The Runesmith

The experience popup sprung up to signal that the monster had been killed. This was one of the more handy functions of this game-like system this world had. It kept anyone on their toes until this message appeared and made playing dead virtually impossible for any living being in this world.

“That wasn’t that bad…”

Roland looked at the corpse of the Bladed Volcanic Xornotaurus that had been blown up from the inside. He decided to implement the old tactic that worked before when he was here with Robert.

The monster had a tough exterior that was even able to take a blast of concentrated magical energy. Swords or any kind of bladed weapons would probably bounce off its armored plates if the user didn’t have any proper skills.

The previous tactic worked before and it was not something that was difficult to reproduce. Thus he decided to implement his spider droids to disable the monster for a moment. The electricity had worked before and the monster did have a large mouth for easy bombing access.

He had gambled a bit on this fight as he couldn’t be sure if the same exact monster would appear here. The boss chamber on the 10th level was the type to randomize boss encounters but it wasn’t the only type of boss chamber.

This one for instance seemed to produce the same exact monster. This one was a level higher than the one that he faced all those years before. It wasn’t much stronger though and the shocking nets that were also made to resist fire had done what they were designed to do.

Even if the monster was somewhat different he expected to be able to utilize the drone nets. With some added earth magic to tangle his opponent's feet, it was a basic plan of stopping his opponent in their tracks. If something went wrong he would then switch to plan B of using ranged spells from his armor.

He had various other weapons stashed in his golem along with a plethora of runic cards for a prolonged battle. Roland was glad that he was able to save up on ammunition as he wasn’t sure if these spider drones could be used again. Even without getting close to them, he could see that some were damaged.

“All units gather up.”

After giving the command he waited for the spider drones to detach themselves from the net. The sound of mechanical legs filled the room as only four of the six golems arrived at the destination. Two of them remained in place while flailing their limbs in odd directions. It was clear that they had suffered some damage while trying to hold the monster in place.

‘The support bolts held them in place but some of the joints have been damaged.’

Roland looked at one of the damaged golems that didn’t seem to be able to move. Before walking over to it, he noticed the victory chest with goodies appearing in the middle of the boss chamber. It was just like the last time and he would expect to receive something at tier 2.

For now he ignored the treasure box while walking over to the damaged golem. His creation was twitching on the ground while trying to fulfill what it was ordered to do. Without another command to ignore the previous one, it would continue to struggle for about a minute. Then after going through a couple of program loops it would time out and stop.

This was a safety feature to save up on the runic battery charge that was left. If he didn’t code it right the magical machine would just continue to struggle until it ran out of power or it fulfilled its command.

Just as he had predicted the spider droid shut down after a while of struggling. Only then he decided to pick it up to examine the extent of the damages.

‘The legs are bent out of shape, joints cracked… the support bolt was mostly ripped out along with the chassis, this one is going to need a lot of repairs.’

After a quick examination, Roland decided that it would take too much time to fix, there was a limit of how long he could be here. He was not sure if the secret chamber was the same as before nor if this boss chamber would respawn another sword-tailed dinosaur for him to kill.

From what he knew, he should have about a week until a chamber like this respawned a foe. This was a well-documented occurrence as most of the boss chambers worked the same between dungeons.

A monster like this that was over level 120 would take a minimum of a week to respawn. The time could be random but would not go over two weeks. With that in mind, he needed to get back before this monster appeared again. While it might be a good farming spot of treasures from boxes he could earn more just by mining the precious metals from the secret chamber.

“Agni, stop.”

Roland took the damaged golem into one hand and was about to go towards the other damaged one. At that moment he noticed his tamed beast going for the dead monster in the middle.

*I need that mana stone Agni, don’t eat it.”

Agni whined a bit while looking at the dead monster corps. While the mana stone was not out in the open with his innate mana ability Agni could sense where it truly was.

“Don’t you give me those eyes, I need that mana stone.”

Roland shouted from the side while tossing the two damaged spider drones into the spatial bag. The other four were also deposited there for safekeeping as for the next part of the dungeon he wouldn’t need them.

The biggest reason that he didn’t want to part with the monster’s stone was aether alloys. The metals that he was going to unearth were of high quality. This could be boosted even higher with the right mana stone smelting process.

This was a stone from a boss monster so even if it was only a tier 2 stone, it still was above all the other ones he could find in the dungeon. It would be too much of a loss if he just had Agni eat up all of the best parts for his new creations.

After the golems were back in the bag he commenced the next part of the plan. His hand moved into the spatial bag and he pulled out a strange-looking tool. For people in this world, it looked like some strange long blade with spikes coming out. In reality, it was a runic chainsaw that he had prepared for this very day.

The runic chainsaw looked somewhat different from a regular tool from the modern world. The biggest difference was that it had no large motor or space for fuel like its counterparts. Instead, the handle wasn’t as chunky as the ones that had to hold fuel in them.

This handle was constructed for holding it with both hands so as to not have the tool slip out during the process of cutting. As the cutting started it would pull the runic saw downward towards the item that was being cut. Roland implemented bumper spikes that were found in regular chainsaws to rest them against what was being cut.

Roland ditched the fuel system as he didn’t need such a crutch to use this tool. His mana reserves were quite large thus he could just run it by himself. Previously the monster that was before him had to be left behind as there was no way of carrying the corpse outside, with the help of the runic chainsaw he was going to remedy that problem.

It was constructed like any chainsaw. The guide bar was rounder at the end, the chain went around it with the base being used for the chain ring. The inside mechanism that would normally be a motor either run by fuel or electricity could be replaced with runes.

With a small jolt from his mana, the chain ring began to slowly spin around. He continued to add more and more mana until he had it going nice and fast. The work thus started, the sound that this runic saw made caused Agni to shrink away and howl at it.

Roland wasn’t aiming to get everything out of this monster’s body. Its large tail that was shaped like a large sword would fetch a good price though. So would its organs like the heart, eyes, and even tongue. These were various ingredients in potions that could fetch a nice price.

With the help of his tool, he was able to get through the armored parts with a moderate amount of force. Even though the chain was spinning fast it still was a sluggish process to get through the monster’s tough body. At the end, the chain would probably need to be replaced but thanks to this construction the rest of the tool would remain intact.

This wasn’t the main reason that he was here though, he gave himself about half an hour of slicing before walking away. Even though the runic saw worked nicely it didn’t protect people from being splashed with monster blood while cutting.

He had thought this far enough and while working used a lesser shield spell to surround his body with a thin layer of mana. This was enough to not be covered in the monster's innards as he cut its limbs apart.

To save on time, he decided to make the parts small enough to fit into his mule golem. Thus its tail, head legs, and claws made their way into the large spatial bag while the middle part was left behind. The only part that was worth it would be the heart and the mana stone which he also removed.

“You can go ahead Agni, that is if you still want to snack on that thing…”

Roland pointed to the mess that he made, the cut-up corpse of the boss monster still had a lot of meat to it. Agni looked at it for a moment and didn’t seem interested after the mana stone was removed.

“You sure grew into a food critic.”

Roland chuckled while going towards the leftover chest. He pointed with his finger towards it and a gentle light shot out towards the chest. It started glowing brightly with a few colors switching on the surface. In a few seconds, the colors became uniform and it remained red for the remainder of the spell.

“Red? … is my great luck at work again?”

After seeing the color Roland grabbed the large war hammer that he didn’t use for the fight. He quickly raised it up into the air and brought it down on the chest that appeared after the boss was killed. The moment his weapon connected with the treasure box he could hear a strange wail.

The monster's true appearance was revealed to him after it was smashed. This was quite the sneaky monster that was able to disguise itself as parts of the dungeon. Even with his identification skill, he was unable to distinguish it from a normal chest. Only when using a specialized spell to uncover traps was he able to ascertain the monster’s true state.

This was a very rare occurrence, there was a small chance that the chest that would spawn would be booby-trapped. Then there was an even lower chance that it would spawn in as a mimic.

The monster would wait untill the person was right next to it before opening up to devour them. It was a very dangerous enemy, even when poked by swords or pelted with arrows it remained stationary. It knew how to play the waiting game and would risk taking some hits before attacking.

Thus Roland decided to smash it with all his might with this impact hammer that he made. The increased weight on the downward swing was strong enough to take the being out with one hit. The message of receiving experience points came soon after and what remained was a chest with a huge tongue that was flopping out and massive teeth everywhere.

Agni jumped over the moment he realized that there was a monster there, the growling soon stopped though and was replaced by interest.

“No, you can’t have this either”

What was left behind by the monster was another mana stone. Mimics were shapeshifters so their mana stones were somewhat larger than from other monsters that were at their level. Thus it would be a shame if his gluttonous wolf devoured this one as well.

“You can have the rest if you want though…”

After placing his hand in the strange-looking creature Roland pulled out a nice shiny gem. It was covered in some mucus but with some mana, he was able to burn it away from his gauntlets.

Agni just snorted at the dead creature as if he wasn’t pleased with what his owner proposed. With the chest out of the way and the monster parts inside the mule golem, they both departed for the more important part of the expedition.

Like before there was a secret passage leading out of this chamber. Behind it would be the maze section with some traps that could be easily avoided by him. The golem that was slowly walking behind him was just small enough to fit through the narrowest of the corridors here.

Roland was sure to design him in such a way that he could fit through. At this point in time even if it did get stuck he would continue with the mining run. The golem would just be left closer to the boss room while he took the backpack himself but it would limit his gains.

This was the easiest part of the journey as no monsters roamed these corridors. The only thing he needed to watch out for were magical traps. One of the more annoying parts was getting Agni and the golem over the runic tiles that were trapped.

He found himself placing Agni on top of the golem and lifting it over his head while walking through this long corridor. While Agni had some skills to recognize traps he didn’t want to risk his wolf tripping one of them along the way. After this part, it was smooth sailing and he arrived next to the secret entrance to the mine.

‘I’m picking up some life signals.’

“Get ready Agni, there will be enemies inside.”

Thanks to his built-in mapping feature he was able to scan the inside of the cavern. A couple of red dots appeared here and there but this wasn’t anything that he wasn’t expecting.

The moment the secret door was opened he and Agni rushed inside while leaving the golem back. Inside he discovered a couple of volcanic salamanders and red slug monsters that were giving out smoke.

They were all low-level creatures compared to him and Agni. At the bottom of tier 2, they stood no chance against Roland’s magical spells that he was able to spam without any incantation. Even before Agni could sink his teeth into one of the salamanders it was frozen in place by Roland’s modified frozen arrow spell.

He was able to combine a few features of other spells like a homing arrow. With it, in place the spell would chase after the monster’s mana signature and react mid-flight. This saved him time on aiming as he could just spray the spells in the enemy's general direction.

It was more of a massacre than a fight as all the monsters that were here dropped dead within a couple of moments. With how they were all regular mobs Roland gave Agni a nod and the hungry wolf chowed down on the salamander flesh and mana stones.

“Good… it's all still here…”

The moment he entered he could already see the various colorful lights shining around them. There were various minerals radiating mana from them and other shiny metals stuck in the ground and ready for the taking.

“Agni, you are on guard duty, if any more of those monsters appear, be sure to take care of them!”

The Ruby Wolf perked up at the order and stopped eating the raw salamander. He was quick to finish eating and then started slowly moving around the chamber while looking for foes.

Roland on the other hand signaled the golem to move into the room. From inside of it he removed the four working spider droids along with two other ones that he had saved up for this occasion. With some fiddling, the golems were now equipped with something that looked like a drill on their fronts.

“It’s time to work, spread out, initiate routine 11B.”

While the smaller golems activated he removed a nice looking pickaxe from the storage as well. It was time to give his mining skills a try.