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

Ianmus stumbled, the heels of his boots clacking across a hard ground. He looked down. It was clean and polished:something not quite stone, a washed out grey varnished to a clean sheen.

Before he looked around and got his bearings, Ianmus processed the whirlwind experience of the last few hours.

A mere moment ago he’d been in the entrance room to the Crucible, surrounded by black glass that was covered in burning runes. He’d met an Ascendant! He’d heard the stories from Kaius and Porkchop of course — what it had been like when they met Ekum.

That awe-inspiring presence; the crushing burden of their power that had rolled off the man in waves.

He’d never dreamed, not even for a moment, that he would get to experience something like it for himself.

And yet, here he was, still reeling from that blinding light.

Who amongst his classmates would ever imagine he’d end up here? On the precipice of the second tier, just over a year from when he had first received his class. It was unthinkable!

Let alone the simple insanity of this delve.

He was skilled, of course. He’d had to be to beat out the scions of wealthy merchants and lesser nobility and become valedictorian. He had his own Legacy — through birthright and his feats at Sunspire.

But that should have only taken him so far. At least, according to conventional wisdom. He wasn’t some wondrous scion born to wealth and power. He had a Rare class. His future had been bright, but never this outstanding.

And now he was a pioneer, burning a trail ahead of everyone else alongside his team — a team of giants and heroes. And somehow, just barely, he was keeping up.

Ianmus grinned to himself, laughing. Oh, how strange things had become. He was grateful; loved the feeling of his blood burning hot as he threw himself into the fire; loved pushing the boundaries of what was known.

And his rewards for how hard he had pushed himself? They just kept getting better and better.

A racial trait. Of all things, a trait! He couldn’t believe it — couldn’t believe he’d done enough to be rewarded a gift like that. Sure, it was a shame that he had only received it now, at the end of the tier, when some of its potency had been lost. But still! That bonus to his Willpower was nothing to scoff at, especially when he factored in the bonus he would receive from his honours!

Resting his eyes for a moment, he felt it churn within him.

Harvest Touched had settled into his bones — into the mana that pulsed through his marrow. Even now it churned along natural currents that differed so much from what he’d had only months before. Thanks to his Corporus, there was a burgeoning connection there that he’d never felt before.

While the energy within him was still pure, still unaspected — because he hadn’t gone through the process of tinting it to Solar — he could feel the affinity clearer than ever before.

Reaching for that well of energy that saturated his flesh so fully, Ianmus willed it to transmute to the essence of dawn.

It almost leapt to obey his command. He didn’t cast a spell, forge his keyseal, or weave it into some construct. He just felt the ease with which he commanded it and smiled.

The moment passed, and Ianmus quickly grew more comfortable with the new sense of the affinity he had been gifted. It was a strange thing, what Xenanra had done. He suspected it wasn’t as simple as merely putting him to sleep while his new trait wrought changes onto his body and soul. They seemed too quickly integrated, too easily digested into a sense of self. Kaius and Porkchop had told him of the disorientation they both had felt after acquiring their own. Though some of that had no doubt been due to their bond, some must have come from their traits.

Regardless of what Xenanra had done, he was thankful for it.

A god. By the headmaster’s beard, he still couldn’t quite believe it — it was the experience of a lifetime; something whole dissertations could be written on. From the way she held herself, to the power she wielded, to how it felt to breathe in her presence. There was so much to learn. So much to explore.

The knowledge that he would have to keep it largely to himself burned.

Even if they had grown strong enough to hide their strengths, he was under no illusions that they were quite at the point where they could reveal the true depths of every ludicrous secret that they held. Even excluding high-mana societies, there were third tiers who were still beyond him. If he did include them? He had a creeping suspicion that the third tier might not perhaps be the limit of what was out there.

The islands off the east and west coasts; The dwarven Drozag mountains to the south; the deep Sea, the far north, and the ruin filled jungles and deserts beyond even the Drozags. Those lands held monsters, some of whom walked on two legs.

He was shaken from his musings by a notification.

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

**Immerse yourself in Corporus, and prove your ability through fortitude, volume, and control.**

**Channel your mana and complete the circuit! Be warned, those of lacking will have no place on the Path — to forfeit is to abandon this Crucible!**

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He gasped, quickly poring over the words. A trial to channel mana by simple volume? By the sounds of it, he might have to create some sort of continuous loop.

He grinned. A challenge, but an interesting one, and one he thought suited him quite well. He’d been looking for an opportunity to truly test the limits and subtleties of the way his body had changed since that fateful moment against Old Thousand Eyes.

It seemed it had come looking for him all on its own.

Ianmus rose to his feet and looked around.

He hadn’t taken the opportunity to do so before — lost in the sense of his new trait as he had been. His surroundings left him rooted in shock, overwhelmed by just how alien everything around him was.

The room was blocky and square, with flat walls of something that looked like polished plaster, but moulded into some kind of tile like fired clay. They stretched up to a ceiling that held unfamiliar ward lights — long and barred, and cased in some kind of enameled metal housing.

There was a mirror in front of him, floor to ceiling. It reflected him perfectly — clearer than any polished silver he’d ever seen before. The closest match he’d seen had been powered by enchantments.

Yet the mirror was plainly mundane. No mana that coursed through it. And it had no runes engraved upon its surface.

He tilted his head, curiosity piqued.

Stepping forwards, he watched his reflection shift — and reveal something that had been hidden behind him. Ianmus spun, snapping to the startling mechanism.

A twisted thing of steel bracing and cable — almost insectile and skeletal in appearance.

A great spine that rose from the ground, flickering with many a wardlight diode. Stacked discs rose two longstrides into the air, bound together by interlocked hooks. A facsimile of a ribcage — or plate armor, or some unholy combination of both — sprouted from the column, layered like carapace and flayed open, as if its very heart had been stolen. There was no head, but there were arms. Hollow things: tubes full of needles and fine metalwork that he had no name for.

Ianmus stared at it in naked fascination. He’d seen nothing of its like in all his life — not even in Mystral’s Spire of Artifice.

Approaching the construct cautiously, Ianmus turned it over in his mind with an academic’s eye.

What he found did little soothe his unease.

Those great hollow arms, looking like a pair of maws with layers of needle-like fangs that bristled and undulated according to some unknown design? Well, they had handles inside of them.

Ianmus stepped back and crossed his arms, decidedly uneasy at what he was looking at.

Did he dare?

He shook his head. Of course he bloody did.

He’d been vanished to some unknown location full of unfamiliar artifice, and challenged with cycling his mana in a way he’d never heard of being done before.

Clearly, the thing was a tool. Albeit one that looked brutal and unkind.

His curiosity sparked within him.

Still, he didn’t like the look of those needles. They were long, finger-length, and more than one of them had barbs along their lengths. He winced. This was going to be unpleasant.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Ianmus thrust his arms into the waiting fangs of the skeletal construction, grasping for the handles he had seen within.

The needles flattened as he pushed in —like the hairs of a cat laying flat. Yet he could feel their points against his skin — they would bite the second he tried to withdraw.

It turned out he didn’t even need to wait for that. The second his hands wrapped around the handles’ textured grips — some crosshatched thing that felt close to metal but had neither the cold nor the density to be so — the needles burst in, piercing his forearms to the marrow.

They were sharp — so sharp he barely felt them, save for a pinprick followed by a deep cold.

Ianmus gasped, steadying himself — gods’ bloody scorn, he didn’t want to stumble.

An image filled his mind. Him dangling from his arms, supported solely by the needles embedded in his flesh.

Yet before he could dwell on it, he felt a surge of connection. The mana within him roared to life, questing for something.

Acting on barely known instincts, he pushed out — a great torrent of strength pouring from his marrow.

It roared out of control, pulled out of his arms by more than his will alone. The energy within him surged — faster than he had ever been able to force it before — and the machine came to life. Power and light crackled over its surface in great waves.

It focused his energy somehow, directed and accelerated it in a way that he barely felt. Still connected to his center as it was, he felt it loop through circuit after circuit.

There was something strange here, in this artifice.

But before he could think about it more, his energy was returned. Thricefold in fury, and thricefold in instability.

It rocked him, sinking deep and scouring him from within — blackening his veins and boiling away at his spirit. He gasped, tasting iron.

And in that moment of shock, the connection broke. Ianmus tumbled back unwittingly.

He gasped, half expecting the needles in his arms to tear at his flesh. They didn’t — the second his mana stream broke, they retracted instantly, leaving his arms red and bloodied, but unblemished.

Thin, clean holes dotted his forearms. They closed almost instantly as health washed through him.

Ianmus stared at his hands, stained by quickly drying blood and blackened by raw mana. They were burnt — bubbling with blisters. From simple mana! His mana!

That shouldn’t have been possible, not from simple channeled throughput — not with his reserves.

He looked back at the skeletal construct and narrowed his eyes.

Then he grinned.

This might be fun!

…

Kaius whistled as he heard Ianmus tell of shoving his arms into the construct for a second time.

“Forsaken hells, man. That takes some balls. How’d the rest of it go?”

“Good,” Ianmus replied. “Though it was difficult to get a hold of my mana and cycle it in the way that was requested of me. The machine siphoned it faster than I was used to, and returned it back even more viciously. Worse, the longer the process went, the faster it got. Still, I managed after a few attempts. It was surprisingly beneficial.”

“And more than helping me embody Corporus, it brought clarity regarding the changes the Aspect wrought within me. There’s a resilience there that I didn’t have before. Even after all that, I never experienced mana burn. Physical degradation, yes, when I channeled too much — when the impurities in my flesh fought me — but the flow of my mana never degraded.”

Ianmus raised a hand, and an aurora of sunlight played across his knuckles—shifting and pulsing in a multitude of colors.

It was beautiful. And dextrous — he hadn’t seen the mage manipulate his mana quite so fluidly before. Perhaps it was a benefit of feeling Corporus all the deeper, with how interwoven it was with his pool. That, or it had come from simple practice in the trial.

“Okay, seriously?” Kenva asked, staring at Ianmus like he had just said he’d willingly shoved his head into a hot oven.

“Am I the only one whose trial was actually fun, and not some weird torture chamber designed by the mad?”

Kaius raised his brow at her.