Runic Magic

"Well, I can't let people step on my toes and say nothing. Besides, I wanted to see if there was a worthy opponent here. I hope your Guild Leader won't be as much of a disappointment."

By saying this, Felix hoped to make Ishim feel humiliated, as that was the whole reason he was here. Unfortunately, Ishim was not as prideful as Felix hoped he would be as he merely sighed in response, sheathing his blade back.

However, he hadn't given up. Instead, he looked ready to draw his sword out.

"Let's not waste any more time, then. Why not end it with one blow?"

Felix looked at him, and after a moment he started walking towards Ishim. The swordsman tensed as Felix approached, but Felix never attacked as he walked past Ishim.

"I have better things to do."

Ishim stood frozen, listening to Felix's footsteps as he left. After a while, he turned around to see his back, but he did not attack. In the end, he sat down on the ground, looking at his blade in a daze.

As for Felix, the moment Ishim couldn't see his face anymore, a smile appeared on his face. Being an insufferable arrogant master was fun.

Him being disappointed was nonsense. Sure, Ishim was lacking, but the true reason Felix didn't go to the end with this fight was that he didn't want to waste time and energy on him.

He expected the Guild Leader to be tougher, and he wanted to be in good condition to fight him. Besides, while Ishim was lacking in Magic, his swordplay was masterful.

The only reason Felix felt some measure of disappointment, however slight it was, was because he internally compared Ishim to Cailin.

Through their week of training, Felix had gone from fighting her without any Skill and with the same Stats to fighting her with her true Stats and the ability to use Skills.

And that's exactly where Ishim was lacking. It might sound strange, but Ishim was actually more of a threat every time his Skills were on cooldown and when he relied solely on his swordplay, as his poor mastery of his Skills made his attacks telegraphed.

However, this was relative to Cailin. Compared to the majority of players, Ishim's grasp on his skills was great, but he wasn't fighting someone from the majority.

As for Felix, while he did not have any close combat Skills, he not only knew how to counter them, he was also able to use both his Runic Magic and his fighting skills together.

For this battle, Felix only showed a part of his prowess, as had he picked up the speed and used his Runes to the best of his abilities, Ishim wouldn't have lasted more than ten moves.

As he walked away from Ishim, Felix couldn't help but reflect on how far he had come in a mere month.

His Curse had been quite absurd, as while his future was seemingly cut off from him, the speed at which he had learned everything he had learned was outstanding. Ishim probably was a master of many years, yet Felix had managed to keep up with him through sheer fighting skills.

Of course, his greatest achievement was his Runic Magic. Through the past week, Felix had managed to finalize his idea, creating the first Active Spells Felix got.

Well, Felix wasn't sure about the semantics, for a simple reason. The System did not recognize his Spells.

If Felix opened his Status Sheet right now and looked into the Skill section, here is what he would see.

[Curse of ?], [Basic Fire Resistance], [Inner Perfection].

That was it. Those were the only three skills he had, according to the System. But as evidenced by his recent fights, they were far from the only Spells he had.

Somehow, the System deemed his Runic Magic as Magic, but his Spells weren't Spells. A part of him did feel like he should have expected this, as no Spell was created with his single Runes either, but in the end it didn't really matter.

As with Smithing, all the System would have brought would have been stability, so in a sense, this could be better for Felix.

After all, the main strength of Felix's Runic Magic, apart from its extremely low cost, was its flexibility.

After all, the only common point between his Spells was the structure. To deal with his problems, Felix had incorporated the 'Stasis' Rune into the Runic Circle, right in the middle. The rest of the Runic Circle was filled with intricate lines, not to make it look pretty, but because these lines allowed the function of the 'Stasis' Rune to be fully incorporated into the Runic Circle.

This had two effects. The first, to stop the Runic Circle from activating before all the blank spaces left for the Runes were filled out. The second, was to stabilize the whole thing.

The intricate lines allowed the Runes to fuel each other, and that included the power of the 'Stasis' Rune. As a result, the air around the Runic Circle becomes even denser than if the Rune was on its own, which was why the Runic Circle did not crumble upon itself instantly.

Felix had also come up with names for his Spells, since the System wasn't being of much help here.

Single Runes were Zeroth Circle Spells. They weren't true Spells, as if they had to be categorized they wouldn't even match up to E Rank Spells, but Felix still wanted to give them a name.

As for the more advanced version, Felix called them First Circle Spells. In power, they were even more powerful than E Rank Spells, and were about as strong as D Rank Spells, according to the power of those he read on the Internet.

Of course, Felix's Runic Magic wasn't all powerful, and also had its caveats. While its main strengths were its low Mana Cost and flexibility, raw strength would then be its main weakness.

When using a normal Spell, the strength of said Spell would not only depend on the Spell itself, but also on the Mage's Intelligence, as well as their weapon, if they used one.

As for Runic Magic, it was all about the Runes. It didn't matter how much Mana he poured into the Runes, the effect would always remain the same. So his Intelligence and the weapon he used were actually inconsequential to the effect of the Spell.

In other words, despite the great weapon Felix had gotten for himself, the Staff of Long Winter, holding it wouldn't actually make him any stronger. Well, of course, he could still use its skill, but that was it.

That served to show Felix that his path was the right one though. A Runic Mage should not only depend on their magic, for that would be a waste. Instead, his equipment should be there to enhance his physical prowess, and that was exactly what Felix had been doing.

That did not mean his Intelligence Stat was useless, however.

While in broad terms Spirit was Mana Quantity and Intelligence Mana Density, that wasn't all there was to those two Stats.

Intelligence also improved the innate control one would have over their Mana, while also, more importantly, increasing mental prowess. This was quite the important thing for Felix, as it was his ability to process information quickly that allowed him to use his magic the way he did.

One thing to note though was that the low Mana cost was somewhat wasted on Felix. With his increased control over his Mana, Felix was actually able to draw the whole Runic Spell using only 2 MP. With his Curse, that made for 20 MP.

As for a D Rank Spell, it would cost around 20 MP, so Felix's Curse did screw him over as it meant the only real advantage his Magic had over others was flexibility, while power was an issue.

Felix did not find it so bad though, first because there was nothing he could do about the Curse, but also because even without the Curse, if he had to choose between the flexibility offered by his Runic Magic and the might of the more conventional Magic, he would still choose Runic Magic.

With conventional Spells, one would base their entire fighting style around the Spells, and also be very limited against one's enemies. For example, a Cryomancer like Zara.

Ice Magic was very strong against physical opponents because it slowed them down and weakened them, beside the damage. But as strong as Zara was, what if she fought against an enemy that was immune, or at least greatly resistant to ice damage?

On the other hand, Felix did not have to act with his Spells in mind. Whatever the situation, there should be at least one combination of Runes that would make the right Spell to resolve said situation.

Of course, there were limitations to that flexibility. First and foremost, there were 102432 variations of Runes in total, so mastering them all was no meager task. According to Chris, that was Grandmaster level knowledge after all.

Felix already had that covered, but that wasn't the only difficulty. Not every combination of Spells worked. For example, if Felix tried to make 'Light' and 'Heavy' work together, nothing would happen.

First Circle Spells having around 6 Runes in general in them, and the number of Runes only going up with the rank of the Spell, finding the right Spells was not exactly easy.

Felix couldn't even take inspiration from Warding and Enchanting either as Runes had to take into account the medium through which they are used.

For example, taking only Enchanting as an example, the Enchantment to put a Fireball Enchant on an iron sword would be different from the Fireball Enchant carved into a steel sword. So using Spells on air was even more different.

For now, Felix had managed to make up quite the number of Spells because they weren't very complex, but he expected things to get quite a lot harder from Second Circle Spells and onward.

Well, not that Felix had to worry about it for now, he was still experimenting with First Circle Spells, and there would be some time before he started tackling the Second Circle Spells.

As Felix was in deep thoughts though, Thousand Streams suddenly appeared next to Felix, saying, "I found their Guild Leader. Are you ready?"

Glancing at the thief briefly, Felix replied, "It's what I came here for."

Thousand Streams smirked, and led the way.

---

"I'm sorry, Guild Leader. I was unable to stop him."

Isaiah, who was standing outside of a cave, grasped his Communication Token tightly.

"What the hell are you all doing?! 2000 people, and you couldn't even stop a single man? A Level 10, nonetheless."

"He is not alone. A Thief has been harassing our troops, and a Guardian has also appeared. They have been messing with our troops, and made it hard for us to regroup properly."

Pushing a finger up his nose bridge, Isaiah said with a troubled face, "I don't care about your excuses. Gather the remaining troops, and form a perimeter around my position, before methodically searching the map. Use the monsters if you have to, but find them, and kill them. We can't have them interfere with our plans."

"There won't be a need for that."

Isaiah jerked his head to the side, because the voice didn't come from his Communication Token. Nor was it Ishim's.

"So you are another servant of Izrath, Isaiah."

Isaiah frowned at the man, and asked, "What the hell are you doing here, Drakon?"