Daeson gave Dan a short period for rest and recovery, but all too soon Dan woke up to a hand on his shoulder as Daeson dragged him out of bed. Blearily, he returned to the inscription laboratory to continue his work. This time, the project was much more manageable. Rather than create the permanent runes that would be the foundation of his personal enhancements, Dan only had to inscribe the enchantments themselves. Unfortunately, manageable did not mean easy. Even if it would be possible to remove or overwrite the runes later, it was still painstaking work, with each rune taking almost two hours to craft, even with the aid of the System. Without the System, it flat out would have been impossible at Dan’s level of skill.
The more he reflected on his initial crafting, the more Dan realized how lucky he had gotten. Apparently, most young elves being inscribed were put into magical comas for months to years while master runecrafters painstakingly crafted each glyph and double checked to ensure that there would be no negative reaction. Daeson flat out admitted that the only reason he let Dan inscribe himself was because he was “bored” and found the idea of the human “crippling himself in his hubris” rather funny. Only the greatest of elven heroes had successfully inscribed themselves, and even then, only in epic poems that had more an aura of myth than history about them.
Even with the System, there had been a thousand moments when the pain caused his pen to waver, and he stood a mere moment from absolute ruin. The worst of it was that he was in such a haze the entire time, he had never realized how bad his situation was. Without the System patiently correcting his errors even as they compounded, there was almost no chance whatsoever that he would have survived activating the runes.
This time, Dan only selected three runes to slot into the regulation inscriptions. The first was a defensive series of runes that worked by layering force mana just above his skin to cushion blows. The second was a utility rune that utilized both space and lightning mana to increase his reflexes and speed. The third was an offensive rune that used force and gravity mana to increase his brute strength. None of the runes were terribly simple, the runes to thin and layer the planes of force on the first runescript as well as the mana combination apertures on the second and third runescripts were particularly challenging. Still, given the more limited scope, the crafting went much smoother. After only about ten hours, with occasional multi-hour breaks to rest between runes, Dan finished the remaining scripting without any other major incident.
Feeling like a butterfly pinned in a book underneath Daeson’s gaze, Dan clenched his jaw and ran mana through all three runes, one-by-one. For a couple seconds, Dan felt warmth and some tingling, but it was nowhere near as bad as his initial activation. With all of the runes operating at their basic level, each consumed about as much mana as a sphere produced. Dan relaxed slightly as his senses confirmed his and the System’s predictions regarding the runes’ mana draw. A large part of the reason he had stopped at three enhancement runes was simply a question of load management. His current rank couldn’t sustainably support more runes, and he didn’t want to find himself in a situation where he had to turn off runes mid-combat due to low mana.
That said, each of the three inscriptions also had a high output mode where they would operate at about 150% efficiency for 250% the cost in mana. It was hardly efficient, but Dan didn’t want to be in a situation where a little bit of extra strength, speed, or durability would have been the factor that saved his life. Over the past couple of nights, he had already begun working on versions of the same runes with an overdrive 200% setting, but for the moment, he suspected that shunting that much power through his current body would probably rip it apart. An interesting idea for the future, but not something that would help him through his immediate problems.
Experimentally, Dan hopped into the air to try out his new muscles, only to bounce off of the metal ceiling with a dull thud. After having confirmed, at the cost of his dignity, that both the strength and armor runes worked, Dan stood up, rubbing the slightly sore spot on his head.
“Well, it worked, that’s for certain.” Daeson was laughing his ass off at Dan, his lips already stained red from the large mug of mulled wine in his hand. “Wait until Jareth gets a chance to see you. A full-fledged neophyte human battle mage with just a little under a year’s worth of training. With a thousand of your children, I could change the face of this war, Daniel. Never mind the Orakh, the dwarves and the Myrruk Republic would fall before the Tellask as well. I would own a world and a House of my own.”
“I trained on my own for a bit over a year before I met you.” Dan shrugged. His head still hurt from smashing it into the roof of the room, but it was more like having a ball bounce off of your head while playing sports than the hammer blow it should have been.
“Psh,” Daeson blew a raspberry and took another sip of the mulled wine. “That was rudderless training. Without a master or a direction. In the grand scheme of things, it means next to nothing. Rather than be a contrarian, let me enjoy a victory drink in peace. Go run the obstacle course a couple times to get used to your new body. We need you ready once night falls.”
Dan sighed as he left Daeson behind in the laboratory. The elf was right; increased strength and speed hardly meant anything if he wasn’t familiar with his new limits to actually use them. Overswinging in a fight could be just as dangerous as being too slow to avoid a blade or claw. Still, even though he should expect it by now, having Daeson completely ignore his achievements as anything but a reflection of the elf’s teaching stung.
Both of them were just using each other, but over the last six months Daeson had transformed from a competent but distant tutor to a drunken braggart. Dan wasn’t even sure that elven mental health worked anything like human psychology, but if he had to put money on a diagnosis, he would peg Daeson as a narcissist. Dan had lived with enough of those to know that the elf was a toxic factor in his life.
Worse, Daeson had lately been more and more willing to take sloppy risks with Dan’s life. It really was only a matter of time before the elf got drunk reminiscing about the good old days and did something to him that even the System couldn’t cure. Now that his runescript was active, maybe it was time to start looking for a way out. Not tonight, Daeson would be watching too closely, but sometime soon, an opportunity would present itself.
The obstacle course was a good idea. It helped acclimate Dan to his new strength and speed, and it helped him focus. After dealing with a round of agonizing “pranks” that had almost cost his life, only to be shoved into a dire combat situation for no real reason, Dan needed some way to blow off steam. He really only could suck up to Daeson for so long. One of these days, he would mouth off to the elf, and all hell would break loose.
After ten consecutive runs, each faster than the last, Dan stopped and stretched before running through a few basic sword forms. Finally, satisfied with his new mana-enhanced strength, Dan activated his status.
<USER> Status
Rank 3
Body 6(8)
Agility 7 (9)
Mind 7
Perception 6
Spirit 22
Skills
Swords 7, Brawling 3, Archery 2, Runecrafting 5
Affinity
Space 11, Lightning 10, Fire 8, Gravity 5, Force 5
Enhancements
Armor Rune V, Strength Rune +2, Agility Rune +2
Runes+
Spells
Shocking Fist 8, Spark Field 2, Lightning Stroke 7, Spatial Shield 6, Flame Jet 4, Gravitational Easing 5, Fireball 6, Force Bubble 5
Roughly a 20% increase to Body and Agility and a level up to Runecrafting. That all seemed about right. Even the Armor Rune was pretty straightforward. It consisted of five paper-thin sheets of force folded on top of each other, so it was named Armor Rune V. At least this time there wasn’t some sort of forceful override from afar forcing him to name his abilities according to Henry Ibis’ eclectic tastes.
Dan put on his torn chainmail and sharpened his sword on a nearby whetstone before settling into a meditative pose to focus himself for the upcoming night. He wasn’t terribly sure why Daeson insisted that he meditate, but it was an effective way to pass the time. Finally, Daeson strode into the room and Dan stood up wordlessly. The elf was drunk as hell, and he already had another bottle in his hand. Maybe he wouldn’t even need to escape the mansion. Unless Daeson had a potion of liver repair on hand, cirrhosis would do a better job of taking down the elven archmage than Dan ever would.
Dan stepped outside the mansion and glanced back at Daeson where he stood just inside the ornate runescripted pillars that provided the building with its defenses. The elf leered briefly at him before winking and activating the shield. With that, Dan exhaled and marched into the increasing gloom as the way back closed behind him.
The first twenty minutes passed without incident, outside of the eerie howling from what Dan suspected were the stalkers. He wracked his memory for the threats posed by a night outside. Between Nora’s stories, Daeson’s books, and his own brutal experience, he had a fairly decent picture of what he would be facing.
Stalkers, like the giant winged wolf he’d encountered earlier, would patrol the sky while gaunts prowled noiselessly, attacking the will and emotions of anyone unfortunate enough to be outside sanctuary. One could be fifty paces away, and he simply wouldn’t know until it struck.
At least behemoths were straightforward. It was hard to confuse a couple tons of rampaging gorilla monster for anything else. If one were nearby, it would make its presence known via an immediate and straightforward attack.
Then, Dan heard the sound he was expecting. The soft, almost ghostly beat of muffled wings overhead. He closed his eyes and counted the beats as they grew infinitesimally louder until suddenly they stopped.
That meant that it was gliding, and gliding probably meant swooping. Dan kept his eyes closed and launched a fireball into the air above him, set to detonate at fifteen feet. A half second later, heat washed over him, singing his unruly hair before it dissipated. Dan’s eyes flashed open as an unearthly screech filled the night. Quickly, he stepped to the side. The stalker, stunned by the sudden flash of light, slammed, still smoldering, into the ground where he had stood. Before it could recover, Dan stepped forward and activated the high-output mode on this strength rune. The same blade that had struggled to even wound a stalker almost a year ago cut the beast’s right wing off in a single blow.
Dan danced back as the creature thrashed to and fro, its severed wing twitching spasmodically on the hard ground. Dan deactivated his armor and strength runes to conserve mana. Smiling slightly in the darkness, he raised his left hand and fired a Lightning Stroke from it into the stalker, causing the creature to twitch and spasm briefly. Then, he alternated to fire and detonated a fireball about six inches in front of it, placing his left arm in front of his head to shield his vision from the burst of light.
A second later, he was sprinting forward. His first blow took the beast in its wolflike head. Even with his enhanced strength, it wasn’t enough to finish it, but the blow clearly concussed the monster, causing it to bonelessly drop to the ground for a split second. That moment was all it took for Dan to shove his sword through the side of the creature’s neck and pull downward, severing its windpipe and arteries.
He stepped backward, almost casually letting a claw swing past his face. The stalker gasped fruitlessly as it tried in vain to breathe. Another claw thrust at Dan, but this time the blow was slow and clumsy as the stalker weakened. A third and final blow didn’t even make it within feet of him as he stood still, watching the monster bleed out.
A smile split across his face. This had been his bogeyman. The creature that almost ripped him apart and forced him to run to Daeson with two crippled arms and barely a breath left in his body. Now? It was almost easy. Even before the mana rush hit him, Dan began laughing exultantly into the night air. After two years of striving and practicing, it was finally paying off. He was more than some random bravo with a sword and a bad sense of hygiene telling strangers that he was an adventurer. He was powerful.
Then the stalker’s last breath rattled out and the mana hit. It was delicious. Heat, ambrosia, and lust all rolled into one. Clouds of cotton-candy-flavored euphoria sprouted from the air around him. He had forgotten how much mana the first stalker had. They put all of the other monsters he had fought to shame.
As he stood, arms akimbo and his face to the night sky, beaming in the midst of the mana high, a chorus of howls erupted around him. Somehow, the other stalkers had sensed the death of their brother, and they were coming for him. This time, Dan didn’t fear them. This time, they were just mana begging to be harvested.
