runestones

As the large influx of magic and energy course through him, Alex exhaustion caught up with him, finally making him faint.

Woking a few hours later, Alex grunted under the soreness he felt, stronger than the one of the previous day. Feeling all sticky and sweaty, he rapidly undress, before entering the bath, not bothering to heat the water.

Unplugging the small pipe, Alex nearly moans at the feeling of cool water rapidly filling the basin, washing away his soreness and accumulated filth. After soaking a few minutes, Alex felt his force return, greater than before.

Knowing what it means, Alex called for a function he hadn't used for a long time.

'Status.'

[Name: Alexander Dòmaldr Evans]

[Age: 12]

[Race: Evans]

[Familia: Skadi]

[Status: Captain]

[Rank: Level 1]

•Strength: I0

•Endurance: I0

•Dexterity: I0

•Agility: I0

•Magic: I0

[Skills]

•Pocket space H

•Frost F

•Parseltougue S

[Magic]

•Craft magic

•Evans (sealed)

[Pocket space: An extra-dimensional pocket housing the holder items. The lack of connection to an outer dimension made living organisms impossible to survive if oxygen is needed.

Current side pocket: Time stops, 1/10 of the pocket space.]

[Frost: Resistance to extreme temperature (-75 C°; 300 C°).]

[Parseltougue: Ability to communicate and order to snake-based bloodlines creatures. Increase in magic potential when used in spells.]

[Craft magic: magic able to extract, modify and deconstruct matters, restricted to touch.]

[Evans: Shapeshifting ability allowing the entire expression of the holder bloodline. complete change: following holder height.]

~~~

Alex stays frozen for few second at the sight of the re-vamped status. On one side, he now possesses the power to accumulate Extalia, bolstering his growth significantly. On the other hand, it apparition could conflict with a pre-existing Familia.

'Well, it's not like it matters for now. I have no plan on entering Orario for the time.'

-It would also be beneficial for your excursion to the Dungeon. Now, each time you would kill a goblin, they would make you stronger. You are also registered as the Familia' captain, meaning that this world Skadi isn't in the lower world.- Commented CS, examining the Flana.

Hearing and knowing the last fact reassure Alex.

'I might as well made use of the rest of the day.' Though him before exiting the bath.

Fetching the gems and cores, Alex sends probs in them, trying to determinate the extend of their capacities. The first thing he discovers was the Monster cores. The few exhausted or partially used were rapidly recovering. This was due to the influence of the several Dungeon cores, feeding magic to them.

Analysing the feedback he obtains, he learns without surprise that the five gems of variant had a larger pool of magic stored inside. Due to the magic present, Alex magic, he would need little to craft them.

-Seem their exposition to your magic had overcome the wild one.-

'Seems so. This will make thing easier.'

-How so?-

'Those gems basically act like diamonds. Its means that I would be able to re-create and use my craft like I am used to. The sole difference is that I need to set a sort of boundaries to keep the magic inside.'

-Will that be difficult?- Frowned CS at the slight disparity they showed.

'No.' Dismissed Alex' CS worries.' I just need to add a layer of magic steel that would connect the gem inside to the outside. The good thing is that I had the model already made. It's similar to the anti-apparition and anti-portkey ward, mixed with the entry point that allows those travel methods in the warded area. In sum, I set up a 'barrier' all around the gems, while some 'exit' point is left open, allowing the flux of magic when to indicate. Even then, I will only need those on the gems, not the Dungeon core.'

-How so?-

'Because I was thinking of using the gems as runestone. Those stone can be considerate as 'active', needing a trigger to activate. The Core, on the other hand, will be more of 'passive' item. Those items need a constant stream of magic to kept activated, like the expanded pouches and the like. If I really need to put a stopper on them, It could be built in the item itself, there no need to overload the core.' Explained Alex to CS, making it understand, and immediatly simulated the best configuration.

~~~

CS didn't need much time to complete those simulations. With his knowledge of runes interaction, the pieces of information transmitted by Alex about the proprieties of the gems and cores, and his past experiences, it was only a question of seconds.

-Done. The best shape for the gems is an octagon. Change the two side-shape, into a tri-sided one, two faces, plus a side in between.- Projecting the image as he explains, Alex, followed Cs advice and turned his first gem into the required form.- Good, now, the magic steel layer on the edges, they will serve as boundaries and trap the magic in the form. You will need to insert the layer in, not above, nor under, but at the same level that the surface.-

Morphing it again, Alex extracted treads of the block of magic steel, drawing a line on the edge, who was, in fact, small inter-connected runes forming an anchor ward.

-All that left is the spell you what inside. The best would be a rune-written spell, in a concentric form. After that, you need 'link' runes connecting the circle to the edges corners. Each corner need their line of links runes, or the entire set-up would turn unbalanced and impose, I don't need to spell what would happen.- Warned Cs, after delivering the last of his instruction at the construction of the runestone.

Alex sweated at the through of the rune powered explosion it would trigger. With the already existing magic inside, would at best shred his hand.

~~~

Unlike the wand-created spell, the rune-spell had all a similar manifestation, AOE. This is due to the runes themselves. As they didn't require a medium, the spell would activate from the entire surface since the gem is. Since the runestone had a large surface, and the magic moving from the centre to the edge, the spell would manifest as a field.

Due to this method, the spell would keep their original power; the only difference would be the radius covered by the AOE. Since Alex is now in a word with the magic-resistant creature, if he wants his runestone to work on the stronger monster, he will need to craft runestone from stronger gems.

Due to the set-up need to create them, Alex didn't use any of his runes' syllabary but parseltongue based one. The fluidity of the language and its serpentine origin, give naturally winding runes form, making them perfect for forming interconnected circling runes.

~~~

Creating those runestones turned out to be an exhilarating activity for Alex. He needed to continually craft the gem to allow the magic steel treads to shape into runes. Still, he also needs to concentrate on the treads and focus on keeping the lines of the already inscribed rune connected, the whole while feeding magic in a delicate and precise dose.

Never before creation of his required him to separate his attention on five simultaneous tasks.

By this some exercise, he could feel his knowledge of rune work progress by leaps and bounds, after stagnating for several months back then.

When he finished his first runestone, Alex immediatly pours a large amount of magic to seals the magic steel, activating the runestone at the same time. The purple gem was now lightly glowing with a neon blue light from within. An additional boon of the crafted runestone was the fact that the light was too intense to allow anyone to observe the runes set-up properly.

Taking the runestone in hand, Alex threw it away after sending a single pulse of magic inside. Set-up on the modern grenade model, the runestone would activate five seconds after receiving a magical anchor pulse.

For now, he was still working on securing them. While it was simple, the actual mean should protect them, since there wasn't any method of registering and storing one magical signature here. Even then, he wasn't dumb enough to let this blatant flaw for too long.

~~~

As the runestone sailed in the air, Alex and CS focus kept locked on it. As the five-second run-out, a deep red globe flashes, the runestone at the centre of the ten-centimetre radius.

A vindicative smile blossomed on Alex's face at is the successful creation of a stunning runestone. Feeling his reserve of magic still sufficient for few more, Alex immediatly returns to the crafting of other runestones.