The Runesmith

Roland’s eyes were glued to the display screen on which a table appeared. It was similar to a status page but it didn’t have any numbers to it.

“Is this my score? I guess instead of numbers and percentages it went for letters…”

This made him think of a school grading system that some countries from his previous world had.

Speed

A

Design

C

Functionality

B+

Rune Quality

A

Simulated Event

B+

Final Grade

B+

It seemed that A was the highest grade that you could get from the test. If it was anything like in his old world then F would be the lowest. While he did good on the test there was one that stuck out from the rest, the grade for design. Probably making it just a plain old square with nothing else lowered it.

“Do I need to make it look more intricate and fashionable?”

He pondered this for a moment while looking at the grading system. It was clear to him that the three bullet points that appeared on the piece of paper were the main requirements. In it were some clues for that simulated event that he was now graded on.

Perhaps if he didn’t rush it he could have gotten some better results. It was still a lamp that did its function but perhaps if he altered it to be standing up on something he would have gotten an A in Functionality. The test seemed to be lenient as it gave him a B+ for it anyway.

“Perhaps the other tests will have more bullet points that count towards the grade?”

Roland continued to look at the screen that had given him his rating. There was one small problem, even though he continued to stay there, nothing happened. The timer above it continued to tick down instead of stopping which at first made him quite confused. Did he need to do something else? Was the test not finished?

“That’s not it…”

He shook his head as he was convinced that this part of the trial was over. The small hint of what was happening was the small text under the large table with his grades.

‘Please wait’

The clock above the TV screen continued to tick down and it would take some hours until it reached zero. What was happening was probably due to him finishing up fast. Before the clock counted down to zero the next stage of the test wouldn’t start. This left him with slightly below five hours.

Now if he was correct then spending some time in this hangar to look around would probably be a wise thing to do. There were some sections that he didn’t examine and there was also the lack of proper magical tools that he was used to.

In five hours he could easily assemble some helpful items that would probably help him through the next few tests. This was probably the reward for getting an A in speed, what this trial was testing were his capabilities of assembling. He was given the basic tool for everything but would these be enough for the completion of the later tests?

While he had his theory there weren’t that many indicators that the next test wouldn’t start while he was gone. Thus for the first hour or so he was forced to remain around this area. He continued to peek at the screen while going through the shelves and gathering materials. Luckily for him, there was a section with some baskets and even a cart that was strangely similar to one a person would find at a store.

For the time being, he concentrated on gathering resources that could aid him in further manufacturing. For this, he would first need precise runic welding wands that could help him combine the various premade materials here.

From what he was seeing this was not a test on his blacksmithing skills, it was more of a test of his manufacturing skills. In some isles, he even spotted fully made sword blades that were only lacking a hilt. In another section, there were various hilts that just needed to be matched with the correct blade and correctly assembled.

In his ‘shopping cart’ he had also brought over quite a bit of mana fluid. While he had a lot of mana himself sooner or later it would run out. Crafting simple runes didn’t drain him too much but he needed to see the bigger picture.

Creating a proper power generator was impossible but he didn’t need to limit himself to it. Thanks to the many resources around he did not need to worry about such things. There was no need for him to make a generator of any kind.

Converting electricity back into mana was not needed here as he had enough mana fluid to go around. What he needed to watch out would be to contain all of this fluid in a resistant container through which he could power the tools.

For this reason, he had acquired a large drum that was made from a resistant alloy. It was a mix of some metals that he was familiar with like durasteel and deepsteel which would make it adequate.

This drum didn’t have any sort of openings for some reason but this made it perfect for his power generator. He only needed to puncture the top and then fill it up with Elokin’s Fluid. But before attempting this he would need to inscribe the correct runic patterns on the outside and also check if the drum wasn’t too thick for the runes to work. There was a certain limit at which the runes would be unable to draw the mana from the fluid but in this case, he was lucky and it would work.

‘I have the container and the fluid, even the cables…’

Roland looked at the precisely created cables through which he would be able to run the mana through into his new tools. For some reason even this was in a section, the more he continued to look around this place the more he concluded that he was supposed to alter this simple workshop.

But while it was nice to find all the materials he needed it also pointed towards a more concerning matter. With so many components everywhere the scope of the trial started to grow. The further tests would probably get increasingly more difficult and he would only be limited by his own resourcefulness and not by the supplies he was handed.

“That leaves me with three more hours… Can I do it?”

Roland looked into the distance where he could somewhat see the clock. It was ticking down normally but what would happen when it finished was unknown to him. Would it just spit out a new page or would there be something else?

He still didn’t know what the rating system was for, was a B+ even enough to go forward or did he need to get an A? There was also doubt in his mind about the validity of this Runic Engineer class that he was trying out for. It didn’t offer him any new knowledge as some of the tier 1 trials before he started them. For The time being, he could only speculate on what it would offer him in the future.

Thus while the time was winding down he concentrated on preparing his new makeshift battery that would help him use some of the tools if he ran out of mana. The process was kind of rudimentary as he only needed to heat up the metal drum with the help of the forge and hammer runes into place.

This required a lot of concentration but for some reason, the mana flow in this trial was somewhat good. There were also no distractions, it was deathly silent in here as only the sounds of his hammering echoed through it.

The whole structure was probably only an elaborate illusion that he even might be able to examine if he activated his eye skill. But he decided against that as he was afraid that he would incapacitate himself if he tried to examine such an intricate magical environment like this.

“This should do it…”

With the help of his enhanced body and skills, he was finally able to create his makeshift energy generator. From the outside, it looked like a boiler with a few sticks sticking out from it and it was also covered with various runic symbols. These stakes had wires wrapped around them which then led over to his runic wand.

This one, in particular, looked like a soldering iron and it was used for something similar. The end would go quite hot and be able to melt most of the metals in this place. This tool was made so that he could weld materials together as it was a lot faster than doing it the old-fashioned way. There was no time to produce higher quality tools like a drill yet but perhaps if the next trial was an easy one he would have enough time to tinker some more.

When the clock in the distance was at about five minutes Roland decided to leave this workshop area. It was time to find out what the next trial was going to be, probably he was in no danger of failing just yet.

After arriving he waited diligently for the clock to run down to zero. When the last-minute started he also heard some kind of strange dinging sound. It was clearly an indication that the time was running out. The numbers on the counter changed colors to red as they continued to tick down until they zeroed out.

“Huh?”

The TV that looked frozen finally sprung into life almost at the same time as the time ran out. Roland was a bit surprised the moment the next screen popped up which represented a somewhat cheerful-looking panda. It looked very cartoonish and was holding a large ‘Congratulations’ sign above its head while dancing at the same time. A sort of victory tune played to accompany the panda’s dance.

This whole thing was accompanied by some music that suddenly was cut off along with the video on the screen. The whole TV went silent and turned off as if the strange spectacle didn’t occur. Before Roland could ponder this occurrence he heard printer noises to his left. The slit in the wall started producing another piece of paper with new instructions.

‘Is this supposed to be vague to test the person changing the class?’

Roland wanted to give out another sigh as these tests were starting to annoy him. Most of the time he had no idea what he was supposed to watch out for. Perhaps next time he would do as bad as he could and fail so he could think of a better strategy in peace at home.

“Let’s see… what do they want me to do this time, this one is somewhat different.”

*A party of four, one dagger rogue, one shield warrior, one ranger, and a spear warrior are heading through a treacherous forest. Soon they will encounter wild goblins that are led by a tier 2 hob-goblin shaman, they find themselves without proper weapons. *

Instead of a list of requirements, he was given a short description this time around. He could already imagine four puppets representing these classes going into a dark forest and being attacked by goblins.

The biggest problem in this scenario was that he wasn’t particularly sure of how many goblins they were up against. They had a chieftain that was a shaman, this was something similar to a human mage that used various rituals to fire off spells.

This type of monster would use incantations in its own goblin language. It used its minions to protect itself while throwing various destruction spells at any people that it came across which made it a dangerous foe. The strategy to go against such a foe would be to somehow keep it from casting spells.

The party that he was working with did have a ranger with them. This tier 2 class was good at shooting a bow which could be used to keep the shaman from casting. When looking at the composition he could imagine the warriors protecting the ranger while he kept the shaman busy. Then the rogue could try sneaking up on the shaman for an assassination attempt.

But would that even be an option? Roland didn’t know how these ‘adventurers’ would act in the scenario. He was supposed to supply them with items that would help them survive a bout with the goblins. They all had tier 2 classes and their opponent was of the same tier, it wasn’t mentioned in the page but he expected there to be some other hob-goblins in the mix.

‘Is it enough to make weapons for them? Will it be that easy…’

He wasn’t sure, this was only the second test. It seemed that it might be up to the quality of the weapons and nothing else. This would probably be the focal point of this timed trial but it didn’t mean that he could add a few items that could shift the tide of battle.

“But that depends on how much time I will have.”

Roland mumbled to himself while looking up towards the clock that was above him. There the first number shifted to twenty-four before quickly dropping down to twenty-three. He would have a day to prepare everything which wasn’t a whole lot to make four sets of weapons.

After seeing the timer a clicking sound escaped his mouth. Before moving back to his shopping cart he decided to take a look at the glowing glass case. This one was larger than the last one and thanks to his skills he was able to measure its size accurately by just looking at it.

One of the weapons that he needed to create was a spear. These though varied in length and size quite a bit. This container had a limited capacity and he would need to limit himself to around two and a half meters. If he placed such a spear at an angle he thought it would fit.

He then quickly turned around to where he left the shopping cart, first he needed to get the parts for his creations. The spear would be one of the easier ones to create as he just needed to find a long enough shaft to fit on some of the premade spear tips that he had previously seen around this place.

The spear was one of the easier weapons to use and had various advantages over the popular swords with their superior reach. For the spear tip, he would need one with some wings at the side which would stop the tip from over penetrating during a thrust. If he just fastened a smooth tip, it could over-penetrate through the monster's body and get stuck which could cost the user their life.

Then for the other warrior, he would go for a regular one-handed sword and shield combo. As previously seen he would only need to attach the hilt along with any addons like mana stones to lower the mana requirement for the runes that would be added later.

Thanks to the names of the classes of the adventurer party he would be able to choose the correct runic enchantment. No one in this party had much mana which limited his choice to the more basic spell augmentations.

This was not a problem as he believed that this was just the part of the test. Putting on the strongest runic enchantment could be counterproductive depending on its user. Not many people would be able to use Roland’s custom runic armor as they would just get a migraine after a few spell uses. It was the same in this case where less was more.

Everything that he needed was here. If he actually had to make everything from the ground up, there would be no way for him to pass this test. But as it was, the most time would be spent on modifying the hilts to house sockets for the mana stones and then doing the runic augmentations correctly.

‘Let’s get to work.’

He nodded to himself and then disappeared between the isles of materials.