"And… done!" I sat back to look at the pebble I had engraved my first rune into.
The intro course had recommended starting with a basic light rune, but it seemed like it would only activate if a user was actively pouring in mana.
"Well, let's see if this thing works then…" I held the stone up and tried to imagine energy pouring out from my heart towards the stone. It took a few minutes, and I almost gave up, thinking it wasn't going to work, but at last a dim glow started flickering out from the pebble, though as soon as I cut off the flow of my mana the stone stopped glowing.
Hmmm… I looked back at the runemaking manual. Aren't runes supposed to last forever or something like that? I scanned back over the text looking for relevant sections. Ah, here we are…
[You did it! Now that you've successfully carved your first rune you might be wondering: why does the glow fade without mana? Is there a way to make the effect of the rune last longer? And the answer to that question is yes! Of course there is!
[What you've just carved into your first pebble is what we call an 'effect' or a 'spell' rune. These runes often correspond to the kinds of elements or spells you might find in Affective sorcery. But defining them for our purposes, they have two major criteria: 1) They require mana to activate. 2) They produce some kind of active effect or phenomenon.
[If these were the only type of runes in existence, runemaking might just be an off-brand version of spirit sorcery, but luckily that's not the case! In order to turn our little light rune rock into something that can actually be used on a daily basis, there are two primary methods: 1) To make the stone capable of storing energy, that way it doesn't constantly have to be held to be of use. 2) To make the stone capable of absorbing energy from its environment, rather than needing an active energy host.
[Both of these things can be achieved with the use of 'conduit' or 'logic' runes. These runes, in contrast to spell runes, can be defined thusly: 1) They affect the flow of mana 2) Alone, they produce no discernible effect. Unlike spell runes, which have a great diversity of forms, there are only a comparatively small sample of logic runes to learn, but their true complexity and use lies in the broader combinations of logic runes they can form called 'circuits'. These circuits will be essential for any runemaking creation we make going forwards.
[Now, to advance our basic light stone to its next level, we're going to learn a basic energy storage circuit that creates a mana flow within a latent object, allowing it to store many times more mana than its original form. This will allow us to create a 'battery' within the stone that the light rune can feed off of, allowing it to stay lit for up to an hour or so on end without a new source of mana.]
"Huhh, so that's how it is…" I tilted the stone in my hand, looking at it in comparison to the battery circuit diagram in the encyclopedia window. Luckily there was still enough space around the light rune to carve the smaller battery runes. Or, I guess they're 'flow' runes—really just basic lines with a directional mark.
I looked at the pen-like wand that I'd been using to carve the runes. I wonder how this works…is this just a convenient way to carve stones, or is this crystal thing at the end, somehow necessary for the runes to actually work? I sighed and put the wand and stone back on the desk.
I guess that's a question for another time, for now…I picked up the wand to start carving the battery circuit. When I was done it seemed like I had made a mistake on one of the flow runes, because there was a huge amount of energy loss every energy cycle. I looked through the common mistakes section in the encyclopedia course until I realized that flow runes have to be straight, and a couple of mine were rather curved.
The next stone I began carving I focused on making the battery circuit more of an octagon rather than a circle, and the effects seemed much better than the first one.
A few hours passed as I worked my way through the various introductory products that the course recommended until I absentmindedly reached out my hand for the next stone to work on, only to find I had exhausted the small pile I had gathered from the nearby stream.
"Ah, seems I'm out." I paused to look back at my progress so far. A light stone that collected energy from sunlight. A basic fire starter that could be charged with any thermal energy. A water purification stone. A rechargeable fan/wind generator. Really all very useful objects despite both the inexpensive materials as well as production methods.
"I wonder if these things are pretty commonplace in this world, if they're this easy to make…" I looked at the ceiling ponderingly only for my stomach to growl, breaking me from my reverie.
"Ah, I guess I do get hungry after all." I focused on the dull ache in my stomach. Like pain its sensation seemed to be rather reduced compared to real life, but it was undoubtedly there. I picked up the roll of bread in my pocket and began eating.
"Mmm! It actually tastes like bread! Man if the taste sensory stuff is this good, I bet gourmet food is going to be a big hit here…Though I don't know who would log into a game just to cook for other people…"
I finished the roll and looked outside at the fading evening light. "I'm really stuck here, huh…" I sighed. "I guess I'll wait another day to see if that NPC comes back, and then start wandering. It would be good to avoid starving, I suppose."
I had booked out my whole day to play Magia, but spending four hours hunched over a desk carefully inscribing runes and reading instructions left me unexpectedly tired, and I figured there really wasn't a good reason to push myself all that hard anyways.
"Alright, time to log out. See you tomorrow Magia. Everest." I called, and quickly logged out using the console UI.