As Lucas rushed through the cavern, his figure looked like a black streak as he crawled and swung from the walls. During this acrobatic dash, he circulated his Spirit energy in a now familiar pattern.

He could sense his wounds healing at a rapid rate. Even the most gruesome injury to his right hand could be seen mending itself in real time. His pitch black metallic muscles grew like wires, systematically attaching themselves to his bones.

In less than ten minutes, he was as good as new. Making a quick stop on a small outcropping, he checked his Spirit energy reserves. Sensing his core, he realized he still had more than 95% of his Spirit energy left.

"Nice! By the looks of it, I haven't even used up to five percent of my reserves. Back during the bat chase, if I even attempted such a healing, all my Spirit energy would have been drained with little to show for it."

Thinking of his Spirit energy, a small smile crept up on his face. His crimson pupils danced energetically as he shot off the wall leaving a spider web of cracks in his wake. His form split the air with a powerful howl as he continued his search for a safe haven.

"Hmm… the ambient Spirit energy is increasing."

As he moved deeper into the cavern, he felt the ambient Spirit energy rising. Usually, he wasn't all that sensitive to Spirit energy unless it was very concentrated, there was a very obvious shift in it, or he was actively using his [Spirit Sense]. Now, it felt like his sixth sense for Spirit energy was as powerful as his other senses. He could only attribute this to his high Spirit as he moved forward.

With the uptick of ambient Spirit energy, Lucas began to notice the usual bioluminescence plant on the cavern wall and the small critters that accompanied them as well. The previous eerie silence replaced by the tranquil sounds of nature in motion.

With the dim lights the plants brought and the rising ambient Spirit energy, Lucas' senses suddenly exploded in detail. Looking at his limbs, he could feel and see the smallest grains of dust that powdered their surface and ground at his skin.

He could see how specks of black dust were still under his claws after his fight with the squad. He heard the extremely slow pounding of his heart like a war drum, even his blood circulating throughout his veins sounded like cars at a race track going lap upon lap at full throttle.

He could see and taste the foul stench of blood and death always emitted by the cavern floor. Given his 360° of perception, this flood of information quickly overwhelmed him.

Bang!

Dazed by the sudden explosion of his senses, Lucas missed a swing and crashed to the cavern floor hard. The sound of his crash rippled through him like a bomb going off, he could feel his head ringing as he struggled to stand to his feet with the aid of his tendrils. His Mind was getting overwhelmed. Thankfully, Crash stepped in.

"Crash!"

At its voice, his senses toned down to their usual degree of sharpness. His overclocked Mind immediately relaxed as he felt a sharp pain in his head. Standing in a small crater, he asked out loud.

"Woah… what just happened?"

"Crash crash."

"I didn't use my [Spirit Sense] again. At least I don't think so…"

Thinking on what happened further, he realized he had used his [Spirit Sense] in the instinctive way he usually did to scout the area but thanks to his new attributes, his brain almost melted in the process.

"I'll have to be more careful. If I lose control like that in a fight, I'm going to end up something's lunch."

"Crash."

"Yeah I won't be fighting anything anytime soon. Don't worry about it. Let's find a cave first. I have a lot of things to practice."

And with that, he leaped through the air. Leveraging his tendrils to swing across the cavern as he sought a suitable cave.

A few hours of exploring later, Lucas found a safe space for himself. It was quite high up the cavern wall so it met his needs perfectly. After thinking about his next course of action, he decided to go to sleep. His mind had been exhausted from all the brutal encounters he had recently gone through.

Laying on the rough floor, Lucas wrapped his tendrils around himself almost like a cacoon as he slept soundly. A couple of hours later, Lucas woke up feeling energized and refreshed. With his goals already set, he began thinking about the Runes as he sat crossed legged in his cave. His tendrils waved and played with each other behind him.

"What am I missing with the Runes? Let's see, when I activated the short sword it seemed like I overloaded it causing the explosion but the Runes on it barely glowed and I used little energy so I'm not so sure.

As for the rifle, it initially fired normally but it seemed my energy transformed the structure of the gun itself into wood for some reason.

Last but not the least, when I drew Runes from the shield and tried to use them, it caused the wall to explode like the short sword with an even bigger blast even though I used even less energy to power it."

Reaching this point in thought, Lucas cupped his chin as his pupils flickered with uncertainty.

"From all this, I can draw a few conclusions. Either the Runes on all the gear was damaged leading to the weirdness and explosions, my Spirit energy is just incompatible with Runes as a whole, or there's some kinda trick to activating Runes."

He then used his tendrils to pick up a palm sized rock as he said,

"Let's run some experiments first. I'm sure I can get to the bottom of this."

He used a clawed finger to draw a small Rune he could remember from the shield. It had the simplest structure being a simple triangle but with its vertices containing different geometric shapes.

With fluid and precise strokes, Lucas drew the first node. A very small downward facing triangle with a dot at its center. He then connected a straight line to it and drew what looked like a square, shield-like shape with two diagonal lines within it.

He then brought down two connection lines from the two nodes to where he drew the final shape. It was a looped triangle with no extra details.

"Looks good to me. What do you think, Crash?"

"Crash. d(^_^)b"

"Yeah, let's see what happens now."

Examining what he had drawn, he could see no flaws in it and Crash agreed. Now it was time to supply his Spirit energy. Unlike last time, he didn't just randomly pour his energy into the rock. He intentionally guided it into the downward facing triangle as he thought to himself.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

'It seems each node is important and plays its own unique role. So if I guide my energy to flow through each node systematically, things might go differen—'

Before he could finish the thought, he felt the rock vibrating in his hand violently. Before he could even retract his Spirit energy, numerous cracks ran across the rock surface and it swiftly crumbled into a pile of dust.

"…"

"…"

"Okay, let's try that again."

Undeterred by the abrupt failure, Lucas found another rock and swiftly drew the Rune on it once more. This time he placed his energy in the square shield-like node first only for the rock to explode on him like a hand grenade. The powerful blast numbing his hand.

On his third attempt, he placed energy into the looped triangle and was surprised when nothing bad happened. Encouraged by this, he led his energy to the upside down triangle then the square shield-like node.

When the linking up process was done, the rock began to pulse in his hand violently, queueing him to toss it out immediately. With a muted bang, he heard the rock explode like a bomb in the distance.

Lucas stopped at this point and fell into thought once more. He could tell he was missing something but the only way to gain any knowledge on Runes was to actually draw and activate a Rune first before receiving an info packet. Reaching this point in thought, Lucas suddenly said,

"Hey Wiki, you there?"

{Yes I am, Lucas.}

"You're an asshole, you know that? How the hell am I supposed to do this without blowing myself up first? You—"

Wiki didn't bother to respond as Lucas peppered it with insults for almost a full minute. With all the malice and frustration out of his system, he refocused on his task once more.

As he kept drawing the same Rune over and over to the point where he had to carve up rocks himself for his own use. With each new trial, he learnt a little more about the rune. By trial six, he had figured out that starting from the downward triangle produces the weakest explosions. By trial ten, he learnt the square shield-like node had to be traced from the diagonal lines before moving to the square itself or the rock would definitely explode or disintegrate itself.

Looking at the rectangle palm sized rock in his hand, Lucas thought over what he had been doing for the past hour now.

'This is my fifteenth try. For some reason the last node keeps causing the rocks to disintegrate no matter how I trace it. Wait, what if I channel energy from both the downward triangle and the shield node?'

With this new idea, he hastily went to work. His Spirit energy easily flowed from the downward triangle to the shield node. As it powered them, they glowed with a dim white light. Using his Will, he directed his energy from both nodes into the looped triangle. They met at the center of the node before fusing into one stream and traced the final node.

When the process was completed, Lucas felt everything click in place as the Rune glowed with a powerful white light. He felt the rock in his hands harden considerably, its shade becoming darker as it shrunk as well. Just as his eyes widened in wonder, he suddenly heard a very low hum from the rock. His heart sank as the runes began to flicker unstably before shutting off completely.

He subconsciously tightened his grip on the rock slightly and it was squished in his grasp like jelly.

As he watched the previously solid rock become a very viscous liquid in his hand, he couldn't help but smile before he burst out laughing, almost bringing himself to tears.

After a few moments, he got himself together before tossing the jelly to the side. He used his tendrils to stand up as he said to himself.

"Of course that was going to happen. Can never be too easy, huh?"

Since Wiki hadn't informed him of his quest being completed, Lucas understood it had been a failure. He walked to the entrance of his cave and jumped out, a tendril shot out as sailed through the air with practiced ease. He needed to clear his head.

As he swung through the cavern absentmindedly, the sound of running water cut through his senses. He had heard water dripping throughout the cavern before but this was different. Given how powerful he was now, he chose to go investigate the sound. After five minutes of swinging and crawling on the cavern's walls, he finally found the location he had been all this while hearing.

He immediately saw two things that peaked his interest. First off, he could see the sound came from a spring. Its water flowed through a small channel which seemed to have been created by the flow of the spring itself.

Secondly, a sky blue salamander was drinking from the spring. It looked much bigger than the one he had taken down before and its Spirit energy was vast giving it a deep azure aura in his perception. But even with its powerful aura, Lucas didn't sense a solid core from it.

What piqued Lucas' interest about the salamander was the Runes it had throughout its body. With his [Spirit Sense], he could see some type of energy flow from the spring into the lizard. It weaved complex patterns and flowed into its Runes systematically. Seeking answers, Lucas asked Wiki internally,

'What's it doing?'

{The salamander is absorbing Water energy from the spring.}

"Hmm… nothing else?"

Wiki kept silent. Lucas guessed it was doing something along those lines but he hoped Wiki would give him more information. Unfortunately, it seemed he didn't have the relevant information packet(s).

Switching tactics, Lucas tried to memorize the runes on the salamander's scales. Similar to the Runes on the equipment, the shapes were not very complex so it wasn't difficult for him to memorize them. What was difficult was figuring out which Runes the salamander was using and their purpose.

After watching for what felt like five minutes, Lucas still could not make heads or tails of the process and the salamander seemed to be done. The runes on its scales dimmed before vanishing as it turned its head to Lucas' direction. Its gaze was confused for a bit before it decided to cautiously move away.

'Its senses are really sharp. Good thing I kept my distance.'

Lucas thought as he moved away from the spring as well. As he swung through the cavern, he couldn't help but think about the salamander. What let it use its Runes but he couldn't? The next moment it hit him.

'Its Runes were on its body! Maybe if I drew the Rune on myself, it will finally work. But there's one issue though, how is it materializing its Spirit energy?'

Lucas had seen a salamander and other creatures use their Spirit energy externally before but he had never really made an attempt to emulate it since he had quite a lot on his plate most of the time. When you add the fact that he still defeated them in combat, it didn't seem like something worth learning.

He rushed to his cave to test this new insight and see what difference it would make. He settled in and sat crossed legged on the floor once more. With absolute focus, he tried projecting his Spirit energy out of his palm. A small ball of strangely colored energy appeared in his palm. Its color changed randomly, Lucas could even tell some of its colors were hues he had never seen before.

After rationalizing the ease of the process away, Lucas began focusing on the energy itself. He was already used to how it looked since this was how his Spirit energy appeared within his core.

What he didn't expect however was for his Spirit energy to affect his other senses as well, giving him nonsensical perceptions like the taste of swinging through the cavern and hearing his own emotions.

He easily shook off these feelings and focused on the task at hand. Using the ball of energy, he shaped it out into the triangular Rune. It hovered on his palm inertly as he prepared for the next step.

"Here goes nothing."

Steeling himself, he placed the Rune behind his left palm. The Rune changed and shifted to fit the back of his hand on its own. As it did so, Lucas felt a sharp pain in his hand. He could see his flesh writhing and shifting as the Rune appeared on his hand. When the process was over, Lucas looked at his arm in confusion.

"Why is it so different from the lizard? Its Runes looked more like glowing tattoos while mine looks like I got branded…"

Mulling it over for a bit, he still couldn't get to the bottom of it so he let the matter be. It was time to run the final test and actually activate the Rune.

"My hand better not turn to jelly after this."

He said as he clenched his teeth and poured his Spirit energy into the Rune as he did for the fifteenth trial. He chose this process with the reasoning that having a jelly hand was way better than detonating himself.

He smoothly activated the downward triangle node and the shield node. He then brought down two streams of energy from both nodes and activated the looped triangle. With all three nodes connected, the Rune glowed a bright white that consumed his entire left arm.

He could feel his left hand changing, his flesh and bones let out low hums as they became darker and denser than any other part of his body. The metallic sheen his skin always had, had evolved into a polished gleam on his left hand.

"Hmm, it didn't blow me up. Good, let's see what's different about my arm."

Flexing and waving the arm around didn't feel much different than usual so he decided to run a small test. He transformed a tendril into a scythe-like appendage and chopped down at his arm viciously.

Clang!

In a burst of sparks, the scythe-tendril was deflected off easily. Lucas looked at his hand in awe, finding himself speechless at the display of durability. Suddenly, Wiki's indifferent voice snapped him back to reality.

{[Quest], Forge a functioning Rune, completed. Reward received. Should I activate the information packet now? [Yes] [No].}

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