Legendary Shelter Survival Guide

"Huff... Huff... Huff..." Lucas had ragged breathing while he lay on the ground with his chest lifting again and again.

He was not wearing a shirt and his chiseled body was on display.

With the leveling up and training every day, Lucas now had a set of eight abs, his chest with pure muscles with no fat, and with movement, the chest also tightened as if his breathing was too ragged.

Even his arms had muscles that looked like they were hard enough to break steel just by pushing at it. Even his calves were flaunting.

If left the fact that Lucas's face was burnt to the point that his skin was knotted and some bone showed with one of his eyes just blank white. He could have become a model back on Earth.

Right now, Lucas had a wooden weapon in his hand while he lay down in front of one of the group's members who was sweating lesser than Lucas.

"Wow, that healing really has messed with your stamina huh," Jerry said and gave Lucas a hand.

As Lucas had the spearmanship skill, he was obliged to practice it too as it was supposed to reach level 5 and till now, Lucas was only able to surpass one level.

As Lucas took Jerry's hand and pulled himself up, he couldn't help but chuckle despite his exhaustion. "Yeah, it really did a number on me. But I'll get back to my prime soon enough, you'll see."

Jerry grinned and patted Lucas on the back. "I have no doubt about that. You're the toughest guy I know here."

Lucas appreciated the encouragement from his older friend. He knew that he had to push himself harder if he wanted to reach the next level in his spearmanship skill.

The battles they faced in this world were becoming more challenging, and he needed to be at his best to protect his friends and himself.

Now that some type of god was trying to mess with them in order to get fun, Lucas was sure that he would have to get strong quicker as some intuition told him that things like this would keep happening.

Lucas fought against Jerry who was only in the spar to train his shielding skill. He only defended while Lucas only attacked.

Lucas was sure that his spear skill would level up again soon enough as with each hour of relentless nonstop training, his skill proficiency was increasing by 10 and he only needed 60 more in order to upgrade the skill again.

When Lucas was done after two hours, he had a session of healing with Ella who took care of his eye and face. His body was still hurt from the inside but fixing the eye came first.

"It's itching a lot," Lucas remarked while his eyes twitched with frustration. Whenever the healing took place, Lucas had an itch on his cheek and inside of the eye socket, even if the eye had no pain receptors or something, for now, Lucas couldn't get rid of the itch even when he rubbed it vigorously.

"Just give it time, your nerves, the pupil, the skin, flesh, muscles, everything is recovering. The itch is just a small price to pay in order to be healed." Ella said while her hand was stable at Lucas's left cheek as energy kept coming out of her palm and entered Lucas like it was the most natural thing to do.

Lucas took the healing for an hour and soon, the recovery was better, his eye still did not have a vision but according to the others, there was some betterment in his condition.

Lucas was going to go train again when he saw Sean erecting a thin-cut tree just two meters away from Lucas's workshop.

"What are you doing?" Lucas asked with calm when he saw how dedicated Sean was when he was doing the work.

"Oh! It's nothing, just setting up my own place to practice runesmithing better."

Lucas did not know what to say to the guy, there was no problem with him getting his own place to practice his skill as Lucas had done the same but he could have taken any corner of his choice rather than set it right at the side of Lucas's workshop.

"Are you going to Runesmith right now? If so, I would like to see what it's all about."

Lucas and the others had been very curious about the two brother's skills. While Baanry could fix the durability of weapons and equipment that were deemed worthy and had a grade in the system's eyes. Sean was mysteriously practicing the runes.

"Sure, you can watch," Sean said with a grin. "But be warned, runesmithing can get a lot boring."

"I don't mind."

"Good, let me get things ready."

Lucas nodded, his curiosity piqued. He had seen Barney's impressive work and craved to look more, but runesmithing was still somewhat of a mystery to him.

He stared at Sean build his so-called newly set-up workspace, which when it got ready consisted of three straight erected thin trunks with the fourth one being one of Lucas's workshop walls.

"I am going to get a table from Uncle Dylan later but for now, we will have to sit o the ground," Sean said and sat in the unfinished workshop with only framing done.

"You can take some leather from the storage if you'd like."

"Nah, my father needs them more than me for you know, training his skills."

"... What happened to you? How did you become so sensible in such a short time?" Lucas finally succumbed to his curiosity and asked with no hesitation.

Sean first smiled to show his amusement and then sighed a little, "I just finally started taking this all as the new reality... that's it."

"..." Lucas could feel some kind of hidden sadness in that line, but he didn't pry as with how long he knew Sean, he had his mind clear in one thing that the guy would tell anything honestly as long as he wanted to.

"Don't mind that. I am starting now."

Sean picked up a small stone and placed it on his left hand's palm. He then took out the rune carving knife from his pocket.

The rune carving knife was made of metal with its handle made fine with polish finishing. The wooden polished handle also had a small design that Lucas deemed as unreadable.

With a focused expression, Sean started using the rune carving knife for carving some very complicated-looking symbols onto the surface of the small stone.

"These are called runes," Sean explained as he worked, "Each symbol holds a specific meaning and power. When properly inscribed, these runes can help to enhance weapons, armor, and even some equipment we use every day. I only know some runes that are in my mind since I got the skill. I know their abstract meaning but nothing more."

Lucas watched in awe as Sean's skilled hands moved with precision, creating beautiful patterns one by one on the stone. The runes looked like some kind of ancient language that used the help of big symbols as alphabets to write in the old times.

"When these runes are activated, they take the mana from my body or the one who is using it, providing various effects depending on the inscriptions," Sean continued. "It takes practice and understanding of the materials to make effective runes that I don't know about."

"Soo... are these runes or inscriptions random or do you know what you are doing?"

"Heh, I know some of the runes and their little meaning but the effects are unknown to me. For now, I only know five rune symbols and they can have random sequences or pairings as I like. You can say that this is my first time carving the runes as all this time took me to just understand them."

Lucas couldn't believe that all this was coming outside of Sean's mouth. He always felt like Sean didn't like him but his behavior now seemed too weird.

"Alright, let's see..."

As Sean finished carving two symbols on the stone, he held the stone in both hands and closed his eyes.

As Sean closed his eyes, Lucas watched with anticipation, curious to see what would happen next.

The runes on the small stone in Sean's hands began to emit a faint, pulsating glow. The carved runes seemed to come alive as if responding to some hidden power within them.

"I have never reached this far, let's see..." Sean said in a hushed tone, focusing his concentration on the stone.

Suddenly, a surge of mana emanated from the stone. The small area surrounding the stone felt charged with an otherworldly glow.

"It worked!" Sean exclaimed with a mixture of surprise and delight. "The rune has been activated."

Lucas was impressed. The sight before him was captivating.

He had thought that it would all be slow and boring just like Sean said but to witness it with his very eyes was something else entirely.

"What does this rune do?" Lucas asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"I'm not sure," Sean admitted.

"Huh?"