[Desert region on the unknown planet, Astral plane, Damian's POV.]
The gains of the Spellwright Monarch path were too attractive for Damian to not take the risk. Hopefully, he would have enough mana liquid in just 15 to 20 minutes after the ascension to open the waygate and completely avoid fighting the demon lord.
Damian selected the option, and a fourth door materialized beside the earlier three. He hesitated for a second before entering the white glowing door. His first prestigious job trial had left so trauma behind. Those damned slaps hurt so much he could still rember the numb feeling in his cheeks.
Shaking his head, Damian entered, expecting to co out in a completely different place for his second ranker trial. At least that's what should have happened. But instead, he stepped into another closed room with four weird-looking walls. In the next second, the walls shifted in front of his eyes, changing from tallic grey to solid white. Damian walked to the middle of the room, and the walls changed again — this ti to pitch black. He noticed a folded piece of paper placed right in the center of the room.
There was no tir or magical creatures to guide his actions, unlike his previous trials. The paper had only two lines written on it: Carve one rune on each side of the wall and activate all for 1 minute.
Just one rune? Wasn't this a bit too easy? There had to be so catch.
He was given no material to draw the rune with — no mana ink, no mana dust, nothing. All his spatial storages were gone from his body. He was only wearing a simple white shirt and grey pants — one of the few pairs of clothes he owned back in the university dorm room. Without any material, how was he supposed to draw runes? Experience tales at My Virtual Library Empire
Damian tried using his world-shaper hands, drawing four runes and sending them onto the four walls, connecting them to him with mana threads. When he activated them, the walls changed again, and he kept the burning fire active for more than two minutes — but as he had expected, it didn't work. The instructions clearly stated to draw on the walls, not just have the rune near them.
What else?
Damian used an earth elent spell to conjure so dirt and mould it into the shape of a simple cup. Then, using an air blade spell, he made a small cut on his arm, letting the blood drip into the cup. Once he had enough, he healed himself and hurriedly began drawing modified runes on all four walls when the material changed to tallic copper-like. Would it even work on such a surface? He still gave it a try. At least this ti, a tir appeared when he activated the runes — so this should be the right thod.
He had to draw them incredibly fast before the walls shifted again. It took few failed attempts. The walls changed from copper to glass and various tals, including iron, before Damian finally managed to draw four runes in quick succession. He kept them small and simple, choosing the wind rune since it cost the least amount of mana. His blood only had a little mana in it, just barely enough to contain the rune's effect.
Damian successfully activated the wind runes and kept them stable for a minute.. but still, nothing happened. The mont the material on the walls shifted, the efficiency of the runes dropped significantly. He had to use more and more blood to keep them powerful enough to withstand the changes — and even then, it was hard to last beyond 50 to 60 seconds. He was burning through his own blood just to keep them active, and the process was becoming more and more unsustainable.
When he finally managed to keep all four runes active past the one-minute mark, Damian heaved a sigh of relief and waited.. but nothing happened. The tir showed one minute, yet there was no result. What the fuck? Did he need to draw the runes on every shifting material and hope for three matching cycles to happen back-to-back?
He'd be bloodless by then. There had to be a better way.
The trial was for a job that would give him the power to use runic embednt on any material — this had to be related to that. A learning step to reach that level. Damian stopped using his blood and instead focused on the real runic spell engraving process he used for weapons and tools. Even if the wall was part of one whole structure, he could still use just a small area to carve a proper runic circle using just that part. With enough mana nodes and the right structure, the rune would sustain itself for a few seconds — maybe longer.
He began ignoring the four walls and focused on just one. Every ti the material changed, it broke his flow — but with each shift, Damian's understanding deepened. The trial wasn't about blood or speed. It was about mana nodes.
Every material had different gaps in its structure for mana nodes to settle in, and he had to adjust the mana nodes in real-ti to fit those changes without breaking the rune's power flow. If he connected all the nodes to form a continuous circuit, in addition he could anchor the rune with his own mana thread — using it as an additional node to stabilize the spell while manually adjusting the formation's alignnt with shifting walls.
When Damian finally managed to hold one rune active through three different material changes, passing the one-minute mark, the blue countdown on the wall turned green and froze at 1 minute. The wall also stopped shifting.
He did it? Fuck! He didn't need to do all four at the sa ti — his dumb mind had just assud that was the case.
'Stupid as usual..' The prince sneered.
It imdiately ruined his happy mood. Telling the prince to fuck off, Damian repeated the process three more tis for the remaining walls. When the final wall froze, another glowing white door appeared.
Stepping through, Damian erged in a strange open space. It looked like a garden, but the sky was a deep purple, the trees around him glowed orange, and the land beneath his feet was dark brown. It was the weirdest place possible.
The most weird thing, however, was the river flowing beside him — not just any river. Liquid silver-colored tal coursed through its stream, shimring under the purple sky.
Damian's gut told him this was going to be another mindfuck. Hopefully, nothing would attack him this ti—
A deep, earth-shaking roar echoed from behind him. The ground trembled as a gigantic dinousaur made entirely of pure silver tal erged from the forest, ripping trees from the ground and throwing them aside with its massive teeth.
'Fuck my life!'
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