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

Kaius grinned as he read the description of his final Aspect.

It was largely defensive in nature — bolstering his resistance to all forms of injury, but especially soul related effects thanks to his Seed. What that would mean in truth, he didn’t know.

Maybe he would get lucky, and Vos would fall under that purview, but he wasn’t sure. The damage he sustained from his insight into the great rune was odd. It didn’t feel like he was getting attacked — more like his being itself was rebelling against something it was not meant to bear.

Still, he could test it in the future — he still had much practice to do if he wanted to get any better at drawing on less of Vos’s overbearing strength.

Other than that, it seemed his Animus aspect — The Ceaseless Warrior — improved his…will? A broad thing — one he expected would prove to have subtle effects on many things. It was also, thankfully, an easy thing to test.

Reaching for his mana, Kaius found the energy leap to his command. His control was more deft, and he found spinning the energy into multiple threads both easier and faster. Grinning as he released his grin, he grabbed stamina and health next. Both proved equally impacted.

It wasn’t by much, but it was noticeable — and enough that it would definitely have an impact when he inscribed.

He’d have to test what it meant for his actual casting later — if it let him influence the flickers of Slip Step more reliably, it would prove a priceless boon.

Satisfied with the changes, Kaius found Porkchop shaking his head as he came out of his own vision fugue.

“How’d you do?” he asked. “I got The Ceaseless Warrior — makes my soul a little tougher, though the specifics are a little on the light side.

Porkchop snorted, “The Obstinate Questor; it feels accurate, but I’m not sure how I feel about even the System calling me stubborn.”

“Don’t be so stubborn then.”

“Speak for yourself! Anyways, it’s interesting — it boosts my resistance to movement hampering effects. Should be handy.”

Kaius raised his brow — another defensive measure. “Do you think they’ll all be like that?”

“Who knows — regardless, I’m sick of waiting — want to go see what’s on the other side of that fog?”

Kaius followed his brother’s gaze to the impenetrable white wall that the path onwards plunged into. It was denser and thicker than the fog that had come before. Like it carried new meaning — no doubt the trial would shift now that their focus was on embodiment.

“By the forsaken hells, yes. Let’s go.”

….

**Ding! Significant Feat of Strength performed under Observation. You have been awarded an Honour: Triarch**

Kaius felt creeping tendrils of solidity stretch through everything he was. Hyperreal and dense, it made the world around him seem washed out and pale. Like it was a thin reflection on a tarnished silver plate.

His chest heaved as he fell forwards, propping himself up on his hands and knees in front of a familiar arch of stone and black space.

“Rotten roots, I know this place has to lean heavy on metaphor, but I think having us climb up a literal mountain was pushing things!”

He gasped rolling onto his back as he let out a wide smile. It had been a hell of a climb — gravity itself had grown stronger with every step they had made, and the path had been treacherous and steep.

Climbing ravines, dodging rockfalls, and leaping over crevasses, they’d helped each other every step of the way — and oddly, found just how complementary their Animus aspects were. How they both pushed themselves to go further, try harder, and take just one more step.

It was then, in that unity, that Kaius had started to feel the presence of his soul filling the deepest reaches of his being. Of all his aspects, it was the most inward focused. Primally obsessed with asserting the very core of his truth.

If it was universal, he saw why his and Porkchop’s seeds had both been defensive. The Authority steeped through him — melding with the rest of the triumvirate to ground him in Truth. It reinforced his very existence, making him more stable — more self assured. Not to the degree that he was stagnant and unchanging — just simple awareness of who he was, and an understanding that the only thing that would ever change that was his own will, actions, and intent.

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Right next to Kaius, Porkchop lay on his side — panting heavily.

“We got the Honour though!”

“That we bloody did, didn’t we?”

Kaius grinned up at the sky once more. Even if it wasn’t the promise of rewards that drove him onwards, it made them no less sweet when he received them.

Not seeing the point in delaying, he dove into its notification, eager to see its description.

Triarch:

Honour

Pillars three, a herald and foundation.

Awarded to those who ignite and fully embody all three of their aspects before the second tier. Provides an Information Package on Aspect Refinement when the second tier has been reached. +5 all stats, +3% all stats.

Bonus: For igniting and embodying all aspects within a year of first ignition the stat bonus is increased to +8 all stats, +4% all stats.

Kaius sat up.

“Everyone? Not for being the first?”

“It seems so. That will be…interesting.”

He gave his brother a slow nod, “We need to get this to the guild quick — our window to set up a system of sharing Honours is closing. That, and if there are others in the guild who are getting close to igniting all of their Aspects, we don’t want them moving on until they’ve had a chance to decide if it’s worth waiting or pursuing a Crucible.”

“At least this one won’t be too hard to find. It’s close to Deadacre — or it should be, I can’t imagine we were taken halfway across Vaastivar after our ambush.”

That was true — and what would that mean for the city? Depending on how rare Crucibles were to find, having a known location might draw hundreds of hopeful powerhouses who wanted to try their luck. Maybe not immediately, but once Honours had started to spread? When new teams pursued them from the beginning of the tier?

Things would change for the unremarkable city. Migrants like that would invariably bring wealth — and trouble. He groaned.

“I hope Rieker knows what to do with this, because it reeks of a political nightmare.

Though, there would be benefits. Dawntown would profit from it for one — their new generation possessed an almost unfathomable wealth of legacy skills, and Yanmi had already hinted that their best were already considering undergoing a delve in their final year as an unclassed. Even if they never fought a guardian, that was still two normal honours and a minor one. They would be well placed to follow in his footsteps. Hells, they might even do better if they managed to find more unclassed honours — either by chance, or by using what he had shared with the guild to work backwards.

The world was changing, no doubt about it, in ways that went deeper than a simple increase in danger. Hopefully, if the situation did get complex in Deadacre, they would have enough time to have long since made their way elsewhere.

While he doubted he could avoid becoming someone of renown forever, he would much prefer his relative anonymity lasted for as long as possible. Dealing with crowds sounded exhausting.

Kaius looked back at the void-filled arch behind him.

It loomed, a promise of strife and struggle.

Who knew what came next? They’d finished their aspects, embodied them one and all — but Xenanra had been clear. That was not all there was to the Crucible. There was something else, something more — that would give them an advantage in the rest of the path, especially if seized now, before they rose to the next tier.

Yet he hadn’t the faintest clue what it was.

If he was curious, then Porkchop hungered. He stared into the black with sharp eyes; a feeling of want resonating through their bond in palpable waves.

Neither of them wanted to leave — not when there was a good chance they would be separated again. Yet, neither did they dread the departure. If there was anything that Kaius had learned from this trial, it was that his connection with Porkchop would never die — even if Xenanra and the System blinded him to it temporarily.

Without the need for words, they rose as one — leaning on each other for comfort and support as they strode forwards to see what the Ascendant had next in store for them.

Kaius touched the pane of void in the arch, and was whisked away.

….

He stumbled forwards with a gasp, feeling his aspects pulse within him as they pushed back instinctively against the foreign intent that had borne him through the portal.

It was weak, far too weak to win the fight; but they tried.

In that moment of defiance, Kaius felt something new. The fires of his aspects, having long since melded into an almost single conflagration, surged with foreign charge. There was potential there. Something latent; perhaps, even, something to do with later refinement. His aspects reflected the change, flaring bright and pure as they twisted, bolstering their neighbours in a barely-witnessed virtuous cycle.

“Congratulations — few are the number who can say they fulfil the step of aspect ignition to the extent that you now have.”

Kaius looked up, blinking as he took in his surroundings.

Xenanra was there, waiting for him as he had expected. Where they were, however, was not what he had expected. Rather than a place of refinement and natural beauty like the last two locations, they were now in a dark cave. It was circular and sloping — gradually descending into the centre.

A pool lay there, full of something black and dark. It oozed potential — power vile and spiteful. Even laying his eyes on it burned him.

“I’m sorry to say, Kaius, but there is no break before the next Trial.”

**Ding! You have challenged the Trial of Temperance!**