Nate sat with his back against the sandstone fountain as he surveyed his latest artwork. He had chosen a shop specialising in building supplies this time. Cutter, the old sailor, had gotten up from his seat to get a closer look at the painting. Nate’s Brush of a Thousand Paints, fed on a steady diet of mana, had raised most of his paints from Uncommon to Rare. He had coupled the improvement to his paints with his desire to create a painting that moved.

  The resulting artwork seemed to be captivating Cutter, which Nate could only suspect was a good thing. The painting detailed what he thought a construction site in the Slums might look like. Of course, he had cheated, and used his farsight sphere of awareness to study such a location. Given his cheating, he was confident he had created a fair rendition of a construction site. But then he had included a runic array made from the Illusion, Fluid and Shape Sigils. Guided by his intent, it would return the paints to a fluid state occasionally, before reshaping them into similar renditions with different positions. Once done, the paint would harden again. The result was a painting that shifted every now and then, making the workers seem alive. With his forty-eight intents he had been able to impart over ten similar but different paintings, letting it swap between the images in a specific sequence.

  The delay between each image was the time it took for the runic array to recharge. To say he was pleased with the results was a gross understatement. Cutter seemed to agree, running a finger over the paint after it had finished moving.

  “What ‘appens if they touch it while it’s movin’?” Cutter asked.

  “Not sure. If some kids mess it up, I can fix it though,” replied Nate.

  “Lad, some o’ the adults are as likely to touch it as tha kids. Stupidity ain’ got an age expiration on it.”

  Nate smiled. Cutter was aptly named.

  “I’ll leave it in your capable hands,” Nate quipped.

  “Jus’ like a kid to make more work fer us old folks, ain’ it? Aight lad, I’ll ‘andle it. ‘Specially if ya gonna come down ‘ere an’ fix it.”

  Nate smiled and nodded, before his mood plummeted. In his paranoia, he was constantly scanning their surroundings with his farsight sphere of awareness. He’d just spotted the third crying mother of the night.

  “The war, Cutter. How bad is it down here?” he asked quietly.

  “Third one of meh lifetime, lad. They’re all tha same. Nobles piss off some foreign power or decide one of ‘em has somethin’ they want. War breaks out. Then tha recruiters come. Makin’ promises of pay and food. Mana to advance. Tha desperate an’ tha dumb leap at it. Want ta guess who’s gonna pay tha butchers bill?”

  “The common folk,” Nate answered.

  “Nah, lad. Us. Slummers. Tha ones tha’ ain’ got nothin’ else. Common folk be livin’ out in them villages where the manas a bit better an’ there jus’ be one or two nobles makin’ their lives hard. Hard ta fill a bottomless hole, ya get me?”

  Nate nodded.

  “Ever thought of leaving? Moving somewhere else?” he asked.

  “Aye lad, more’n’once. But gotta get tha whole family ta move. Ain’ cheap an’ most places wouldn’t take us. An’ now that tha countries are at war it’s too late. Might try ‘gain after its over.”

  “Your grandson avoided the recruiters then?”

  Cutter snorted, “That lad ain’ dumb or desperate. Unlike his father. He ain’ a bad man, ya get me. Jus’ a fool. Meh daughter coulda done better but tha hearts a fickle thing, ain’ it?”

  “It is,” Nate agreed, his thoughts straying to Britt.

  “Ya got tha’ look in your eyes ‘gain, lad. Go on. Off wit ya. Ya dun need an old mans worries and ya left meh plenty to enjoy,” grunted Cutter, looking over the moving painting again.

  Nate smiled, “Night, Cutter.”

  Rather than respond Cutter just shooed him away.

  Nate acknowledged the old man's point. He had some work to do back at the workshop. Tomorrow was the day when he would make his suggestions to Britt. He needed to be ready.

  Pausing before he teleported away, he glanced back at the old man, “Cutter, could you find me a few kids who haven’t gotten their classes yet? Smart kids, who might want a job.”

  Cutter nodded, still looking over the painting, “Send em to ya shop near tha Guild in a few days, aye.”

  With Cutter’s agreement, Nate activated True Teleportation, vanishing into thin air.

  *************

  Nate guided Britt into his workshop. True to his word, he had spent the last few days improving the defences. It would be weeks, maybe months, before he was satisfied with the alterations. His and Kiri’s safety, however, was worth any price. It was a level of safety he hoped his girlfriend would also accept.

  The layout of the two-storey building had changed when Kiri had asked for some space for an office. In response, Nate had dug out a second basement and relocated Jacque into the first basement as his area of the workshop. The second basement was now a storage area for materials and finished creations. That left the ground floor for Kiri’s office and samples of runecrafted goods. Finally, Nate’s own workshop was on the second floor.

  “So, this is where the magic happens?” quipped Britt.

  He nodded, “I guess so. Come on. I’ll show you my work area and then we can relax and chat.”

  “So serious,” Britt replied with a sly smile. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were trying to get me out of my armour.”

  “I am,” Nate agreed with a straight face. His reasons might not be what Britt was expecting though.

  The war with Asmuisil was starting to build up steam in the Capital causing crime to shoot through the roof. Of course, he suspected that wasn’t the only reason Britt was wandering around armoured. She hadn’t said anything explicitly to him, but he could tell she was suffering after almost dying. A feeling he could strongly relate to, given his own experiences. Which was why he had brought her to his workshop in the first place.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Walking up the stairs to his workshop, he enjoyed the look on Britt’s face as her eyes widened. The walls were covered with runic schematics from various ideas. Piles of Uncommon and Rare materials littered multiple workbenches. At the back of the room lay his spatial affinity plate. Additionally, the ambient mana in the room was significantly higher, mostly to keep his various runic wards and protections charged.

  The room had everything from reinforcement and durability runes to barriers and anti-spying protections covering both mana and soul Skills. He wished he had a Sigil for Demonic or Celestial energy so he could truly cover all avenues of attack. Finally, there were weapon system runes built into the ceiling with specific targeting runic arrays. If someone entered his workshop that wasn’t Jacque, Kiri or Frick, or without Nate present, they were going to have a very bad day. If they were weak enough, it would be their last day.

  “It’s exactly what I expected,” stated Britt, spinning around to face him.

  “Confusing?” asked Nate looking around at the scattered paraphernalia.

  “No, a mess,” replied Britt kindly. “Your mind is always going so fast. I bet you know where everything in the room is. But to anyone else, this would be a mess. That’s just, very you. You get distracted a lot.”

  Nate debated arguing but even after two seconds with all his attention given to Britt’s point he found it hard to refute. He was distractible. There was just so much he could be working on and only so many hours in the day.

  “Okay, fair point,” he acknowledged.

  “So, going to help me get my armour off?” she asked, giving him a saucy smile.

  “Soon. Can we talk first?” he asked, answering a question with a question.

  “Good talk or bad talk?” she replied, looking a little worried.

  “Good, I hope.”

  “Okay. Can I sit on the table?”

  He laughed. He had reinforced the tables to handle far heavier weights than Britt in her armour and with a wave indicated that he didn’t mind.

  As Britt made some space before levering herself up onto one of his workbenches, Nate began pacing back and forth.

  “I told you out on the Plains, after the…incident…that I had some ideas about how to help you get stronger.”

  “I remember,” Britt replied, leaning forward, her blue eyes attentive.

  “Okay, so, I have been going over how to achieve that and I have a few ideas. Specifically, four ideas. I’ll go through them in order of difficulty.”

  He began ticking them off on his fingers as he continued to pace across the wooden floor, “Equipment is the easiest. You’ve seen my Skills. I could encase you in powerful enough equipment that you could punch up at least one tier, probably two. Maybe even three, with enough time. I could probably even make equipment specifically designed to interact with your Skills and, of course, enhance your Stats further…though in my experience, the impact of equipment on Stats is much lower than Classes.”

  Britt nodded her understanding as he flicked up a second finger, “Second, Skill Development. I can either acquire Skill Orbs for you or give you access to a training area flooded with mana and someone who can push you to advance your Skills. That option also leads to the third thing, which is far riskier.”

  He paused to look at Britt and gauge her reaction. Her mouth had transformed into a thin line and she was staring at him intently. She gave a small nod, her entire body tense. He tried not to smile, seeing that she was Stalwart, through and through.

  “Okay. I am not certain if I can do it, but I am willing to try. I have been known to force Skill synergies between my own Skills. I am not certain if the System will take issue with an attempt to do it to someone else, but I am willing to try. I will stop if the System objects. It’s also dangerous, Britt. Like, need healing for the wounds caused, dangerous.”

  “If it’s not going to kill me, I can handle it,” his girlfriend replied resolutely.

  “Okay. Finally, we can look at…modifying you.”

  Britt’s face scrunched up in confusion, “What do you mean?”

  Nate paused, gathering his thoughts as he considered the best way to explain himself.

  “So, to the best of my knowledge, a Class Core distributes processed mana to parts of your body. That is what raises your Stats. I do have some proof that is the case. I am not certain what is involved in turning mana into processed mana, but I do know that as you increase your Class Tiers, the Class Core can control more and more processed mana. Now, I don’t know how to forcibly increase the power in your Class Core, but I do have an idea on how to circumvent it.”

  Britt looked confused as he rambled and he rushed on to get to the point.

  “The Class Core is just temporarily increasing the ‘quality’ of your body. We could just make permanent increases to the quality of parts of your body. I mean, I could. Your bones are a material…there is nothing to say I couldn’t use my Skill and a lot of mana to permanently enhance them. We could even take it further. I could carve runes into your bones to make you stronger, faster, more durable. I even have ideas for creating spatially-expanded spaces within your body where we could store excess mana. Turn you into a mana gathering array and give you a secondary source of mana besides your own reserve. Coupled with equipment that could make usage of that mana, we could turn you into something that could compete with Legendaries. Maybe even Mythics.”

  He finished in a rush and looked at his girlfriend who had tears forming in the corner of her eyes. Unsure what he had said to upset her, he stood stock still, trying to figure out what to say to fix it.

  “You’ve put a lot of thought into this,” whispered Britt softly. “Why?”

  Nate answered without thinking, “Because I don’t want to see you get hurt. Because I wanted to offer you a way to keep up with Kiri and I. I can’t guarantee you will, but I wanted to give you an opportunity to at least try. If that’s what you wanted?”

  Britt’s lip quivered and she motioned for Nate to come closer. Once he was within arms reach of her, she pulled him close and tilted her head back to kiss him. He relaxed as their lips touched and after they separated she smiled up at him.

  “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  “It’ll hurt,” he explained. “Like…a lot…”

  “I can take it,” she replied firmly.

  “Okay. I’ll start drawing up the plans and my ideas. You can tell me if you disagree with any of them.”

  “After,” Britt responded. “Now, help me get out of this armour.”

  Nate looked around his workshop and lamented the lack of a bed. He would need to go buy another cloud enchanted bed if this was going to happen more often. Which it would, since he wouldn’t do any sort of body modifications on Britt outside of his workshop. She would need a place to rest and he was less and less comfortable at the University as it turned into a ghost-town.

  An hour later, he was back in his robe, with a bright-eyed and flush-cheeked Britt lying down on one of his workbenches. Between his high Intellect, Perception and decent Dexterity it was easy to draw out a perfect rendition of Britt’s body shape and internal structure. It was important to get the dimensions correct if he was going to be effectively carving runes into her bones. With his hand flickering quickly across the page, he kept up a steady conversation with his girlfriend.

  “So you and Null aren’t taking any of the job postings at the Guild for the war with Asmuisil?”

  “Nope. Null wanted to. After finding out that you and Kiri are two tiers ahead of him he’s been working his ass off to try and do anything he can to bridge that gap and catch up. Those jobs have the best rewards, but his dad wouldn’t let him take any of them,” Britt replied.

  Nate reached out, splaying out her fingers so he could get an accurate representation of the shape of each digit and where the muscles attached to the bones.

  “I know it’s not what Null wants, but I am glad the two of you aren’t getting caught up in the war.”

  “Between you and me, so am I. I had it bad enough against one Gold-ranked. There will be hundreds of them in the war. The jobs Null was looking at wouldn’t have pitted us against them, but you know, accidents happen.”

  Nate flashed a smile at her, “Don’t worry. When I am done with you, you’ll be juggling teams of Golds on your own.”

  As Britt smiled back at him, amusement in her eyes, as he thought about his plans. He had meant every word. He just needed to increase his output. Soon, with Cutter’s help, he would have exactly that, in the form of three students. Three who might be able to follow a path similar to his own. He just needed to figure out the best way to give them a powerful start. For that, there was a certain House that had crossed him. So wasn’t it perfectly fair that they foot the bill? He certainly thought so.

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