The Runesmith

The sound of drilling along with metal colliding with rock-filled the mostly empty cavern. To the side, a rather bored Mystical Ruby Wolf was munching on some volcanic salamander meat while looking at its master swinging a shiny pickaxe.

This was something that had been going on for quite some time. Roland did not sleep nor did he stop swinging his mining tool while collecting various of the costly minerals. There was no time to lose, he had no idea if he would be discovered or if someone would be waiting for him at the exit.

While he didn’t think that he was spotted, he could not be sure. People with heightened senses and abilities that even his new mapping system couldn’t detect were always a possibility. It wouldn’t be hard for people to camp out near the lake and wait for his return.

This was still not a very probable outcome. Unless someone was certain that there was money to be gained they wouldn’t go through with such a scheme. At most, they would post a lookout to trail him back home. Then they would decide if it was worth the trouble to attack the city runesmith.

Even though the dwarves had continued to mess around with him, he could not be easily countered. They too had limited means of combating his runic wares that he could produce at a fast pace.

Compared to regular Runesmith his runes were always masterfully crafted, even if another smith of the runes appeared in the city they would find it hard to compete with Roland when it came to crafting these magical symbols.

“Phew… I’ve gotten some nice loot this time around.”

Finally, after working for multiple hours Roland decided to put his pickaxe down. After going through this cavern a couple of times he had a good idea of what he was working with. The most prevalent ore that he found here was Durium.

Durium from the outside looked similar to iron ore but it had a characteristic dark blue sheen to it. It was much stronger than iron but this durability came at the cost of being somewhat brittle. Thus after some research, the people found a few ways to combine this extremely hard metal with other alloys and finally produced Durasteel.

Durasteel was mostly a combination of deep steel and durium with a sprinkle of other minerals. It could also be further refined into aether durasteel which would produce items that even platinum grade adventurers would not be ashamed to use.

This would probably be the next step in his life as a Runesmith. He would finally be able to shift his focus away from deep-steel weapons and armor. The amount of ore he was getting here would be enough to get him started.

The first move would be to improve all of his tools, smelter, and forge into the better durasteel variant. With it, in place, he would actually be able to handle the other rare metals that he was also finding here, one of them was Mithril.

He didn’t find regular mithril in these caverns, instead, it was a fire-resistant variant that instead of a silvery coloring was quite crimson. Most miners referred to this ore as Volcanic Mithril due to how it was only found in places where there was lava.

This metal was even more resistant than durasteel and didn’t need to be mixed with other minerals. Most tier 3 class holders came in contact with this fantasy metal and weapons made from them were a show of status among those circles.

It was one of the more prevalent high quality metals in this world. There were only two others Orichalcum and then Adamantium which was considered the strongest of them all. Both of them were even rarer and would rarely see the light of day.

Adamantium in particular was considered practically indestructible. There were some books on it that described quite the complex process of even working with this metal. A craftsman would at least have to have a set of orichalcum tools to put a dent in adamantium. Even with them, the heat that was required to make this metal workable reportedly caused the deaths of some of the craftsmen that attempted to mold it.

The craftsman would need to be of an extremely high level. They would also need to have all of their fire resistance skills leveled up to the highest degree. From what the records say, Roland imagined the craftsman being almost forced to be inside of a smoldering inferno themselves.

Then even if such an Adamantium weapon or armor was made, the process of enchanting it or putting runes would be even harder. He wasn’t sure that even a tier 3 runesmith would be up to this task, a tier 4 class holder was more realistic.

The third metal that he was able to find again was Etherium. There were some sizable chunks that were ready to be unearthed and this would probably increase the value of his wares by quite a bit.

Etherium was a metal that was used by grand magicians for magic tower cores. They would store massive amounts of magical energy within them without suffering from any deterioration factors.

With the help of this mineral, he could produce runic weapons that would stand the test of time. By adding a bit of etherium into the durasteel mixture he would be able to boost its enchanting capabilities many times over.

In itself, durasteel wasn’t much better than regular deepsteel when it came to runic deterioration. But when combined with some etherium it would reach its true potential and be something quite close to actual mythril.

Roland smirked a bit as he continued to think about the possibilities of using all these metals. Thanks to the dwarves he was unable to procure such metals, he was also short on funds as the black market merchants were unwilling to go below market value.

He knew what they were doing. The ores that they were selling were clearly stolen through various means. Either by open robbery or just by some greedy miners that sold some on the side.

Such materials would always be sold for much less than they would normally be worth on the market. Thus they should have gone for at least a bit less on the black market. But for him, the black market was the only option now and the greedy merchants knew it.

Now on the other hand, with all this he was mining here he might be able to pull in some merchants. Though the dwarven union was powerful there were still merchants that didn’t see them as much of a threat. If he managed to produce high quality runic durasteel wares he would finally have something to bargain with.

Golems, runic weapons, and even magical scrolls. His portfolio was finally coming together and he reckoned that some of the more risk-taking merchants would finally be willing to do business with him.

While the Auction house in Albrook had been ignoring him it wasn’t the same for other cities. He just needed to strike a deal with someone that would be willing to transport the durasteel wares out of the city. Other larger auction houses were unfazed by the dwarves, in which he would be able to sell even if he was blacklisted in other places.

‘If the profits are high enough I could even go there myself, it would probably save me some money…’

Then there was option two, to just organize a little trip outside the city. There were larger gatherings of adventurers closer to the large super dungeon. There gold ranked adventures and ones above them weren’t that rare.

Roland had been cooped up in this city for a few years now. This was mostly due to his paranoia of being robbed or attacked by cult members that he once faced. Now on the other hand his store was well protected.

Thanks to Lobelia and her friends he had access to the thieves guild. With them around, he would not have to worry about getting robbed when he was gone. The dwarven union had also not sent any assassins after him as he had previously feared. They really did most of their dealings through business.

There was a limit to what they would do and killing was clearly off the table. If they couldn’t buy him out or price his store out of existence they would let it be. Roland could even imagine the little buggers coming over to strike a deal if he ever got wealthy enough. That is if they could ever look past him being a human Runesmith.

“These elokin’s crystals will also fetch a nice price…”

The second mineral that was quite prevalent here was the crystallized form of elokin’s fluid. It was quite similar to oil from the modern world that he came from. It would fetch a nice price on the market and thanks to his batteries he didn’t really need it to power his golemic creations.

While his mind was filled with the new products he would be able to create with his new stash he looked to one of his spider droids. The little guys were drilling around some parts of the ground to loosen up the ores there.

The golems that he made were still only basic products that he hoped to improve. Even though they had the same mapping feature that he had, it was hard to implement the analyzing skill into their programming. Without it there, it was hard for them to distinguish between what they were looking at.

The only way to go around it was to give them spells similar to the one he used on the mimic chest. He could somewhat help them to distinguish between normal rocks and actual minerals. With the help of the drill attachments, he could somewhat speed up the excavation process.

While the golems were there, he used his armor to fully scan the whole area. After getting back home he would use this data to improve upon the spider drones. He hoped that after improving their systems they would be able to fully distinguish between the best parts and focus on them as now they were just randomly digging around some ores.

‘I should get back to work.’

After the little break was over Roland resumed with the digging. While he could have manufactured a large drill for himself, with the armor on and his increased strength he didn’t really need to. With heavy swings and a steady hand, he was already working like a machine.

‘Hm, what’s with this wall?’

While somewhat spacing out and going through the motions his pickaxe went into a part of the wall he was working on with too much ease. It was somewhat surprising as it felt that he had punctured through it.

When looking at his projected map he couldn’t see anything past this part, no hidden tunnels or other caverns. The only two places leading out of this place were the one that he came through and the tunnel he entered together with Robert three years ago.

‘This wall… it has a strange sound to it.’

He started tapping the rocks and noticed that there was something off. From the sounds, he was getting it felt like there was space behind it but his measuring devices told him otherwise.

Curious about what was going on he decided to pick up the pace and focus on this part. With a couple of swings, he was actually able to pierce his way through this section of the stone wall.

The hole that he dug up was about the size of his head and the first thing that he noticed was some light. There on the inside, he spotted strange glowing crystals that were illuminating the space he was seeing now.

‘What is this? Another secret room inside of a secret room?’

This would be the third secret room in this section of the dungeon now. His interest peaked as this meant that there was another way to get into this room with all these resources. Maybe on the other side of this wall, there was some passage that led all the way to the large dungeon level.

‘Strange… still can’t see anything on the map.’

Roland glanced at the glowing stones that were in a couple of places. They were quite bright like light bulbs in crystal form. It was a peculiar sight as he didn’t remember seeing such bright glowing crystals in any other parts of the dungeon. Even in the part, he was in, the glow was mostly due to the crystalized mana fluid giving of mana.

The walls were also somewhat strange, they didn’t seem to fit with the inside of the cave he was in. The color of the rocks on the walls and ceiling was somewhat different. Then he glanced on the ground to spot another oddity, the ground actually had smooth tiles.

‘This is clearly another room but…’

Roland was somewhat confused by the look of this secret corridor. He had been through many others like it but the ones in this dungeon kept the color scheme. They were all somewhat in the theme of this dungeon while this one looked like it didn’t belong here.

Then there was the strange occurrence where he could not see this place showing up on his map. If he didn’t vigorously swing his heavy pickaxe around he would have never discovered this secret spot.

While his brain was telling him to create a larger hole and investigate, his instincts told him to be careful before going inside this new area. The strange lights, the way that his sensors weren’t picking up what was behind this wall, it all made him hesitate to just go inside.

‘Hm?’

Then he heard a strange sound, it sounded like something was rattling around while getting closer. He still had limited visibility through the hole that he created but being curious he remained in place to look at what was coming.

In the distance, he noticed a shadow of something. It had a somewhat humanoid shape and was slowly moving in the distance. It seemed that this corridor went into a sharp corner from where those sounds were coming.

He already realized that it was probably some kind of monster. With that in mind he placed his pickaxe to the side. Even if it noticed him he would be able to reach into the hole with his hand to cast a few spells. What interested him more, was what kind of monster would pop out. His first thought would be a more advanced version of a flaming skeleton, probably a tier 2 skeleton soldier or something close.

He was right to assume that the humanoid creature would be of the skeletal variety due to the bone-rattling sound. The fact that it was a tier 3 monster was something that he didn’t expect.

The monster was a lot bigger than the flaming skeletons or the soldier types that he saw around in this dungeon. It was even larger than he was and was clad in a set of heavy armor.

It was missing the boots for some reason which caused it to sound like a skeletal soldier instead. Its head was a constant inferno that produced flames that were almost reaching all up into the ceiling. In one hand it was holding a shield while in the other was a sword clad in flames.

Before Roland could take a closer look at this armor it was wearing it turned to face him. The sight of the monster looking his way caused Roland to quickly duck to the side. While he had gained some levels in the past few years, he was not close to battling a tier 3 monster.

‘Shit, did it see me?’

He had spaced out for a moment and made a blunder. If the monster saw him, it would probably try to chase him down. Would he last the onslaught of a proper tier 3 being? Probably not, he needed to act fast and quickly remove himself from this area before the skeleton got to him.

Agni reacted quickly as it felt the distress that his owner was feeling. Both of them made some space between themselves and the hole in the wall. Roland now had a decision to make, should he abandon this area and hide in the secret corridor or should he fight the monster that could burst through that wall any minute.

His and Agni’s safety was more important so he started to quickly back away towards the secret area but before going in he noticed that something was wrong. Even though the monster saw him for a fraction of a second it didn’t seem that interested.

Normally he would hear a bone-chilling scream before the enemy attacked. They didn’t hide their animosity for this long. The corridor also wasn’t that long, the skeleton should have been able to close the gap in a couple of seconds. But nothing happened; it was as if the monster ignored him for some reason.

For safety, Roland decided to wait a bit more while being close to the secret exit. After about five minutes of waiting he could only scratch his head. But, after going through a couple of scenarios in his mind, he came to a conclusion.

“Wait… could it really be that?”

His mind was flooded with more questions as he started to realize something. If what he was thinking was actually true then what was behind that hole was a lot more precious than this chamber filled with costly minerals.