Nate stood in his tent, putting the last touches on his painting. The piece had taken him three days to complete, longer than most of his artworks. He could have completed the piece faster, but with most of each day spent in the saddle, then the evenings spent crafting, his time to devote to the painting had been limited.

  This artwork was the first time that he had made himself the focus. In the centre was a humanoid being that looked like a constellation of stars. It seemed fitting to him, given his connection to space and the robe he wore. Around him warred different coloured spheres, all pulling him in different directions via chains. Red for violence, which held the Concept of Blood, a low-tier Sigil he had acquired after his injuries from forcing his Conceptual Runic Mastery synergy. Black for those who would kill him, filled with the Concept of Fear. On the opposing side, a blue sphere held the Concept of Love, representing Kiri, his found family. Finally, above him, stretched into an oval with chains pulling it towards both sides, was a golden sphere filled with the Concept of Calm. He didn’t have a Sigil for Justice or Righteousness so he had been forced to make do, shifting the intent behind the Calm Sigil to be that of a calm before the storm. Calm balanced on a precipice. The Princess had a decision to make every bit as much as he’d had. Would she keep things friendly, or would she try to force his hand? It was yet to be seen.

  At the sound of Aisling’s loud voice ordering the Guild members to break camp, he began to pack up. Another day in the saddle awaited. Another day closer to Asmuisil and the army approaching them. But, another day to continue refining and improving himself and his creations. His Runic Gallery awaited and with Frick already hard at work, the least he could do was match his Familiar’s zeal.

  *************

  Days on the march had turned into weeks and Nate had fallen into a rhythm. While in the saddle he would refine his Runic Gallery through Conceptual Spatial Manipulation, Conceptual Spatial Empowerment and Space Is All Around You. Using his Skills, he slowly made the subspace that housed his Runic Gallery more resilient, larger and more defined while also making it more a part of himself. The space had grown to over twenty metres squared and Nate had no intention of stopping. In his heart, he harboured dreams of one day making it a small world. That, however, would be far into the future at his current rate of growth. The new size, however, made it possible for him to start dividing it into areas. There was the true Runic Gallery, that housed his paintings and artworks, a supply area for storing the materials he worked with and a little den that Frick had requested that looked like a pile of random trinkets and blankets. Finally, there was a ‘work’ area where Nate and Frick kept the current projects being developed.

  The work area within his Runic Gallery had been the second task he had focused on while in the saddle. Improving the Runic Gallery had only taken a couple of hours each day. Most of his time had been spent on using Conceptual Material Shaping to improve the tiers of materials he was working on. The last of the three Runecrafted Barrier plates he had created had been completed over a week ago and with a third and final visit to the Capital via his paired portal device, had been handed over to Luc along with a number of other trinkets. With his mentor off to Asmuisil to sell his latest creations, he was looking forward to the windfall to come, and to the possibility of seeing his own creations on the battlefield.

  The fact that the barriers should limit the amount of death made him feel good, which led into his second job. The one that Etrua was paying him to do. Every night since they had joined the Bright Army, after setting up his tent, Nate had made his way over to his designated healing area. The army was large enough that there were three. They could have gotten away with two, but since the bulk of the army was made up of commoners and conscripts, the nobility had, of course, wanted their own healing area away from the ‘common rabble’. Thankfully, he had been spared from serving the nobles so far.

  The amount of injuries each evening had initially come as a surprise to him. He was certain that back on Earth people and animals had gotten injured while marching, due to the terrain or their own kit or just accidents. However, he had thought that with the enhanced physiques due to mana and Class Cores, that the people of Galle, even the commoners, would sustain less injuries. He had been half-right. The marching had not injured the conscripts. The injuries started to come in each evening after the march had ended and tents were being pitched, mostly from fights. Fights over food, over the best spot to pitch their tents, over drunken disagreements and over mana gems.

  At first, the Gold-ranked healer supervising his healing station had been doubtful about Nate's presence. Lacking a healing class, the supervisor had been dubious about what Nate could offer and had relegated him to dealing with the simplest of injuries. His Lesser Healing Wave spell had handled most of them, and quickly. The supervisor's opinion had changed a few nights later. It had been the fifth evening when a massive brawl had broken out, resulting in an area of the commoners’ camp catching on fire. The injured had rolled in and the healers had been quickly overwhelmed. Nate had extracted his latest project then. Runecrafted Healing Tokens, was what he had named them. Kiri had suggested Feathers of Renewal. It was a shame that for all his creativity, he was so shit at naming things. After hearing her suggestion, he had used his Conceptual Material Shaping to etch the image of a feather into the metal circles. The runes were inside of the material and though he had mostly limited himself to Uncommon-tier Feathers of Renewal, he had made a few Rare-tier ones as well.

  These new runes combined the Sigils for Soul, Connect, Life and Calm. He had shifted all of the Sigils towards the Subconcepts of Healing and Renewal. The resulting rune, powered by his many Intents and Conceptual Runic Mastery, would connect to an individual's soul energy, then using both ambient mana and the person's own mana, begin to passively heal the individual while also calming them. The effects were only a little slower than a healing spell or Skill, but Nate suspected that was more a limitation on the Sigils and the material quality. The chief healer had been suitably impressed and assigned Nate to handle individuals who didn’t need specialised work, such as mending bones.

  Then there were the two dinners he had shared with Princess Morgane. Both had been painful. Since her every action was viewed through a political lens, other nobles had been invited both times. While they were politer than the children of nobles he had met at the Royal University, the looks they gave him had been clear. ‘What are you doing here?’ their gazes had asked. It wasn’t like he could tell them, ‘Hi, I am here because the Princess believes I am a Legendary Class Holder like she is.’ Instead, he had been forced to weather their gazes. Each time, leaving to join Kiri and the rest of the Guildies had felt like escaping from a jail cell.

  Finally, he had continued to improve his own skeleton, along with Britt and Kiri. All three of them possessed epic-quality bone structures below the waist. They were forced to wait for a week after the first treatment as he wanted to assess if there were any negative impacts. A flaw in his thinking had been that while he might be able to heal injuries, he had no way to reverse what he had done, short of chopping off their legs and trying to regenerate them. Thankfully, there had been no negative impact, so he had pushed them from Rare to Epic, which had commensurately improved the Stat bonuses the upgraded materials were providing.

  That had been one half of his preparations for the coming battles. The other half had been creating new materials for Conceptual Automated Existence. With the time to create Legendary materials being vastly reduced due to his evolutions, he had invested in two, with a hope that he wouldn’t need to use them and could eventually bring them to Mythic. True to his plans for his Classes and his future, he had gone with Space and Life. Even now, the two nestled inside his Runic Gallery, ready to be grabbed at a moment's notice. The Concepts in the pair of items were so strong that they were influencing the area around them. Space warping and reforming around the former, which had been a large reason for his focus on improving his Runic Gallery. Life was more interesting. There were, to Nate’s knowledge, no living things inside of his Runic Gallery. So instead, the small blob of yellow and green amber, seemed to be shifting its surroundings. The small amount of ambient mana present was enough for it to occasionally change the shape of the pedestal it sat on, warping it into different representations of life. One moment a tree, then a fish, then reverting back to a pedestal. The changes were only temporary, no more than flickers, lasting for seconds at most, but the results were interesting and Nate intended to spend some time focusing on them.

  That, however, would need to wait. Tomorrow was the day. The day where they would finally reach the grounds where the Princess and her advisors expected that battle against Asmuisil would be joined. Nate sat in his tent going over his gains of the past few weeks. His Skills had improved across the board.

  Conceptual Insight 49 > 51

  Conceptual Material Shaping 31 > 34

  Farsight of the Runic Artist 50 > 52

  Conceptual Runic Mastery 49 > 51

  Conceptual Spatial Manipulation 41 > 43

  Empowered Amplified Magic 40 > 41

  Conceptual Automated Existence 24 > 25

  Conceptual Spatial Empowerment 24 > 26

  Space Is All Around You 7 > 16

  The notification indicating that Empowered Amplified Magic was ready to evolve had triggered a couple of hours earlier. He’d held off on reviewing it until he could give it his full attention.

  Empowered Amplified Magic (L) is ready to evolve.

  Evolutions Available! Please Select 1.

  Skill Evolution Options:

  Conceptual Amplified Magic (M)

  Magic is the manipulation of mana, the energy that determines who rises and who falls. The user of this skill is blessed in all areas of magic, able to bend mana to their will. An Archmage employs Concepts to bend reality. The user of this skill empowers the Concepts of reality, changing their environment to suit their needs. For those blessed few, this Skill increases the user’s Magic Stats by 20%. Increases by 1% per Skill Level. For every 1000 Total Magic Stats, increase the tier of a Concept used by 1.

  Supreme Amplified Magic (M)

  Magic is the manipulation of mana, the energy that determines who rises and who falls. The user of this skill is blessed in all areas of magic, able to bend mana to their will. This is the Skill of an Archmage, their magic made to rule. For those blessed few, this Skill increases the user’s Magic Stats by 20%. Increases by 2% per Skill Level.

  Reading over his two options, he knew what he had to do. Knowing and doing were two different beasts though. Especially when Supreme Amplified Magic at level eighty would offer twice as many Magic Stats as Conceptual Amplified Magic. It also didn’t help that with his current Magic Stats, he wouldn’t receive any bonuses to the tier of his Concepts. Perhaps by the time he hit level sixty in his Classes he would manage it, but for now, the Skill would give him no appreciable bonuses. Except, of course, for the bonus that he needed most of all – to shift his Embodiment, the only thing that really mattered for now. With a put-upon smile, he selected Conceptual Amplified Magic. The price, he reminded himself, would pay off in the long-run.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Bringing up his Status, he looked over all the changes. He and Kiri had both gained two Uncommon Stat Orbs from the Adventurer’s Guild for grading into the Advanced Combat subject. He had chosen an Uncommon Intellect and Uncommon Creativity orb. Coupled with his recent Skill improvements, his Stats had increased again, even without any new Class levels.

  With a smile, he closed his Status and prepared to head to the Princess’s tent. Tomorrow they would finally see what they were going to be facing.

  *************

  Kiri was bored. Guard duty was the most dull task she had ever encountered. At least when she was guarding Nate, she was invested in his safety. Besides, he was usually doing something halfway interesting, be it crafting or painting. He didn’t just sit there, like a lump of mashed vegetables, appearing to do nothing. Her job was simple. Guard one of the logistics personnel. The woman wore four spatial storages that Kiri could spot. She might have been hiding more of them. Kiri didn’t care to check. All of the Bright Army supplies were held between three logistics personnel, each one decked out in spatial storages and apparently specialising in managing them, whatever that meant. Maybe it was an Administration Class. But, because they held the supplies, to prevent sabotage or theft, they needed to be guarded at all times. Kiri had spent more than one day asleep in the saddle because of the night shifts she had been forced to handle while they were camped.

  The worst part was that she couldn’t even practise her Skills while she waited. While Nate had been crafting and Coralie had been moping, another issue she was trying to ignore, Kiri had been focusing on practising. Her Skill development had come along in leaps and bounds. Soul Slayer’s Aspect had evolved to provide a bonus to strength, previously her weakest Physical Stat and a constant cause of consternation. Now, with the vastly improved bonuses to the Stat, and her own hunting in her free time, she had managed to utilise Soul Rebirth to increase the Stat by sixty-five. The results shifted Strength to her second highest Physical Stat, though whenever she imbued herself using Empowered Soul Sanctuary, it would fall back to fourth.

  Soon Improved Willpower would evolve, then, with Nate’s help, she intended to try and force it to synergise with her Soul Slayer’s Aspect.

  Finally, she had spent her time thinking about how she had felt when she had been reborn. So far she hadn’t been able to recreate that feeling, but with battles on the horizon, she suspected she would have the opportunity soon. Two Soul Twins waited within her Sanctuary. Bringing up her Status, she took a moment to review her improvements.

  Closing her Status, she stared out into the night, lit by fires and filled with the raucous noise of thousands of individuals trying to find what little comfort they could on the march. She couldn’t wait for this whole fiasco to be over. Maybe then her beautiful girlfriend would start to seem more like her old self. Or maybe not, maybe the bitch that pretended to be Coralie’s mother instead of just the woman who gave birth to her would find another way to fuck the little Ice Mage up. Not for the first time, Kiri considered killing Prefect Allais, and not for the first time, she suppressed the urge. There were other ways to solve problems besides burying a dagger in them. Just not ones she liked as much.

  Discord Channel

  Patreon with up to 20 chapters ahead of RoyalRoad.