After Furan discarded her 76th Rune Practice Board, a prompt finally appeared on her interface.
[Through your long-term practice, you have found some tricks in Rune Craft. Your Rune Craft proficiency has increased.]
[Rune Craft (Beginner) (0/100)]
At the same time, a new prompt popped up.
[Detected that a new class can be formed once relevant skills meet the requirements.]
Class: Rune Warrior (Half-star)
Description: A class that utilizes runes in combat. Runes can be inscribed at any moment during battle to deliver irresistible attacks to enemies.
Requirements: Breathing Technique (Mastered)
Rune Craft (Mastered)
Win ten battles using runes during combat.]
Oh! A new class. Although it wasn't the Enchanter she had in mind, this Rune Warrior was clearly better than an Enchanter.
Setting aside that this was the only class she'd seen so far that triggered a class prompt, it was also a combat class.
Actually, the classes she had picked before were all support classes. Logically, they didn't have much combat power and only improved attributes, which was why she was interested in learning them.
However, this new class could potentially significantly enhance her combat strength.
After the initial excitement, she began to think about how to meet the requirements to obtain the Rune Warrior class as soon as possible.
First, she had already mastered the Breathing Technique. As for Rune Craft, she just needed to grind it out; it was only a matter of time.
It was the last requirement—winning ten battles using runes during combat—that she found a bit difficult.
Firstly, the phrasing 'using runes during combat' was a bit ambiguous. Did it mean she just had to use them during the fight, or did she have to use a rune to deliver the final blow to defeat the opponent?
Furan leaned toward aiming for the latter first. She would see if the former could be achieved in the process, and if so, she would just follow that.
However, even just using runes during combat wasn't easy. Based on the knowledge that flooded her mind when she just leveled up...
Runes could be condensed in the air using Spiritual Power. Then, by releasing the Spiritual Power envelope, the effect could be unleashed on the enemy.
But the problem lay right there. If she wanted to do that now, the fastest she could draw was over a second. The wind-up time was simply too long.
So, should she get Rune Craft to the Mastered level first before trying to apply runes in combat?
Furan felt motivated. She picked up another Rune Practice Board, wanting to grind her proficiency quickly.
---
After Furan used up her 89th Rune Practice Board, she finally couldn't sit still anymore. Dammit, not a single point of proficiency.
She felt like her method might be wrong. In the past, even if she failed to refine a Potion, she would gain a point of proficiency. Why was there absolutely nothing now?
Moreover, when her Rune Craft proficiency increased before, it was always when she successfully drew a rune for the first time.
So, she had to find other methods to try.
"Bring me some weapons. I want to try them out. I'll pay for the material costs."
Hall hesitated for a moment, but he eventually agreed.
The girl before him was the strangest person he had ever seen. Not only did she spend money like she had nowhere else to put it, but she also treated this slow-paced, meticulous trade like some life-or-death matter.
One had to know that making runes was all about stability. Everyone drew a rune slowly to ensure no mistakes were made.
Yet this girl treated the Rune Practice Boards like they were free. After drawing on one at lightning speed, if she failed, she moved to the next; if she succeeded, she also moved to the next.
Hall felt like she was just fooling around. Sometimes, when someone brought a weapon to you, you wouldn't have a second chance to draw a rune. If the original rune was drawn wrong, there was hardly any space left for a second one.
And the things that could erase runes were even more expensive—not something people in this trade could easily afford.
But then, something surprising happened. After some unknown number of attempts, Furan's rune accuracy instantly became 100%. She didn't make another mistake, and her speed didn't decrease.
Hall came over with a pile of dusty weapons, several of which even had some rust on them.
Hall said apologetically:
"This is our inventory, intended for beginners to practice with. Just try drawing on them. The final quality of a success might not be much, though."
These were items specifically for practice. They were actually defective goods often scavenged from the market. These items all had more or less some flaws, but they could serve as objects for rune inscription.
However, after inscribing a rune, the weapon might still fail for various reasons—the internal structure being unstable and breaking during a clash, or the rune being clearly inscribed but only effective on one side of the blade.
Furan picked up a longsword with a crack. She chose a spot where the crack didn't pass through and began drawing on it with Spiritual Power.
The rune she wanted to try this time was 'Impact'. Its effect was that when hitting an enemy's armor in combat, activating the rune would produce an Impact on the enemy. A good one could make the opponent lose their balance, allowing her to follow up with a victory.
It had to be said that the Beginner level of Rune Craft seemed quite powerful. Her inscription this time was a direct success and extremely fast—so fast that Hall didn't even have time to react.
It's done? Hall felt an incredible sense of wonder. He had to fail with seven weapons before succeeding once. Could this'saturation-style' practice really be that effective?
But regardless of what Hall thought, upholding the good attitude of the service industry, Hall stepped forward and showed his bracer.
"You can try hitting me right here with the sword."
Furan didn't waste any time. She pressed the sword against Hall's bracer and activated the rune.
This time she didn't use much force, and her movement was very gentle. Normally, it wouldn't have caused much Impact to someone of Hall's tall and sturdy build.
But under the application of the Impact rune, Hall's body pressed down slightly, and the force of his entire body tended toward the point of attack.
"Whew." Hall let out a long breath and then said:
"Not bad. It's hard for runes to play a big role on this kind of metal. Your rune inscription is completely qualified."
Hall couldn't help but feel a bit envious. She could already inscribe on weapons on her first day; it had taken him a month to succeed back then.
Then, Hall said:
"Try again. We need to test the stability of the rune."
Furan tested it several more times. Embarrassingly, the rune only activated again on the very last try.
"That's how it is with flawed weapons. You never know what part caused the issue."
Hall explained.
Furan used up the remaining weapons and walked straight to the door.
Hall went out to see her off. For the sake of the sixty-eight silver coins Furan spent today, he said with a very professional service attitude:
"When will you be coming back, customer? So I can prepare."
"No need. I've already learned it."