The Ethersmith [Runesmithing Progression Fantasy]

After dropping Eem off at the mines, Vivi returned to the Lost Raindrop, feeling a little nervous herself. She already missed having Eem on her shoulders. But on the other hand, she was glad to have time for her own projects now.

Entering her smithy, Vivi noticed that someone had been inside. Nothing had been moved, but a note had appeared on her nightstand. One with the Luminary's official blue stamp. Vivi opened it.

The handwriting was elegant, which made Lucius pout as he translated it. The pretty text transformed to his sloppily drawn translated letters. The note read, "The ether scientist is ready to meet you today. Lucas will take you there when you're ready. - Runes And Rain Company."

Perfect timing, Vivi thought. We can get to work right away.

She quickly prepared herself, still wearing her dress, and met Lucas for another carriage ride.

The scientists, to Vivi's surprise, did not reside at the very top of Shivenar. Their laboratory spanned a field's width a few streets below the market square—a large and oddly-shaped establishment that Vivi had first mistaken for some weird noble estate. The building was like a collection of cubes and rectangles crammed together, all connected by a reflective slanted roof. The materials used weren't excessive by price, mostly granite and bricks, but constructing a building like this must have taken months, if not years.

A tall woman clad in a brown robe underneath a white jacket welcomed Lucas and Vivi with a hasty and a skittish bow. "Vivian Runeblessed?" she said. Her voice was high-pitched and trembling. "It- it's an honor to see you! Welcome to Shivenar's Center of Ether. Civar is ready to meet you! This way, please!"

Her step was as nervous as her speech as she led Vivi and Lucas into a large foyer with a tall ceiling. The floor and wall surfaces were clean and shiny, almost futuristic. There wasn't much furniture, but for a few seats in the corner, and a receptionist's desk in the middle, surrounded by empty space. The desk, too, shone like the walls, though nobody was stationed behind it. For decorations, a giant full wisp of ether made of rectangular steel bars, was built into the wall behind the reception.

"I apologize; it has been a while since the lab has received such distinguished visitors," the woman said. "My ethics teacher would shame me to no end."

"I'm just a runesmith," Vivi said. "I'm younger than you."

The woman let out a light laugh. "Your reputation is extraordinary. I could not imagine anyone your age with such achievements."

Vivi shrugged. "I'm here just to study skill wisps."

Lucas smiled out of amusement. The woman only grew more nervous.

She led Vivi through double doors at the back, into a smaller room filled with white tables similar to Lortel's tailoring workshop, where half a dozen scientists were engrossed in work. The equipment they used was alien to Vivi. She recognized microscopes, ether containers, etherprint scanners of different kinds, even a few rune carving knives. The larger machines were a total mystery to her. There were conveyor belts, pistons, all made of metallic parts that seemed to be moving with the power of ether.

Vivi followed the woman through a pathway in the middle, toward a door at the end. The next room was a smaller and more cramped lab. The floors were less pristine, and equipment and papers cluttered tables. At the back sat a man with a crooked back, looking into a microscope.

"Civar, she has arrived," the woman said with a slight bow.

Civar stayed on his microscope. Awkward silence filled the room, until eventually, his seat shifted, and he turned to Vivi. "Ah, the runesmith. Hello, hello."

The woman looked panicked from the casualty of it all, as if a simple hello would offend their guests. Vivi didn't see what the big deal was—she nodded politely.

Civar studied her for a moment. He was a middle-aged man with dark skin and a single horn poking out from the middle of his mop of hair. He wore a simple black vest and shorts. A white jacket hung on a clothes hanger. He rolled his chair to the hangers—the chair wheels attached—and slid into the jacket.

"Welcome," he said. "I'm Civar Ashfen. Head researcher of skill wisps and the supernatural. I'm in the middle of a project, so let's get this done quickly. What was your name again?"

"Vivian, sir," she said. "I'm here to ask some questions about skill wisps."

"If you're looking for practice partners, there are far better mentors," Civar said. "And to be honest, if your questions relate to elevating skills, or the general use of skill wisps in combat, you're better off reading books. Just because you're influential doesn't mean you should contact the experts for mundane questions."

"I'm looking to draw and map out skill wisps," Vivi said. "And to discuss the possibility of artificially creating skills."

Civar leaned slightly forward at that, eyes more serious. "Continue."

"I can see skills in my core. The ethereal structure, and the formation of runes within. The Luminary told me this was not normal."

"Well," Civar said. "I take it back. You might have come to the right place. Clear the room. We will see if your claim has merit."

Lucas lowered his head. "The carriage will wait outside. It will be ready to depart when you wish to leave."

"Thank you," Vivi said. Still so excessive…

Lucas and the woman exited the room, leaving Vivi with the strange scientist. He rolled around the room with his chair, toward a machine at the end. "Coffee?" he asked.

"No, thank you," Vivi said.

The machine looked like a metallic column with a small mug-shaped platform embedded into it. A tube poked out from the top of the platform. Civar placed his mug on the platform, pressed a button, and dark steaming coffee poured into the cup. He took a sip and immediately burned his tongue.

"A tea person, then?" Civar asked. "I can brew a cup. It'll take longer, though."

"I'm fine," Vivi said. "I'm ready to get to work."

Civar puffed air into the cup, then took another sip. He raised his head. "First and foremost, I want to confirm that we're actually talking about the same thing." The wheels on his chair squeaked as he moved to a table next over. He placed down his coffee mug and began pillaging through papers. "When I'm talking about the structure of skill wisps, I'm talking about the actual microscopic details within the skill. The structure that looks something like this."

He handed a paper to Vivi. A blurry drawing. On it was a collection of hazy lines; a convoluted mess of lines. Beyond the blur, however, the general shape of the web was familiar. Vivi could make out the shape of an interconnected web of… something. She couldn't identify runes. The image was too blurry.

She recognized the general shape, though. "It's a skill wisp. How did you draw this?"

Civar nodded. "That is the best image we currently have. The image was snapped through a skill container with an amplifying lens. The process is called wisp imaging. It's not perfect, but it has captured the rough structure of a wisp."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Curious, Vivi thought. Civar hadn't zoomed in on a skill wisp like Vivi could. The view she could see in the ethereal realm was much clearer than what Civar's image showed.

Civar continued. "My scientists are deducing details through the haziness manually. The skill right there is Thorn Sword; the simplest weapon enhancement skill to exist. It adds some spikes to your weapon along with a slight coating of ether. By knowing its effects, and by looking at the shape of the wisps's structure, I'm making educational guesses to fill in the blanks."

He rolled his chair to pick up another piece of paper. He didn't give it to Vivi—probably thinking it was too valuable—but he showcased it from his hands. On the paper was a clearer, but less extensive image of a skill wisp. Civar had drawn it himself. Perhaps a third of the full wisp was completed, and the runes didn't look proportional.

Seeing it, Vivi felt a slight excitement. "I think I'll be able to help. The image you have is definitely a skill wisp. But I can see a clearer vision in my head."

"You can see a skill's structure?" Civar asked. "What do you actually mean by that?"

"It's quite literally that," Vivi said. "It would be easier to show you. I could draw a full skill wisp for you right now."

Civar tilted his head at her. He placed down the drawing and took a sip of coffee and leaned back, thinking.

"Give me the skill you want to see drawn," Vivi said, "and a clear paper and pen. The clearest pen you have. I might need some concentration, but I should be able to draw a simple skill."

The scientist still didn't seem to believe Vivi's words. Still, he reached into his cabins, grabbed a large sheet of paper, placing it on a table. He tested a few pens, all faulty, until he found a working one. He searched through another cabin filled with skill containers, until he eventually found one that was labeled, Thorn Sword.

"Here's the same skill," he said. "Do you have a free slot?"

Vivi nodded. She had one. Her two common skills, Shadow Swipe and Basic Ascension, were still there. Neither skill was impressive, but she hadn't yet had the time to shop for better ones. Civar handed her the skill container, and Vivi added Thorn Sword to her core.

She sat down by the paper, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and focused on the new wisp in her core.

She saw it clearly. Thorn Sword was indeed simpler than any other skills Vivi had seen, though its structure was still enormous, filled with at least a thousand different runes and sub-elements, some of which Vivi didn't even know by name. Drawing everything would take a while.

Regardless, drawing ethereal elements would help Vivi's accuracy with rune-carving. She hadn't drawn a full wisp in a while. She got to work, starting with an everything rune at the bottom, which quickly connected to odd sub-runes such as air and growth.

Sub-runes were essentially even more precise destinations within an ether wisp's pathway. A strength rune, for example, contained three lesser branches, the most prevalent of which was an element called heft. By drawing a strength rune, all three lesser branches would be automatically included with it. But if she specifically drew the heft branch, only that would be included, while the other two lesser branches would be left out.

The skill wisp was filled with lesser runes. Vivi recognized most of the more important lesser runes, but a lot were foreign to her, since they weren't necessary with daily runesmithing. Full runes were always stronger than their lesser branches. There was no need to learn the shapes of every lesser branch.

Drawing the wisp with all its detailed runes was a tedious process. An hour in, Vivi had barely shaped a quarter of the skill. The paper was also starting to fill up with lines and runes. Vivi had severely underestimated the size of even this simple skill.

"Uhm," she said, lifting her head, "I might need another paper."

Civar was sitting a few paces away from her, eyeing her work with an astounded look. He blinked, turned to her, and said, "Vivian… This is magnificent!"

He got off of his seat. Now that Vivi had paused, he took the opportunity to say the thoughts he'd held while he worked.

"Ohh, that branch was vigor!" he said. "I didn't even have the main rune right. And that…" He paused, at a loss for words for a moment. "Vivian, this is a fucking revelation!"

Vivi gave him an awkward smile.

"Ah, pardon the language," he said. He took a breath and calmed slightly. "You weren't lying. You can really see the wisps."

"Yes," Vivi said. "It's not done yet."

"This is still more than amazing," Civar said. "I cannot believe what I'm seeing."

"Can anything be done with it?"

"Most definitely," Civar said. "With this, research will be sped up by years. We've seeked clear images of skill wisps for decades now. Theories behind a skill's inner workings have been formed; now, those theories can be confirmed for real."

I've pushed research ahead by a year? Just by seeing a skill wisp?

"Vivi, that ability is not normal…" Lucius said. He, too, eyed Vivi's paper curiously. "Even I can't see what you drew."

Civar was moving about on his feet excitedly, letting out gushes of joy. Vivi wasn't sure if she should smile.

"Do you think skills can be created artificially with this?" Vivi asked.

"That has always been the end goal," Civar said. "But there are still problems. The same problems that stop us from creating great runes. When complex combinations of runes are placed together, the runes malfunction."

Vivi nodded. She knew that well from runesmithing.

"To create skill wisps, a method to connect runes together must be found," Civar said. "That is probably not going to be figured out during my lifespan. But, hell, this is already a revelation unlike anything."

He studied the paper again. Then he turned to Vivi, eyes more serious. "I am interested to learn how you do this."

"I just zoom in," Vivi said. "I don't really know how to explain it."

Civar studied her face. "This might be the most important ability this science has seen in centuries. It must be understood."

I didn't make myself a lab rat, did I? Vivi asked.

"Civar can dream," Lucius said. He had appeared bored during the drawing process, but his tail was wagging now. "He has a picture now. He can be satisfied with that for a while. We have made a scientific revelation. That is a good achievement for our names."

"I still need to draw the remainder of the wisp," Vivi said. "I'm getting quicker at it now. I should have it done in…"

Her words trailed off as she heard something. She tilted her head, listening. Footsteps sounded from the room next over. Rushing footsteps.

The door blasted open, and two figures stepped in. Senith, exhausted and breathing rough, and Lucas, wearing a serious expression.

"Is something wrong?" Vivi asked, a hint of concern in her voice.

"No," Senith said. She lifted her head. "Your grandpa has woken up."