Putting unnecessary thoughts aside, Frank began collecting Mana again.
After 2 whole days of collecting, he finally filled the storage.
'It's much larger than I thought, with this amount I can enchant all Life runes'.
Frank commited to his thoughts immediately. Collecting the Mana once again, which took only 3 hours this time, Frank began enchanting Life Runes from inside and outside of Mana Storage.
With every Life Rune in the construct being enchanted at the same time, they began showing the signs of melting into green-ish crystal-like substance, covering the whole storage and making it look even less like a Runic Artifact than before.
The Life Runes that were melted didn't create runic presence, with the probing from his aura Frank discovered that there're no Life Runes in the structure anymore, even Stone and Energy Runes' presence was hidden by the substance.
'What an interesting effect, with this ‹Life Enchantment› ordinary Runemasters won't be able to detect the artifact, not even mentioning the creatures not familiar with runes'.
'Not only does it conceal runes, it also increases resilience'.
After he finished enchanting, Frank injected the leftover Mana into storage and began collecting Mana once again, he wanted to enchant the Energy Runes as well.
Frank couldn't enchant every Energy Rune in one try, so he had to be careful, only infusing runes that are far away from each other, but even if Frank was careful he was still just a novice at this, so he made a mistake destabilising the artifact.
With sweat dripping from his forehead, Frank began collecting Mana once again to complete the enchanting process.
'Thankfully, I've enchanted Life Runes first, so the artifact is resilient enough to not blow up right away'.
When Frank had enough Mana to complete the enchantment, the artifact was on the verge of disintegrating.
Quickly infusing final runes with Mana, Frank watched as magic happened before his eyes.
The berserk Energy Runes finally calmed down, slowly vaporising inside the artifact. The process was sluggish, taking a week to complete. Frank was practicing his rune control, speed of combination constructing and mana collection. He was also trying to infuse Mana into combinatons.
The combinations that were infused by mana didn't behave strangely, their effect was just strenghtened, so Frank just called them ‹Enchanted Combinations›.
Frank also tested if he could infuse mana into runes that weren't in the combination or artifact. It didn't work.
After a week the process was complete and Frank received new information.
---------------------
[Mana Storage ♦]
[Tier 0]
[Mana Storage ♦ - can store a big amount of mana]
[Mana - 0%]
---------------------
The enchanted Mana Storage looked completely different from what it looked like before.
It looked like a green-ish gray transparent icosahedral gem with a white gas sealed within. The gas was constantly moving like a saturn. No runes could be seen anymore, even when Frank was feeling with his aura, there were no runes in the artifact anymore.
But Frank did notice something else - the Mana in the surroundings was slowly converging on the gem. The speed was very slow, much slower than Frank's, but it was still very good considering that it was autonomous, not needing any concentration.
'What if... I eat it?'
To Frank, the little gem looked like a sour candy with apple taste.
'What the? Why do I have thoughts like this? This is a runic artifact, I might blow up if I eat it.'
But then Frank remembered something, he scratched his forearm letting blood drip on the artifact.
The artifact didn't explode into runes as Frank thought, but its size shrinked a bit and a sour aroma started emanating from it.
«Really?»
'It seems like the artifact read my thoughts somehow'.
Frank put the artifact into his mouth, it melted immediately flowing into his throat.
'The aroma was my gallucination it seems'.
The artifact didn't have any taste at all, Frank didn't even feel it in his mouth or throat.
10 seconds after eating the artifact, Frank began feeling heat from his lungs.
After a minute the heat became stronger, making breathing a challenge.
With every passing minute the heat was becoming stronger, Frank felt like his lungs were melting.
It was very painful, but Frank didn't worry much because he didn't need breathing to live now.
After an hour the heat was still growing, Frank was lying on a floor in the pool of sweat. The heat started stretching its clutches towards Frank's blood vessels.
Frank's blood vessels were restructuring, moving on their own, growing longer and his blood was coming out of his skin, mouth, eyes, nose and ears. The whole floor was dyed in his blood, thankfully he left his stuff on the bed.
After several hours heat began tormenting his heart.
But even after feeling so much pain, Frank didn't make a noise, he wasn't worried either. He was using his aura to observe the processes happening inside him and he knew that they weren't dangerous to his life.
After a whole day the heat wasn't disappearing at all, it only grew stronger, covering his whole body and every organ inside.
The artifacts that he absorbed before were ejected out of his body, they were drifting in the different fluids that covered the room's floor.
The changes happening to his body could be observed even without aura now, but Frank couldn't do so anymore, his consciousness was out, because the heat was changing his brain as well.
***
Frank didn't know how much time have passed when he was out, but he didn't think much about it. The information have appeared in his mind.
---------------------
[Frank Terrestra]
[Tier 0 Living Artifact]
[Abilities:]
[Growing Aura - Serenity]
[Rune Control]
[Mana Control]
[Stats:]
[INT - 1,5 (4x) (Im4x)
CON - 2,1 (4x)
STA - 2,3 (6x) (Im3x)
AGI - 1,8 (2x)
DEX - 2 (6x) (Im3x)
STL - 0,3 (1x)
SEN - 1,44 (1,1x to Touch)
{Sight - 1,24 (2x)
Hearing - 1,1 (2x)
Smell - 0,84 (1x)
Touch - 2,4 (6,6x) (Im3x)
Proprioception - 1,8 (2x)
Temperature - 1,5 (2x)
Intuition - 1,2 (2x)}]
---------------------
«How in the world?»
Frank was absolutely unprepared for this, he didn't think that he will turn into artifact. He didn't even know that it was possible, there was no information about this in the book.
'It seems like I'm not even the ‹Runic Artifact› but something else, because my soul-body isn't made out of runes'.
Closely inspecting his body, Frank was surprised once again.
'I thought that my organs will just change to accomodate mana, but this is on a whole other level'.
Frank didn't have ordinary organs anymore, not like he needed them too much. The only things that were left are the sensory organs, the ‹lungs›, a ‹heart›, the ‹blood› vessels and a ‹brain›. Frank didn't have a skeleton, a mouth and even reproductive organs.
Frank's remaining organs were different from ordinary as well. His ‹lungs› were like jelly with a gas swirling inside, they weren't for breathing oxygen, but for breathing mana. The lungs were directly connected to his ‹heart›. The heart looked like an enchanted Mana Storage, but bigger and with white ‹blood› vessels connected to it.
The ‹blood› vessels weren't moving blood but mana instead, so Frank will call them mana veins. The mana was pumped into mana veins by heart, the veins were spread to every part of his body, but they were only one way through, meaning that the mana going through veins didn't go back to heart, it was expended fully. The heart was pumping just enough mana for body to function, while the excess mana was stored in the heart.
The brain was in the form of a sphere inside his head, with mana veins connected to it. Aside from mana veins there were other tubes connecting the brain with every sensory organ aside from the ‹skin›, which performed the feeling of touch by itself somehow.
The sensory organs were in the form which Frank imagined them to be, like his whole body. His body was made out of a material which could easily change its form to anything he imagined, but it needed to be big enough to accomodate his ‹organs›.
Frank didn't know if he was considered a soul still, so he tried consuming soul energy floating everythere in the crypt.
'It's even faster than before, so I'm definetly still considered a soul'.