The sound of distant barking broke the silence of the night. It was faintly noticeable between the howling wind that rattled the uneven windows in Roland’s room. The light from his candle flickered as it danced around.

The young man was lying down on his bed. Roland was holding both his hands behind his head and looking at the ceiling. He was spacing out while thinking about the future. He had already spent almost ten years in this foreign world and he still felt like he didn’t belong here.

He thought back to the day that he had arrived. He was confused and scared, the people in his so-called new home were cold and distant. The original Roland was a five-year-old child and didn’t know much about the world. His old memories had already faded into obscurity and he wasn’t sure why his siblings were so distant. The only reason he could find was his mother that was still a mystery to this day.

There were no photos or paintings of her left in the mansion. The child that was once Roland couldn’t recall her face either. Apparently, she had died giving birth to him but if that was the truth or not was unknown. His status was showing that he was 100% human so he didn’t think she would turn out to be a demon lord like in some fantasy tales that he read in his free time.

Then there were his three brothers. He didn’t really interact with the other two that were of noble birth and the youngest hated his guts. The reason was also a mystery but probably it was due to this whole noble lineage nonsense. That brother’s mother was also a commoner, a daughter of a merchant to be precise.

He remembered a few instances where that brother of his lashed out at him. Luckily, most of the time there were people around and no fights broke out. It would be really unfortunate if he got beat up by a child only a few years older than his new body. Roland also kept to himself and avoided confrontations from happening by hiding in some secluded spots to train his skills.

He wasn’t sure what his brothers were up to now. Did they finish the knight academy and were now back at the Arden Estate? Were his sisters getting married off to some nobles to gain more prestige and power? Maybe they were lucky enough to nab themselves someone that they actually liked.

Normally a youth that had a warrior class and was from a noble line would go to the knight academy to train. Just as the name implied it was a school for young nobles. The curriculum of such an academy varied. It wasn’t just physical and combat training, a knight had to know how to read and present themselves.

They would study things like etiquette, languages from other countries, history, and even accounting. A lot of went into a knight and they had to train in particular skills to unlock the more noble versions of their classes.

If you wanted to achieve a knight class first you needed a tier 1 Squire class. Depending on the choices of other tier 1 classes you could rank up to a tier 2 knight eventually.

For instance, if you were lucky enough to have a mana warrior class and a Squire class, you could then quickly switch to a tier 2 Mana Knight. Then depending on your elemental affinity, you could specialize into something like a Flame Knight. There were various combinations to this class as well as the others.

His mind drifted away from his family and he recalled another person that was at him during that five-year stop. It was his maid Martha that was more or less his mother figure. He had certain emotions towards that woman but he mostly considered that to be due to the leftover feelings from his host’s body.

She was someone who at least cared but if she would be willing to drop her cushy job back at the Arden estate and come here to help him out? He was living in a warehouse that would probably be quite chilly if he wasn’t a blacksmith who used a lot of hot metal.

There was also the problem of contacting her. Sending her a letter was one option but it could very well be intercepted by someone from the noble house. He didn’t know who hired the first assassin that went after him. There was nothing stopping that person from hiring more if they knew where he lived.

Roland shook his head as he tried not to think about his old family anymore. That was something that he had left behind a long time ago. He was now more or less self-sufficient and part of the working class. His runic swords were being sold to the adventurers already and he was earning a hefty sum for someone his age.

This was still not nearly enough to start his own business though. He would probably have to go to a different town where he could set up a shop. A town where the prices for real estate were a lot lower than here. The taxes also depended on the nobles that ruled the lands. He looked over some potential new places but he was still on the fence.

It would probably be a lot easier to live his life here. He would probably get a new workshop after ranking up to tier 2. Maybe even some tier 1 blacksmiths as helpers and they would be all hired through the company he was working for. Still, he would be only part of a bigger machine, just a larger cog in it but still not his own man. Even though it was slightly troublesome, he still had dreams of starting his own workshop. 

He rolled to one side of his bed and then to the other before finally getting up. For some reason, he couldn’t sleep. He activated the life detection magical device that he had made and couldn’t see any enemies nearby.

His life had gotten quite mundane after the last incident, he spent most of it working at his workshop. There were no more assassination attempts on his life for quite some time now. The gnome was holding up his part of the contract and he was well protected.

Roland grabbed a stack of papers from the side and started looking through them. He was doing his own research in hopes of discovering a new skill.

The people in this world were very reliant on their skills. It was thus very hard to come by any type of research materials that weren't just skill books. Those just gave a person the knowledge instantly without really giving them time to contemplate over it.

It was as if a person was learning to ride a horse without having mastered walking. Riding a horse was the superior type of travel but if you got off your horse you couldn't go anywhere. Thus it was hard for a person to research other similar skills as they lacked the basic knowledge to do so.

This was why Roland was now re-educating himself. He was far too reliant on his debugging skill for his runes. Without it, he would probably not be able to improve a lesser rune by himself. At least not before he started his own research. Now he was able to see some of the patterns and even understand them on a surface level.

There was a certain crafting technique he wanted to learn, the one that would boost his items to another level. It was the one that melded mana stones into the runic structure and powered them.

There were two main ways that this technique worked. One was by somehow combining the sizzling hot metal with the mana stone during the smelting process. The runesmith would create a special mana alloy that would retain more ambient mana in itself. These special alloys would then allow a runesmith to make weapons with lower requirements for mana.

This was the harder way of doing this and the prices were also higher. Of course, the way of doing this was hidden away by the runesmiths. They would also charge you an arm and a leg for it as they weren't willing to aid their competition.

This was considered to be the superior technique compared to the other one. There were even superior versions of it that worked on materials other than metal. But they apparently required special smelters, techniques, and more skills that kept everything together.

The second option was a lot simpler. First, you just needed to get your hands on a raw mana stone from a monster. The better the quality the lower the mana usage would become. If you managed to get a strong enough mana stone you could even make a weapon that didn’t need any outside mana to run. 

After acquiring this resource a runesmith would take an item, for instance, a sword. He would then have to craft a socket for it, mostly he would place it in the hilt or just above the crossguard. The stone would be then inserted into the special socket. The mana stone would then turn into a battery for that item. The socket being nothing more than a conduit for the mana stone.

What he really needed to find here was the correct runic structure for this socket. Fashioning an opening to fit a round object as a mana stone wasn’t hard. He just needed to connect it with the main runic pathways and make a complete circuit. He already tried the direct approach but it didn’t work, so he decided to evaluate his knowledge and go back to the basics.

‘It Would be easier to get my hands on one of those runic weapons with these sockets but then this research would lose its meaning...’

He had contemplated buying one of those items himself, he had earned some gold coins since getting here and could afford a common item. But then he felt like he would again rely on his debugging skill too much. Then he would probably run into another wall down the line, that one probably far greater than this one.

So there he was looking back through some chicken scratch that he called notes. The candles that he was using were of the magical kind so they would burn for a lot longer. This didn’t increase the quality of light though as his eyes were getting tired.

In a slight fit, he finally tossed a bunch of notes up into the air and leaned back in his chair. The stack of papers flew everywhere and started slowly descending after hitting the ceiling. He closed his eyes and gave out an audible sigh before feeling something land on his face. It was one of the pages that he tossed up, the moment he opened his eyes it was before him.

He removed it from his face and furrowed his brows. It was one of the runic components that he had drawn but it was upside down. He looked at it for a second before realizing something.

‘What if I’ve been looking at this issue in the wrong way, what if the mana core isn’t a battery? Or if it's a combination of a battery and something else...’

Roland rubbed his chin. From the way he saw it, the mana stones inserted into the sockets should work as batteries. They were more or less an additional power source. Now a new idea dawned on him, what if they worked in a somewhat different way.

‘The mana stones don’t fully remove the need for a person to power the runes. They mostly just lower the requirements by a set number, they sometimes even lower the deterioration rate of the runes… What if instead of a regular battery it was some kind of cleanser or purifier? What if instead of adding ambient mana from the air it cleansed it from some kind of impurities and thus increased the power output in that way?'

This started making sense now. If he imagined mana as a river filled with mud water and the mana core as a dam with a filter on it. The mana crystal would filter the mudded water and only let the clean water back into the stream.

He had presumed that these crystals just stored mana and added some after being socketed into the item. Now he had another theory but if he was right then the socket needed a whole new design.

He brought out a new piece of paper and got out one of his pencils. His entire room was a mess and the floor was littered with his schematics and non-working diagrams. His fingers worked fast as he had done this multiple times already. His high dexterity stat only added to the hastening of this process.

In about an hour he had a finished schematic of a sword socket for a mana stone. It was connected to the dual rune with the mana slash and thrust skills. He waited a second before activating his debugging skill but when he did his bottom lip began to tremble.

He had previously created this combination rune and already received the experience for it. Surprisingly adding the socket which was apparently just called a slot had given him some bonus experience. He modified the schematic slightly after running it through his debugging skill and gained another 100 XP for it. This opened up a new revenue stream for him. He could probably modify all the old rune schematics to have slots in them and gain some bonus XP.

This wasn’t important that much now though. He had finally managed to create the fabled design that he was trying to reproduce for months. He had even gained an upgraded version of his old title. Apparently discovering new techniques in his profession did help him to gain things besides skills. He was quick to check his new title out and was pleasantly surprised by the explanation.

He wasn’t sure how much of a bonus this would be but anything that boosted his crafting skills would be appreciated. Even if it was just 1% it was worth it in the long run, the crafting process was always lengthy and this could hasten it by an hour or two.

He had spent almost the whole night continuing his research and now dawn was upon him. Roland already knew what his new creation would be. He already had made the sword and would just need to make a few adjustments.

The easiest way would be to punch a hole through the pommel and insert the gem into it. The hard part would be to make the crystal-like object-fit without falling out. He still had the mana stone from that hobgoblin and could try to insert it there. He wasn’t sure if there was a specialized skill or way to make the mana stones fit the sockets.

‘I could try some glue… or maybe polishing it…’

He scratched his head a bit while feeling drowsy. He had already spent too much time on this tonight and his sleep resistance skill was reaching its limit. It would probably be better to just turn in for the night. He could pick it up in the morning and try a couple of crafting techniques to embed his marble-sized mana stone into his freshly created magical sword.

Roland really hoped that there wasn’t some kind of special skill required for this procedure. He didn’t really have even the basic knowledge to start experimenting on those slots. Now with a working schematic, he could investigate some more. The upgrade to his title even showed him that trying things yourself was far more rewarding. If there was some kind of implanting skill he might even be able to figure it out himself.

It might even be impossible to attach a working slot for a premade weapon and he would have to recreate it from scratch. Though, that would have to wait for another day. He was dead tired. His eyes burned from focusing on rune schematics all day, tomorrow he would get back into his research. Maybe with some luck, he would be able to make that gauntlet he always dreamed about…