(Second Book Complete!) Runeblade: A Delving & Skill Merging LitRPG

**Ding! Skill Merged! True Sight obtained!**

Kaius let out a whoop of joy as his latest legacy skill spun into existence. Crystallising into a new nexus of power that joined itself with his other merged skills to orbit his soul. A grunt from across the room made him snap open his eyes. His exclamation had roused Porkchop, his friend sitting up from the day bed he had been napping on to look at him with curiosity.

“Sorry bud.” Kaius grinned. “Just merged the skill.” He explained.

Porkchop grunted, stretching wide before rolling off the seat with a shake of his head.

“What’s it do?” Porkchop asked, sitting down on the plush rug that sat in front of the central fireplace of the office.

“Lemme check.” Kaius said, pulling up the description of his latest skill.

True Sight:

Level 1

Unusual

See to the heart of the matter, harness the burning light that reveals all.

Skill that reveals the true nature of reality, including the energy that runs beneath it. Potent sources of mana and aura may be blinding.

Each level reasonably increases mental processing of visual stimuli.

Each level reasonably improves skills ability to overcome hampering effects.

Each level moderately increases ability to see mana and aura.

Each level moderately increases visual and mental acuity.

Each level moderately increases ability to counteract and resist all natural and magical effects that hinder direct observation, including darkness, illusion, and blinding.

Merged from: Low Light Vision, Mental Visualisation, Sense Illusion, Sense Mana, Identify, Eagle Eye

Even without the description, he could tell it was much more integrated that his smattering collection of skills had been before. For one, it was far less intrusive and painful that Sense Mana and Eagle Eye had been. He could see the faint illusory wisps of atmospheric mana suffusing everything, yet it did not drag at his eye. Nor overpower his sight. It was just there. The wood of the desk across the room was brown, subtly textured with woodgrain, and had slightly higher than average densities of nature, earth, and plant mana.

A new dimension to an existing sense, rather than a new one that vied with it for dominance. Same with his increased acuity. When he looked at Porkchop he could make out each and every individual hair on his friend’s face, but until he really focused it all just faded into the background. Filtered until it was needed.

Kaius spun his head, looking around the room in wonderment. It was so perfect, so easy in comparison. He could see what his father had meant. About this being such a cornerstone of his family’s strength. Most ocular skills were hard. Burdensome. They sapped at the mind, requiring intense focus and high skill levels to truly make the most of. Worse, they could easily be a distraction. This was different. It felt as natural as if he had been born with it. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, he could tell that if he ramped up the skill to full power it would still be somewhat overwhelming. It was still better, and he knew that as he trained the skill, it would eventually stop being an issue.

Though, there was one question that burned in his mind. Something he hadn’t expected from the skill, and knew nothing about. What the hells was Aura?

“Kaius.” Porkchop said, chittering in amusement. “Stop staring at daisies.”

“Sorry,” Kaius said. “Just got a little sucked up into it.” He blinked a few times, adjusting to the new constant presence of his skill. He hadn’t tuned it out yet like he had with some of its components. He was pretty sure he didn’t need to.

Refocusing to give Porkchop his full attention, he launched into an explanation of his new skill. Pausing momentarily when he got to Aura.

“Do you know what that is?” Kaius asked. “I’ve never heard of it. My father never mentioned it either, though if he thought it was important he would have.”

“Sort of.” Porkchop said, tilting his head back and forth. “It is an oddity. One the matriarchs says appears in lots of merged ocular skills. No one in any of the dens had been able to figure out what it does. Even with some spending a LOT of time looking. Mine has it too.”

Kaius looked at his friend in surprise. “You have an ocular skill?” He knew that Porkchop had a full complement of legacy skills, but they’d never really discussed it in depth. Especially not after he had yelled at his friend for telling him he had any in the first place. At first it was out of a sense of propriety. Revealing such information about yourself simply wasn’t done without absolute trust.

They’d reached such a point months ago in Kaius’s opinion. After so long trapped down here with Porkchop, trusting him with his life day in and day out, trust barely began to describe their bond. He felt like a brother.

“...do you want to tell me about your skills? I’m happy to tell you mine, both what I have and what I’m aiming for.” He said, looking away as he awkwardly scratched his ear.

“Finally!” Porkchop shot up to attention. “I’ve been waiting for so long. I know you two-legs are weirdly cagey about your skills, but this has been ridiculous. We have been den-mates for months!” His friend said, punctuating every word with an excited chitter.

Kaius smiled. “Yeah. Sorry about that. Is it better if I just sort of …forgot? I’m not really used to talking about it with anyone other than my father, and he has the same general skills.”

“You forgot?!” Porkchop snorted. “Of course you did. I’ll go first. We are encouraged to focus our skills on a specific area, especially for our largest legacy skills. I chose to lean into my natural strengths. My first skill, Savage Arsenal, is focused on the weapons I was born with. Improving my fighting. My teeth and claws are strengthened, able to tear more easily through defences. It makes wounds bleed more, and they are harder to heal.”

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Kaius nodded. It made sense to him. Even if he did have more skills available to him, he likely would have kept his first legacy skill, or picked something like it. Improving your lethality was simply too vital. Maybe someone who sought a different path would feel differently, but to a delver or beast it was a simple choice.

“Mine second is similar, Warforged. It’s an almost pure mastery skill for any form of weapon, though it does boost the power of my swings a little.” He said.

Porkchop cocked his head, looking at him quizzically. “It affects all weapons equally? Then why do you stick with your sword?”

“Well. For one, it’s just simply better than anything else we have found. Mostly, it’s because focusing on a single weapon will make it far more likely for the skill to evolve in that direction during my class up, especially if I use the weapon enough to influence the class itself. Warforged is good, but unless I made its flexibility the focus of my development, it’s far too broad. Too niche.”

Porkchop flicked his ears, accepting Kaius’s explanation without comment. “Makes sense.”

Their conversation continued. Kaius listened intently as his friend continued to share his legacy skills, sharing his own in turn. Much like Porkchop had explained, his friend’s build was surprisingly focused. Inexorable Vanguard increased his friend’s momentum, made him harder to knock back, and made him a devastating force once he had set his targets on something. Boundless Vigour vastly improved the efficiency and speed of Porkchop’s healing, made it far more effective at purging certain types of toxins, and allowed the wholesale regrowth of lost body parts.

That one in particular had surprised Kaius. It sounded eerily similar to one of his own legacy skills, yet stronger and more encompassing. It made sense, it was a merger of eight skills, while his Lesser Regeneration was made up of only three.

Porkchop’s seventh legacy skill was Ironbodied. It seemed a close pair to his own Adamant Body, though far more focused on improving physical resilience, including specific bonuses to resisting impact, and allowing his friend to survive and persist through the kinds of injuries that would otherwise prove fatal. That, he thought, was most likely what had kept his friend alive after the Grimclaw had mauled him so utterly.

His sixth, Fortress of Pugilism was a straight shooting mastery skill, though this one focused entirely on improving and enhancing all forms of unarmed combat. Slightly different from his first, which was entirely focused on enhancement instead of mastery, but together they were a potent pair.

Next his friend told him about his skill Spell Resistance. That had made Kaius perk up, yet another skill that was similar to one of his own. In this case Rapid Adaptation. Though this time it was Porkchop’s skill that was the lesser of the two. It aided him in resisting arcane influence across the board. Primarily physical spells, such as being hit by a conjured stone, would still injure him just as easily. Even though Kaius had a long way to go until he acquired resistance to things such as crushing or bleeding, he would get there eventually. Evidently his own skill was unknown to the meles, because Porkchop completely froze when he told him.

“What!” Porkchop barked. “That is ridiculous! If I had known of that skill I would have picked it instantly! It’ll make you practically unkillable once you get the skill high enough!”

Kaius pushed his hair behind his ear, unable to help but feel a little awkward at his friend’s unabashed jealousy. “It is pretty good. Not quite that good though.”

“Still!”

“Let’s just move on.” Kaius asked. He was already having difficulty with sharing something he had been sworn to secrecy on, so Porkchops blatant fascination with the skill made him a little uncomfortable. Though, in his friend’s defence, despite his fascination he didn’t even hint at Kaius to tell him how it could be acquired. For that, he was grateful.

Porkchop looked like he was about to burst from the effort of restraining himself from asking more, but he acquiesced all the same. Changing the subject to share the rest of his skills with Kaius. Crystal Manipulation, which gave him the ability to manually shape crystal mana, or use that mana to gain control of crystals themselves. Like all aspected manipulation skills, Kaius knew it still allowed control of unaspected mana, but to a lesser degree.

It was a mirror to his own upcoming legacy skill Mana Manipulation, though his was far more generalised. It would let him manipulate unaspected mana with ease, and gave a far lesser degree of influence over the other aspects.

His friend also shared his final two legacy skills. Primal Senses, which provided a broad boost to his friends sensory capabilities, and Natural Celerity, which empowered his bodily control, surety of footing, and other various forms of agility.

When it was Kaius’s turn, he explained the final skills he was working towards. Runic Lexicon, which empowered his learning and application of runecraft, especially in regards to the scripts he used to merge the skill, and Mana Manipulation. They were to be the focus of his coming months, and he refused to move on until he had acquired them. With both he would finally be able to work on his body formations, and hopefully practise his casting. He wanted to get in as much as he could in their final run up to fighting the Guardian. It was absolutely vital that using runic spells had a high degree of influence on his class, especially using them in tandem with his blade.

Porkchop agreed with him. More than happy to have an extended rest from their constant and frenetic pace through the Depths. Beds and cooked food were a luxury entirely foreign to him, though Kaius noted that his friend had quickly picked up an appreciation after they had spent the night in the barracks.

Kaius took a slow breath. He’d felt like he could feel his father’s gaze burning a hole in him the entire conversation. Aghast at his sheer flagrant honesty about the capabilities of his family’s legacy. Still, it wasn’t like he had gotten nothing in return. Porkchop had been practically falling over himself to tell him about his skills. Plus, it felt good. To finally share. He hadn’t realised it, but keeping the secrets of his dynasty to himself was a heavy burden. Sharing them with a friend made him feel just a little bit lighter. He only had one more left to go, the final skill he would get before choosing his tenth skill on his own.

“The last one in my legacy is Uncanny Dodge. It’s supposed to make you far better at dodging unseen blows, but I doubt it’s anything too crazy. It’s only a merge of two after all.” Kaius finished with a deep breath, looking up only to find Porkchop staring at him with an easy grin on his face.

“Thank you for sharing that with me. I could tell it was difficult.”

Kaius looked away, hiding his embarrassment as he waved his friend off.

“It’s fine. Say, I think I saw some potatoes down in the kitchen.” He said, changing the subject. “Have you ever had stew?”

Porkchop cocked his head, looking at him with curiosity. “What is potatoes?”

“How about we go find out.” Kaius said with a grin, rising to his feet to head to the richly stocked kitchen on the first floor. Porkchop bounced to his feet and hurried after him.

Tomorrow he would start his work on Runic Lexicon. For now, the only thing he could keep his mind on was a hot meal, and the room sized feather stuffed mattress he had spotted in the manor’s master bedroom.