Cailin

The despair of being unable to go anywhere beyond Level 50 gnawed at Felix's heart, and so instead of going to sleep, he decided to go back into the game.

Of course, Felix hadn't abandoned his goal of developing his Runic Magic and solve the problem by himself, Chris himself had seen a glimmer of hope in his path, but even he wasn't too confident about it.

So this battle, or war against Blue Light, could very possibly be Felix's last chance at shining in Epoch, as by the time everyone reached Level 50, he would be the one left behind.

So he had accepted the proposition with the idea to shine as bright as he could, before his light could be snuffed out. And maybe, just maybe, he would shine so bright that he would be able to keep the light going.

So Felix started training with even more intensity than ever before, to prepare for the fateful fight. Consequences be damned, he was going to win.

For now, Felix had three things he could substantially improve before the war: his fighting skills, his Runic Magic, and his Inner Perfection Passive Skill.

Thankfully, Felix had an idea about how to improve each of these, but for now, he would focus on his Runic Magic.

So as he got back into the game, he found himself before a few guards, although this time he did not recognize any of them.

Despite that, the moment he appeared, after a slight flinch, they went for a salute, surprising Felix. Not really sure of what to do, he decided to nod, and walk past them.

They didn't say anything, so Felix figured this wasn't such a bad reaction.

This was actually Felix's first time in Red Dawn Town at night, his training had always kind of followed Chris' schedule, so he always left before nightfall.

Well, there wasn't really anything interesting to the town at night. It was dark, much darker than what Felix was used to as there was barely any source of lights, outside of the stars and the moon. However, in exchange, the sky was clearer than any Felix had ever seen on Earth.

Felix did not waste any time admiring it though as he walked towards Chris' shop, and once there, he climbed on top. The store wasn't very tall, so Felix easily reached it. Finally, when he arrived on top, he sat down, and entered his Inner World.

In terms of a Mana Manipulation, Felix was not only able to form a Rune instantly, he could form three separate ones at the same time. They had to be close to one another and he did need to think about which ones he would draw beforehand, but in any case, his Mana Manipulation clearly wasn't a problem.

Instead, Felix was still at the problem of the structure, but he had already made good progress.

Felix started with his mental exercise of forming every Rune, which went very quick as Felix now formed them three by three.

When he was done, Felix could finally start working on his Runic Magic.

The space within Felix's Inner World was static, so he didn't have to worry about speed as he tried to find the correct shape.

For now, he had the circle, in which he placed the Runes. He memorized it, and came back to himself, where he made his first test.

A 'Stasis' Rune appeared in front of him, freezing the air, before a circle appeared next to it. Then, three Runes appeared within. 'Fire', 'Grow', 'Large'.

Felix intended to add another set of three as soon as these appeared, but before he could do so, the circle and the Runes suddenly started brightening up as a flame appeared in front of Felix. It was noticeably larger than any flame a mere 'Fire' Rune could make. However, as it grew, it ate the air around it, dispersing the 'Stasis' Rune and making the flame disappear.

Seeing this, Felix rubbed his stubble as his eyes narrowed. This was progress, as he had managed to make the Runes work together. However, he had three problems.

The Mana Consumption, the Runes activating too fast, and the Spell destroying itself.

For the Mana Consumption, Felix only needed to train to lower the input of Mana to the lowest possible for each Rune, and that only required some practice.

For the Rune activation, an obvious solution came to Felix, but it wasn't a real solution. The three Runes he had manifested had worked together, so all he had to do was manifest every Rune in the Spell at the same time. But again, that was no solution.

Instead, Felix needed to find a way to only have the Runes activate when he needed them to.

As for the last problem, the 'Stasis' Rune would need some kind of protection.

All in all, Felix could see a solution for each of his problems, but they weren't optimal. To go back to the Coding analogy, Felix could already see the outline of a Code that would work to do what he wanted.

However, that code would be 10k characters long, while Felix's aim was to make a code work the same, but with only 1000 characters.

So Felix decided to continue thinking about the issue as he went to the one exercise that wouldn't need too much of his attention, resolving the first problem.

Getting back into his Inner World, Felix started experimenting with his Mana, trying to separate the smallest parts possible from it while he thought about the issues he was going through.

A part of him was also hoping he would manage to work on his Inner Perfection Skill by working on his Mana Manipulation.

Something Felix did not expect though was how hard using less than 1 MP at a time would be. But if anything, Felix was determined, and so he spent the rest of the night on the issue.

As a result, by the time dawn came and the sun bathed him in its glorious light, Felix was capable of making Runes with only 0.2 MP. His goal was 0.1, but he felt that going from 0.2 to 0.1 was harder than going from 1 to 0.2, so he was satisfied with his progress.

Felix had also had plenty of time to think about his other problems, and he had been able to find a few leads.

However, he did not act on them, as it was time for him to take a rest from training Runic Magic, and move to another practice. His physical practice.

So Felix headed for the one place where he would be able to advance in Red Dawn Town, the Mayor's Office.

Caleb was one of the best fighters within the town, but Felix could curb stomp him with ease. However, there were two other NPCs stronger than him. Which Felix luckily crossed as he arrived before the building.

[Red Dawn Mayor Francis, Level 10, Chieftain]

[Knight Cailin, Level 15, Lord]

Their level was low, which was why Francis did not interest him that much as the man was supposedly weaker than the Chieftain Ocumini. However, Knight Cailin…

Felix moved in front of them, making the two stop. Knight Cailin took a step in front of Francis, one of his hands resting on his sword, his eyes letting out a strong killing intent.

Felix ever so slightly bowed before the two men as he calmed them down, "I seek not to attack either of you. I have come with a request."

Francis patted Cailin on the shoulder, who somehow felt it through the heavy armor as his stance eased, while the mayor asked, "You are the man who killed the Apostle of Izrath, aren't you?"

Felix nodded, and Francis was quick to add, "I did not make any quest, so you shouldn't have expected any reward from the matter."

Felix felt inwardly amused by the man's attitude, he was just as Caleb and Chris had described him. A money grubber.

Felix looked at Knight Cailin as he explained, "I'm not here about that. Actually, my request is to Lord Cailin."

Both of the men looked surprised, and Francis was quick to throw Cailin under the bus as he started walking toward his office, ordering, "Then this shall be between the two of you only." He clearly didn't want to offer anything.

Now that he was alone with Cailin and had the opportunity to take a closer look at him, Felix realized he was younger than he first thought. Despite his strong build, his face looked fair, his lips were full… he almost looked girlish now that Felix thought about it…

"How may I help you?"

And the reason for that was, rather simply, that Cailin was actually a girl.

Breaking from his stupor, Felix coughed awkwardly as he said, "I hope not to be presumptuous with my request, but I would like to improve my martial skills. Unfortunately, this town lacks appropriate sparring partners… except for you, that is."

Felix was glad to see that Cailin did not immediately blow him off, but showed genuine curiosity as she asked, "Aren't you a mage? Albeit they don't usually have spears in their back."

Felix lightly patted his chest as he replied, "I am a mage, but a very special kind, and I don't want close combat to become a weakness. If my fighting skills being too weak is a worry, I would like to point out that I was able to keep up with a Level 20 Chieftain Ocumini at close range for close to a minute."

Cailin raised an eyebrow and mumbled, "That is quite impressive, if truthful. I'm not sure I would be able to kill it in less than a minute."

Felix quickly waved his hands as he refuted, "I didn't kill it in less than a minute! I merely managed to avoid any attack from it while nicking at it."

Cailin snorted with a trace of a smile, "It was a joke. I don't mind helping you, my days in this town have been uneventful, to say the least, so it would be a good opportunity to blow off some steam."

Realizing his task was much easier than expected, a large smile broke out on Felix's face as he said, "Fantastic! Where should we be training?"

Cailin turned around and motioned for Felix to follow as they walked around the Mayor's Office.

Behind the building was actually a rather large courtyard, where Cailin stopped and said, "To start off, we're going to have a first spar with everything we both have, to see where you stand."

Felix barely moved his head for a nod that a giant sword appeared in front of his face, quickly descending on him.

'Push'

Felix managed to get out of the attack's range by the help of a Rune as he lowered his body, dodging the follow up attack from Cailin as he took out his spear.

Skera moved like a snake across Felix's body as he stabbed it towards Cailin's lower abdomen. Cailin dodged the spear head, and as Felix intended to go for a second attack, he found Cailin's sword resting next to his neck.

Understanding he had lost, Felix took a step back and lowered his stance as he asked, "So, what do you think?"

Cailin easily moved the massive sword back to her as she commented, "Better than I expected. Despite the massive difference in Stats, you managed to last a few moves. Your style is quite unique, your strange magic gives you a great flexibility, adaptability and the ability to attack by surprise. Forming your fighting style with that in mind was the right thing to do."

Felix nodded, although most of that had been more instinctual than anything.

Cailin added, "Your fighting style is already rather firmly established, so what you need is experience. We will start off by sparring without any skills or magic, and with our Stats evened out. Once you are comfortable with that level, I will increase my stats to give you experience fighting stronger enemies, and if you manage to last this long, we'll train with everything we have. Any questions?"

Felix scratched the bridge of his nose as he nodded, "I'm not complaining, and am thankful for your generosity, but you obviously planned for several sessions of training. May I ask why you are so helpful to me?"