The Runesmith

“Ugh… my head…”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, I just need to rest for a bit…”

Roland was sitting on a chair while holding some cloth to his forehead. There was a clock of ice wrapped around it as he tried alleviating some of the pain. Yesterday he had tried using his new skill and today the aftereffects of its use were still with him.

After the first time in the dungeon, he didn’t register any after-effects but now there was an actual debuff. It would persist for another six hours and the only way to get rid of it would be to either go to a priest or drink a high level potion.

This made it seem that this new skill that could translate spells into runes was tough to use. Even after analyzing one of the simplest spells he was out for almost an entire day. The debuff made him have a migraine and also caused his mana to run wild. If he attempted runecrafting at this very moment he felt that it would be a failure.

“Are you sure? Did you try the healing tincture?”

“Ah, yes it wasn’t strong enough, I think I might need to go to the church, I need to pick something up from there anyway…”

Roland commented while standing up, it was early in the day and the shop would be open. Elodia was with him but she needed to prepare the store. The reason he needed to go to the church was not really to ease the pain or the dizziness, it was to get a class change crystal.

The only real problem was his skills that didn’t quite hit the cap yet. This didn’t mean that he wouldn’t change his class though. The second tier 2 class mostly didn’t take into consideration the other tier 2 class. Mostly titles and special requirements mattered but he would need to see the list before he made a decision.

Then there was his new eye skill that he had no hope of leveling up anytime soon. This did put him in a conundrum as he would probably not be able to max all his skills within the first 25 levels of the new class he chose.

While his leveling would start to slow down when he got closer to level 150, he would be able to attempt a class change. Tier 3 was something that he had set out to do in the shortest amount of time possible but unless he had the skills up he feared that the choice of classes would lessen in quality.

“Is that so? Have a safe journey then.”

Elodia just smiled at him after hearing that he would be making a trip to the church. After giving Roland a smooch on his aching forehead she along with Agni left for the store. The ruby wolf was able to leech some of those experience points along with his master. He too was now able to get a new class but he would need to wait for his master to recover before he chose a new form.

“Urk…”

Almost right after Elodia left the house Roland made a quick jump to the bathroom. He felt like he was back at his first year of college. The first few parties were quite hard on him then and his stomach took some time to get used to all of that alcohol.

“I really need to get something to alleviate these symptoms…”

After relieving himself of his breakfast he felt slightly better but still not at full capacity. Quickly he got his coat along with his light half-plate armor that lacked most of the hard to put-on parts. Without wanting to mope till the debuff had run out he headed towards the city.

The walk there felt longer than usual but he managed to not stick out. After about forty minutes of uneven walking, he managed to arrive at the church. Even now it felt gaudy to him, at first it started out as a small building but now it looked like some kind of cathedral.

He wasn’t sure how they did it but magic was probably involved. While the people in this world lacked the proper modern tools to build high up, there were certain magical ways of producing magnificent-looking structures.

Back at his own workshop, he performed some wall enhancements but it was nothing at this scale. He only dug up square-shaped rooms and reinforced the walls, they weren’t pretty but they did the job.

“Praise the Sun!”

The moment one of the nuns spotted him at the church grounds he was greeted by their trademarked greeting. He only nodded at the nun that was dressed in a red and white habit. It looked strangely similar to the clothes that nuns wore back in his world just with a different color scheme and a large sun symbol on the back.

“Do you wish to hear the word of the holy mother?”

The nun asked while for some reason zoning on him like a hawk. Roland had a bit of trouble hanging out with these religious people. Some of them would always change the subject and try to preach to him. Most of the time they were only trying to receive a donation or peddle their wares so he decided to just cut to the chase.

“Is there an available priest? I would like to have a debuff removed and also buy a class change crystal.”

“Oh my, a debuff? You have been graced by the lady’s will, elder sister Kassia is receiving today!”

The girl that he was talking with was a low leveled nun below the age of twenty. There was a certain power structure in the church like everywhere in this world. They did give each other certain ranks and it was easy to figure out by the way they referred to each other.

Sister Kassia for instance had leveled up past the 100th level and would not be around the gold rank adventurer level. If a nun achieved a level over 100 and managed to get her second tier 2 class they would be referred to as ‘Elder Sister’ Then if they managed to get into a tier 3 class, they would be given the title of ‘Mother’.

It was similar with their male counterparts which would normally be only called ‘Father’ after attaining a tier 3 class. Though there were exceptions and sometimes some of the more elderly priests would be given this title as more of an honorary one.

“Ah… Sister Kassia…”

Roland cringed a bit after hearing that the woman that he had to share the tent with was the one on duty. Memories of her trying to shove her whole bible down his throat came rushing down his throat. While she was quite the beauty, it was mostly ruined when she opened up her mouth and started preaching the gospel.

This world was different than his other, while Roland had never been big on religion he was not so sure now. There were clearly things at work here that could not be explained with science. Everyone had access to a strange system that gave them superpowers.

Then the people at the church were getting strange blessings from their gods. Apparently, the devout believers would even hear the words of god and meet with them inside of the class change trials. If that was just an illusion created with the devout believer's mind, was up to debate.

While these people were somewhat annoying it was also true that they did good deeds. The orphanages were mostly run by them and they did give the youngsters enough time to prepare for their adult life. They did not force anyone to become a priest, at most they tried to convince them to pick their side.

Thus his opinion of the Solaria church was mostly on the positive end. Just like in any organization there would be bad apples as the priest that Elodia ran into. But he could not hate the whole organization due to a few bad incidents. Nothing was perfect, people still kept some of their desires even after putting on a habit.

“Do you need me to show you the way?”

The girl asked but he just shook his head. He had already been here to get his class change crystal when he used it to change to his current class. Then later he picked up one for Bernir when he had reached a higher level.

There were a few sections to this building, the biggest one was what everyone would see. The inside was spacious with a high ceiling. On the end was a podium where the priests or nuns would perform their sermons. They had a large pipe organ in the back that was used to play some of the tunes.

The stained glass windows in this church were quite stunning. They depicted Solaria in various ways as a beautiful woman with four fiery wings. In most depictions, she was shown with a sword and shield in her hands. While she was considered to be a motherly figure, people also revered her as a battle-hardened god of war.

This was similar for any of the other divine beings that had some sort of battle background to them. It was as if every one of the deities needed their believers to be poised for combat. While the moon and sun churches were the most prevalent, there were some others. Some ran deep in the underground, like the cult that he had encountered all these years before.

He found himself in this large hall, luckily the mass was over and the elder sister nun was accepting visitors. Kassia was not the highest-ranking person in this congregation but she was the second in command. There were no tier 3 priests here yet, if she continued on her path then probably after some years she could attempt the class up.

There she was in the distance, her hands were glowing with a golden light as she was healing some people. The miracles that the priest produced were very eye-catching and even standing close to them would give a person this warm tingling feeling. It was very easy to get lost in this spectacle and it was natural that many people flocked to it.

From Roland’s perspective, it was clear that they were purposely showing off the healing magic to the masses. To the untrained eye, this would be something unfathomable but to him who had dabbled in runic magic, it wasn’t that special.

‘I wonder…’

While normally he would make nothing off it, now with a new skill in his possession he was curious. It was a skill that translated magic into runes, but what of healing miracles? From what he could tell, these healing magics were considered different from regular magic. While they did use mana as the basic resource, there was something else there.

‘Would this skill allow me to copy healing miracles into runic spells?’

He had heard of divine weaponry but to his knowledge those required special preparation. Perhaps even if he could copy a healing spell he would need some special material to power it. Then there was also the issue with him feeling terrible, if he attempted to use the eye skill now, he felt like his eye might fall out of its eye socket instead.

For the time being, he decided to save this thought for later. Perhaps when he leveled the skill by examining lesser spells he would attempt it on healing miracles. For all, he knew it would put an even greater strain on him than when he activated it down in the dungeon. Thus for now he placed himself in the line that was waiting for healing.

This was one of the peculiarities with this church. It was run by an all-female cast of nuns and clerics. In some other churches, he also saw clear favoritism for people that could pay for the services but here there was a proper line. While they did require everyone to pay, he also heard that some of the sisters were offering their services for free in the off hours for the people that just didn’t have any money to spare.

“Praise the sun… Oh this is a treat, isn’t it Mr. Wayland?”

Finally, after waiting for about twenty minutes it was his turn. After he lowered his hood it was apparent who he was. Sister Kassia knew him the most from that one expedition but from time to time he did have some run-ins with her in the city.

“Yes it’s me, I require your services, sister Kassia.”

“Oh my, if I knew that you were coming I would have prepared some tea! Why don’t you wait a moment, we could have a nice conversation about our holy lady, just the two of us!”

“Um… I don’t think I have the time for it and the line behind me is quite long, you probably won’t be finished that fast…”

Roland had left early in the morning and it was only the start of the day. Kassia would probably need to be here for most of it, so if he actually waited it would be nightfall before he got healed. By that point, the debuff would have run already out anyway so there would be no reason for him to stay.

“Oh silly me, I just wanted to catch up on good old times! Then what can I do for you Mr. Wayland, you do look a bit pale, please give me your hand.”

He nodded while sitting down on a stool in front of her. The priest classes had some special skills through which they could figure out people’s alignments. Thanks to those they would know if their skills were good enough to help.

It was a strange feeling, the moment she placed her small hand on his it felt as if he was pricked by many tiny needles. This sensation subsided rather quickly and it was time for him to get healed. Without letting go of his palm sister Kassia started performing one of her curing miracles that made his entire body glow in a golden hue.

From the onset, it was clear that this debuff wasn’t that simple. Normally the curing would go by faster but his body continued to radiate divine energy for a good fifteen seconds before Kassia pulled her hand back. Her forehead was a bit moist as it was clear that she had spent a good chunk of her mana on this one cure.

“That was a peculiar alignment Mr. Wayland but you should be feeling better now.”

She gave out a huff of relief as she was clearly fatigued. The drowsy feeling that he felt had subsided almost instantly and he was back to his old self. After the treatment was over another nun with a tray came over from the side. Onto it he dropped down some coins, while there was no set price here the nun’s facial expression would mostly shift until he got the correct sum.

“Praise the sun!”

The trainee nun that was there to collect the coin smiled at him brightly while he felt robbed. While the holy miracles worked faster and didn’t have any side effects they did cost a lot more than curing and healing potions. If the situation wasn’t dire enough, he would have probably decided to wait but he did need that class change crystal or two.

“Yes… I would also like to make a purchase, is the shrine open?”

The church store was mostly situated in a side room along with a shrine. There people could buy various blessed items. Services like imbuing weapons with holy energies were also carried out there. Churches that were stationed close to dungeons with undead creatures were making quite the coin from such services.

“The shrine is always open to our flock, remember to be quiet as this is the house of the lady.”

The younger girl nodded while he stood up, Kassia looked a bit drained so he just said his farewells and went towards the shrine. The line of people with various alignments continued to grow so she had other things to worry about.

Inside of the shrine he found another nun, this one looked much older than the rest but her level wasn’t all that high. It was clear that she didn’t have much talent for healing arts and without going on dungeon rungs even priests were unable to level up.

There were various accessories like necklaces, pendants, armbands, and talismans on display here. They were all imbued with divine energies in some way that was kept hidden away from the public.

A craftsman could live a nice life if they ever managed to strike a deal with a city church. They would be given massive amounts of gold but also forced to keep quiet about the ways of making divine gear.

For the time being, he just pointed to the section with the class change crystals. After his vigor had returned it was time to check his and Agni’s progress. With his skills not being fully matured yet, his wolf would be first in line for an evolution. Then it was time to visit his old apartment yet again, perhaps when he left it, he would have a new class.