Runeblade-Chapter 186B2 : The Second Spell

Kaius shook his head at Porkchop’s antics, though he couldn’t help but agree that his latest glyph—Aelina—was rather graceful in its design.

As soon as the system retreated and left him with a new mark on his flesh, and knowledge in his mind, he felt the familiar ding of a system notification.

No doubt it was his waiting spell-hymns. From what his class guide had said, it would involve some level of hands-on guidance from a system construct—similar to the space he had arrived in to select his class.

Still, he was unsure of how it worked. Would he make the choice there? Or beforehand? If he jumped in right now and it was the former, he would lose all of his ability to discuss their thoughts on what could benefit them as a team.

Thankfully, the problem was easily solved by simply asking. From what Ianmus had told him, the way he learnt spells wasn’t uncommon amongst sorcerers, and Kaius was all but certain the man would know the answer.

“Oh, yes! I hadn’t realised that you didn’t know.” Ianmus nodded enthusiastically at his question. “It can vary, as the system has a tendency to personalise itself to an individuals needs, but generally you can expect to make the selection much like you did with your class skill—often it is only when someone is in danger, or they have an extreme predilection to lengthy decision making, that they go to the system space for their actual choice.”

That was a relief. Sharing his options would not just help him to more clearly work through his choices and direction, but would help him uncover the secrets of his class. Skills built on skills, so every spell choice he made would inevitably have some level of effect on the kind of options he would receive in the future.

With someone as knowledgeable as Ianmus on hand, he could hopefully get some insight on what their long term effects might be. After all, if there was a good spell for individual one off utility, but it led to him receiving more and more options of a similar bent, he wasn’t likely to pick it.

“In that case, let’s dive right in.” he said, bringing up the waiting notification as he bent down to put his boot back on—no point in giving Rieker even the smallest advantage by letting him see the glyph when he returned.

**Ding! Spell-hymn available for selection!**

Yellia’s Slip Step:

Runic Hymn - Tier I (Translocation)

Affinity: Space, Dimension

Glyph: Aelina

80 Mana

Selection Available!

This Hymn partially submerges the user in slip space for 10 steps, lengthening distance travelled and intermittently rendering them incorporeal.

…

Galewind Dash:

Runic Hymn - Tier I (Mobility)

Affinity: Air, Storm

Glyph: Aelina

60 Mana

Selection Available!

This Hymn summons a howling tailwind that drastically increases movement speed and seeks to disrupt incoming attacks.

…

Ingrid’s Localised Downness:

Runic Hymn - Tier I (Translocation)

Affinity: Gravity

Glyph: Aelina

50 Mana

Selection Available!

This Hymn temporarily reorients the effect of gravity on the user to be directly beneath their centre at all times for 1 minute.

…

Defensive Transference:

Runic Hymn - Tier I (Mobility)

Affinity: Kinetic, Martial

Glyph: Aelina

200 Mana

Selection Available!

This Hymn infuses the body with an energy field that will absorb and store 70% of the force of the next attack weathered—up to a certain limit. This stored energy may be used to empower a single step at 300% efficiency.

Reading each of the spell’s descriptions, Kaius leaned back into his chair bodily and crossed one leg over his knee.

It was a wide array of exactly the skills he was hoping for, though while all were movement related it was plain to see that they all had a clear bent to either defense or utility.

Slip Step and Defensive Transference were the most immediately interesting to him. Both would serve something he distinctly lacked—active defense and evasion.

The former seemed like it would be fantastic for unblockable and unavoidable attacks, especially as his glyph levelled. Afterall, he had no doubt that both the amount of steps he would take, and the amount of time he would spend incorporeal, would grow. That, and increasing the distance he could cover in a step would no doubt be disorienting as all hell for his opponents.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

On the other hand, Defensive Transference seemed…potent. A massive reduction to incoming blows, combined with a way to explosively create or close distance? The only major downside was its comparatively extreme cost—though even that would grow far less of a hindrance as he continued to level.

Kaius turned to his team members, taking the time to run them through his options, and his thoughts on the spells. Running his hands through his hair, he asked their opinions. With how torn he was between both spells, he hoped there was something that would make it a clear cut decision.

“Slip Step, without question!” Ianmus was surprisingly vehement with his response, clenching the armrests of his chair in a white knuckle grip as he half rose from his seat.

A moment later, the half-elf coughed as he realised that both Kaius and Porkchop were staring at him with half tilted heads.

Slowly lowering himself back into the chair, he cleared his throat. “Sorry. But you said it was a space and dimension affinity? Truly?”

Kaius nodded. He knew that they were generally good affinities for certain types of spellwork—and he would have to be an idiot not to see how that fit into movement spells—but with the relatively modest capabilities of Slip Step he hadn’t realised that it was such a big deal.

Ianmus smiled, his eyes practically sparkling. “Unbelievable. I know the strength of your class, but you clearly don’t understand how rare it is to see something of that affinity in the first tier, let alone so early.”

“Spit it out! Why is it special?” Porkchop interjected with a snort, getting a teasing roll of the eyes from Kaius in return.

Though, he did admit that he was also curious—he had always assumed they were uncommon because of the rumoured complexity of the spells that involved them, rather than an inherent trait of the affinities themselves.

“I was about to!” Ianmus defended himself. “Like I was saying, those affinities are esoteric —similar to void, aether, time, and others—those are incredibly rare in the second tier, and only get slightly more common as you rise up.”

The half-elf paused, gathering his thoughts. “Both Space and Dimension are considered some of the best affinities for translocation and mobility spells that exist. If you continue to pick them, you have a solid chance of evolving your overall glyph skill to specialise in them later—that is your best chance to get some sort of instantaneous movement skill far before you would otherwise.”

Kaius rolled his hand through the air, encouraging the half-elf to continue.

Ianmus grinned, clearly more than happy to expound on the minutiae of mana theory to an eager and willing audience.

“From what we know thanks to historic records, and contemporary examples, true translocation spells—teleportation, skip jumps, portals, relative substitutions, elemental drifts, and the like—start to appear at the second tier for Space and Dimension. Other closely aligned affinities such as liminality, void, time, and light start to get such abilities in the third—and as far as we know affinities of a generally ephemeral nature such as air, storm, fire, and shadow start to appear in the fourth. At least, so we believe from the little we have been able to gather from history and watching the elves, dwarves, and others who live in high mana regions.” Ianmus explained, the pace of his speech growing faster as he fell into the rhythm of his thoughts.

Kaius raised an eyebrow when his companion mentioned knowledge of the fourth tier—even if it was only vague. He hadn’t heard of any public facing fourth tiers in the human settled central regions, and as far as he knew that had been the case since the calamity that was the shattering of the empire.

Though it wouldn’t surprise him if there was more than one old monster who kept growing in secret. He knew one thing for certain, there were either none, or there were multiple keeping each other in check.

With the tendency of dynasties to dominate, if one man had such an advantage, they would move brutally and endlessly to wipe out all potential threats to their lineage—and secure as many legacies as they could.

“What of more physical affinities? Like crystal, or wood?” Kaius asked, noting that they had been left out of Ianmus’s explanation.

“We don’t know.” Ianmus said with a shrug. “The Eternal Emperor was the strongest in Vaastivarian history at an estimated tier five or six, and he was a time affinity skirmisher—he’d had a translocation ability since the third tier. That said, it’s a little beside the point. I think the potential benefits of Slip Step’s affinities make it a clear winner, and I think that if you get offered another spell with the same affinities when your skill reaches level one-hundred you should take it, even if it is subpar compared to the rest. If you do that, I would be shocked if you don’t get a skip or blink ability in the second tier—even if the skill doesn’t evolve to specialise.”

Kaius nodded along to the man’s words. A blink ability would be worth it; he’d take two useless Common spells if it was enough to make it a certainty. The sheer tactical usefulness of such an ability was too much to ignore.

Though, a blink was not the only thing he would be pleased to get out of such a tendency towards an affinity. Evidently he wasn’t the only one.

“What of longer ranged spells? Like a gate?” Porkchop asked their resident expert.

“A gate? Unlikely.” Ianmus replied with a shake of his head. “Gates and portals are high tier spells, and ones that often require lengthy channeling time at that. There's a reason runic ones are so rare and tightly controlled. I’m not all that sure that they align with glyph-binding very well—if it did ever appear it would have a truly momentous mana cost, not the best when it will tie up your mana until you use it.”

A good point, in Kaius’s opinion. As much as he adored glyph-binding—the skill was everything he had ever wanted it to be—nothing under the purview of the system was without checks, balances, and drawbacks.

For him, spells of occasional use and a high cost were far less useful than they would be to free-casters and sorcerers. Having too much of his mana pool reserved would severely limit his overall effectiveness, and even if he could technically simply wait to inscribe the spell until it was needed, it was still far less usable than it was for other mages.

After all, inscribing took far longer than channelling an equivalent spell—the whole benefit was that he could do it ahead of time.

Still, if he got the option of a portal or planar gate, he would take it in a heartbeat. Hopefully he wouldn’t need to though.

“What about teleportation?” Kaius asked.

“Maybe.” Ianmus replied, scrunching his face with uncertainty. “Tier three is much more likely—still, the more spells you take of those affinities, the more likely it is to happen.

Follow current novels on ƒreewebηoveℓ.com.

“Oh gods, yes.” his brother turned to him. “Kaius, take the spell. The quicker we can stop walking everywhere, the better. And by we, I mean me—carrying you is fine, but walking sucks.” Porkchop said, immediately jumping onto the wagon.

Kaius laughed and made his decision right then and there. It had been down to the knife’s edge anyways, but who would pass up an opportunity to teleport in the future? Besides, Slip Step was a good skill in its own right.

“Well, that’s good enough for me!”

….

One moment he was deep beneath the earth in a stone hall, draped in bloodsoaked armour and sitting on finely upholstered furniture. The next, he was clothed in simple cotton, standing before a familiar hearth inside of the office where he had learnt his first class skill.

“Hello, Kaius, it is good to see you again so soon.” A warm voice said from behind him, weathered and mellowed by age.

His voice.