The Path of Ascension 2: A LitRPG Adventure

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But he was neither of those, so he needed to make a choice. He could carve deeper to ensure that the runes didn’t get destroyed in a clash, but if he went too deep or messed up, he would ruin the items.

These weren’t meant to replace their own weapons forever, so Matt decided to do a single rune in only the item’s spirit.

An item’s spirit was different from a living creature. It was mostly a static mirror of the item, but some deviation could occur.

Quickly scanning the items, he found no irregularities, and flipped a spare shield that was a near copy of the one Camilla wanted to use.

Directing his mana with his spiritual sense, he outlined the item, and connected the perimeter line to the area where the rune would be carved.

At least with a single rune, this will be somewhat easier.

Matt was using a major Tier 5 run that he had saved in his database, durability. It would strengthen the shield by convincing the weapon’s spirit that its physical vessel was meant to be in one piece.

It wasn’t perfect, and if too much stress was put on the item, it would shatter. The stress would cause the rune to stop functioning, and the shield’s spirit would no longer have any assistance with keeping it’s form together. This change would cause the structure of the shield to disintegrate.

Over the next seven minutes, Matt put 15,000 mana into the rune and parameter lines. It was fairly cheap, as it was only a single rune. But all enchanting was mana expensive on the scale of a run of the mill crafter. It was the main reason why they stayed in cities. There, they could use mana from the city’s reserves instead of relying on their own.

A normal craftsman would either buy the mana, or take out a mana loan, and repay it over weeks or months, depending on their regeneration rate. Most simply paid with mana stones to cover the cost as they were worth more than the mana they contained.

Matt didn’t have either problem, and slowly followed his AI’s overlay to carve the rune and lines into the shield.

Runes grew more complex as the Tier increased. In some ways, they were like skills, with complex three-dimensional structures. At least at the lower Tiers, the runes he had seen were much simpler.

Matt developed a much higher opinion of the smith who had made his current blade with three runs and a skill as he scanned it as a reference. He wouldn’t even attempt the three runes, let alone getting a skill into the Tier 5 weapon as well.

It was like the smith had painted with the smallest of detail brushes, while Matt was using a massive paint roller. The difference between the amount of detail that each of them could fit on the same wall was night and day.

Just looking at how the man recreated the skill’s structure in his weapon gave Matt chills. It wasn’t as complex as the true skill’s structure. The version in his sword was stripped down and simplified, but it was impressive, nonetheless.

After seven minutes of channeling his mana generation into the item, he finished, and connected the rune to the outer edge.

Leaning back, he prepared for an explosion. But when nothing happened, he knocked on the shield to test it.

It held up.

“Huh. I didn’t break it.”

Camilla looked at him funny and asked, “Did you expect to?”

“Honestly? Yeah, a little. I neither enjoy this stuff nor really practice it that often. This is delicate work, especially for an amateur like me.”

Matt noticed something wrong as soon as he finished his statement.

He put the rune in the wrong way, and the back of the shield was reinforced by the enchantment, instead of the front.

Trying not to let anyone see him, he put the shield to the side, and intended to break it later while he was on watch.

Moving to the next practice item, he repeated the actions like before. This time, he ensured that he put in the rune facing the right way.

With the third item he tried to practice on, he didn’t connect a perimeter line correctly, and it caused the item to crumble. The loose mana ripped the item’s spirit apart, and the shock ripped its physical form apart. There was no way to salvage the materials. Even the wooded parts were now only good for scrap, as they had turned to dust.

Over the next few hours, he kept practicing. Only one in every three failed, but eventually, he was able to enchant everything with a durability rune. He wasn’t trying to get fancy, and it would allow everyone to participate in the melee.

Malcolm would finally have more than the light leathers he was wearing. The chainmail he had picked out was a little large for him, but now he wasn’t quite so liable to die after a single stray blow.

Matt also had enchanted shields for everyone and put the two remaining successes in his spatial bag. Unfortunately, this shop didn’t have enough shields for more attempts at acquiring enchanted gear to sell, with all of his failures eating into its stock.

They lowered the watch to a single person, as all they had to keep an eye on was a door. It allowed them each to get a little more sleep, and Matt was able to prepare a large breakfast during the final shift.

After they started moving again, the group quickly moved toward the area that Malcolm’s Talent directed them to.

It wasn’t another staircase this time, but instead an elevator shaft.

“Is this where your Talent is telling us to go? Really?”

Liz looked skeptically at the man, who was peering down the dark shaft.

“Yup. And it’s strong as well.”

Camilla shined her light down the shaft, but it revealed nothing. Shrugging, she asked, “Are we supposed to jump or something?”

Everyone raised their eyebrows at her, while Liz poked the woman’s unarmored arm.

“Matt would be the only one to probably not splat. We may be Tier 5, but we aren’t that durable yet.”

Matt ignored the quibbling and pulled his flying sword out, judging the length. Setting it free, he hopped onto the sword and sunk down, before bobbing back to talking height.

“Is your Talent giving you a floor?”

Malcolm waved his hand back and forth. “Ehhh. It feels deeper than we’ve been yet. Whatever way my Talent is taking us, it’s either avoiding something, or this is the only way in.”

With those extremely vague directions, Matt dropped a plate that he had enchanted with a quick and dirty light rune, and watched it fall. As the dull light descended, he slowly followed behind it. He went down nearly two hundred feet, before the runed plate finally landed on a platform jutting out from in between levels.

There was a very obvious place on the platform to input mana and make the platform move. It was reminiscent of the style that the Empire used. It ensured that the elevators didn’t trap anyone if the city ran out of power.

Sending a message, Matt asked for the others’ opinions. None of them wanted to risk powering the platform. They had a way up and down with his sword, and using it was guaranteed to not activate something else.

Matt took Liz and Malcolm down first. If something happened at the bottom, Liz could defend the both of them. Camilla and Aster could defend themselves at the top of the shaft while he was in between trips.

While he didn’t say it, Matt was also pretty sure that he could catch them if they jumped.

Once they were all down, they pried open the door near the platform, only to find more darkness.