The Runesmith

‘Runesmith Lord’

Roland stopped while looking at the moving pixel art that only had three frames of movement. It looked like a more armored variation of the Runesmith Class, it was clearly some kind of evolved version and it was available to him.

‘Didn’t I read something about this...’

When he was back in the Arden estate he went through the library several times. With no internet or games, there wasn’t really much to do in this world. As an adult, he was past his childhood days so he didn’t waste time on kid games like tag. The only thing left for him was training and reading books.

He recalled that one of these books had a passage about some ‘hidden’ special classes. One of them was the mana related classes like ‘Mana Warrior’. They were quite easy to get with a corresponding aptitude for mana. Past those were the prestige classes like Runic Scribe or Runic Blacksmith that he had gotten along the way.

Then there were ones that were even rarer. The way that this class appeared on this screen here showed him that it was one of those. He had no way of knowing how good this class was though, it could be worse than a Runic Armorsmith or Weaponsmith for crafting purposes. It could not bring much to the table for him who already had one cheat skill in the form of debugging.

But there it was, what looked to be another rare class option that he didn’t think would be there. He was hoping to get a class that mixed combat and crafting in some way, could this one be it?

Roland looked over the other class choices, there was another one that he originally hoped to get. It was the Runic Battlesmith class, it was there with the basic variant as well. After leveling up his basic weapon proficiencies and gaining a lot of experience by fighting monsters this was also unlocked. Now it didn’t seem like the obvious choice anymore, there was a new contender.

This left him with five choices: Advances Runic Mana Scribe, Runic Armorsmith, Runic Weaponsmith, Runic Battlesmith, and finally Runesmith Lord. He didn’t even take the original Runesmith class into consideration as it wouldn’t really give him anything new. There were no mage type classes available to him and depending on his tier 2 class he might be able to level up some of the basic skills past the threshold with a different class.

‘Will this Runesmith Lord let me advance my scribing skills past the basic ones? I feel like the ‘Lord’ part implies something...’

He hovered with the mouse cursor over this class but also looked at the Runic Battlesmith one. After some deliberation, he decided to go with the ‘Lord’ variant. This world had a thing about putting noble titles above all other things, so it might have been the same with these classes.

‘I can always fail the class change trial on purpose if it seems lackluster…’

With the infusion of money, he could just go buy another class change crystal. It was normal for some people to look into the trials and judge if the class was a fit for them. The trials more or less showed what the class would be about. The crafting classes required a person to fashion items of various kinds while the battle classes required you to combat. What would this one force him to do?

Maybe he would need to craft a full set of runic armor along with a weapon? That would actually not be a bad thing as he would get some free experience and knowledge with the trial.

‘Here goes nothing…’

He nodded and clicked on the icon, the PC did its thing and the VR headset popped out. It looked slightly different though, like a more advanced model. Roland looked over it before placing it on top of his head. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the tier 2 trial but that might have been the case.

Roland hadn’t been here for some years, the last time was his Blacksmithing class change. He had to get used to the flash of white light as he got transported into the trial next trial room. The first one was a smaller library where he just needed to scribe down a simple glowing rune. Then there was a smith’s workshop where he had to produce a magical ladle. Both those classes made him produce something and that is why he was confused about the trial area that was produced this time around.

He looked around and noticed that he was in some kind of large arena. It was similar to a roman coliseum that he saw in some movies. There were differences though, for one thing, there was no place of an audience anywhere, just walls.

This arena was circular in shape, the ground was covered in plain sand. There were a couple of eye-catching things here. For one there were four large gates on each side, two were made from wood while the other two from metal. The walls were quite high and stretched up to the ceiling for a good hundred meters. The area inside was about the size of a football field. There were many torches on the arched walls that lit up the place quite nicely.

There was another thing that was out of place. A lone column stood close to the center of this arena. After looking around Roland couldn’t spot anything that was similar to the other two trials. There were no instructions, no books that he could read, nothing that indicated what this trial would be.

The only tip was this place, being an arena it indicated that this would be a combat-related task. If that was true then there was another problem. He didn’t have any weapons, what he was wearing was just a random tunic. He had leather boots along with pants but he couldn’t spot any weapons anywhere, was he supposed to fight here with his bare hands? Was this Runesmith Lord class some kind of grappling profession?

‘That doesn’t make sense… there is something on that column.”

He spotted something red sticking out from that misplaced column. After walking over he recognized it as a large red button. This thing looked quite out of place, it was bright red and placed on a rocky pillar.

It had a certain magnetic feeling to it. The more he looked at it the more he felt like pressing it.

‘If I press this the trial will probably begin…’

He walked back for now, before pressing that red button he took some time in examining this whole arena from top to bottom. He looked over every gate, even pressed his ear to it to see if he could hear something. But they all had a similar feeling to the apartment building, he couldn’t really touch it and the texture that looked like wood felt off.

The rest of the arena was similar, he started running into invisible walls, and climbing the ones that were going up was also impossible. Soon he returned to the big red button, feeling like he just wasted ten minutes on nothing.

With a slight sigh, he moved his finger on the button. It was pushed in easily and it took a moment to see a reaction. The entire space he was standing in started to rumble. The pillar with the button began to sink into the ground while another platform directly in the middle of the arena appeared.

Roland stepped back and watched. The ground started shifting, it looked like the earth in the middle of this arena parted to the sides. There appeared a large hole, before he could go over to see if there was something down there a platform started to rise up. On it were several items that he was very familiar with.

“Huh? Is that blacksmithing equipment?”

He called out in surprise as he saw a large working forge along with blacksmithing tools show up before him. On this moving platform, he could see a forge, smelter, workbench, anvil, and all the other things that he always used for crafting.

The rumbling continued, apparently this wasn’t quite over. The noise this time around was coming from the ceiling above. He looked up to see another hole opening there, then a familiar object appeared. It was a giant version of the hourglass that he had seen in the two previous trials he took. This one was quite large, the sand was dropping slowly which indicated that he would have some time before the timer ran out. The big question was, what was it for?

“It’s different this time around…”

There was one thing that was bothering him. There were no books in this workshop that appeared here. What was he supposed to do? The other trials had instructions for building items but this time around there was nothing. There were all the resources and tools to craft weapons and armor but no clear indication of what kind.

Started picking up the tools and looking over them. There was no indication or clues, it was as if this trial wanted him to craft something but the choice was up to him. He stopped for a second to rethink this, if he took too long the timer would run out before he made a single item. Luckily for him, the answer to his question came in the form of a sound coming from the distance.

“Huh?”

He looked to one of the wooden gates, there was a strange sound coming from it. He listened closely while wondering if he was hearing things but there it was again. Some sort of scratching or clawing sound was coming from one of those large doors.

“What is that… are there?”

It dawned on him then, what this test was all about. The sounds coming from there were probably monsters, this was an arena meant for fighting. He put one and one together and got his answer. He was supposed to craft his own weapons and armor, then face the monsters lurking behind that gate.

“This is going to be one of those unconventional trials...”

He tried recalling the books that he had read. They all stated that the tests were class specific but they mostly were segregated into some categories like crafting tasks, combat tasks, and fetch tasks. The latter consisted of having to go through a course to procure an item.

This one seemed to be an unconventional one that combined two separate professions. Even the Battlesmith class wouldn’t require crafting to get through the trial. At most the smith would be able to repair the weapons that he or she was given.

There was also another peculiarity about this trial compared to the other ones. Roland didn’t receive any temporary skills that would belong to this Runesmith Lord class. He had no idea what this class was about without those. The trial was pointing at it being a hybrid crafting and combat class at least.

Roland didn’t have any time to stand around anymore. Now he knew that there was something lurking behind that door that he would need to kill. He had no weapons or armor, this problem he would solve by fashioning himself a weapon.

“What should I make… a sword or a mace?”

These were the two weapons that he was the most proficient in. A sword would be better on softer targets and also more nimble. The mace was good for larger slower enemies and ones that were armored.

“I would prefer a sword… but will there be enough time?”

He asked himself while going through the materials. He felt that a sword could be better for the fact that he could utilize the sword runes he knew. The mace had one advantage though, it would be easier to make and required no sharpening or pinpoint precision crafting. It was more or less just a blunt metallic club.

To make a proper sword he would require a lot more time. With the mace, he wouldn’t even need to make a separate handle or pommel. He could probably just get a wooden handle and just produce a mace head. This all depended on what materials he had, besides the mace he needed some protection.

“A mace… and a shield for now.”

The plan was made, he needed these two items as a bare minimum. If he had more time he could look into making some armor with added runes for spell casting. He was also hoping to have enough time for a few magic paddle wands.

He grasped a hammer from the side and noticed that it was made from deep steel. It was better than the hammer that he was currently using back at his home. The metals he was working with here were bronze, iron, and steel. There were some steel rods here and there but they were a bit too thin to be used as a handle. It looked like this trial wanted him to work with the thicker ingots.

There were several hardy tools that he could punch holes with preset here but first, he would need to fashion the handle. This could be done by directly molding an ingot through precision hammer blows. The next part would be the crown part, it could also be done like that but there were other options.

There were several molds here to the side. He could save some time by using one of them for the head part. Why would he do that if the end product could come out more brittle than through a regular forging method? The answer was reusability.

There were many of those gates around him. He felt like this trial would have several stages where the doors opened one by one, maybe even many times. If he made a mold for the mace crown he might be able to use it again. At least the wooden part that was made for the spikey ball imprint.

He chose to go with steel as it was a superior material compared to bronze and iron. With the molds here he could also try casting a sword directly from them. The problem would still be with the sharpening of it, a blunt mace with some spikes would be far easier to fashion. The hourglass was very slow which meant that he had a lot of time, at least for now.

First came the hammering of one of the heated up steel ingots. Thanks to his smithing skills being maxed out the hammering process went rather smoothly. Roland found how the skills in this world work to be astonishing. They kept a person at a certain level of ability, whenever he picked up a hammer or a sword it all came back to him. He knew where to hit and how hard to do it depending on the item that he was working on.

With time the shaft started taking shape. Next came the griff along with the handlebars that were on the top and bottom side of the mace, between the griff part. This was all done with skillful hammer hits all while the metal was nice and heated up. He had already worked on something like this before so the motion was practiced and natural. With time he was done and could move onto the molding phase. He needed the spiked ball of the mace to fit into the shaft and that’s why he made it first.

For some reason, there were various wooden objects here as well. One of them was already similar in shape to a spiked mace head. Maybe the trial was making things slightly easier for him. There were also various carving knives that were enough for him to get a proper spike shape for his next weapon.

The time continued to pass, there was a lack of scribing materials here though. Roland would have to forgo his spell scrolls for this test. Instead, he could make some magical wands that worked in a similar way the problem was his mana reserves. There was a certain lack of mana stones here so he would have to forget about lessening the strain on his MP.

With time the wooden version of the spiked mace head was ready. He fitted it on the thicker weapon handle from the bottom to see if everything was in order before putting it into the mold. The smelter was heated up by him beforehand, he did it to save some time.

The red hot metal dribbled down into the prepared mold that was shut tightly. It was a similar mold case to the one he used to make his first bronze sword. While it was cooling down he went around to pick up a thick enough plate of steel. He would make a quick shield with the leftover time.

This shield wouldn’t need that much forming as he could just stick to a tower shield design and would just need to rivet the handle part from the back. At the end, he would be preparing the runic structures, without them these ‘weapons’ that he made wouldn’t really be cut out for much.

Time was of the essence, the large hourglass above his head was a constant reminder of that. Soon he would have to face against whatever was behind those gates and the weapons that he had time to produce wouldn’t really be anything special. He could only hope that the added runic enchantments would let him squeeze out more from them...