I have been meaning to ask you to carve some runes to some equipment from this treasury. With runesmithing being categorized as lost knowledge, even I wasn´t capable to replicate their nature. Considering those things, I would have been a fool to not request this as a magic caster who seeks secrets of magic..."

Hearing Nersan´rah´s explanation, he didn´t think much of it.

Based on his voice, Nersan´rah sounded genuine in his words.

Alas, that didn´t change the fact of how Danzel´s statement.

"What are you willing to offer me to uphold your request." Danzel said with a hint of arrogance intentionally in order to see how Nersan´rah would react.

Seeing how Nersan´rah was tightening his grip on his staff while his face remained the same, Danzel knew he struck a nerve of the death spirit.

"...As long as you carve runes into some of the equipment, I am willing to repair and give you the mana crystal that I was using as my vessel."

Hearing that, Danzel's interest was spiked up.

The former vessel that Nersan´rah was talking about was none other than the [Mana Essence Crystal], one of the highest quality mana crystals that Danzel was aware of.

Though he didn't know how to put them to use, he knew what they were for.

Being a natural mana generator, one could connect it to be it enchantments or what he theorized was runes.

Although runes work indefinitely as the mana had been bonded into an object to last forever, they were a few exceptions like the [Rune of Force] that needed to absorb the nearby mana to recharge his barrier or ghoul making rune that had a similar rule.

Both those runes required some external output to recover and be recharged. So the idea of combining crystal with runes to recharge them if not enchant the rune's effect has been bugging his mind.

He tried a few variations but every single one failed, either because the runes themselves sucked or that the mana crystal was bad.

So having an offer to gain such crystal tempted Danzel.

Lowering his hand and sword, Danzel nodded at Nersan'rah.

"We have a deal. But don't push your luck and demand me to carve runes in every single item in here."

Unbeknownst to Nersan'rah, the reason Danzel was holding the hand up wasn't to see how the sand fell to the ground but to be ready to use his [Status].

If something really happened that made him and Nersan'rah start a fight, Danzel was already prepared to press down on the upgrade button of either his class or subclass level to use all his remaining XP in order to raise his attribute to the limits of his XP.

Although if that were to happend, all his efforts of gaining such a large amount of XP would have been lost. XP could be regained.

Danzel vaguely knew what Nersan´rah was capable of.

Considering the bunch of wraiths that he had locked inside of his true body, if they were going to fight then Danzel would have gone all out.

Seeing Danzel accept his offer, he raised his staff and shifted the sands to carry various equipment and crystals with a cold expression on his face.

"Since the mana crystal is extremely rare and needs some time to be repaired, I will be waiting for every one of those items to have a rune in them. As of what kind of rune I will be leaving it to you...as long as it isn´t anything destructive and you write down what you did, the mana crystal shall be yours..." Nersan´rah said with a cold expression on his face.

Touching the equipment and putting them into his storage ring, Danzel turned around the circular platform and started to activate it.

"It shall be done in around a day or two of time...till then don´t disturb me. I will be outside the treasury." Danzel said while hinting at the words `disturb me´.

Making Nersan´rah believe that Danzel didn´t want to give him the chance of learning how runesmithing worked.

And that was only partially true.

In fact, Danzel doubted that could replicate his runes by just watching from the side.

Although the shape of the rune could be easily learned, the input of mana was much more difficult to get understand, not to forget that some runes required to use his very own will into his mana like the rune that turned the dead into ghouls.

After several minutes of going up with all the different circular platforms, Danzel reached the very top where they first came from.

Walking through the opening of the dimensional shift, the space was like the water that was suddenly disturbed.

Walking through the secret passage out to where Nersan´rah got his female body and where the bodies of the villagers lay. Danzel raised his hand.

"It should be alright here..."

Making his status window appear, he suddenly got reminded of something.

Looking to the side where Skull Claw was resting, he send out a command.

`Go and watch that path until I say otherwise.´

"..."

Standing up from his sitting potion, Skull Claw moved towards the secreted passage looking as if he was dragging his feet unwilling, making one think that Skull Claw was unwilling to uphold his liege command.

Danzel didn´t think much of it as he knew that Skull Claw was a mindless undead who couldn't resist his orders.

"Now, let´s begin," Danzel whispered to himself she pressed done on the upgrade button of his current level.

[Level has increased from Lv.95 to 96]

[Level has increased from Lv.96-]

[...]

[Level has increased from Lv.99 to 100]

[You reached the Maximum Level of the Wight race]

[Evolution option has been unlocked]