The Runic Alchemist

Damian decided to use the fate-given chance to its fullest. Even if he failed, he would gain so much knowledge of his runic circles that it would cut his research time for original spells by more than half—and he wouldn't age a single day.

First of all, however, he checked out the area he had been given for this trial. It wasn't endless; the maximum range extended 50 kilometers from each side of the river before an invisible barrier stopped him from going further. The land had many types of fruits, and fortunately, there were creatures other than those made of metal. He didn't know if the alien food was safe to eat or not, but if he died, he would just return to the desert and fail the trial. He could always try again in a few years or so. The second-ranker trial penalty was harsh—he knew that much. But he couldn't just live on fruits. Meat was a necessity if he was to survive here for a long time.

The growth of fruits was abnormally fast, and he had hundreds upon hundreds of various tasting ones. Once he secured a steady supply of food, his first priority was to make his liquid mana. The raw materials—ammonia and potassium—were easy to acquire from decomposed animal guts and burning the hardwood trees to collect white ash.

Before that, Damian had to extract metal from the many littered metal corpses. He used over 80% of his mana pool and a temporary forge to finally melt the metal and create a runic tool imbued with a special spell he had crafted long ago. It was the same tool that had helped him with enchantment and cutting off pieces of his own soul—necessary steps to gather liquid mana from the environment for the mana generators.

Doing everything alone with barely any tools and limited mana took a lot of time, but after two or three weeks, Damian finally had a working mana generator. He also forged numerous containers to store the liquid mana. The many monsters had annoyed him too much during that time, but once he gained power, he swiftly took care of the ones roaming near his area.

With liquid mana in hand, it was easy to construct a large, comfortable house on a high place—safe from all monsters. He even managed to craft some average-quality paper using the fiber-filled trees. Burning bones with charcoal powder and water yielded good enough ink.

With all the preparations complete, he began to delve deep into the runic circles he had learned until now—circles he could perform without truly understanding their fundamental nature. He broke down each runic circle, each pathway, each unique section, and tried to grasp them from the very basics. Needless to say, it was a massive project—recognizing all the runes, the functions of unique shapes, and the pathways.

He may not have aged a single day, but from his rough calculations—full of holes, as he forgot to keep track of days many times—approximately three decades had passed since he had arrived at the bank of the silver river. If one counted the total days he was alive, he was reaching his 70s—though he still looked like a teenage kid, barely 14.
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It took three long-ass decades.. but he had done it. He could now proudly say there was nothing about the normal runic circles he drew on a daily basis that he couldn't understand. He had succeeded in creating his very own original spells.

He had done much more than that, but creating original spells had been his priority. A year after, when he finally succeeded in making a brand new runic circle from scratch, it marked the end of his long solitary stay in this place.

Thirty years were a lot to process his thoughts and feelings about the situation he was in and the new life he had received. He abandoned many useless thoughts and could say.. he was more sagely? But only time would tell if that was the case or not. At the very least, compared to years before, he was much calmer and in control of his emotions now. That had to count for something. He had thought for long hours about the strange dungeon they were thrown out of, The Demon Lord, the highswords turncoats and.. Reize.

In just his starting year, after eating for months, he had realized he wasn't truly hungry—it was just his mind craving food at regular intervals. He never aged or had any need to relieve himself. Practically, he was just a copy of his mind, and after years, he presumed this place was also a copy of some other place since the seasons never changed. None of it was real.. but it was a great place to learn and focus on tasks. Though he couldn't confirm it, the monsters he killed seemed to give him some experience, and his spell and scholar-related skills must have gone through several levels. When he realized this in his initial years, he made a habit of using his sword and spear whenever he was too tired to think and just wanted to vent.

He had done so much research and experimentation in the past decades that he now felt done with runes—for a while, at least. He had only scratched the surface of the wonderful knowledge that was near godly and could rewrite the very laws of the universe.

After years of studying runes, he finally categorized all of them and made a system of his own, labeling everything through experiments that explained the entire structure of any spell. The core structure of any runic circle consisted of four things:

Runes: The base symbols that define fundamental concepts (elements, actions, conditions).

Numbers: English numbers acting as modifiers, intensifiers, or connectors between runic effects.

Pathways: Lines that determine the flow of mana and how runes interact within the circle.

Sections: Different parts of the circle responsible for specific aspects of a spell (targeting, power, shape, duration, etc.).

He further categorized the runes for ease of use:

Elemental Runes: Represent fundamental forces (fire, water, wind, earth, light, dark, spacetime, and chaos).

Action Runes: Define what the spell does (ignite, freeze, repel, bind, reinforce, expand, shrink).

Modifier Runes: Alter effects (faster, stronger, delayed, chained, reversed).

Targeting Runes: Determine the spell's focus (self, enemy, area, object).

Control Runes: Influence pathways, affecting mana distribution (redirect, amplify, loop, split).

The simple lines Damian had once thought insignificant—pathways—turned out to be one of the most difficult things to figure out. Pathways acted like circuits, determining how mana was distributed:

Straight lines: Direct mana in a shape, uninterrupted path (fast execution).

Curved lines: Delay or alter flow, potentially allowing time-based effects.

Interwoven Webs: Combine multiple effects into a layered spell.

Closed Loops: Cause continuous effects, reinforcing or sustaining mana.

Using this system, how any runic circle was formed could now be understood. Unique quirks of particular runic circles could be more easily inferred. With this knowledge, Damian's understanding of runes had reached a level few could even fathom.