THE RUNIC ALCHEMIST

When he had worked years upon years building his runic knowledge from the basics, it was not only the knowledge of runes that he learned, but the true essence of spells and mana itself. It helped him in creating a runic tool that could even hold a piece of empty real-life outer space inside. He had used it to make a true portable mana generator—but this wasn’t the time to go into details of that thing.

But it was a thing he had made with the secret of runic language unveiled before him. Similarly, he and the Prince had also debated the possibility of making a living, evolving runic tool that could also be used as a powerful shield while acting as a potential artificial mana core inside a living body. It could form any shape; Damian could imbue it with runic spells anytime, using it as any runic tool he wanted, even weapons. And it would never be damaged by mana overuse because it would be constantly evolving and rebuilding itself inside him.

Needless to say, he had not succeeded in making anything like that. It was too complicated and needed much more time to research and plan. However, time—he did not have anymore.

This was the only thing he could think of using now that even his best healing potions were useless. He had given Reize the stamina and mana recovery potions, but it was merely symptomatic relief and not a true cure.

It should suppress the foreign mana and empower her with more than enough original mana of her own.

He had failed in making it because he had taken it solely as a runic spell problem to solve. But if he used enchantment to connect the pieces.. that should work. Hopefully.

‘You can’t just mess around with enchanting, the cost of failure is too big..’ the Prince warned him.

‘The cost of not doing the absolute best I can and living in regret all my life is worse than that,’ Damian replied simply.

‘Does she truly mean that much to you? Or is it just an excuse to fulfill your reckless desires?’ the Prince asked, but Damian could not answer him.

He didn’t have the time, either. The mysterious metal from the giant sword was hot white-red and entirely in a liquid form. Both Lifewarden and Runefather were doing their best to keep it that way. Domain had also finished covering the whole liquid metal with over 300 of his mana threads. He had filled every gap—now he just had to put the runic spell in it. But that was what he had done each time before, and he had failed. He was going to do something extra this time.

Damian used the runic tool in his left hand that allowed him to break pieces of his soul, then broke off one piece to enchant a small part of the liquid metal.. But it didn’t seem very effective, as a small dot of black fire appeared in the liquid mana and disappeared just as quickly.

A little wouldn’t do. It had to come from the deepest part of the metal’s structure.

Damian made the area of enchantment smaller and tried again, but it was another failure. The black dot in the liquid was not stable at all. Damian broke past all limits of focus that his enhanced mind could endure, blood already dripping out of his nose, sensing the deepest core of the metal with his mana. He pushed further, reaching the fundamental molecular structures of the metal, and used a small piece of his soul to enchant them.

Once done, he waited, focusing on that one part of the moving liquid.. It was incredibly small.. but it was stable. He could do it.

Damian reached for another molecular group and enchanted it with a piece of his soul, then another, and another.

The early morning turned to midday, then afternoon, then night, and Damian was still at it, even as Runefather and Lifewarden near him began to grow concerned.

The black dots had started increasing and stabilizing, slowly covering the liquid surface and turning the red-and-white-hot liquid metal into pure abyssal black fire. It was a side effect of overusing Damian’s own soul fragments. His aura was deeply connected to his soul, and the combined thousands of soul pieces had gained the ability to produce Damian’s black aura on their own.

The other Highswords came to check on them again and again. After a while, they all simply emerged from the upper hatch and sat beside them, watching the three of them work tirelessly.

A soul was not mana; it was not infinitely produced. It was limited in quantity. If Damian had to put a number to it, an average enchanter had around one million points of soul fragments, using two or three points per enchantment. Even after a lifetime of use, none surpassed 400,000 to 450,000 points worth of soul fragments. And they could always retrieve the ones they used, but the cost was half—if they used four points, only two could be recovered.

Damian used one for every molecular group inside the liquid metal, binding them together while maintaining each molecule’s independence. At the same time, he used a combination of runic circles to imbue a runic spell into them.

The spells he used weren’t always the same, but their structure remained consistent. Some molecules contained spells that, when mixed with the original core, could replicate the core’s structure using a singular mana signature, creating an artificial core beside the original one in the body. Others were tasked with conjuring new molecules and linking them to the group of enchanted and runic-infused molecules, allowing individual molecules to be replaced as they were damaged—while ensuring the enchantment and the runic spell remained intact.

And in the end, he had also imbued all the molecules with a core function: to maintain their form, never be affected by temperature, remain flexible, and follow the user’s will to reconstruct themselves into any shape. They would also automatically adjust their molecular density to transition between solid and liquid states at will.

At last, after over 18 hours of constantly imbuing spells and tearing his soul apart for enchantment, Damian was finally done.

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