While Luna had been happy just to activate a speed enchantment on her blowgun the first day, Cain was going for something a bit more difficult. He was working on getting sharpness, durability, and Frost Damage all to work together on a spear. Since Luna had four arms and excellent reach, thanks to the body of a Lamia, Cain thought that she too would do well using a spear as her main weapon.
It was a test piece, just to see if he could do it, but since Luna didn't have any good weapons at all at the moment, he could hand it down to her and it would still be better than nothing. He could also make her a pair of scimitars, which might be a better option than the spear for her since her first instinct was to put a sword in all four hands to take care of her siblings, but that could wait until he really knew what he was doing.
The Runic Language wasn't that hard to learn, as it was similar to a written language that he already knew, but to make a runic weapon the order, spacing, and intent all mattered. That made the successful creation of a runic weapon unpredictable with Cain's level of knowledge, and he was still on the surface rune's basic level of crafting.
Once he managed to finish with this, the next step was to imbue the runes as the item was being created, layering them through the weapon or armor for a multiplied overall effect. Unlike what Cain had expected, it was not done while the weapon was being forged. Instead, the runes would be activated in alternating sequences multiple times, which would mesh them all together.
But that also required that the spacing and positions worked not only for one activation, but all of them that you wanted to attempt. It was a three-dimensional geometric puzzle of a truly Epic scale, and it was still only the second chapter of the book.
How he let the Librarian convince him that this was an essential skill, Cain did not know, but she still insisted that it was something that he needed to know before he started on the other things that she insisted that he absolutely needed to know, so he couldn't just abandon it, for fear of trying something else and ending up with missing knowledge because it was supposed to be learned while learning Rune Crafting.
Everything in the Ancient tomes seemed to be like that. It was meant to be learned in order and done in a certain way, so that the student would end up with a fully-rounded education, covering every possible aspect of magical knowledge.
If you had an eternity, that was likely a great thing, but Cain had things to do and people to see, he couldn't just take a decade or five off to spend at the Library with Luna and the Librarian before he awakened his Spirit Rank skills and was forced to move on to another world.
Thankfully the Quest Completion message was still holding off. He wasn't sure what would happen when it started handing out rewards. There was a Spirit Rank item involved, but more importantly, there was a random spin involved, and those could end up being almost anything.
He had even been offered living beings and beanbag chairs from the spin in the past.
Just like Luna, Cain was working in pencil, so that he could adjust his work before finalizing it, and he thought he finally had all three enhancements correct on this spear. So, he started on the painting, and optimistically reached the end and prepared to add mana to it.
"Double-check your work first. You only get one try to activate them." The Librarian reminded him.
She was an annoying teacher, but she had a point. If you failed to activate the runes you couldn't edit them and try again, it would just keep failing, thinking that you were trying to use the defective item.
On closer inspection, the item was perfect, so Cain added mana, watching as the spear went from light purple to ice white and began to emit a faint chill.
"I think it worked correctly this time Librarian," Cain called over to her happily, bringing the Elf jogging back over to his position.
"It seems so. You have a knack for this. If only you were as good at geometry, you would be an instant Rune Master." The words sounded snarky, but Cain could tell in her thoughts that she was being sincere, so he took it as a compliment.
Once the weapon was finished, Cain could feel the power in it the moment that he wielded it. It might be a simple construction, and therefore lacking in unique and powerful effects, but in simple raw damage it should keep up with anything that he had wielded so far.
"This is a truly impressive skill, it's a shame it was lost to the world. Why didn't you revive it in your city here, since you had the knowledge all along?" Cain asked the Librarian.
"As much as I wanted to, the Runes will only activate for someone with Ancient bloodlines. I could draw them all perfectly, but it isn't possible for me, or anyone else on the continent to activate them. The only ones who might have been able to do it are the Demon Kings of the Central Continent, and with as many generations removed as they are from their Ancient heritage, even they might not be able to use Runecrafting." The Librarian explained.
That was a shame, Cain had hoped that he could teach some of the Dwarves how to do it. They used a wide variety of carved runes and magical enchantments on their weapons, so Rune Crafting would be exactly the sort of thing that they would love.
Jessica was watching from across the room with an intrigued smile on her face, looking intently at the spear while Cain talked to the Librarian.
[Need it, must have it.] her thoughts were repeating, so Cain reached out and handed the spear to her, to see what the pacifist Bunny would do with the perpetually frozen weapon.
He should have expected what came next, but somehow, she managed to take him entirely by surprise when she pulled a jug of fruit juice from her inventory, wiped the spear clean, and dunked it in the drink.
Only a few seconds later she gave it a small twirl and then pulled it out, dripping with slushy, half-frozen mythical fruit juice. The liquid was carefully cleaned off into a cup, then the rest was portioned out, and the Bunny ran out with a tray full of fruit smoothies.
"That was unexpected." The Librarian laughed, having watched the whole silent exchange.
"You get used to it. The Bunnies are very creative when they come up with new ideas. Maybe I should enchant a spoon for her? Even a simple frost enchantment would do the same thing, and she could keep it with her to make drinks whenever she wanted."
That was all it took for Cain to get sidetracked, and end his progress on Rune Crafting for the day.
But downstairs, Luna was having an incredible time, learning to use the blowgun. Speed was a very basic direction for the weapon, and relied a lot on intent, so when she blew the dart through the tube, she only had to focus on it speeding toward the target and it would fly at incredible speeds.
Her aim was still a bit questionable though. There were darts everywhere in the wall around the target, as well as in the target block itself. At first, when she aimed the tube, she would aim from her eyes to the end of the tube and assume that was a straight line to the target.
If her darts had been moving more slowly, maybe they would have been, after accounting for drop over distance, but her very first attempt almost flew over the retaining wall.
"You've got this little snake. Just like the old man told you, visualize the tube and the path from your mouth to the target, breathe in through your nose, and then a sharp breath out.
[Ptooh]
The blowgun made an almost musical note when operated, and the dart thumped into the target, almost on the red bullseye circle.
"Very nice, little Lamia. I thought you would have a much harder time learning the basics, but with the darts flying so fast, this distance has become easy for you." The Master Archer commended her, then patted her head again.
Luna was much warmer-blooded than elves, and her hair was silky soft, very pleasant on the old man's hand, and the action was addictive. She would only let him do it though, as Luna had decided that head pats were a sign of appreciation by those in authority.
Cain gave them out all the time, and he was in charge, but nobody else did, unless you had been doing a task for them, so she was pretty sure that her assessment of the unspoken rules was correct.
"Now, again. When you control your breathing, you control your body. Steady your breath to steady your hands." The Master instructed her, leading Luna through another round of blowgun drills.
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