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

Kaius held his sword in a mid-guard, a neutral stance that allowed an easy flow into a variety of attacks and alternate stances. The lights of the training hall were as harsh as they always had been, but after nearly four weeks of spending almost every waking hour down here he was well used to it.

Sort of. It was still glaring if he got careless and looked directly towards them—Truesight might have kept his vision clear, but it didn’t make the experience comfortable.

Nearly a whole month, working himself to the bone in an effort to shore up their lacking skills before their explosive rise in levels continued once more—for a time. Even with the bonus experience from punching so far above their level, it would slow down eventually.

It had been more than worth it. Every moment of exertion and agony. Every drop of sweat and blood. Every vile toxin and vicious affliction. He’d seen more growth in the last few weeks than he had thought possible.

Yet not even the fizzing energy of progress could buoy the weight on his shoulders. This time they had spent was not without cost.

Every day that they trained was a day that the beasts grew stronger. Nearly four months post phase-shift and things were getting bad. The streets were grim—tense and quiet. For a while more refugees and asylum seekers had arrived.

At first they flooded the plaza where he and his team had entered the city, but eventually there was too little space. Now, practically every square in the city had a ramshackle collection of canvas dwellings housing the beaten and dispossessed.

It had been far worse when the steady flow of heavy eyes and bent spines had slowed to a trickle. Now it was rare to see anyone outside the city walls—only fools, delvers, and heavily armed caravans dared to brave the wilds.

He hoped it was because people had found other refuges, and ways to persevere. That only the weak and incapable had been forced to flee.

It was possible—the farmers were managing, somehow. Kaius swore that every time he saw one they were leaping up in levels—and their eyes were just a little harder. He hadn’t seen it yet, but he’d heard rumours in the guild hall that more than a few of the more desperate had tried to raid the wagons laden with food.

Apparently most of them were lucky to only lose a few fingers for their efforts.

He found it hard to blame the farmers. They were putting themselves at dire risk—even with the way they had banded together—in order to feed the city.

Especially since few people were truly starving. With the amount of beasts around, meat was plentiful, and, like most cities, Deadacre had been built around a shallow depths biome that could provide an emergency food source.

Layer three, with mostly beasts—it was doing much to serve the city. Unfortunately, it had a middling length week-long reset period; it was a massive operation to get food out. They’d been rotating teams of heavily vetted Iron delvers and high level guards, equipped with borrowed spatial artefacts of significant capacity. Their power meant a speedy clear, and a shorter wait to begin the reset timer, but it meant that those clearing it were seeing few benefits for their trouble.

The destitution and overall bleakness of it rubbed him raw. Made being in the city for so long even more painful than it already was. He longed for the free fields and open blue of the wilds—the excitement and adventure of a cross-country hike, suitably sprinkled with heart pounding fights.

Soon.

Soon.

Rieker had a mission for them—he and Ro were just setting up a route and clearing up the official side of things. When Ro had gotten mad at the amount of paperwork they had created for her, Kaius had thought she’d been playing it up.

Judging by the hours she seemed to spend filling out forms and signing them in triplicate, getting some authorisation or another to hide their records and obscure the missions they were taking, she hadn’t been. It seemed past a certain level the guild really hated special dispensations without a very good reason.

Still, despite everything, there were only a few short days left.

They wouldn’t be easy.

Rieker stood across from him, casual in his cotton slacks and linen shirt. The man was totally at ease, and utterly unworried for his safety. Hells, if not for holding the same warhammer that had taken his hand, Kaius would have thought the man was ready for dinner.

More sparring—though this time he was allowed his skills and spells. Thankfully, Kaius had also been allowed to wear his armour, if only to better the rate at which Tempered By Dissonance would level.

These fights were to better his Lesser Regeneration.

The real focus was his sword-work, and how he could push his burgeoning style to more seamlessly integrate his spells.

They’d already been at it for a few days, and the results spoke for themselves. Rieker moved fast, and hit hard, but not so powerfully that he was unable to keep up or defend. That is, until he made a mistake, and the guildmaster would punish it like lightning.

Nothing serious, nothing that would take him out of the fight. Just a broken bone or two.

Broken bones still hurt.

His fingers rolled over the tacky leather of his sword’s grip, settling to a more comfortable position.

A frustrating experience, but one that The Veteran’s Edge had taken to like water. Rieker might catch him out with a trick once—even twice—but he learned his lesson, and from that moment on, any feint or tell was as visible to him as the sun.

He simply knew—and with each bout, his library of understanding grew. With his Glass Mind scouring his memories, his swordplay had risen by leaps and bounds.

How to step, when to strike, when to cast, and when to slip through the skin of the world.

Even grizzled old Rieker had been impressed—though he was only rewarded with harder blows and more stringent standards.

Kaius breathed.

“Ready!” he shouted, his words carrying across the hall.

“Ready,” the guildmaster’s soft words carried clean through the hall, audible despite the lack of projection behind them.

Kaius raced in.

The guildmaster flew to meet him, hammer held high.

…..

Kaius groaned, splayed out over his brother’s back as he stared up at the wooden ceiling of their room in the Dusty Stables. The soft orange tones of a deep sunset streamed through the high windows—coating the room in dulcet tones that urged him to fall asleep right this minute.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

They’d finished their last day of Rieker’s hellish training. Finally.

The man was a devil—no, a demon king. He’d held nothing back in correcting their ‘inadequacies’, saying only that it was disgraceful and disgusting that people of their talent would have skill levels so low every time they so much as sighed.

Utterly ridiculous, honestly. It wasn’t like any of them had slacked off, not even for a moment.

As soon as the day was done—another one of brutal sparring with the guildmaster himself—they had rushed from the hall, all but sprinting to the closest thing they had to a home in Deadacre.

Hensch, the beautiful man, had taken one look at them and banished them to their rooms. It hadn’t taken much to convince them, and the fact that the innkeep had promised to bring dinner to their rooms, and wake them if he had too, had only made the offer all the sweeter.

Even Yong—the gregarious cat-beast that was Hensch’s bonded—had left them alone. Impressive, considering his overly-gregarious nature and utter fascination with Porkchop.

Now, even after hours of lying around practically insensate, none of them could muster up the energy to move.

Kaius craned his neck up, catching Ianmus’s eye.

The man was sprawled in one of the armchairs by the fire, uncharacteristically slouched with one leg flung over the armrest. Considering Ianmus was more the type to smooth out his robe before he so much as sat down, he must have been as exhausted as Kaius felt.

“Hell of a month, eh?” Kaius quipped, giving his teammate a smile.

“Huh?” Ianmus said, slowly rolling his head to look over at him. His eyes were heavy. Unfocused. “Oh, yeah. Reminds me of second year—they had us do a survival course where we weren’t allowed to sleep for the whole week. Just about drove me mad.”

“I feel like my bones are going to fall out…” Porkchop groaned, his chest vibrating underneath Kaius’s back.

Kaius laughed. It was a strange thing, the fatigue that came with pushing yourself to the limits. Stamina did much, soothing aching muscles and invigorating the body, but it couldn’t do everything.

With enough training, it got to a point where the body just…had enough. When all that could really help you recover was a good day or two at rest, full of good food and wine.

He didn’t understand the specifics of it—when he’d asked yesterday Ianmus had mumbled something unintelligible about the ‘complicated interplay of mind, body, and soul’. Just about the only thing he had understood was that any significant expenditure of a resource that was chronic over multiple days and weeks could cause the issue.

Unfortunate, considering all of them had been spending all three like water for the entirety of their brief stint of intensive training.

Thankfully, Ianmus had clarified that the issue got less and less significant as one’s stats grew. It made sense, after all, he’d felt similar burn-out in the Depths after far less intensive stints.

A glance told him that Ianmus had returned to his doze, and the rhythmic motions of his brother’s chest told him that Porkchop had drifted off as well.

As much as Kaius wished he could join him, he couldn’t, not yet. Even if the soft afternoon sun on his face did feel like getting serenaded by an angel.

He needed to check his gains. With the frantic pace of his levelling, Kaius had forced himself to put off checking them throughout the month. With the regularity of the dings that had come, he knew they would be significant.

After all, even if Rieker had paid special attention to Rapid Adaptation and Lesser Regeneration, every single one of his skills had been pushed to their limits. Intense, exhausting, and stressful—but oh so worth it.

His mana skills especially had seen surprising growth—as much of a pain in the ass as it had been to reinscribe his Drakthar glyph, the complicated nature of the working had done wonders for his skill levels. Even if it had taken three straight days to complete.

Let alone the additional resistances he had gained—those alone were worth the pain and discomfort of self-injury. That, and Rieker had done his best to procure multiple sources for him to gain a defence against some relatively common affinities that he had thought Kaius was likely to encounter.

He’d been especially insistent on Kaius adapting to the affinities that he and his team mates used—apparently the old man had seen one too many cases of friendly fire in his life.

Stifling a yawn, Kaius dived into his status—pulling up the changes to Rapid Adaptation as well.

Status:

Name: Kaius

Dynasty: Unterstern

Age: 19

Race: Human (Dynastic, Greater Beastblooded) - +1 End, Str, Wil, and free stats per level

Layer Reached: 2

Class: Runeblade Initiate - +3 Int, +2 End, +2 Str, +2 Dex, +1 Vit, +1 Wil per level

Level: 48

Resources:

Health - 2970/2970 (16.1/min)

Stamina - 2850/2850 (22.3/min)

Mana - 3870/3870 (26.8/min)

Free Mana - 3870/3870

Reserved Mana - 0

Stats:

Endurance - 174 + 57 + 29% (297)

Vitality - 68 + 57 + 29% (161)

Strength - 164 + 57 + 29% (285)

Dexterity - 116 + 57 + 29% (223)

Intelligence - 212 + 71 + 37% (387)

Willpower: - 116 + 71 + 37% (268)

Stat Points: 0

Aspects:

Pillar Corporus: N/A

Pillar Mentis: The Veteran’s Edge

Reinforcement: Glass MindSeed: Campaigner’s ReasonPillar Animus: N/A

Class Skills (3/10):

Latent Glyph of Drakthar (Heroic) - 22 > 43

Initiate’s Glyphic Bladerite (Unique) - 10 > 26

Latent Glyph of Aelina (Heroic) - 0 > 15

General Skills (10/10):

Rapid Adaptation (Heroic) - 28 > 69

Liturgical Bladeform: Primus Ordo (Heroic) - 30 > 47

Explorer’s Toolkit (Unusual) - 36 > 39

Tempered by Dissonance (Heroic) - 31 > 45

True Sight (Unique) - 38 > 39

Tonal Weaving (Unique) - 31 > 49

Resonance Amplification (Unique) - 27 > 38

Lesser Regeneration (Unusual) - 28 > 60

Uncanny Dodge (Unique) - 29 > 37

Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus (Heroic) - 40 > 48

Hymnbook:

Glyph of Drakthar -

Stormlash (Tier I - 120 mana)

Glyph of Aelina -

Yellia’s Slip Step (Tier I - 80 mana)

Honours:

Born for Slaughter (Bonus)

Sublime Prodigy - Glyph Binding (Bonus)

Birds of a Blood Soaked Feather (Bonus)

Persistent Survivor (Minor) (Bonus)

Kingslayer (Major) (Bonus)

Ruthless Underdog (Bonus)

Ruthless Underdog II

Trailblazer II (Bonus)

Bound Artefacts:

A Fathers Gift - Common Growth Longsword

Growth Conditions-

Gain a class (1/1)

Absorb suitable materials (1/3)

Forge a link (1/1)

…

Rapid Adaptation:

Level 69

Heroic

Resistances: Pain, Fear, Poison, Disease, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Void, Aether, Venom, Corruption, Bone, Paralysis, Ice, Magma, Light, Wood, Crystal, Electric

Kaius shook his head at the monumental gains.

Regardless of the progress—of the worsening state of the integration—it had been well worth it to delay. Their safety was better assured, and if they had pushed ahead unheeded, it was likely that their skills would lag.

While they could simply wait at the threshold to the second tier while they capped their skills, it was far better for their overall effectiveness in battle if they took the time to keep their skills appropriately levelled.

With his review done, Kaius stopped fighting against the steady yank of his exhaustion, allowing himself to drift off as the purple and orange hues of the sunset warmed his face.

Tomorrow they would start their next mission—he couldn’t wait.