Chapter 302: An Unforeseen Choice.

Chapter 302: An Unforeseen Choice.

Congratulations you have leveled up!

Congratulations you have gained a new Skill!

Rapid Machine Reassembly L1

Skill Active

An almost instantaneous reassembly of destroyed, broken, or damaged machinery.

“Finally...”

Roland gave out a sigh of relief while also putting down the pencil in his hand. When looking around his office area he could see parchments and papers everywhere. He had spent the last two weeks scribbling down tier 3 schematics without really knowing what he was doing. Greater runes that were produced by tier 3 runesmiths were still above him, the only thing he was capable of was correcting already existing patterns.

A problem arose after just a few days as he had gone through the entirety of the material that he was given by the professor. To alleviate this problem he started assembling more golems while also trying to construct brand new tier 3 schematics without really working out the language yet. It felt like he was back to ten years ago when he was stuck in a small room discovering tier 1 runes.

Back then he also needed to section off the runic components into larger parts and assemble them together to get something that worked. Luckily he had already worked on such designs before so even the faulty schematics added some ammunition to his research. Finally, his relentlessness paid off and the level-up message appeared before him, he was now level hundred seventy-five.

Name:

Roland Arden L 175

Classes:

T2 Runesmith Lord L50 [ Secondary ]

T2 Runic Engineer L50 [Primary ]

T1 Mage L25 [ Tertiary ]

T1 Runic Mana Scribe L 25 [ X ]

T1 Runic Blacksmith L 25 [ X ]

Strength

227

Agility

183

Dexterity

271

Vitality

239

Endurance

269

Intelligence

The most important fact was that his Runic Eye of Truth skill had reached level nine. It was probably the most important skill that he had and perhaps would help him unlock the tier 3 version of his Runesmith Lord class. This was what he was going for, a prestigious version of this class. The stat multiplier it gave him put him in a league above regular people and if he could achieve the same for tier 3 then he would be set for life.

‘The regular multiplier is three, perhaps I could get a four-time multiplier this time around...’

This was his main wish but he wouldn’t really know if it was possible until he received his new class. The world only gave him hints in the class names or in the tiny sprites on the PC screen he could see. This would be a decision that he couldn’t go back on. A tier 3 class went up to one hundred levels and couldn’t be changed until a person gained fifty levels in it.

Leveling past this point would become even harder than before and would either require risking his life or spending time working on runic equipment for more than ten hours each day. A blunder here would set him back for years and would severely impact his future prospect. However he still had some time to think things over, there was no rush when it came to money but for some reason, he had a bad premonition.

Things were progressing fast and with the arrival of various other players in the city his standing was shaky. While Arthur Valerian’s name offered him a semblance of protection it wouldn’t protect him from his siblings. Now that the word of the B rank dungeon was out, they would certainly start making moves. He was one of his people and would be an easy target to send a message.

‘That one brother is the closest so he might try something first...’

Roland had done his homework on the other brothers before and was sure that they would at least try to make Arthur part of their retainers. He didn’t actually care which brother became the next Duke nor was he interested in gaining more prestige or money. If there was a peaceful resolution to their fight then he would urge Arthur to take it. He could only hope that the young man would know his place and made a deal instead of trying to fight.

‘Well... I’ll worry about that when the time arrives, I can only get this out of the way and prepare as much as I can.’

Before anything happened spies and scouts would probably be sent to prod for all possibilities. Then some time would be wasted trying to make some kind of deal. Perhaps Arthur already had the plan to be taken under the wing of one of his brothers and this was just something to make himself worthy of their help.

‘They still are brothers, maybe their relations aren’t all that bad.’

The face of his own ‘older’ brother popped into his head. While their relationship when they were younger was bumpy they had managed to squash it. Now he could even contact his brother from time to time and have him fill him in on his father’s whereabouts. Due to some tensions at the borders, he was usually forced to be stationed there, and this was perhaps part of the reason that he wasn’t found yet. Though at this point Roland was convinced that he was nothing more than an afterthought in his family's mind.

“Hm, it functions but some of the parts weren’t fully restored.”

The spider drone was ordered to perform a few movements. It could move and operate at about eighty percent capacity. The dents that looked to be smoothed out weren’t quite as smooth as previously. There were some cracks here and there which indicated that the skill needed more levels. After performing a few more tests he came to another conclusion, he could not activate this skill on multiple targets at once.

‘This would be a lot more useful if it had a wider range but it did increase after the level up.’

In his mind, he could see this skill being quite handy in a pinch. The scenario he was thinking about involved multiple battle golems. When one went down he could just restore them without even having to be involved in the battle. With this skill involved, he could see a change to his battle repertoire that could change him into a one-man army. That is if he could ever get the mana usage down. As it stood now, he would pass out after restoring two tier 2 spider drones.

“I guess this is it.”

Finally, after the testing of the new skill was done he decided to give the ascension ritual a go. The previous ones he had stored for this occasion had been destroyed during the Lich incident so he had to go get some new ones from the church. Luckily they had a few lying around that he could procure but he also needed to pay a little extra.

With the crystal in his hand, he decided to sit down near his workbench. There was no need to go up into his office or check up on Agni. Even when he spent months in the previous trial only a few seconds passed in the real world. Thus finally after all these years, the journey he set on was coming to an end. He had left on a mission to join the upper echelons of power and with this step, he would finally have his foot past the door.

There he was again, in his old apartment. At the time he was looking in the mirror that was in his old toilet. Even some of the dust was there that he was either too tired or too lazy to clean up in his previous life. After looking at his face he was having a hard time remembering the one that he used to wear. While his intelligence rating should have given him impeccable memory, for some reason he was slowly forgetting his previous life and the people he left behind.

“It would be funny if this is all some kind of dream and I’ll just eventually wake up from a coma after being hit by that truck... but anyway...”

He slapped his face with both his hands and the pain was very real. This strange place lowered his stats as he felt more like a regular human here than a superhuman runesmith in the real world. Soon enough he was sitting at the screen and going over the sprites and possible classes. To no surprise of his, there were actually more options than the last time he came here. Twenty-five levels ago when he hit level hundred fifty he glanced over all the options and now there was a lot more to go through.

“Let’s see... Master Runic Engineer, that one is new... and what is this one, Runic Machinist?”

A strange class appeared on his screen which was closely related to the Master Runic Engineer. While the Engineer one was easy to decipher, this one was a bit more unique. He noticed that the 2D sprite was holding something that looked like a handgun in one hand while a wrench in the other. Perhaps blasting all those tier 3 monsters with ranged weaponry was some kind of way of unlocking this class as he had never heard of it before.

“Interesting...”

Judging by the name he expected it to be something that helped construct machineries like golems or flying ships. On the other hand, the gun on the sprite indicated that it would get some perks with ranged weaponry. Perhaps it would give his cannons, even the one he mounted on his armor’s shoulder, more perks. It could increase their damage and perhaps even allow him to auto-aim with them through the use of skills. There existed ones that archers used that allowed their projectiles to always hit a target.

“Where is the runesmith tree, it should be somewhere there.”

While the class was intriguing it wasn’t really something that he was interested in at the moment. Maybe it would be a good secondary choice in the future if he decided to focus on the power of cannon fire. Next in line were the runesmith variants, Advanced Runesmith, followed by Master Runesmith, and then something that he was looking for.

“Master Runesmith High-Lord huh?”

There it was, an advanced version of the Runesmith Lord class, a High-Lord variant. It was probably what he was looking for and almost had him clicking the sprite instantly. However, he managed to stop himself as there was something else there. A class on the same side of the tree but one that was slightly ahead of the High-Lord one.

“Huh, what is this one... Runesmith Overlord?”