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

Kaius laid his hands on the flat of the blade, feeling the cold chill of the inscribed steel. Breathing deep, he emptied his mind, allowing himself to come to a slow calm.

In tune with his senses, he felt the world.

Chill steel, the weight of his armour pressing on the familiar softness of his travelling clothes. The sturdy support of his brother against his back, the caressing warmth of a summer’s night wind, the low crackle-pop of the fire, the grit of the dirt worming its way between his pants and boots. All of it.

One by one, he noted the distractions, and one by one he let them free to drift across his mind.

He centred himself, and his heart slowed.

Ready as he ever would be, Kaius let his eyes fall shut and he drifted into his internal world. Fresh from his experience earlier in the day, immortalised like it had been carved from adamant by the system’s will, the shape of his latest glyph came to mind.

Both ends of the link were identical, but he knew that he had to start with the one on his body. It was an anchor, and the waypoint his sword would use to connect to him more fully. The conduit through which it would bind itself to his ascension, empowered in lockstep with his own growth.

Soul-bonded items were rare things, only whispered about in rumours and legends, but he knew more now. The system had granted context along with its glyph. Material infusion might have been the way A Father’s Gift would increase in rarity, enabled by his glyph to improve both its enchantments and its construction, but it was the link itself that would lead to more fundamental growth.

Once bound, truly bound, on a level far more fundamental than the base connection they already had, it would climb through the tiers of power in unison with him. Evolving to new heights in conjunction with his class.

Thank the gods he had gotten the skill so early, he would have hated to think of the loss if he had waited for some other skill to evolve a linking functionality.

Another slow breath quelled the musings in his mind, and he focussed on bringing the shape of the Bladerite to the forefront.

Much like Drakthar it was imposing in its complexity, a three dimensional knot of sacred geometry and half understood formations. Unlike his first glyph, its shape and essence was far less brutal.

Where Drakthar was all sharp points and cutting edges, the Bladerite was flowing movement made of smooth curves. It drew the eye to its angles, sweeping the gaze with increasing speed before it would bank into a hairpin turn, morphing into acute lines that would cut across the whole working.

If he was honest with himself, he understood sweet fuck-all of how it worked, beyond being able to vaguely identify four separate arrays. One in the centre, with three others overlapping and subsuming it.

Still, it was a gorgeous piece of runic work, one that called to mind the flowing grace of swordwork, and the beauty that could be seen in an immaculately executed sequence of moves. Speed in consistency and measured control.

Thankfully, he did not need to understand the fundamentals of how the glyph worked to trust that it would. The system was many things, but it was not deceitful. That, and he knew he would have the skill’s own aide in its construction.

Sharpening his mind’s eye, he pulled the glyph into focus, until it hovered in the black with as much clarity as if it had been lovingly sculpted from silver wire. Still, with how mind-bendingly complex the working was, it was easy for individual parts of the image to fall out of focus, blurring as he lost track of the individual details in the mash of geometry.

Slowly, patiently, he retrained his mind on the problem areas. Sharpening the image over and over, until the glyph held steady in his mind. For anything else, it would have been agonising having to rework the same sections again and again.

Thankfully, the Bladerite was a thing of sublime beauty, and he had no problem spending time lavishing every hairsbreadth of its length with his attention.

**Ding! True Sight has reached level 31!**

…

**Ding! True Sight has reached level 33!**

Finally, he was ready. Kaius started to weave.

With the new grasp that Tonal Weaving gave him over his internal mana supplies, it was easy for him to grip his mana pool, threading a string of power out into his body. Infusing that power with the essence of his soul was far more complex. His skill helped somewhat, as did his experience with soul-fire during the merging of his legacy skills, but it was not perfect.

Kaius stayed calm, taking his time. There was no scream, no psychic dissonance to power through. Just him, his image, and his will. He could do this.

Radiant power suffused his mana as a branch of soulfire connected to his pool. He continued his work, worming a thin thread of mana down his arm, to gather it in the palm of his right hand.

Hairsbreadth by agonising hairsbreadth, he wove the thread around his natural mana pathways, snapping it into place as he formed his Bladerite. Sweat beaded on his brow, his forehead furrowing in concentration.

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The glyph came together. It was an interesting thing. Even with its beauty, and his own lacking comprehension, it was easy for him to see it was…incomplete. Too much empty space, odd lines that ended nowhere, and linking sentences of runes that failed to connect.

With a final gasp, he wove the last line, and the first half of his Bladerite snapped into place. Linked to his soul, it pulsed with energy, searing his palm with a blinding heat.

**Ding! Tonal Weaving has reached level 27!**

…

**Ding! Tonal Weaving has reached level 29!**

Groaning as softly as he could, Kaius bit his lip until he tasted blood in an effort to stifle a scream that would wake Ianmus. It would have been fantastic if he could have hidden away in their tent, but they’d decided to keep that in reserve. Afterall, an unknown ability to shelter in plain sight was no small advantage.

Something cold and wet prodded his cheek. Porkchop, checking in on him in concern.

“You okay? That felt like it hurt.” his brother asked, soft green-flecked-gold eyes glistening in the firelight.

Kaius breathed. “Yeah. Stung like a bitch, but I expected that. The first bit’s done.” he replied, lifting his palm to inspect his work. New black markings stretched across his palm from edge to edge.

Unlike the full work that he had pictured in his mind’s eye, the new inscription on his skin was flattened, missing details. Still beautiful, but the full depths of its magnitude hidden in his flesh and mana.

Waggling his fingers to reassure himself the pain was gone, he lay his palm flat over his blade. Right where its twin was destined to sit.

Diving back into his work, he pushed his awareness of his brother’s attention out of his mind. Thankfully, despite the pain, he had managed to keep his grip on the soul infused mana thread that sat in his arm.

Without the need to repeat that step, he searched his inner space for his existing connection to A Father’s Gift. It was a subtle and small thing, guided by the greatly reduced version of their link that had been forged by a simple enchantment.

Yet, despite its fragile weakness, it was still a binding. Still a present force he could quest for. He knew himself intimately, and it came to him quickly, the hardened edges and flexible rigidity of his sword drifting across his senses like a forgotten limb. A curious sensation, to have such an awareness of a sword.

Somehow, despite the alien nature of the link, it still felt familiar. Somehow, he knew that he had been leaning on it for a long time, pulling on the bond in the heat of battle to align himself with a true awareness of the location and space of his blade, a proprioception that heightened his blade-arts.

Still, regardless of how he had felt and used his bond with the blade subconsciously in the past, he had never felt it as keenly as he had in this moment.

It was time.

Grabbing hold of the mana thread with his will, he threaded it across his connection with A Father’s Gift. Without the infusion of his soul it would have been impossible, or so the knowledge gifted to him by the system said.

Even with the link it was difficult, fighting him every step of the way

He mustered his will; gritting his teeth as he held onto the thread of power that threatened to dissolve into ash at any moment. Somehow, someway, it held. Exiting his body, his mana moved through some…fourth space he had no name for. Almost similar to when he had appeared before Ekum the Pale.

The impossible geometry of it all was nearly enough to make him lose his grip, but he held, turning his mind away from the left-down-acrosswards direction his mana moved.

Then, it hit his blade. The sacred purity of steel cradled his power, holding it steady as his sword assisted him like the stalwart companion it was.

With the essence of his very being enshrined in his blade, he could feel…something. A nascent seed, waiting. Ready to bloom, if just given sun, water, and time. Understanding rose within him. The Bladerite would nurture this seed, and their tied ascension would nourish it, but what it would really need was familiarity and the vital water of his enemies to sprout in truth.

A smile tugged at his lips, joy welling within him despite his focus. He couldn’t wait to see what it would become.

Another breath steadied him, and bit by bit he wove a twinned glyph on his blade, matching the one on his palm.

It was smaller, just large enough to cover the fuller of his blade starting a thumbwidth above its hilt. That only made weaving the glyph all the more complex, every twisting curve and fine line requiring an even defter touch than what he had done on his palm.

Worse, the internal structure of his blade was far different from the flesh of his body and the natural whorls of the mana that suffused him. Oh, it conducted and held his thread of power just fine, but the specifics were radically different. Where he expected to have to force the thread, it flowed with the utmost ease, forcing him to reign in his will before he overshot a line or ruined an angle. Where he expected his mana to conduct, it stuttered, forcing him to bear down with the entirety of his being to keep the formation stable when he encountered surprising resistance.

His progress slowed to a crawl, but bit by bit the Bladerite came together.

Until finally it was done.

The glyph on his blade snapped into place. Kaius barely had a moment to breathe before his soul bloomed, the fires of self raging into a torrent. Power surged, widening the tenuous link he held with his blade.

A Father’s Gift came into new focus; he became as aware of it as he was of his own hand. Though he heard no mundane sound, his blade seemed to cry with the most primal of delights. Such was its exuberance that he half expected it to quake in joy and bounce off his legs.

As power suffused both of his glyphs, they started to change. Morphing. No longer an abstract representation of the link between man and blade, they became a sigil. One that represented his union. Sacred fire burned his flesh, lines warping as they shifted with impunity.

His throat spasmed, tendons raging against his skin as he clenched his jaw in a desperate attempt to stop a scream. Air hissed out, noise drowned in the thudding rush of blood in his ears.

Then, as fast as it started, it was over.

A wave of weakness washed over him, and Kaius fell limp, flopping against the sturdy warmth of his brother’s side. Porkchop curled around him, holding him steady, but saying nothing. Lolling his head back, Kaius stared upwards at the twinkling tapestry of the night sky.

Unbound once more from the iron claws of his will, an idle thought drifted across his mind as he took in their milky radiance. It was beautiful to be under the stars once more.

As his breathing slowed he brought his hand up, taking in the new shape of the Bladerite glyph. His personal sigil.

A blade, hanging beneath a sun. Ready to cut.