Half an hour after his chat with Flavia, Rakna was back at Old Wang's place to continue practicing his forging skills. This time, he was hammering a smaller piece of steel to make one of the throwing weapons he handled the best; chakrams. At the same time, he was trying out a new technique.
"Still a bit too much," Old Wang commented as he saw the mana spread out of the hammer's face when it struck the steel. "To properly forge magically reinforced weapons, you have to fill every gap in the metal with a very precise but minute amount of mana."
"Easier said than done," Rakna huffed.
"Haha, well, it'll come to you soon enough. Trial and error; experience and luck. They're keys. It's all about fine-tuning. I can see that you have a very good mana control but it's not all you need for this. As a matter of fact, my mana control isn't very high, as you probably have seen, but it's not what makes mana forging possible. It's more a result of your blacksmithing proficiency."
"Basically, what you're trying to say is just 'practice until you get good'?"
"Yes."
Rakna sighed and channeled his soul power as he brought his hammer down in order to make his mind as calm and empty as possible. It was a nifty trick that his soul power allowed him to do so that his concentration would be sharp and unbreakable.
He tried several different doses of mana to pour into the hammer, all ranging from 0.1 to 0.2 mana points. Ultimately, he discovered a good spot and an hour later, he had a sharpened and finished circular-edged weapon in front of him, bringing his blacksmithing up by one level.
Rakna picked it up and made it spin around his finger. He skillfully lobbed it to his other hand without breaking the spin and hummed as he tested the weight and balance. The nice thing about chakrams was that the only thing they needed was their blade and so, for the most part, it had been easy to make it.
Additionally, since he had used mana to do so, it was a lot stronger than Alzero for instance. Sadly, he hadn't been able to take advantage of the focal points as much as he would've wanted since if he had injected the strings with mana by mistake it could have shattered the weapon.
Old Wang inspected the chakram with squinted eyes. "Hm, it seems your magic element has been merged with the steel. You must have quite a unique affinity, unlike mine that is specifically meant to affect metal."
Rakna snorted. "You could say that."
"Well, since you made a chakram, how about I teach you a useful skill?" Old Wang declared and drew something in midair with his finger. It looked like a weird jagged letter and when he finished it, it ignited itself and produced a short-lived flame.
"{Runecraft,}" Higure remarked from back within the soul realm. "{What a coincidence.}"
"This is runic magic. It's one of the best and most simple ways you can have to give special abilities to a weapon. Normally, to make a weapon powerful, you can either pour as much mana as you can inside the weapon over the course of days, weeks, months, and even years. Or you can use special materials like mithril, bones, gems, blood, silver, etcetera. But, for the more mundane, you use enchantments or runic carving."
"With runes, you could for example make it so that your weapon would return to your hand after your throw it," the old dwarf explained. "So? Wanna try?"
"{Devourer, allow me to manifest,}" the lioness said. Rakna didn't mind and he mentally agreed as her ghost appeared in the smithy, though with a smaller size. Old Wang's eyes widened at the sudden appearance of a soul, but other than that, he didn't seem to be too shocked.
"{You seem to be used to this. Have you dealt with ghosts before?}" Higure asked as she created a telepathic link between the three of them.
"Not exactly… but some weapons tend to develop spirits and I encountered a few."
"{Ah, fair enough. Anyhow, I am a soul sharing Rakna's own, I'm here to tell you that I would like to train him myself at runecraft since I had reached Demi-God level when I was alive.}"
"Oh!" The dwarf exclaimed in awe as he stroked his beard. "A master of runes then. It's an honor to be meeting one."
"{Thank you for the praise but runes were never my specialty, to be honest. I had a lot of free time you see; that's what centuries in seclusion does to you,}" she said with a laugh.
"{I heard your conversation with my devourer and I wanted to extend to you a proposition. From what I understand, you have learned some runecraft because it was useful but never expounded on it because you thought your blacksmithing in itself was better than whatever it may be able to achieve, am I right?}"
"You would be correct."
"{Then, hear me out. I will teach you runecraft at the same time as Rakna as thanks for guiding him through the steps of smithing. My runecraft is more advanced than most and I know some runes that will prove themselves invaluable to your work.}"
"Oh? What kind?" He asked, his interest rising.
"{What about a rune carving that makes a weapon fix itself? Or a rune that passively strengthens the wielder? Or a cursed rune that cannibalizes materials to get stronger? Or even a blessed rune that repels darkness?}" Higure smirked as she saw the old dwarf's expression slowly morph into shock.
"{You were correct in thinking that runes aren't very useful for forging of your level. But that's only in the early stages. When you enter the territory of cursed, blessed, multi, or internal runes, everything changes. It would normally take a long time to reach that level, but with me here, you will quickly be able to at least reach Ascended level and my devourer has unrivaled talent that may get him close to my level in no time. So? What do you say?}"
"Hah! Do you really need to ask me?" Old Wang grinned. "I wouldn't let this chance pass! This may be the key I've been lacking to reach the status of Divine Blacksmith. Of course, I agree."
"{Perfect! Take a seat then. I'll show you what you're going to learn. Devourer, I will need to take some of your mana for this?}"
"Knock yourself out."
"{Haha! I shall,}" she said and with a wave of her paw, numerous runes drew themselves. They all had their own characteristics in both shape and color.
"{This is an alphabet. Each character here can be combined one way or another to cast runes. This is the most basic one. But that's not what we want. I'm here to make you masters, the index we'll use… is this one,}" she announced and a second alphabet appeared below the first one. This one easily dwarfed the other. It had nearly a thousand different variations. Even Old Wang was surprised when he saw it.
"{Don't hesitate to scrutinize it because I will have you memorize it to the very last detail. Before that, however, let me explain what we'll get into. Let's take the return function suggested by Wang as an example. To design such an effect, these two characters can be used,}" she said and two of them were brought to the forefront.
"{The one on the left is the character for Motion. The one on the right is the character for Bind. If you combined them together, you get the rune Motion Binding,}" she said as the two runic letters fused to make a new symbol glowing and emanating energy.
"{When writing this rune, you need to set two parameters; what will be in motion and what will it be bound to? The former would be the chakram, the latter would be Rakna. If you properly add those two together it makes it so that the weapon's motion will always be attached to Rakna in a way that it will always return to him after hitting or missing a target.}"
"{But! It's not the only solution. The best thing about runes is that they are extremely versatile. I'll have to admit though, they're not really good at inflicting damage since their output is low but everything else about it is top-notch. In any case, what I want to say is that there are other runes that one can use other than Motion Binding to produce the same kind of effect.}"
"{Let's take the three letters for Weapon, Blood, and Bind. This will create a Blood-Bound rune. It will bind a weapon to you through your blood. In this case, you can change the Weapon letter with an Object letter. The latter will work on practically everything while the former will only work on weapons but it will be a bit weaker. You could also use Soul instead of Blood.}"
"Question," Rakna raised his hand as if he was in a lecture. "The number of characters used in the formation; do they have a relevant effect on the resulting rune?"
"{Yes. They take more mana to use and generally, while more powerful and solid, take more time to draw. Though, runes ranging from 2 to 5 letters remain easy and fast. It's when it goes beyond that it gets a bit hard. Another question?}"
"Yes. What is the limit of these characters? Rather, what are the rules that dictate their meaning?"
"{Ah, I see what you mean. The letters over here are concepts. They cannot have an effect of their own. For instance, the rune Wang used earlier was formed with Mana and Burn, right?}"
"Indeed," the old dwarf nodded.
"Mana? Not fire?"
"{Yes. That rune takes mana and ignites it to make fire. Most elements are not concepts; they are distinct phenomena that cannot be used as 'ingredients' for a rune. Despite that, they can in fact be simulated. For example, I could use water to some extent by uniting the letters for Liquid and Flow. Or wind by using Air and Motion.}"
"In that case, where do you set boundaries? How far can the idea of 'concept' be taken?"
"{Good question. But you can have a pretty good idea of it with the alphabet in front of you. Half of these are some that have existed for thousands of years. The other half is of my own making. It comes down to the same principles as magic formations. Why is it that magic circles can be used to affect the world? The answer to that is the world itself. Or to be exact, the Worldly Magic Circuits and the Spiritual Tree.}"
"{You yourself, if you're talented enough, could invent new characters. But they all would need to be approved by the world. I admit that sometimes, it is hard to tell what is a 'concept' or not. But that is not your job, in the end. If the world accepts it, you will be able to use it as a character. If not, it will most likely explode on your face,}" she said and chuckled. "{Believe me, it has happened to me quite a lot in the past.}"
"{Regardless, this is not something that you should be bothered with for now. I will impart you the characters and runes I discovered over the years. From the simplest of two-letter runes to the most complicated twenty-letter ones. Thenceforth, at a later date, we'll attack the combinations of runes. Are you ready?}" She asked with a wide smirk and the two 'students' looked at each other with a sense of foreboding.