The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 773: The Runic Spell Mold Tool

People could make runic tools if and only if they knew the spell and had the skill to inscribe spells on the metal. At least, that was how it had been for centuries in this world. Tonight, Damian was trying to change that.

The way spell-inscribing worked: a runesmith needed to have the skill to create mana nodes inside the metal, keep them all in a connected path—no fixed shape in that—and then chant the spell, use mana threads to connect to that spell in the air, and then put that spell inside the metal while connecting as many nodes as possible.

That last part was not an easy thing to do at all. Neither was the beginning part, where one had to create hundreds of mana nodes and keep them stable while doing everything else. A runesmith was equal parts a master of crafts and a master of mana control. It was hard to assert such minute mana control over different spells, which was why the runesmiths chose to only specialize in certain spells, just like mages.

Not one runesmith could master it all—at least not in one lifetime. Well, at least that’s how it was supposed to be, till Damian ascended and broke all norms. To this day, people did not believe he was a real runesmith. Most thought he was some special esper able to create unnatural and irreplicable runic tools.

The time was around 2 AM. After a tiring day, Damian had enjoyed a nice dinner with Lucian and had rested for some hours. To them, sleeping was optional. After spending some time together and showering, Damian was at his desk while Lucian herself had gone up a floor—which was hers—to review the curriculum her attendants had designed for the academy.

They weren’t alone in doing this. Damian could sense that even Souldealer was awake and seated at her desk some floors above his.

After a long scribbling of ideas, Damian had two somewhat valid options here. Delegating the runesmithing workload was a must for his future sanity. He would love to make something big and complex, but making the same thing thousands of times felt like a punishment. He didn’t want to live a life becoming a slave to his work. His major focus in everyday life was to give the right people the right job and just take a step back, observing and guiding them.

The first option was to make a runic spell mold tool: a runic tool of the specific spell Damian wanted to have mass-produced, but powered by individual runesmiths’ liquid mana. With the chanting out of the equation, the runesmiths would only have to connect their mana threads to the spell, add mana nodes in the metal, and place the runic circle inside.

Of course, they could not see the runic circle. Normal runesmiths went around with only feel and a blind hope that their mana threads would connect to the runic circle. They didn’t even know it was a runic circle they were connecting their mana threads to.

With his runic spell tool, they could do this. Actually, the biggest problem people had while doing this—activating the whole spell before connecting the mana thread—Damian could solve by making a runic tool that wouldn’t activate the spell at all, even after completion. He could place exact markers where they needed to connect their mana threads. With his runic mold tools, spell-inscribing would be 40% easier than it ever was.

But there was a catch in this method. First of all, the runesmiths would have unrestricted access to his spells, and they could make hundreds of copies of whatever spell he gave them behind his back, which was an issue but not that big. It was like making his spells open source—he just needed to be careful about what spells he gave to the public. Another catch was that, other than the mana nodes, the runesmiths would have no control over their creation’s rank at all. Which was okay for mass production, but individuality would cease over time. That too, however, was fine since real runesmiths passionate about their work would find a way to work on their own projects alongside completing non-mandatory orders from him.

The second method Damian had thought of was to simply build giant metal factories, gathering thousands of runesmiths, having them do the mana nodes part, and then simply using the runic mold tool in front of him—powered by his liquid mana with a switch instead of their own mana—so he could simply connect his own mana threads to thousands of runic circles and place the spell inside the product himself.

This had many issues, starting from no one getting crafting experience to wasting the major time of craftsmen. Snatching people from their personal work environment to have them work like robots for a few coins. Damian would have his full spell security, but everything else was just plain bad. He didn’t like this idea at all.

Still, in times of emergency, when he had to build something powerful, the spell of which he could not afford to make public, he could use this method. It was a transcendent-runesmith-level method, and probably only he, with his total mana control of lower-rank runesmiths’ creations, could possibly do that.

At last, Damian decided to do both. The main method he shared with the local runesmiths and blacksmiths was, of course, the first one. But he also planned to build a personal runesmith team with hundreds of runesmiths to mass-produce dangerous things on his own in a secure location. He would have to attract major talent from foreign lands for that, though. Right now, he needed some simple products being mass-produced—he could make those public products.

The next morning, the fourth-floor large meeting hall in the Sanctum building was half full with the craftsmen Damian had invited. A lot of them were there; he had not expected this many.

Just as Damian entered the hall with two of his assistants, all stood up, doing the commoner bow for meeting nobility. Damian stopped them midway and told them to take a seat, even though he and his two assistants, Velen and Hester, were still standing. Hesitatingly and looking around, the runesmiths and blacksmiths took a seat.

Damian greeted them and tried to explain the concept of the runic spell mold to them in as much detail as he could. First, he tried to explain the thing in simple words, but they didn’t seem to grasp it fully. But when he started explaining the runesmithing method from scratch and explained what things they wouldn’t have to do if they used his mold, he saw the majority of them widening their eyes in disbelief, with murmuring going around the hall.

When people started looking at him as if they were not sure what to do with the information, Damian said,

“Ask anything you want—your doubts, the runic mold tool’s explanation, or any other thing.”

A few of them raised their hands. Damian was already impressed. The raising-hand method was something he had put in the rules of the House of Lords’ discussions, to not have hundreds of people speaking at once. There was even a Chief of Lords position he had made for exactly this one reason. Good to see people being knowledgeable enough to know what was proper.

Damian gestured at one of the burly, mustached guys with rolled-up sleeves. The guy stood up,

“Lord Keeper, correct me if my understanding is wrong—are you saying you have made a runic tool that activates a pre-inscribed spell so we can place it in the new runic tool we are making?”

Damian nodded. The guy added then,

“I am sorry, but how is that any different from any runic tools available in public? The process of mana pouring and spell activating is too fast for any normal person to extend his mana threads and get the spell in control. In fact, that is the main reason why our tools are not that easy to copy.”

Damian smiled. “Yes, you are right. That is the problem—or a feature, one might say—in using an already inscribed runic tool to inscribe another. But the runic mold tool I have here is slightly different. You see, I have used such a version of each spell that they won’t activate even after the needed mana is poured in the tool.”

Damian raised the sample runic mold tool he had made last night among the noises of understanding and curiosity, and added,

“After you use your mana till it takes, and then you flip this little switch here, it will stop the spell from activating. Call it spell-freezing, if you will. Once you have the hot metal full of mana nodes ready, you simply have to extend your mana threads and connect to the frozen spell, taking all the time in the world, and then simply flipping the switch the other way, the spell will unfreeze. But by then, with your mana threads, you will be able to control the spell. Understood?”

A loud collective yes resounded in the half-full hall, along with some applause and even more chattering and words of disbelief and doubt. Those who understood the full gravity of what Damian had just said had their eyes wide; even their breathing had stopped. Those who didn’t understand it fully—mainly the blacksmiths aspiring to be runesmiths after ascending—were impressed by Damian making something that would remove the spell-mastering process entirely from the runesmithing process. They were even looking around, confused as to why the runesmiths were in shock and not as happy and impressed as them.