CH5 Rune Difficulty
***
Alex left the Tower Master's office more composed than when he'd entered—but if one looked closely, there was a distinct spring in his step as he walked away.
Back in the office, Merlin turned to Zora with a mock-wounded expression. "I can't believe you sided with an outsider. I'm hurt."
Zora chuckled. "Nice try. You and I both know you were going to give him the grant anyway—with or without me."
"Yes, but I wouldn't have offered that much. The last thing I want is Baldrick sniffing around my office. You'll deal with him, by the way. This is your mess."
"Fine," Zora muttered through gritted teeth.
Merlin laughed at her expense, clearly enjoying himself.
Then, with a sudden shift in tone, he asked, "Do you really believe in him?"
Zora paused, nodding slowly, then shook her head. "I don't know. There's something about him —his passion, maybe— that makes me want to give him the benefit of the doubt. I want to believe in him."
"You think he might be able help with that matter?"
"No. I've already given up on that," she said quietly. "Right now, I just want to help a bright, stubborn little boy—and maybe help the tower while I'm at it. He said his plan could solve both his lack of strength and his need for military power."
Merlin blinked. "Wait. Come to think of it, we only heard the part about his personal strength…"
Zora nodded. "Exactly. But if that's just half the plan, and the other half is just as ambitious –enough to build military strength for an out of favour noble heir– then imagine what that means for the Enclave. If we support him, we might be able to build our own independent combat force."
"My Enclave doesn't need a force. I'm still around," Merlin replied.
Zora gave him a long look. "But you won't be around every time something happens. Right now, the tower relies on you and the twenty Grand Mages for defence. If even a few of you are absent, the Enclave becomes vulnerable.
"And beyond defence, a trained force means we can actively pursue planar coordinates and harvest resources more extensively ."
Merlin didn't respond, but his silence was telling.
"Just so you know—I haven't given up on your matter. We'll find a solution, one way or another. So don't lose hope." Merlin said.
"Yes, Father," she said, smiling sweetly.
---
Three Months Later...
A three-foot-tall gnome marched down the corridor toward the Tower Master's office.
Every mage in his path quickly found a reason to disappear. Some ducked behind doors, others turned on their heels and vanished entirely.
The gnome's sharp copper eyes darted around, scanning faces and muttering about coin.
Anyone who fell under his gaze felt a chill crawl down their spine— as if their net worth were being coldly assessed.
This terrifying presence was not a Legendary Mage. Not even an Elite Mage.
He was worse.
He was the Enclave's Chief Financial Officer—Baldrick Pinchcoin.
In DragonHold Enclave, where resources were power, the man who managed the coffers held more sway than even some Grand Mages. Especially when that man was a miserly gnome with a memory like steel and a grudge against financial inefficiency.
Debtors feared him. But there was one thing he hated even more than unpaid debts:
Grant!
Unlike debts, grants weren't repaid. To Baldrick Pinchcoin, they were financial sinkholes— black holes where gold vanished forever.
And today, his target was the Tower's newest grant recipient.
Baldrick arrived at the Tower Master's office, adjusted the thick spectacles sliding down his hooked nose, smoothed back his thinning auburn hair, and marched inside.
To his dismay, Merlin wasn't at the desk— Zora was.
"Baldrick," Zora said, glancing up from a stack of documents. "This is unexpected."
"The urgency of the matter couldn't wait," he said briskly. "Lady Zora, we have a problem. One million gold coins! That's how much he's spent in just three months!"
He slammed down his steel-bound ledger like a declaration of war.
"I hereby move to cancel the grant issued to Master Alex Fury!"
His eyes flared with indignation.
To Baldrick, grant recipients were parasites. At least debtors could be forced to pay eventually. Grant recipients just consumed resources—no return, no accountability.
For a miserly gnome accountant who would query his staff for using more 'precious' ink than necessary for their work, grants might as well be somebody flaying his skin!
And this one was the worst yet.
Zora suppressed a sigh. No one in the Tower —herself and Merlin included— wanted a visit from Baldrick Pinchcoin.
But he was a necessary evil. His obsessive personality made him the best accountant in the tower. His grasp of economics, taxation, and interplanar trade was unrivalled—utterly vital to the Enclave's operations.
"Earl Drake already sent the first-year payment," Zora said calmly. "And the Tower Master opened his personal vault to offset the cost. I don't see the issue."
Pinchcoin opened his ledger, floated over to her desk, and pointed at several complex charts.
"I ran projections. Based on spending trends of previous disciples, there's a 30% compound increase quarter-over-quarter. If this holds, Master Fury's grant will cost the Enclave three million gold by year's end."
Zora's eyes widened.
"That will gut this year's budget," Pinchcoin continued. "Unless the Tower Master opens his vault again, we'll have to revise our financial allocations. That includes grants to hundreds of mages—some of whom are Great and Grand Mages."
Zora leaned back and exhaled. She hadn't expected the ripple effect to be so severe.
"This is just a projection, right? How much time do we have?"
"At the current rate? One quarter," Pinchcoin said. "That's our buffer. After that, we'll start feeling the pinch. And if I may speak frankly, his spending habits are unpredictable. They don't follow any pattern. He's acting like he has an unlimited budget."
"I'll talk to him," Zora said.
Pinchcoin nodded. That was the best outcome he could hope for.
He turned to leave—then suddenly stopped. His nose twitched.
Pinchcoin blinked. That twitch only meant one thing: he smelled profit!
"If I may, Lady Zora—what exactly is Master Alex working on? If I understand the nature of the project, I might be able to evaluate its financial viability. Perhaps even optimize procurement or reduce costs."
Zora froze.
Was this really happening?
Baldrick Pinchcoin, the tower's tightest miser, offering to assist a grant recipient?
She almost thought she was hallucinating.
Still stunned, she said, "To be honest, I don't understand it either. The Tower Master approved the grant on the spot, just after hearing the idea."
Baldrick's eyes gleamed. His nose twitched even more.
"Aha," he whispered.
He offered, "This might be big. In that case, I will personally oversee Master Alex's procurement. I'll ensure he gets the best materials at the best price. This will be a win-win for him—and for my department."
Zora frowned. She wasn't sure whether to be suspicious or grateful.
"…Okay," she said at last.
The gnome left, practically humming.
Zora sat in silence for a long moment, still processing what had just happened.
Eventually, she gave up trying to understand it and returned to her work.
"I need to go see Alex. It's been three months, and he hasn't submitted a single progress report."
She stood, straightened her robe, and left the office.
-
Things weren't going as smoothly as Alex had hoped.
Three months of intense work—trying to develop a self-operating Runic Circle system modelled after programming logic—had yielded only frustration.
His attempts to replicate a self-learning mechanism with complex runic inscriptions had hit an unexpected wall.
Alex had sacrificed sleep, reduced his rest to just four hours a day, and devoted another six to attending Merlin's curated lectures.
The rest of his time was spent buried in his specialized lab, inscribing, testing, recalibrating—again and again.
The walls, ceiling, and even the floor of his lab were filled with overlapping layers of runes.
Together, they formed a massive three-dimensional array—so densely packed that only Alex could make any sense of it.
Now, lying flat on the cold stone floor, he stared up at his creation, exhausted. His body screamed for rest, but his mind refused to shut down.
'Another failure... Even with a 3D array, I still can't process all the parameters to initiate automatic processes. Why?!
'Arrays are annoyingly inconvenient. They need to be perfectly calibrated— no room for trial and error. If this were code, I could just debug on the fly!'
He palmed his face in frustration.
'No, that's just an excuse. I must be doing something wrong.'
Alex got to his feet and scanned the array again, combing through every line and curve, every rune stroke.
'Everything looks right. So why won't it work? Does this mean programming logic can't be applied to rune scripting? Or... am I missing something obvious?'
Ten minutes passed. Still nothing.
Defeated, Alex left the lab with a heavy sigh.
Ding~
He glanced at the door.
'It's not time for Asta to deliver food… a visitor?'
Curious, Alex opened the door—and blinked in surprise.
"Lady Zora?"
"May I come in?" she asked.
"Of course."
After exchanging pleasantries, Zora got straight to the point.
"How's the project going?"
"Poorly," Alex admitted, leading her to the lab.
Zora stepped inside—and immediately stopped, eyes wide.
Every surface in the lab was covered in compact runes. Not a single inch of space had been left untouched.
What stunned her wasn't just the density, but the fact that the array hadn't collapsed under its own pressure.
Typically, mana-infused runes expanded slightly once activated. This often caused overlaps, triggering array failures.
Experienced Array Masters used advanced techniques to avoid this. But Alex… Alex hadn't used any of those.
Even more shocking, every rune was basic.
He'd built this entire complex formation without shortcuts or enhancements.
"You did all this with basic rune techniques?" she asked, almost in disbelief.
"I brute-forced it," Alex said. "I controlled the thickness of each rune line to account for mana expansion. But that created another problem. The thinner the line, the less mana each rune could hold, which limited their effectiveness."
"So I had to develop custom inks with different mana concentrations to compensate for the deficit."
Though his explanation was simple, Zora immediately understood the painstaking work it must've taken to calibrate each rune this way. There were hundreds of thousands of them.
No wonder his eyes looked sunken—he had likely overused his spiritual force multiple times.
"Is that why you needed so many resources?" she asked.
"Yes. But now that I've created the inks, I won't need to spend so much anymore."
Zora couldn't bring herself to criticize him. Instead, she asked gently, "So... what do you think the problem is?"
"I don't know," Alex replied, scratching his head. "I've gone over every single rune. I didn't make a mistake—at least not one I can find. But still... nothing works."
Zora smiled. "In that case, come with me."
"Huh? Where?"
"You'll see. Don't worry—it won't take long."
She dragged him through the portal hub and, using her authority, teleported them to the very top of the Enclave's central tower—the highest point in the entire DragonHold.
The sky was clear. From this vantage, the view was breath-taking.
Alex could see the full expanse of the Enclave below—its vast cityscape spread across the dragon-shaped mountain range, stretching all the way to the bay. It had none of the modern charm of Earth, yet it carried a profound sense of ancient grandeur.
"At night, this place is even more beautiful," Zora said softly. "The lights of the city below, the stars above... It's unforgettable.
"I come here when I need to clear my head. Sometimes, the best ideas aren't forced. You have to let them come to you. A change of scenery helps."
Alex nodded. He understood.
Back on Earth, whenever he was stuck on a project, he would binge-read web novels to reset his brain. By the time he finished, inspiration would usually strike.
Unfortunately, novels weren't exactly popular here. Options were... limited.
'Maybe it's time I find a new hobby', He thought.
He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. Again and again.
And then, as his mind cleared—he saw it.
Not the city.
The mana...
Up here, the ambient mana was different—more concentrated, more volatile. It shifted constantly between elemental forms, dancing in unseen patterns.
'A change in view… Maybe I've been looking at this all wrong.
'Mana is unstable. Trying to control it with a static structure... no wonder the system fails. The moment mana shifts, the entire array breaks down.
'It's like writing computer code on paper and expecting it to run'
His eyes widened.
'That's the flaw. I tried to create a dynamic program with static runes! Without adaptability, it can't process changes or recompile functions mid-execution. Of course it failed.'
Relief—and renewed energy—washed over him.
He turned to Zora. "Is there a tool that allows runes to be modified mid-use? Something that allows active correction?"
"Not for arrays," she said, "but for Spell Circles, yes."
"Spell Circles are just runes in motion. That'll work."
"Then you're looking for a Grimoire," Zora replied. "They're used by wealthy mages to store large sets of spells for fast casting. Some even use them to develop new spells. You can alter chants on the fly without losing control."
"I see… Since chants form spell circles, being able to alter chants means the circles are dynamically shifting too."
"What material is used to make a Grimoire?"
"For low to mid-grade ones, a Moro Diamond works. The higher the quality, the more storage and stability it offers."
"I'll need one."
"I'll get it for you," Zora promised. "But from now on, come to me first before you request any more resources."
Alex raised a brow.
Zora sighed. "Let's just say... your spending has people worried. You've drawn attention. I've smoothed things over for now, but you'll need to keep a low profile."
Alex nodded. "Once I have the Moro Diamond, I shouldn't need anything too outrageous."
They stayed on the tower for another half hour until Zora was satisfied he'd recovered his mental balance.
On the way back to his dorm, energized by a renewed sense of purpose, Alex found his path blocked by gang of five males, about fifteen to seventeen years old.
Judging by their robes and insignias, they were fellow Novice-ranked acolytes of the Mage Tower.
The lead boy stepped forward.
"You Alex Fury?"
Alex paused. He could feel the hostility behind the question.
"Who's asking?"
"The guy who's going to beat you up."
Before Alex could react, they attacked.
Slow! Bind! Restrict!
A flurry of Grade-1 debuff spells hit him at once. He couldn't move.
The lead acolyte cracked his knuckles and advanced with a sneer.
***