Chapter 307 Broken Runic Constellation
Nail dashed through the huge forest with his senses fully unleashed. He was hyper-aware of everything that went around him. All kinds of smells entered his nostrils, and he could feel all the vibrations of thousands of insects that were crawling over the ground, through tiny tunnels underground, and on the trees around him.
His mind was bombarded with a plethora of sensations that were a lot to process at a time for any ordinary human.
Luckily, Nial was anything but ordinary and the sheer amount of information that flooded his head was processed rapidly. All unnecessary pieces of information were discarded at once and only the useful intel was further organized and connected to the surrounding area, which he had visualized in his mind.
Nial was perfectly prepared to counter all kinds of surprise attacks. The only possibility for an opponent to attack Nial without letting him realize it would be by using spatial attributed abilities like Gianna's short-distance teleportation.
That was also why it was no problem for Nial to detect the injured sabertooth tiger that was waiting for him.
The beast's skull had been broken but apart from that the rest of its body hadn't been further injured. It may not be considered difficult to kill it in its current state but Nial knew that it would be foolish to underestimate an angry and injured beast.
They could be far more difficult to kill than unscathed beasts at the same rank.
'To think that I would start hunting Superior Mirae beasts while I have two fewer Origin rings than them.' Nial thought with a faint smile on his lips.
He suddenly pushed to the right side while throwing out one of the small tennis ball-sized metal balls that were attached to his belt.
A huge blazing flame engulfed the flame all of a sudden as several meticulously engraved runic constellations started to glow, brightening the surroundings. They had been activated and created a huge wall of fire.
Merely a moment after the wall of fire manifested, the sabertooth tiger had pounced out of the bush it had been hiding, preparing for the perfect timing to attack Nial. Its attack had been easily predictable for Nial, who was in complete control of everything that happened around him.
The wall of fire didn't injure the sabertooth tiger a lot. It caused light burns but they didn't restrict the sabertooth tiger, which landed exactly on the spot Nial had been just a moment earlier.
A second black metal ball appeared in front of the sabertooth tiger. Numerous white shining runic constellations were activated at once as the metal ball landed right in front of the beast.
The ball bounced from the ground and ended up reaching the same height as the sabertooth tiger's head as a bright dazzling light emerged from within the ball.
The beast roared out in anger as the dazzling light almost blinded the sabertooth tiger. It wanted to retreat but quickly noticed that the wall of fire behind it had yet to disappear. Simultaneously, its legs were restricted by something that had emerged out of the ground.
And as if that was not enough, it could faintly hear that someone had appeared next to its head. The sabertooth tiger slashed in the direction where it presumed Nial to have appeared.
Yet, instead of feeling the sensation of cutting through the warm living body of its prey, the sabertooth tiger cut through nothing but darkness.
Nial had now appeared on the other side of the sabertooth tiger, wielding a two-meter long and extremely heavy-looking mace in his hand.
He raised it high above his head with one hand and brought the mace down on the head of the sabertooth tiger that desperately tried to flee its impending doom. Despite all its efforts, the sabertooth tiger was not able to flee.
Its' movements were restricted, and it had lost its fighting rhythm after attacking the exact opposite side of Nial and it was blinded.
Nial's arm that was swinging the mace suddenly got a cramp as he activated the runic constellations he had engraved on the mace. The mace's weight increased several-fold just before it smashed on the cracked open skull of the helpless sabertooth tiger.
A thunderous sound echoed through the surrounding when the sabertooth tiger was smashed into the ground. The beast's brain was mashed to a pulp in an instant and it died at the same moment. However, Nial's attack was not yet over.
The other runic constellations that had been engraved on the mace had been activated and their effect was released as well.
After the first impact caused by Nial's attack, all the mana that was stored inside the mace was released as a second thunderous sound originated from a second impact that landed on the sabertooth tiger's head. Loud cracking sounds could be heard as the already broken skull burst open a second time, destroying it completely.
Nial was breathing heavily and his arm that was holding the mace ached heavily as he was forced to let go of the weapon. It landed on the ground with a sickening thud, leaving behind marks on the wet ground.
"That's so amazing!" Nial flashed a smile when he calmed down a bit. The runic constellations on the mace had dimmed down, and Nial was able to pick it up once again.
He picked up both metal balls that looked just like normal black metal balls. They didn't look special in any way but Nial knew that they were exceptional. He had created them, after all!
"The Firewall Ball is much better than expected. Looks like Crevian did the right thing by telling me how to configure the [Isolation Wall] runic constellations. After it was combined with [Incineration] the wall of mana turned into a blazing fire. The only downside was that it required too much mana to be activated, and it was impossible to engrave a [Tiny Mana storage] runic constellation on the tennis ball-sized metal ball…
I'm too inexperienced to start engraving miniature runic constellations either…what a shame," Nial tried to evaluate his own creation but that was certainly not easy.
First of all, his naming sense was one of the worst in existence but that was not really important for the evaluation of his creation's efficiency.
"Mirae ranked individuals won't be injured, and you need lots of mana to activate it. Supplying it with external mana is not possible either. That means the Firewall Ball can be considered useless…yay…
As for the four overclocked and connected [Lightbulb] runic constellations of the Dazzle ball, they require less mana and their effect is amazing…I guess," Nial mumbled while trying to figure out just how great or bad the Dazzle ball had been.
He was not able to see, so he couldn't determine how strong the effects of the dazzling light had been. However, considering that the saber tooth tiger had roared out in pain and anger in response to the Dazzle ball, Nial was pretty sure that it was quite effective.
After the Dazzle ball had been activated, Nial used his dark energy to create dark vines, thereby restricting the sabertooth tiger in order to deal the final blow by using the Mountain-shattering mace.
Three runic constellations had been engraved on the Mountain-shattering mace. First was a 'broken' version of the [Gravitation] runic constellation. By activating the 'broken' version of [Gravitation], it was possible to increase or decrease the gravitational force exerted on the object that had been engraved with the runic constellation.
Master Crevian had labeled it as 'broken' because most individuals would label it as a failure of a runic constellation. [Gravitation] was supposed to control the gravitational force in a small radius around the object it had been engraved on. That was what it was supposed to be able to do.
Yet, in the end, the broken [Gravitation] ought to control the surroundings' gravitational force, but the broken runic constellation does that only to a single object, the object it had been engraved on.
Nial made use of this to 'failure' to create a mace with the [Gravitation] rune, the [Second-Impact] runic constellation, and the [Tiny Mana storage] runic constellation.
The [Tiny Mana storage] runic constellation was, by far, the biggest and most complex runic constellation Nial had engraved on a weapon. The engravings on the Ancient Origin rings were a different matter altogether but even they were of a similar level of complexity and difficulty.
"I wonder when I will be able to engrave a 100% perfection grade [Tiny Mana storage]...." Nial suddenly grumbled when he was done storing the mountain-shattering mace and the corpse of the sabertooth tiger.
He smiled faintly, knowing that Meryl, Master Crevian, and every single other Runicier would feel like twisting his neck if they were to hear his thoughts.
Right now, the [Tiny Mana storage] runic constellation was the best Intermediate runic constellation Nial was able to engrave.
It had reached a perfection grade of 83%, which was already quite impressive. Every single percent above 75% was hard to achieve because the slightest flaw would decrease the perfection value drastically.
Nial required close to two hours to engrave the [Tiny Mana Storage] runic constellation and that was already quite fast in Master Crevian's opinion. Only someone with several years of experience with Intermediate runic constellation and the mandatory talent would be able to achieve the same feat.
Meryl was one of such talented prodigies, and she was even better because her talent was a cut above the rest.
She could engrave Intermediate runic constellations in around half an hour. However, if she were to engrave runic constellations hastily, her perfection score would suffer a lot.
Meryl was not in a hurry to be able to engrave quickly, which was the exact opposite of Nial, who wanted to improve quickly by learning how to engrave all types of runic constellations rapidly. As long as he was able to do that, engraving them in a slow and fully focused state would allow him to scale new heights. At least, that was what Nial told himself while trying to justify the bitter reality…that he was just impatient and greedy to become better than anyone else.
In the last 13 months, Nial had spent a lot of his little freetime with his parents. They often visited Master Crevian's teaching grounds to watch how hardworking their son was. It was a nice feeling to see Nial and to know that he was happy.
Maline was often worried about her dear daughter but she also knew that Sabrina was still busy with the Legacy portal. No news was good news when it came to Legacies, especially if a Legacy portal were to open without anyone emerging from it.
That was why Maline didn't panic. She was only worried about her daughter like any mother would be if her daughter were to be in an unknown isolated dimension, possibly fighting extremely powerful beasts and unique existences.
However, what worried Maline even more than Sabrina was the fact that Nial grew way too pressured and uncomfortable whenever a topic revolved around the U21 Runicier tournament discussed.
He would be alone on an unknown planet the moment he would separate from Crevian. The Elves were not allowed to participate or even witness the U21 Runicier tournament and Nial would be all by himself with numerous powerful existences around him.
If that was not worrisome enough, there was a high risk of him getting attacked if he was lucky enough to win the grand prize. After all, the Dryad Queen's tear was a highly sought item.
The more Maline heard about Nial's mission, the more she grew worried about him and the less inclined she was to make him leave.
Unfortunately, Maline couldn't order Nial to stay behind, especially since he seemed to be excited and ready to work hard to achieve everything he had in mind.
His goal was to win the grand prize, to create new connections that might help the human race to become even stronger, and to use the opportunity to increase his strength by leaps and bounds.
Jundra would soon awaken its planetary mana core. The number of dungeon portals increased by the day and it was only a matter of time and a final spark to activate the planetary core for good!
From then onward, things would become more chaotic and troublesome for both the human race and the Elven!
It was necessary to become stronger…as strong as possible, otherwise, only death would welcome them with open arms and embrace them tightly to put them to eternal sleep.