The Ruined Death Knight
chapter-255

[Status]

Name: Rue Danzel

Level: 100 [Max]

Race: Wight

Class: [Black Guard Lv. 1]

Sub-Class: [Runesmith of Undeath Lv.72]

Health: 18 230/25 410

Mana: 4836/6050

Attribute points: 0

Attributes: Strength: 495 Agility: 812 Intelligence: 550 Endurance: 461

Talents: [Superior Undead] [Sin of Wrath] [Reinforced Soul] [Superior Unique Concioness] [Rune Vision] [Dead Rune Knowledge] [Undead Carver] [Dead Mana Affinity] [Dead Mana Resilience] [Undying][Lower Class Death Magic] [Mastery of Himself] [Affinity Carving Mastery]

Skills: [Death Guarding Swordsmanship Lv.1] [Stone Wall Lv.1] [High Jump Lv.1] [Presentless Steps Lv.1][Undeath Corruption Lv.1] [Swift Movements Lv. 1] [Shield Charge Lv.1] [Gale Mana Blade Lv.3] [Greater Sense Danger Lv.1] [Curse of Exhaustion Lv.1] [Mortal Reminder Lv. 1] [Hand of Mana Affinity Lv.9] [Vanguards Defense Lv.5] [Armor Mana Plating Lv.1] [Cursed Blade Lv.1] [Death Influence Lv.1] [Coating Miasma Lv.1] [Curse of Scourge Lv.1] [Greater Raise Undead Lv.1] [Undead Reconstruction Lv.1] [Eyes of the Damned Lv.1]

[Remark: A wight who is capable to see the higher realm of death. Considering his age, it´s a true anomaly. If it weren´t for the lack of knowledge that he has inside his empty skull, one could even call him a soon-to-come calamity.]

[XP: 3 670 700]

"Crap, it seems like my intelligence surpassed my strength. So much of being a sword wielder." Danzel chuckled at seeing his attributes.

`Maybe If I increased my class itself, such a thing wouldn´t had happen.´ He thought before shaking his head.

Since his subclass [Runesmith of Undeath] cost much less to upgrade than his [Black Guard] class, it was only logical that he would upgrade the ones that would bring the most out of the situation that he was in.

Which resulted in bringing his Agility up to 812 in total!

If it weren´t for having been used for his body strength and speed to change on short notice, he would even fall headfirst to the ground for being unable to control his speed.

Though he found it awkward having such speed with so much strength, it wasn´t something to lammed about.

He could just make up for it in the future.

What troubled instead was how the dark elve was able to match his speed instead.

"I wonder what the base attributes are for someone of the 4th-tier..." Danzel mumbled as he silently cursed his status for leaving most of the important information as [???].

It was frustrating, but since he could nothing about it, he just decided to cast such thoughts aside and turned his attention toward his subclass.

"If I remember right, this one was upgraded once I upgraded it 20 times, bringing it to level 72. If my guess is right, the next stage should be either on level 80 or 100. If it´s the former, I might see something interesting before the day ends, but if it´s the latter...that would be depressing." Danzel said to himself as he did a quick calculation as to how much he needed to spend.

The calculation lasted less than a second thanks to his intelligence increasing, making his mind much more efficient and more resistant to foreign sources that affected one's mind.

"Ugh~a total of 2 660 000 XP for a mere 8 levels. At this point, I don´t know if I am just poor or that the prices are ridiculously high." He grumbled to himself.

Forcing himself to grit his teeth, Danzel pressed the upgrade button with a hint of unwillingness to be noticed by his trembling finger.

[Runesmith of Undeath level Increased from Lv.72 to Lv.73]

[Runesmith of Undeath level Increased from Lv.73 to-]

...

[Runesmith of Undeath level Increased from Lv.79 to Lv.80]

[Inteligence increased by 40 and Agility increased by 24]

[You gained 24 attribute points]

After painfully watching his XP getting drained in mere seconds, the next notification that appeared in front of him made his ethereal dark green eyes flare-up.

[You reached the maximum level of Runesmith of Undeath class]

[To advantage into a higher tier class a mission has been assigned]

[Mission]1/3: Being capable to carve a [Rare] rune with a [Well-done] grade.

2/3: Have more than 600 worth of base intelligence points.

3/3: Have more than 850 worth of base agility points.

[Mission Completed!]

If Danzel could sweat, he would even fill buckets worth of his sweat by now.

He barely meets the requirements of all those three missions!

If it weren´t for his [Superior Undead] increasing all his attributes by 10%, he would have to put the current mission on hold for a long time.

Generally, the mission he received were either completed already as of how easy they were or stupidly difficult to meet.

Not even counting his current mission to become a [Death Knight], he once had to fight someone who was supposed to be much stronger than him.

Back then killing the arsonist Rapha wasn´t over beyond difficult as a magic caster of the 2th-tier wasn´t that dangerous. But now if the mission requires him to fight someone of the 4th-tier and win...

He might as well crack his own skull with his own hands rather than trying the impossible.

As for him being able to make [Rare] runes of the [Well-done] grade was only achieved in the recent time.

With his Intelligence increasing over time, he was able to spot much faster his own mistakes, while the additional agility helped him to do more precise work.

This leads him now to have three options considering his future as a runesmith.

[Please choose which path to open as a Runesmith of Undeath]

[Choose 1 out of 3 [Great Rune Talent] to permanently gain]

[Great Rune of Existence]

[Great Rune of Stronghold]

[Great Rune of Truth]

[Great Rune of Existence]: The knowledge of runes that affects one's existence as a whole, a path of runesmithing that only a few dared to seek and learn the techniques. As it allows the runesmith to carve runes itself to one existent. Be it their body or soul.

[Great Rune of Stronghold]: The knowledge of runes that affects the state of a material thing. It´s an art of runesmithing that can change the very basic rules of something that doesn´t hold either a soul or consciousness of its own, although the latter part can be worked around, the runes are mostly used to enchant buildings.]

[Great Rune of Truth]: The knowledge of runes that affect magic arts in all sorts of ways. A runesmithing art is commonly chosen by a magic caster who tries to find the truth through the means of runesmithing. Such runes can have the effects of magic or enchant if not mutated the type of magic.

After finishing reading the three options given to him, Danzel didn´t know what to make of them.

First of all, the fact that those options weren´t called [Talents], but [Great Rune Talent] itself was something he didn´t know of.

He tried to see the description of the [Great Rune Talent] itself, but sadly nothing informative was shown for him to make head and tails of the so-called [Great Rune Talent].

Giving up on what they were, Danzel focused his attention on his option.

If he had to summarize them, it would be that [Great Rune of Existence] were runes that could be carved in body and supposedly the soul.

The [Great Rune of Stronghold] of buildings and items itself and the [Great Rune of Truth] focused on magic.

What he found weird of those was that he was already given the option to learn a part of such things. For example, being runes that could be used as magic.

Back then he rejected learning them as they were too slow for his battle style and he was willing to do it again.

As for [Great Rune of Stronghold], most of the runes he was able to learn was of his equipment such as weapons and armor with the exception of his runed contract.

He still didn´t find a rune that could enchant the capabilities of a building of some sort, but he guessed if he picked this one he would be able to learn them.

Alas, Danzel had already decided which one to pick the moment he read it.

And that was the [Great Rune of Existence].

As it provided the current him with more options that were much more interesting than the other two Great runes.

Picking the [Great Rune of Existence], he felt something in his body happening.

Or to be more precise to his very own soul!

It was neither a feeling of pain nor euphoria.

He was feeling as if something faint was inside his spine and ribs but at the same time also not.

This feeling though disappeared the next moment and the faint feeling turned to be more noticeable as of how heavy it has gotten.

At first, it wasn´t as bad, but the more it lasted the worse this feeling got. It reached the point where Danzel was gritting his teeth and scratching his breastplate as if he wanted to get rip something off himself.

"Grghhhh~"

[You acquired the [Great Rune Talent], [Great Rune of Existence]]

[Your talent [Dead Rune Knowledge] has been upgraded!]

[The change of learning runes of your affinity has risen up to 15%]

[The change of learning [Great Runes] based on your [Great Rune Talent] of Existence] has been added at fix 10% +0,5% per 200 intelligence (The chance of learning [Great Runes] can´t go beyond 20% with this effect)]

Danzel who was too busy in his own suffering to read any of those floating windows heard an echo of something cracking inside his mind.

If he were to see his current soul now by his own two ethereal eyes, he would see that some cracks were to be seen in his ribs and spine.

But instead of an increase in suffering, he actually felt the pain go away.

He even started to feel much better.

As his mind has cleared from all the suffering he experienced in that short amount of time, he was able to see a new window appearing in front of him.

[Though some abnormality, you [Great Rune of Existence] turned into [Great Rune of Undeath Existence]]

"It changed? Rather than that, what was that feeling just now?"

He was even more confused when he checked his body for any cracks or anything of the sort but found none.

Opening the description of his new [Great Rune of Undeath Existence], the text itself didn´t change instead in the end where it was added that [Great Runes] will be of undead preference.

Other than his status itself changing a bit, below his attributes, the line of [Great Rune Talent]:[Great Rune of Undeath Existence] appears.

"Grhh."

Waking up from his confusion was Skull Claw that growled quietly with her head turned to look towards him.

"...What´s done is done. I will have to figure out what this feeling was for later. For now, let´s see the new option." Danzel said as he petted Skull Claws back and clicked in his [Dead Rune Knowledge].

Seeing that another box has been unlocked, he raised his finger and pressed it.

Only to open his mouth in disbelief.

[Epic]: Cost 1 000 000 to learn a Random Rune or a Great Rune.

`Such a scam.´ Was Danzel first thought upon since the price of the better runes.

To his misery though, he couldn´t suppress his curiosity over the new runes.

Even though he had a mountain amount of stuff to spend his XP though, he still decided to go for the new runes.

[You acquired a Soul Rune of -]

To Danzel's surprise, before the window was about to tell the rune's name, it stopped and instead showed a window that Danzel had never seen before.

[...]

`What the hell...?´

But before he could think of the reason for such occurrence, the window of before appeared with the full name of the rune.

[You acquired a Soul Rune of Harvest]

"Something is wrong, but..."

His mumbling only stopped at the but.

From the previous pain to the current weird message, Danzel felt that something was wrong but was unsure of what it was.

Not sure what to make of all those things even after thinking about them, Danzel sighted and pressed to see the effect of the [Rune of Harvest]

"What the-!!!"

And once he read the description, his ethereal dark green eyes flared upped intensely in surprise.

He read the runes description multiple times and yet he still couldn´t believe its effect.

Though it wasn´t a [Great Rune] and only a [Epic] grade rune, the effect alone made him grin maliciously.

`This will solve everything!´

****

At the same time, in the realm of the dead.

Floating through the endless darkness was a sole silhouette where its features couldn´t be seen.

If one were able to see through such darkness, one could only see how that silhouette was wearing some kind of ragged cloak. The color of its color couldn´t be seen even if one was able to bypass the darkness.

"Such unexpectantly is too soon to happen." The silhouette cold voice echoed through the darkness.

Raising his hand, the silhouette continued.

"I didn´t want to interfere with such soul, but..." The silhouette said as some kind of black aura escaped through his hand for a short moment.

The moment the black aura disappeared, multiple chains appeared around the silhouette's body and tightening him up.

"Such soul can´t die. At least not yet." The silhouette said as it disappeared from his location while still bound by the chains.