Nate lay on his enchanted cloud bed staring at the ceiling of his room. The normally plain dark stone edifice was instead lit up with swirls of colour that he occasionally shifted into particular shapes. Ships, animals, sometimes just landscapes. The Illusion Shaping runic array was easy to control since his many Intents let him guide the appearance into any form he wanted. The act of creating art directly from his mind, even temporarily, was relaxing for him. Though it was nowhere near as enjoyable as creating lasting art. That meant he would visit the Slums tonight. Another shop would become the beneficiary of one of his art works.

  With a sigh, he flicked his eyes at Frick. The blue goblin spirit was sitting calmly on the table, channelling Conceptual Material into a metal plate. The affinity for the Concept of Space was already emanating off the Rare material and it would continue to grow over the next few weeks. The metal plate was to be his first Mythic material, utilising his Grandmaster-tier Space Sigil. Frick caught his glance and morphed his nose into one single large nostril before pretending to pick it with a clawed finger.

  Nate rolled his eyes but didn’t miss the message. He was putting off his planning because he was still a little annoyed about the outcome of the Tribunal. The Prefects had agreed to a Guild response against House Desmarais when it was convenient, which was just another way of saying never. Logically, Nate knew that Luc would respond anyway. Avery too, probably. He didn’t know the Platinum Illusionist well enough to be confident in the woman's assertions. Then again, he also didn’t have a reason to think she was lying. Certainly, Luc, Aisling and Evindal had all believed him when he told them what Avery had said to him.

  Still, even knowing someone was going to respond, he was angry at Prefects Allais and Raoult for not backing him. He was a member of the Guild. A Gold-ranked member now, in fact. And even knowing that, they had backed down. Their response was infuriating.

  Calming himself down, he realised worse than their response was his reaction to it. He was letting it distract him from doing the things he wanted to do. His art, planning his skill development, runecrafting or spending time with Kiri or Britt.

  “Thank you,” he said to Frick.

  “No problemo, Boss man. Seemed like you were getting stuck in your head again! So, what’s the plan? We gonna gut our enemies? Wage war goblin-style on them!”

  Nate laughed, “That depends. Does goblin-style involve trying to attack using overwhelming numbers and then fleeing when we get stomped?”

  “Nah Boss. Goblins can be sneaky. Let's blow up their house!”

  Nate gave it a moment of thought. Blowing up the House Desmarais estate would certainly be cathartic. Destroying their lands had the added benefit of potentially removing an enemy that had shown they were willing to have him killed. But was it the best use of his time? Especially when Luc would act.

  “Put it down as an option. I want to see what Luc and Avery do first.”

  “Alright, Boss. Whatcha going to do then?” asked Frick.

  “Skill development planning. Then Britt.”

  Frick smirked in response, “Boss, sometimes, I think you have your priorities the wrong way around. We could go goblin-mode on your enemies, then you could go goblin-mode on your girlfriend. After that you could do a little planning!”

  “I don’t think you can use goblin-mode in two different contexts like that. They mean different things,” Nate grumbled in response. “Besides, I like planning my development. If I didn’t do it before I went and saw Britt I would be distracted. Splitting my attention while I am with her seems a little disrespectful.”

  “You do you, Boss. Just saying. Goblin-mode is the way to go.”

  “Alright, let's work through my Skills,” Nate replied, checking to make sure his runecrafted anti-scrying cube was charged. Satisfied they wouldn’t be spied on, with sounds unable to escape a barrier around his room, he started going over his Status sheet.

  “Conceptual Insight still has a little way to go till its next evolution, but currently it’s helping me raise the tier of my Sigils, and identifying Concepts. Thoughts?”

  Frick remained silent, looking deep in thought. Nate appreciated that when it was time to put in the work, his Familiar took his questions seriously.

  “Is the goal evolution or synergy?” Frick asked after a few more seconds.

  Nate acknowledged the question before giving it serious consideration. He had been wondering the same thing. Kiri had pulled him aside long enough to go over her new Skills after the battle. His sister’s Skills had condensed down but grown powerful through their Synergies. The ability to gain permanent Stat increases that stacked with Stat Orbs was incredibly powerful. While the change might impact her burst capability, that paled in comparison to the benefits she was gaining by potentially increasing her base Stats and the impact of Stat multipliers.

  Glancing at his Status again, he counted his Skills. Twelve of them, with two more to come from his Realmwalker Class by level sixty. Was he spreading himself thin by trying to advance them all separately? Synergies had always granted almost all of the effects of the Skills that they combined from. It would also make them faster to advance if he could focus on one Skill instead of splitting his focus across two to three. That was the factor that made the decision an easy one. He had reached level fifty across his Classes, which put his Class level ahead of every single one of his Skill levels. He needed to evolve a Skill beyond Mythic if he wanted to achieve a tier-up when he unlocked his Tertiary Class.

  At this particular moment, he had no idea how to get a Skill to evolve beyond Mythic, but he intended to figure it out. Decision made, he glanced at Frick.

  “Synergies first. Conceptual Insight should be able to be folded into Farsight of the Runic Artist.”

  “Agreed, Boss. Same goes for Conceptual Material and Material Shaping. Could probably already do those actually, with your little trick.”

  Nate paused to assess his Class Core, using his sphere of awareness to determine the locations of the two Skills. They weren’t too far apart, but he was still going to injure himself forcing the Skills to combine. He would need Kiri around so he could heal himself by using his Life Drain runic array on her. His minor healing spell probably wouldn’t be enough to get the job done on its own.

  “Alright. Conceptual Spatial Empowerment and Space Is All Around You should combine easily as well. I’ll get some easy levels in the latter first though. Maybe even evolve it once before I try and get them to synergise,” Nate explained.

  “What about Conceptual Runic Creation and Conceptual Runic Artistry?” asked Frick.

  “Should include Conceptual Intent with them,” Nate replied, thinking about how the three main Skills that he used to create runes should be folded into a single Skill.

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  “I’ll do that one first actually,” Nate continued. “They’re all similar Skill Level and the result should be pretty amazing. The Skill they become will also be one of the closest to the level sixty evolution and should help me decide on the path forward.”

  “That just leaves True Teleportation and Empowered Amplified Magic,” Frick commented.

  “Both need to be aligned to my Embodiment,” Nate stated confidently. “I know I wanted to try for Creative, but I think Conceptual as an Embodiment might be an even better fit. It’s what I do, right? Every rune or runic array I create is about manipulating Concepts. Even my art incorporates them, as will my plans for creating ‘living’ art. Thoughts?”

  Nate turned back to look at Frick to gauge his Familiar’s response.

  “I think you’re right, Boss. Especially since your current Embodiment is fragmented. You got any idea how you’re going to evolve True Teleportation towards being Conceptual?”

  “You’re making it,” Nate commented offhandedly. He hadn’t shared his plans for the spatial affinity metal plate with Frick yet, but the intention was for it to be the keystone piece for creating his first spatial portal.

  Rather than try and pry into the details, Frick just grunted his acknowledgement, “Sounds like you got your plans, Boss. What now?”

  “Kiri,” Nate said with a grin, sending his farsight sphere of awareness to try and find his sister. She wasn’t in her room so he sent the sphere of awareness towards the combat grounds as he formed a runic array that combined the Sigils for Space and Sound. Unsurprisingly, he found Kiri engaged in a bout using the desert setting. She was beating on some poor guy wielding a sword. He didn’t need to wait for long for his sister to finish the match. Ignoring the guy groaning on the sand, Nate started sending a whisper of his voice through the runic array, effectively whispering to Kiri from the other side of the University. A moment later he watched as Kiri excused herself from the combat fields.

  Dropping his focus on Kiri, Nate started preparing his room. She wouldn’t show off how far she could teleport using her One Soul Two Realms Skill, which meant she would need to jog over to his room. He was fully expecting there to be blood, as with every other time he had forcibly combined his Skills. That was more than enough reason to remove his robe and make sure that any mess he created was nowhere near his artworks. Certainly, some artists used blood as a medium, but he was not one of them.

  Kiri arrived a few minutes later, barging in with a grin.

  “What is it? We going after you-know-who?” she asked excitedly.

  Closing the door behind her, Nate gave a small shake of his head, “No. Not yet at least. I was going to forcibly combine some Skills and I needed something to drain to heal any wounds.”

  Kiri looked deflated at first but perked back up as he finished his explanation.

  “Forced synergies? You’ve mentioned it before, but you know that’s not normal right? Are you sure it’s a good idea?”

  Nate tried not to smile and failed utterly. Kiri’s tone was completely at odds with her words. While her words sounded like she thought his plan was a bad idea, her tone said that she was completely on board. Just like his best friend to encourage him to do something risky. At least this time he wasn’t doing it while fighting.

  “I’m sure. It’s like they taught us in Skill Development and the Mana and Affinities subjects. Our intent helps guide our Skill evolutions and synergies. I’m just being a bit more forceful about it.”

  “Well, let’s do it then! Just, you know, don’t explode too much of your body,” Kiri replied, relaxing near him before she glanced down slightly and grinned. “Silk underwear! I knew it!”

  He grumbled, “Should’ve just damaged my robe…it would have fixed itself.” At the same time he manifested his Life Drain runic array and connected it to Kiri,

  “Does Britt have anything to say about them?” teased Kiri, indicating his blue silk underwear.

  “She asked if I could get them in red,” Nate replied, tuning out her response as he began to focus on his Class Core.

  Flowing mana into his three Skills it was easy to see that Conceptual Intent, Conceptual Runic Creation and Conceptual Runic Artistry were all physically close to each other. The only challenge was going to be making the three of them overlap enough to combine. In his previous attempts, he had only tried to move two Skills at once. Moving three shouldn’t be much more of a challenge. A moment later he realised just how right he was. The three Skills overlapped within seconds, the surface of his Class Core shifting as the bumps that indicated the Skills physically combined. A second later he was staring at the ceiling, trying very hard to focus on maintaining his Life Drain runic array as he was wracked by pain. Once more, he was thankful for investing in his Constitution and Endurance Stats. Without them he wasn’t sure he would have remained conscious.

  Up until this moment he had thought that the reason for the explosion was due to how far he was forced to move the Skills across his Class Core. That hypothesis had been based on two attempts so it was easy to see why he had made that mistake. The first time he had combined Skills, while blinded and fighting the demon Xalvoloth, the Skills had been an Epic and a Mythic. The wound had been so bad he almost died from it.

  The second time, when fighting in the Fourth Hell, he had combined two Epic Skills. Looking back at it, the wound had not been as debilitating. Life-threatening, certainly, but the injury hadn’t slowed him down too much.

  This third attempt had combined three Mythic Skills and it told him that the level of the Skills and their tier were the most important factors in how much damage the forced synergy caused. Being tied to Kiri’s lifeforce was slowly knitting his stomach back together, but he was pretty sure the underwear was a write-off. Maybe he could clean them if he had a Sigil for Blood, he thought idly, recognising his mind was wandering from the blood loss.

  Kiri’s face appeared above his and there was a slightl look of worry on her face, “Your soul energy seems stable…you’re not dying on me, right?”

  The pain was subsiding, albeit slowly, so his teeth ground together more than he would have liked as he replied, “Not..dying…just…hurts. A lot.”

  The worry on his sister’s face transformed from worry into amusement, “Good. That was like, the most spectacularly stupid thing I have ever seen.”

  Nate nodded his agreement, “Don’t tell Aisling.”

  Kiri looked thoughtful, “...what about Luc?”

  With a pained sigh he tilted his head to the side, trying to get comfortable on the stone floor, “Yeah, okay.”

  “Ha! Luc’s going to get a good laugh out of this. Did it at least work?” Kiri asked, sitting down by his head as he used the lifeforce in her body to repair his own.

  Glancing at the notification hovering in the corner of his vision, he tilted his head slightly to smile at his sister, “It did.”

  Skill Synergy discovered between your Conceptual Intent (Mythic) Skill, Conceptual Runic Creation (Mythic) Skill and your Conceptual Runic Artistry (Mythic) Skill. Combine these Skills to gain Conceptual Runic Mastery (Mythic) Skill.

  Proceed?

  He selected yes, before going over his new Skill description.

  Conceptual Runic Mastery 1 > 48

  Conceptual Runic Mastery (Mythic)

  As a Runic Artist you have emphasised your deep connection with the Concepts of reality. The truths of the universe are yours to mould and through runes you tame these truths and make them your own. This Skill is the ultimate expression of what it means to create runes, allowing the user to create runes or runic arrays. This Skill allows the user’s runes and the Concepts and Sigils involved to aspect the mana of any runes projected. Mana aspecting will increase the power of any runes created. Mana aspecting is equal to 10 plus Skill Level * 1.5% resulting in an equivalent increase in the rune’s power. Mana Cost for rune creation decreases by 2% per Skill Level. The user of this Skill may permanently imbue a number of Intents in any rune they create as well as adding additional Subconcepts to the rune. Number of intents able to be imparted to dynamic runes is equal to Intellect / 8. Number of intents able to be imparted to any permanent runes is equal to Intellect / 16. Number of additional Subconcepts that can be added is equal to Intellect / 100. Increases Intellect by 1% per Skill Level. All runes created gain 10% of Dexterity and 10% of Creativity as Magic Power. Dexterity and Creativity to Magic Power conversion increases by 1% per Skill Level. Additionally grants 15% Creativity. Concepts embedded in runes increase the power of the rune by 10% plus 0.5% per Skill Level.

  He smiled, ignoring the pain in his stomach as he slowly knitted himself back together. He had lost nothing and gained everything he wanted. The bonus Magic Power from Conceptual Runic Artistry now applied to all his runes, not just runic arrays. Additionally, the Mana Aspecting effects from two of his Skills had combined, doubling the bonus to the power of his runes. Between the two bonuses he was now confident that, even at mana parity, his runes would now be able to match equivalent spells. No longer would he need to gush mana like a sieve.

  Kiri smirked at him and patted his head before laying down on his enchanted cloud bed and waiting for him to finish stitching himself back together. It was good to progress, he thought, but better to do it with family.

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