The Runic Alchemist

The place Damian found himself in was completely different from his first trial. Instead of a chemistry lab, he stood on a modern, some kind of talent show-style stage..? The lighting was focusing solely on him. The audience sat in cushioned chairs, chatting amongst themselves, but they were all mere silhouettes without clear facial features. Yet, they murmured and laughed as if they were real people.

'Cough' 'Cough.'

"..Are you just here to look around?" A voice called from Damian's side.

He immediately turned and saw three peculiar figures seated on throne-like chairs, reminiscent of a judge's panel on a reality show. The creatures, small and blue-faced, looked like gnomes but much longer faces, each around 3–4 feet tall overall. The one in the middle looked serious, frowning; the one on the right smiled happily at him; and the one on the left sighed into his microphone, clearly bored.

"Are you talking to me?" Damian asked, glancing around, uncertain.

"You're the one on stage, aren't you, boy? Of course, we're talking to you. Now, get started; we haven't got all day," growled the bored gnome.

What in the world? Who were these people? What had happened to his trial? Was this the trial? What was he supposed to do here?

"I'm sorry, I'm new to this. What am I supposed to do, exactly?" Damian asked, turning his attention to the smiling gnome, as the other two seemed thoroughly irritated with him.

"This one! He brings us to the strangest place I've ever seen, and now he doesn't even know why!" The bored gnome grumbled.

"The seats are nice, though. Maybe I should copy this design," remarked the serious one, seemingly unfazed.

"Oh, it's simple, boy. Just look at the floor," the happy gnome explained in a feminine voice. "Can you see the runes there?"

Damian finally looked down, noticing blue powder spread in the form of ancient runes—symbols he recognized from the Goldilocks estate's rune book and more recent books in Faerunia's library. These were the types of runes commonly used for magical inscriptions in this world.

"Yes," he replied.

"Good. Use the powder to create your own runic spell, activate it, and show us. We will evaluate your work and decide if you're worthy to be one of us," she explained.

"One of you?" Damian asked.

"Yes, we are the proud Elder Runebreakers."

Ah, that made sense… sort of. But where had these beings come from? He'd encountered creatures in his previous trial, but none had spoken to him before.

"Uh… who exactly are you? Why haven't I heard of your kind before?" he asked as politely as possible.

"No questions other than those related to the trial are allowed," snapped the bored gnome. "Now, get on with it. Not that filthy humans ever impress us."

Damian noticed two boards on the tables in front of them: one with a green circle and another with a red cross. They would be the ones to decide whether or not he got this job. This trial was different, but it seemed straightforward enough. Provided the judges were not biased, the two, other than the happy one, looked like Damian was rudely disturbing their sleep or was going to ask their daughter's hand in marriage any second now.

He just had to create a runic spell using the powder, which he could sense radiating mana. Mana powder, he thought. He'd once considered making mana ink by solidifying mana with precipitation into powder, but it had never worked out. This powder, though, felt like…

Wait—were these crushed mana stones? That would explain it. Why hadn't he thought of crushing one to use as powder before? Then he remembered reading about them: mana stones couldn't be crushed easily. A specific skill and secret techniques were needed to preserve the mana within the powder. It was known to be dangerous, often causing explosions when the mana stone was broken.

As Damian touched the first rune approx 30 centimeters big, a bright red neon clock appeared under the judge's table, starting a two-hour countdown. Plenty of time for one spell, Damain thought.

He activated his

'Eyes of Truth'

and examined the blue powder rune. His vision immediately revealed alphabets and numbers linked by green ethereal lines, just as he'd seen for individual runes representing singular effects. A string of these runes written together, at a measured distance and specific shape made a runic spell that a common runesmith used for iron and steel tools.

Damian could not activate the runes since it was not made by him, but if he used the powder and made a runic circle of his own that he usually saw, that should do the trick. Just as Damian tried using his hand to destroy the rune made of blue powder, but he felt an unknown energy push him back with quite a force, making him fall back on his butt.

"What the hell?"

"Hehehe…" The judges snickered behind him, along with all the audience, further irritating Damian. He tried again and again, each time thrown back harder than before. He even attempted blowing on the powder to disperse it, but this time, the force slapped him across the face.

The laughter of the audience and the louder judges was really getting on his nerves.

He really wanted to throttle these little blue pests. He tried drawing his own runic spell to disrupt the runes, but his World Shaper Hands skill refused to activate. Time was ticking down—only an hour and twenty-four minutes left.

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"Fay! As expected… humans are trash," the bored one scoffed.

"It's pointless," said the serious one. "His details say he knows it, but seems like he hasn't even used it even once in his lifetime…"

"Now, now. Let's give him a chance," the friendly one interjected.

Damian caught fragments of their conversation thanks to his enhanced hearing. They were whispering really quietly.

"Something I have but haven't used… What could that be…?"

Realization struck him. There was one rune-related skill he'd never known how to activate. Damian got up once again, only an hour and 22 minutes remaining. He walked straight towards the runes made of powdered mana stones and stretched his hand to destroy the runes for the umpteenth time, however when the force came to thwart him this time Damian activated his age old skill effect

'The Lord's Respect'.

Immediately the force struggled to push him, instead Damian felt a wave of circling limbs of sorts around his body, but it was only noticeable to his senses when he used it to contend against the force.

It still wasn't easy. It took a lot of his concentration, pushing through with every ounce of strength until he finally managed to disrupt one of the runes with his little finger, which disrupted the entire spell. The force vanished, along with the strange, circling energy or limbs whatever they were that he was feeling.