Later that afternoon, after the horses had settled into their long, steady rhythm, Ludger decided to test what Taron had shown him.

He lifted one hand from the reins, index finger cutting slow arcs through the air. Mana pulsed faintly at his fingertip—a dim, golden-brown glow, like sunlight trapped in dust.

The idea was simple: keep the flow precise, equal from start to finish. In practice, it was anything but. The horse shifted beneath him, the road rolled uneven, and his first attempt looked more like a crushed egg than a circle. The rune sputtered and dissolved.

Taron glanced back from his saddle. “You’re drawing like the horse owes you money.”

Ludger grunted. “The horse keeps changing altitude.”

“Welcome to runecrafting on the move,” Taron said, smirking. “Not that I recommend.”

Ludger tried again. Focus on the pulse. Breathe even. Guide the flow, don’t shove it. He steadied his wrist, let his mana slide rather than push. The line came smoother this time—round, clean, and closed perfectly on itself. A thin shimmer hung in the air for half a second before fading.

Taron whistled. “You actually did it. Took me two weeks to get a circle that clean.”

Ludger flexed his hand, testing the lingering tingle in his fingers. “I’ve been using magic since I was three,” he said simply. “Control’s the one thing I’ve never had to relearn.”

He traced another, faster this time, a smaller ring nested inside the first. The pattern held without wobbling. Easy now—muscle memory clicking into place.

Taron shook his head, half proud, half irritated. “Remind me to stop feeling good about my progress next time.”

Ludger smirked faintly. “That’s part of your training too.”

The next hour passed quietly. The road hummed beneath the horses, and the air filled with faint, vanishing circles of earthen light—each one a little sharper than the last.

Taron glanced at Ludger’s armguards as another faint rune shimmered and dissolved in the air. “You know,” he said, “those armguards of yours could probably handle real etching.”

Ludger raised a brow. “They’re good metal, yeah.”

“Better than good,” Taron replied. “High-quality alloy, tight mana grain. They’d endure rune crafting for quite a while before warping.” He reached into his satchel, pulled out the small slate again, and drew a simple design—a compact circle crossed by two vertical lines and a downward curve. “You could practice on those. Start small. This one’s the most basic: Heaviness.”

Ludger studied the symbol. “Useful for what?”

“Shields,” Taron said. “Makes them anchor harder when they take a hit. The rune redirects part of your mana into the object’s weight field. Doesn’t actually make it heavier to carry—only when it resists impact.”

He tapped the diagram. “Easy to test, too. You etch the outline shallow, channel mana in a slow, steady pulse, and feel the change. If it buzzes like a bee in a jar, flow’s uneven. If it sinks, you nailed it.”

Ludger flexed his fingers, looking at the plain metal curve on his forearm. “Heaviness,” he murmured. “Good lesson for the day.”

Taron smiled faintly. “Just don’t try it while riding. If it works, you’ll pull yourself off the horse.”

Ludger gave him a sidelong look, dry as gravel. “Then I’ll wait until camp. I’d hate to disappoint the horse.”

Taron chuckled, shaking his head. “You’ll get it right. You’ve already got the control. It’s just geometry and patience now.”

Ludger turned the idea over in his mind as the road stretched ahead—weight, control, endurance. Things he already understood all too well.

Ludger looked down at his armguards when Taron suggested using them. The metal gleamed faintly under the sun—solid work, but snug now. He’d grown again. The straps bit a little at the edges of his forearms.

“They’re good pieces,” he admitted, turning one wrist. “Maybe too good to burn up learning.”

Taron tilted his head. “Sentimental?”

Ludger gave a small shrug. “Gift from Lord Torvares. I’m not that fond of the man, but I respect what he is—honest, at least.”

He let the thought sit a moment, then clicked his tongue. “I’ll practice on something else first.”

He focused on the path beside them. The earth stirred, mana whispering through it like breath through lungs. A chunk of packed soil rose, grains sliding together until it hung just above the ground. Ludger pulled it to his hand with a flick of his wrist. It floated obediently, spinning slowly as he smoothed its edges into a round, compact sphere.

He traced the heaviness rune Taron had shown him—careful lines, even flow, circle closed clean. Mana seeped into the mark, the faint hum of pressure building inside the earthen orb.

When he released it, the rune pulsed once. The sphere dropped like a stone.

Thunk.

It hit the dirt and sank almost a fifth of its shape into the ground, as if the soil had softened just to swallow it.

[New Class Unlocked: Rune Crafter Lv. 1]

Bonus per Level: +4 INT, +4 WIS, +4 DEX.

Skill Acquired: [Mana Inscription Lv. 1]

Allows user to imprint basic runic structures onto solid materials using controlled mana flow.

Precision and durability scale with Intelligence and Wisdom.

Cost: 40 Mana per stack.

Taron blinked. “Well…” he said, impressed. “... Looks like it works.”

Ludger watched the half-buried orb, expression unreadable. “Guess it does.” He brushed his hand off, dust and mana glow fading from his fingers.

A working rune, a clean test, and a reminder: even small things could carry weight when done right.

Taron waited until Ludger finished brushing the dirt off his hands, then spoke up again. “I was going to explain how to engrave runes permanently,” he said, “but I’m guessing you already know the core of it. Judging from those weapons you brought back from the mountains.”

Ludger nodded slightly. “Make the mana denser so it holds more energy. Force it to bind into the metal instead of hovering around it.”

“Right,” Taron said, “that’s the foundation—but it’s not everything.”

He drew another quick pattern on the air, this one surrounded by smaller marks. “When you engrave a rune permanently, you’re setting rules for activation. That’s what separates a pretty symbol from an actual enchantment.” He held up two fingers. “Manual and automatic.”

He pointed to the first mark. “Manual activation means the user channels mana directly into the engraving when they want to use it. It’s safer, cheaper, and easy to control. You’ll feel the flow shift when it connects. Most adventurers use that setup for weapons—simple, responsive.”

He tapped the second mark. “Automatic activation is different. The rune senses mana in its environment, or in the item itself, and triggers on its own. Dangerous if tuned wrong, but with the right runes, it eases the strain on the use since it is easier to activate, or is always active..”

Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly, mind turning gears. “So the engraver sets a condition loop?”

“Exactly,” Taron said, pleased. “The mana circuit listens for a specific resonance—impact, touch, surge, sometimes even heartbeat. Once it hears it, it pulls power from the storage lines and fires the effect. That’s why permanent runes need balance between density and flow. Too much density, and they burn out early. Too little, and they fizzle when triggered.”

He flipped the slate again, sketching a small spiral. “There’s one more trick. You can design a rune with a recharge line—something the user can refill with their own mana when it starts running low. It’s like a pocket reservoir. The pattern just needs an open conduit marked with a simple feeding sigil. You channel mana in through that, and it fills the lines evenly.”

Ludger studied the drawing for a long moment. “So that’s how they kept their gear active for months.”

“Exactly,” Taron said. “They weren’t reforging, just recharging. Good design lasts longer than the craftsman who made it.”

Ludger nodded, gaze distant again, as if already planning how to test it. “Useful lesson.”

Taron smiled faintly. “Glad it stuck. Just don’t start engraving while riding.”

“Noted,” Ludger said. “The horse would complain.”

The sun was already starting to dip by the time Ludger finally noticed the quiet. No chatter. No hoof rhythm out of sync. No smart remarks from Freyra. Just the sound of wind brushing across the fields.

He blinked, glancing over his shoulder.

All of them—Rhea, Taron, Mira, Derrin, Callen, and even Freyra—were staring at him like he’d just started juggling lightning bolts. Half their reins hung loose, horses plodding on autopilot.

Ludger frowned. “What?”

Rhea leaned forward on her saddle, smirking. “You’ve been at it for hours, Vice Guildmaster. Talking runes, carving dirt, floating rocks. We kind of lost track of time watching the show.”

Taron cleared his throat. “Educational show,” he corrected. “Mostly.”

Rhea snorted. “We made bets, you know.”

Ludger raised an eyebrow. “Bets.”

“Yeah,” she said, grinning. “On how long it’d take you to learn rune magic. Mira said three days. I said a full week. Darnell went with two, which I thought was generous. No one guessed you’d just… figure it out in an hour.”

Ludger stared at her for a beat, unimpressed. “Next time, bet on something useful.”

Rhea grinned wider. “Oh, we did. Loser cleans the camp.”

“Who lost?”

“Everyone,” Mira said dryly.

Freyra’s laugh echoed off the trees. Even the horses seemed lighter, as if the tension had finally cracked.

Ludger shook his head, facing forward again. “You should’ve bet on when I’d notice.”

Rhea grinned. “That was the tie-breaker.”

He sighed, half amused despite himself. “You people need better hobbies.”

“Teach us more tricks,” Rhea shot back. “We’ll get some.”

Ludger didn’t answer. He just flicked the reins lightly and let the horses pick up pace again—pretending he didn’t hear Taron mutter something about starting a betting pool on that, too.

During the ride home, Ludger didn’t stop practicing. Every time the road straightened, his fingers moved—tracing faint runes in the air or carving temporary ones into pebbles, testing the flow. He only had one working pattern so far, Heaviness, but it leveled quickly. Having a mana pool that deep made the repetition almost trivial. Where most would’ve needed hours of recovery, he just kept burning mana and letting it refill like breathing.

The rune’s glow grew steadier each time—edges sharper, hum cleaner. Taron rode beside him most of the way, half-teaching, half-watching. They talked rune theory between stretches of silence: energy conservation, flow efficiency, overlapping arrays.

At one point, Taron said, “I found some old books on the subject—real rune codices, not beginner scrolls. Problem is, they’re absurdly expensive. Probably locked away because nobles think ‘research’ means hoarding.”

Ludger nodded. He understood what that meant. “How expensive?”

“A few diamond coins,” Taron muttered. “Each.”

Ludger hummed, eyes forward. “I’ll get them sometime. You can borrow them after I’m done reading.”

Taron blinked, surprised. “Seriously?”

“Knowledge’s a better investment than walls,” Ludger said flatly. “Just don’t wreck the pages.”

That was that. The conversation drifted off into easy quiet, hooves thudding rhythmically against the frozen ground. Behind them, faint imprints appeared where Ludger’s mana had pressed the earth smooth again—a moving trail of erased evidence.

By the time Lionfang’s towers came into view, the Heaviness rune floated off his fingertips without effort. It pulsed once, perfect and clean, before dissolving like dust in sunlight.

By the time they reached the outskirts of Lionfang, the horizon already fading gold, Derrin rode up beside Ludger. The kid had that tired-but-alert look of someone waiting for orders.

“So,” Derrin asked, “what’s the plan now, Vice Guildmaster?”

Ludger slowed his horse, scanning the familiar fields ahead—the half-built sheds, the distant sound of hammering, the smell of earth and smoke. “You all can rest,” he said finally. “I’ll handle the rest of the report.”

He glanced toward Freyra, who was still riding tall, arms crossed, glaring at the wind like it had personally offended her. “Just make sure to drop our guest off at the northerner camp without letting her pick a fight with the breeze.”

Freyra shot him a sharp glare, jaw tightening, but she didn’t answer. The silence was as good as a promise.

“Yvar will handle payment tomorrow morning,” Ludger added, voice calm. “Don’t be late.”

That earned a few nods—but also an awkward shift in the group’s mood. Rhea rubbed the back of her neck. Callen looked down at his reins. Even Taron went quiet.

They’d all learned something big on this trip—Overdrive, field discipline. Actual growth. Being paid on top of that almost felt wrong.

Rhea broke the silence first. “We got a little too much out of this job, didn’t we?”

Ludger gave her a faint, knowing look. “Then use it well. That’s how you earn it.”

He tapped his reins and rode on toward the guildhall, the recruits following behind—quiet, thoughtful, and a little heavier with the kind of experience coin couldn’t really buy.

Ludger let them ride close, then glanced over his shoulder, voice carrying just enough for all to hear. “By the way,” he said, tone dry as dust, “don’t get too sentimental about learning Overdrive. I only taught you that so you could go deeper into the frost skeleton labyrinth.”

They blinked, half in disbelief. Rhea frowned. “Seriously?”

Ludger’s mouth tugged upward at one corner—a sharp smirk. That was all it took. They got it. He wasn’t fooling anyone. Honesty wasn’t something he allowed himself too often, and sarcasm was easier than admitting he cared.

Taron shook his head. “Right. You’re a real saint, Vice Guildmaster.”

“Don’t blaspheme,” Ludger said, deadpan. “If you want to make me happy, hunt frost skeletons. Fill the guild coffers. That’ll do.”

Mira snorted. “So money is the key to your heart.”

“It keeps the walls up,” Ludger said. “And keeps you lot in one piece.”

That earned a few chuckles and one exaggerated eye roll from Rhea. Freyra just smirked back, silent for once.

At the fork in the road, they peeled off one by one—Rhea and Taron toward the barracks, Mira and Derrin guiding Freyra north toward the northerner camp, Callen trailing behind with a wave. Ludger stayed until the last of them disappeared into the streets.

Then he turned his horse toward home.

By the time he reached the familiar path, the sky had dimmed to violet. He could already hear it—the twins crying, their tiny voices cutting through the evening. He sighed, but it wasn’t a tired sound. Not like the kind politics and the Empire drew out of him.

He dismounted slowly, rubbing his neck. Crying twins, he thought, still better than Imperial problems.

And for the first time all day, he let himself smile.

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