Chapter 151 (1/2)

Randidly left the tent 15 minutes later, feeling elated, but strangely sad.

The old woman who sat in the tent, carefully tended by several women due to her enchanted wounds that wouldn’t heal, spun a very sad tale. A year ago, they had been one of the two most powerful Styles of the Engraving Guilds in the Spearman School Domain. But they had been betrayed and attacked by those who wanted their engraving symbols.

For their Willow Style did not have many of the basic animal runes, nor many of the elemental symbols, that would add magical power to a weapon’s attacks. But they did have a very particular and powerful method that very few other Engraving Styles had; they knew how to Engrave a skill into a weapon or armor.

At its most basic, it was like a gun with limited bullets. It had a certain number of charges, which once used, would deplete it and cause the Engraving to disappear. At higher levels, these charges recharged slowly and used indefinitely.

At the highest level… the skill would grow like a normal skill, slowly growing stronger. But this was only when the Engraving was made by a master.

The old woman sorrowfully explained that they had escaped with their lives and these methods, burning all other records to ash as they fled. Although they could hide here, living as bandits, it was extremely difficult.

For they had broken and their power scattered, they had nothing. They needed hope. So even though it was only for a promise of assistance and support, they had given Randidly two things; the first was a very large set of volumes that detailed the very complicated and formulaic way that basic runes worked, and how they were discovered. Theoretically, the woman stated, one could use these basic principles contained in the book set to create your own runes.

The second object was a short list of runes that they had discovered. This included the Oxen Rune, which increased Vitality and Resistance, the Dolphin Rune, which increased Intelligence and Control, and the Preying Mantis, which increased Perception and Willpower. But the most valuable rune was the Shadow Rune, which was divided into 5 grades, each version even more simplified. But even the basic Grade V Shadow Rune made Randidly’s eyebrows rise rapidly. The mana required for it was about double his mana pool.

For obvious reasons, they weren’t willing to give Randidly any of their more complicated runes, or their Skill rune method. It almost seemed foolish to him that they even told him about it. But when he looked at the old woman, and the rest of the skinny women, desperately slurping at the tasty food he had provided, he realized that his was just flailing desperation.

They needed something, some hope to hold onto. That old woman didn’t know if Randidly could become that, but offering this small information was better than doing nothing at all, even though helping Randidly along on his Engraving path might lead the investigations from the Engraving Guilds back to them.

So Randidly returned to the fire, inwardly torn. It was just a promise, but… He took promises very seriously. He didn’t want to feel like he owed anything to others. Sitting down, he took out one of the books given to him by the old woman and looked at it for a long time. Then he simply sighed.

His eyes hardened. He had already resolved himself to take the path to strength. He couldn’t afford to waffle back and forth while the system continued to throw curveballs his way. If he wanted Donnyton, and in a larger sense, Earth to survive…

Following this train of thought, Randidly turned to Shal. “What is the Calamity?”

Shal didn’t even open his eyes. “There is no meaning in speaking of it.”

Randidly frowned. “I’ll go back to my own world eventually, and I will want to prepare. If I knew something about it-”

“As always, you rush to judgement.” Shal straightened, looking over towards the road. “I wish I could tell you, but you cannot understand it. Here look. The Calamity-”

As Shal began to speak, the words shifted, and suddenly Shal was saying something in a trill and clicking language. He talked for a minute while Randidly’s eyebrows rose, and then shrugged at him.

“-as I say, no point in speaking of it. The system will prevent you from learning information before your time. Just know that it is powerful. The only individual in the history of our world who can rival it was the Spearman. That alone should give you an idea of the power it possesses.”

Shaking his head, Randidly settled back to his thoughts. What he really grew to fear was the System itself. It somehow detected the content of the speech and reversed the translation function, however it worked, in real time. That made him wonder about what it meant for him refusing to get a class and the Heretic distinction. Clearly, if it really wanted to prevent him from doing something, it had no qualms about doing it.

Then why was he allowed to continue without a class…? Or rather, it wasn’t that the system wanted him to take a class, but he was just walking a path that would be dangerous, but with a high payoff?

Although this wasn’t a normal situation; very few individuals could rival what he was doing, just for lack of Aether. But the Judgement system was in place for a reason… If they didn’t expect this to happen, why would it have been created? Or rather, exist? Randidly wasn’t so sure he wanted to think about the beings that were capable of creating something like the system. Besides, it seemed strangely without a purpose. It had come to Earth, but Randidly still didn’t know why.

Suddenly, he remembered his conversation a few weeks ago in Franksburg, with the professor, where he flippantly responded they were giving up control.

‘Of what?’ The professor had responded.