Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 109: Runic Camera

CH109 Runic Camera

***

Groan~

Alex was dead tired by the time he finally returned to his lodging nestled in the back mountain of Ashen Castle.

His entire body ached—muscles sore from moving in ways they’d never been forced to move before. Every step he took felt like he was dragging a body double behind him.

Even after hours of dedicated practice, all he had achieved was a rudimentary imitation of Earl Drake’s fluid movements.

As it turned out, having perfect recall of how someone moved didn’t mean your body would automatically follow suit.

Still, he had an advantage.

Thanks to his Battle Instinct, Alex had at least managed to scrape together a basic approximation of the Abyssal Conqueror’s Steps. The instinct didn’t do the work for him, but it offered subtle nudges—tiny adjustments that nudged his motions closer to what was needed.

And that... was enough.

As they always said: The hardest part is getting started.

Now that he had grasped the rudimentary structure of the Steps, all that remained was consistency, discipline, and time. Mastery would follow.

Eventually...

That said, there were two reasons Alex didn’t immediately collapse onto his bed and surrender to blissful sleep.

First, he had to cook.

Not just for himself—but for Fen.

The little wolf cub had, surprisingly, followed Alex’s instructions to the letter. Somehow, it had made itself unnoticeable throughout Ashen Castle. Most people ignored it completely, dismissing it as nothing more than the weak pet of the newly arrived young master.

That deserved a reward.

So, despite every muscle in his body screaming at him to lie down and die, Alex dragged himself to the kitchen.

He cooked.

For both of them.

What he didn’t know, though, was that his act of struggle—the quiet determination to fulfil his duties despite exhaustion—stirred something inside Fen.

A spark.

A quiet resolve that would someday change everything about their relationship.

Unlike before, when Fen would simply lounge and wait to be served, tonight the little cub found a vantage point where he could observe Alex cook. Silent, still, watchful.

And from that moment on, the wolf cub made a silent promise:

It would begin spying on the chefs and kitchen staff of Ashen Castle in the coming days.

Fen had decided it would learn to cook too.

Not just to help...

But to grow strong enough to protect Alex in its own way.

Once the food was prepared and the two of them ate, Fen didn’t linger. He quietly padded off to sleep. After all, time waits for no one—and if the cub truly intended to catch up to Alex, it would need to train ’tirelessly’.

Meanwhile, Alex stepped into his Sanctuary Workspace.

This was the second reason he hadn’t fallen straight into bed.

He had work to do.

Specifically, he needed to whip up a camera—a crucial component in his evolving Combat Drone Sub-AI development Plan.

Luckily, the idea of creating an image-capturing device wasn’t entirely new. In fact, he had already designed a basic prototype in the past, back when he first developed the concept of a rune-tech ’phone’.

It had just been buried somewhere near the bottom of his ridiculously long to-do list.

Now, though?

It had rocketed to the top.

And this time, it wouldn’t just be a still-image camera.

It had to capture video.

Alex rummaged through the storage area of his sealed private spatial space, scanning various labelled compartments, piles of artefact scraps, and salvaged components. After several minutes of digging, he finally found what he was looking for:

A clear, mana-conducting glass lens.

Perfect for crafting light-sensitive, lens-based artefacts.

And exactly what he needed to begin.

Grade 4: Detection!

Alex ran the glass lens through the highest-grade detection spell he could currently muster.

The spell allowed him to scan the material down to the micro level, mapping its structural dimensions with stunning accuracy and mentally digitising them as reference data.

There was just one caveat—

The spell didn’t simply spit out the data in one go.

Instead, it required active mental control, forcing the caster to guide the scanning process manually.

Many mages considered this a flaw.

But for a control-obsessed perfectionist like Alex?

It was a feature.

The granular control allowed him to take precise measurements of specific parts of the glass—particularly where runes would eventually be etched. This meant he could tailor his Rune layout with mathematical precision, which greatly improved efficiency and stability.

Of course, the spell had a mana cost over time, another reason it wasn’t popular.

But Alex had two key advantages over most mages his age; his Extreme Mana Capacity, and an engineering mindset that required this level of detail.

That said, the advantage came with burdens.

Every phase of Rune-Tech consumed mana—

From concept design, to drafting schematics, to etching or binding the Rune onto a physical host or medium. There was never such a thing as ’too much mana’.

By the time Alex finished his scan—fifteen solid minutes of meticulous work—it had cost him half his mana pool.

Still, the dimensions of the lens were now mapped out to the smallest tolerable unit.

Cautious as always, Alex waited another hour to fully replenish his mana before beginning actual work on the camera Rune.

He sat at his desk, pulling out a small parchment and pen.

’Let’s keep things simple,’ he thought, nodding to himself. ’Like I did with the phone.’

’No need for anything too fancy. Just a basic image capture rune that records images at high frequency. Play those images back in rapid sequence and voilà—we have video.’

He scribbled a short note:

→ Image capture + sequential playback = video.

One problem solved.

’Next... Should I include audio?’

He paused.

’Will the AI really need sound?’

Another pause.

’...Yes. It could be important for battlefield intelligence. Instructions shouted during formations, drum rhythms, war cries... They all add context to the visuals. Better to include it.’

His eyes lit up.

’I already developed the sound capture component for the phone. All I have to do is repurpose that segment of the Phone Rune for the camera.’

Check! Another problem solved.

He jotted it down on the parchment.

’Next: Storage and Linkage.’

Alex leaned back in thought, tapping his pen against his cheek.

’I don’t want to store data directly on the device. Too risky. Instead, it should stream or sync to OmniRune’s internal memory in my OmniBracer.’

He paused, already visualising the connection setup.

’If I’m ever out of sync range, I can just assign a temporary storage server to hold the data. Once I return to range, it can automatically sync and offload the backlog to OmniRune.’

Another idea hit him.

’For the Link Rune, I’ll reuse the basic transmission subcomponents from the Detector Rune. It’s the same principle: scan and send data, just with different formatting.’

He made another note.

→ Link Rune = modified Detector Rune base.

One by one, Alex continued jotting down details.

Every line, every component, every possible failure point.

By the time he was done, half the parchment was filled with dense annotations.

To anyone else, it looked like gibberish.

To Alex, it was the foundation of something extraordinary.

**