Dual Cultivation: Beasts and Women!

The expected effect of a correctly inscribed rune was for it to glow brightly when formed and then disappear shortly afterwards.

Runes were not visible to the naked eye, even when one circulated mana in their eyes to observe them. Only an experienced Runemaster could see the runes of an enchanted artifact.

Liam wasn't that capable yet, so he could no longer see that rune he had inscribed until he raised his knowledge and/or level.

Soon, he embarked on the challenging task of inscribing the most difficult rune onto the bulb. This rune comprised three characters in total.

Was that a lot? No, but it was enough to make a beginner like him break out in a cold sweat.

A 3-character rune wasn't just 50% more difficult to form than a 2-character rune. Each combination of characters raised the level of difficulty of the rune's structure, making this simple difference something that would make a beginner like Liam almost exhaust himself to complete!

As he saw yet another rune glow and not explode, Liam opened his mouth and grinned, feeling his whole body burn as his clothes became wet with sweat.

With caution, he set the bulb aside and proceeded to the unit that required him to engrave the most complex rune of today. The most complex of them all had the function of absorbing mana from the environment and directing it towards the bulb. It had four intricate characters etched into its surface, each symbol representing a distinct element.

'I've already spent 60% of my mana just inscribing these first two runes. This is more costly than I thought.'

With a swift motion, he grasped the glass body of the lamp, infusing it with mana and causing it to levitate.

While keeping the body of the lamp floating in position using his left hand, he followed with the brush in his right hand, inscribing the first of the four characters.

As Liam focused on developing the main character, he could feel the mana in the small room shifting, drawn towards the lamp as if it held a mysterious connection to the surrounding energy.

However, that couldn't occur until he completed carving the rune. Using his own mana, he created a mana barrier around his right hand, combining the brush and the body of the lamp individual's spaces.

Ann got up from her chair and stood next to the glass door, watching Liam's potential success or failure more closely.

Even though she could advise him not to make a mistake, she watched him in silence. It was better for him to go through a minor crisis alone now and know how to manage such situations in the future.

Learning from experience was much better than from advice!

After a moment of successfully preventing the mana in the surroundings from hindering his application, Liam could feel his right hand trembling slightly.

Even though he wasn't doing rough work, he could feel the muscles in his right hand, wrist and elbow shaking as if he had been pushing too hard for longer than he should have.

He tried to stabilize his brush as best he could, having already inscribed three of the four characters needed for the rune to form. As long as he did the next one, he would finish his job and would only have to fit the bulb into the body of the lamp.

'Shit! I've used up 95% of my mana and I can't keep my hand steady anymore.'

He moved his brush more slowly, for a moment hesitating whether to continue.

If he made a mistake, it could destabilize the other three characters, create a chain reaction and cause the body of the lamp to explode!

That would be the end of this attempt for him, so for a moment he wondered if he should take a break and continue later.

But when he looked at the watch, he saw that, of the two hours he had under Ann's supervision, an hour and twenty minutes had already passed.

'Fuck! How did time pass so quickly?'

He widened his eyes, not expecting so much time to have passed.

But if he stopped to think about it, it actually made sense. After all, he'd used up 95% of his mana and sweated enough to soak through his clothes. The time that had passed since he had started this job today had not been as short as he had imagined.

Certain that he would fail if he didn't continue, he took a chance, pressing his fingers firmly into the brush and then inscribing the last character of the rune.

When he had finished, he released the brush from his hand and brought his hand closer to himself, shaking it as he expressed pain.

But he was careful enough to place the body of the lamp on the ground and realize it hadn't exploded.

Ann entered his glass booth with a smile on her face.

"Well done. You've formed a magic lamp!" She said in a pleased tone, much more than Liam would have expected from a Second Class Runemaster seeing him form a First Class, Low-Quality, enchanted item.

Liam did his best to fit the bulb into the glass body of the lamp, a moment later making the item glow in a strong white light.

Even though it might not be enough to impress others, Liam grinned from ear to ear as he saw the result of his work, and couldn't help but feel a sense of accomplishment wash over him.

"You can now be considered a First Class Runemaster, Liam," Ann said as she squeezed one of his shoulders. "For now, you've only produced one enchanted item of the lowest possible quality, but that's a good start. Work hard to produce enchanted artifacts with more runes and more complex runes. That will take you to the next qualitative step."

The number of runes on an artifact and the complexity of those runes bore the quality of the enchanted tool. The magic lamp glowing in Liam's hands had 3 runes with 9 characters in it, which was within the classification range of First Class items.

Items with a minimum of 2 runes and 10 characters and a maximum of 5 runes and 20 characters were classified as First Class. Above that was the Second Class, which was even more complicated than the first.

Even though the lamp had 3 runes, it was the lowest quality item possible. Why was that, since there could be items with only 2 runes? It was because of the complexity of these runes. The classification of an enchanted item not only depended on the number of runes but also on the quality of the runes—related to the number of characters, and their significance.

An item with 2 runes and 10 characters had a higher overall quality than an item with 3 runes and only 9 characters.

Liam knew this, having studied enough to understand the classification of his enchanted artifact within the nomenclature used by Runemasters.

He deactivated the lamp and stored it in his spatial ring before carefully getting up with some difficulty.

"By the way, is this weakness I'm feeling now normal?" He asked as he put his smile aside, feeling terrible.

His right hand was devoid of any strength, while he was depleted of mana. But even his leg and back muscles were aching.

She nodded positively as she showed for him to sit down again.

"Yes, that's common. The first few inscriptions are painful. Until you get used to the process and the natural mana expenditure of the profession, you'll feel awful. It changes as you get stronger, understand more of the profession's rules, and get used to all this effort. Over time, this will pass and only when you have to move to higher places will you feel something similar again.

Anyway, we still have 15 minutes. Take this time to cultivate here before you leave the hall. That should be enough for you to get well enough for your enemies not to notice that you're weakened."

Liam nodded to her, sitting down in the lotus position again.

"Don't worry about hiding your cultivation. This room is special and only inside it can someone sense your actual level." She winked at him before walking out of the small area.

He sighed in relief, before closing his eyes and starting to meditate right there, confident that the person who had recommended he get a technique to hide his own cultivation wouldn't lie about it.

Time passed, and soon 14 of the final 15 minutes were up. But in Liam's last moment there, when Fred, Virginia and Giles had already left, he was pleasantly surprised to feel his mana reach a new peak!

After dual cultivation with Electa, he had come close to the end of level 7-Star. But by cultivating after exhausting himself with Runemaster work, he completed the last step, raising his cultivation from 7-Star to 8-Star in just 15 minutes of meditation!