Krinn led the way, and Wen took up the rear with Cairfray acting as the guide. With her new magic that she unlocked from her ring, she could now easily see through the fog that blocked everyone else’s vision. During their previous travels through the mist, they had gotten far off the path that they were supposed to stay one and now they were working their way back towards the hills they had seen glyphs on.

As they traveled, Jude walked up by Cairfray to talk to her about the ring.

“This ring, where exactly did it come from?” Jude asked.

Cairfray turned nervous and replied, “It’s… I rather not say.”

“It’s okay,” Jude said. He didn’t really care where the ring came from, so he didn’t push the matter and assured her instead, “You don’t have to tell me, I was just curious. Still, it is quite an amazing ring. I would love to know who created it. It’s possible that he or she was a Spell Analyst.”

Cairfray nodded her head in silence, and they continued that way for a while before she built up her courage to speak something that had been on her mind.

“I think there is something more to this ring,” she said.

“Oh, what is it?” Jude asked.

“I don’t think this ring is an item that has skills in it, but rather an item that teaches those skills.”

Jude shook his head, “I don’t see how that can be possible. You don’t have the necessary spell circuitry inside you. If you did, then I could see a possibility of it working that way. But if what you said was true, then it would have to write the circuitry into your Modicuit.”

“Then watch this,” she pulled off the ring and handed it to Jude. Then she chanted, “Xirath py ctup cky ckitchdm uc inn blu fir mie py furmein pe apijy ctup cky nary uc ckuet ckarharj: .”

Immediately she turned hazy which was a sign that the spell worked successfully. They had tested this out before while she was still part of the group, so while she was still a part of the group, they would not be affected by the spell and still see her partially.

Jude was sincerely surprised. This went against everything he had learned about both the Modicuit and item skills. But he quickly adjusted his way of thinking, his small time here in this world couldn’t account for anything. It wouldn’t be good if he let pride cloud his vision of what could and could not be done. Apparently whoever made this ring wasn’t just a little bit better than Jude, he was miles ahead.

“May I look into your Modicuit?” He asked.

“Yes,” she agreed.

Jude placed his hand on her head and delved into her Modicuit to see exactly what was going on. An active spell like should have been easy to find, but Jude couldn’t hide nor hair of it. But he didn’t let that get him down, and he continued to search.

He was about to give up when he decided to look on the same plane of the Modicuit that his interacted with. This plane of the Modicuit was vast and empty for everyone, so when he viewed Cairfray’s version of it, he immediately found what he was looking for.

Jude had seen the circuitry inside the ring on multiple occasions, so he instantly recognized the work inside Cairfray’s upper Modicuit. But it was a strange sight to see both runes and glyphs alongside the circuitry. He had no idea how such a thing could even exist inside the Modicuit. The closest thing Jude could get to was runes inside of the Memory Nodes, but that was vastly different than what was going on inside of Cairfray.

Jude released Cairfray, and they continued on their journey while he continued to ponder over these things.

What was the purpose of Cairfray’s ring? Would the person who made the ring need it to write into their own Modicuit? Or was it used so that the skills they developed could be passed to later generations? Maybe they could write to the Modicuit, but couldn’t write the glyphs and runes like Jude. Or maybe they weren’t a Spell Analyst at all and did things with an entirely different set of objectives or view.

He had too little information to make the right suppositions correctly. But he couldn’t help but continuously think about the possibilities of such things.

Slowly his focus turned from the person who made the ring to how he could do the same. After all, the problem with his current was that it was too weak. Only by using an item and the corresponding glyphs could he make truly powerful skills. He also knew that the runes from Cairfray’s ring further bolstered the power of the magic within. If he could combine both of those into his Modicuit with the skill, he could make strong skills.

But how could he write glyphs and runes into his Modicuit? Could he recreate the same resonance with his items skills like the creator of Cairfray’s ring had done? And if so, how could he create such a thing?

To create a resonance, he would need something to connect himself to the item. It had to become like something that was a part of him. There were several levels of binding objects to a person. The most basic level of this was ‘ownership.' If you owned an item, the recognized that. Unless you gave it away or a Thief stole it, the object would always belong to you. One level up from this was soul binding. These objects were much rarer and only could be found from either dungeons or high-level crafters.

This line of thinking was slowly bringing Jude to a conclusion. Using his analyzing skills, he became distracted. He was looking into his new item skills. Perhaps he could—

BAMB!

A came out of the shadows like a ghost and slammed into Jude. Such an attack could have killed him, but the light of the new magic from the bracers flared in protection. The purple bubble-like energy field burst from the impact and sent him flying several meters before landing hard onto the ground.

Krinn quickly intercepted the , pushing it back and taunting it. The rest followed suit with their attacks while Nellie rushed to Jude for healing. But to her surprise, he was relatively unhurt.

Jude didn’t get up and rush to the fight. He knew that the others could handle a on their own. A biggest advantage was their stealth, but the group was used to their tactics, and it wouldn’t be a problem. Jude was more interested in the burst of insight he just had.

He had been examining the circuitry of the bracer when the attacked. He could see how the circuitry worked and how it resonated with him. After all, if the skill was actively protecting him, it had to have some sort of resonance. But when it was under pressure, did it show its connection. And that connection as through the mana supplied to it.

Perhaps this is what some of the support glyphs and runes had been for in Cairfray’s ring. They could use the mana flowed out from a person to backtrack into the Modicuit itself. But he was still unsure how it would imprint the same thing from the item to the Modicuit. Maybe the runes did more than backtrack; maybe they also copied themselves. Perhaps it was something similar to his skill.

After quickly dispatching the everyone rejoiced at getting level 28. Jude decided to put his thoughts aside for now and enjoy the moment.

Cairfray came up to him, “I’m sorry, I hadn’t been paying enough attention to the surroundings. If I had, I would have found that with my magic.”

“How can this be your fault?” Jude asked. “I was distracted, which was why the attacked me. Next time I will be more prepared, and I’ll focus on the task at hand.”

***

The journey was going smoothly and the night fell once again. Ellie had finished making a large staff size brush for Jude, and he was able to protect the camp with a . This allowed everyone to feel at peace once again in the wild.

was great, not only was he able to set up a perimeter for protection, but he was also able to make a place filled with hot water to wash themselves.

Wen was once again cooking; tonight would be grilled . Out in the wild was the only time Jude had ever seen her eager to cook. Back in Longdale, if you even mentioned that she cook, it was a good way to find a boot in your side. But the more he traveled with Wen, did he notice that she loved the adventuring life so much, that even cooking became enjoyable for her.

People were such strange things, always contradicting themselves. But Jude found it a fun observation.

After everything was done, Jude borrowed Cairfray’s ring once again and examined in detail the area of . He began to systematically ignore all the parts he understood and only focused on the runes and glyphs. Then he eliminated the ones he was familiar with and was left with a single glyph and several runes connecting to it.

The glyph was like a star burst, and the runes encircled it. The runes had the meanings of dust, spirit, and soul with one rune that Jude did not recognize. He didn’t know what the star burst glyph did, so he drew out the glyph and corresponding runes to show Ellie but as he finished the marking’s burned through the paper.

“Ellie, come look at this,” Jude called.

He moved away the burnt paper, and on the ground, the glyph and runes had burned themselves into the rock surface that Jude used to write on. Ellie walked over to see what Jude was doing.

“Do you recognize this glyph?” Jude asked.

Ellie identified it, “Of course, I put one on your letter opener. It means ‘star light’ and very rarely used as it doesn’t really do anything. I figured that you would have fun trying to find something to use with it.”

She brushed her hand over the burned marks and found that it was engraved into the stone.

She asked, “How did you do this?”

“That’s the strange thing. All I did was to write it down along with the runes and the paper combusted all on its own.” Jude replied.

“Interesting, let me try something,” Ellie took out a chisel and hammer and began to work on the stone. But she was having a hard time. The rock had turned extremely tough.

Finally, she gave up, “I’m not sure what this combination means, but I’m guessing it has the effect of making it permanent. Even if I managed to engrave another glyph on this stone, I don’t think it would take effect.”

“Let me try,” Jude said and delved his consciousness into the circuit space inside the stone. It was just a rock, so the space wasn’t large and almost entirely filled with the glyph and runes. But even with the small space, he had to work with was completely impossible to write anything.

“You’re right, I can’t write anything either,” Jude said, and then he told her how he came about this combination.

“If this glyph and rune combination is what transfers the skills from the ring to the Modicuit, you need to be very careful. Just seeing this stone shows that this is something very powerful. If you made one small mistake, it could create something even worse than when you burned your core Modicuit.” Ellie cautioned.

“Don’t worry. I will keep that in mind.” Jude replied.

There were still a lot of unknowns and Jude didn’t want to permanently write something to his Modicuit without it being absolutely perfect, to begin with. There was no going back if he messed something up. His upper layer of the Modicuit might seem large, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t figure out something in the future that would need that space. Besides, what if it made the entire layer of the Modicuit unwriteable? That means he wouldn’t be able to write anything else to it and that would be an actual disaster.

This gave him another thought, could he change what currently existed in his upper Modicuit? He had never tried before, but if he could use his own Modicuit as a testing ground for spell circuitry then he would have a great advantage! Perhaps he could change what he wrote in items as well?

But as far as items were concerned he would also need to find a way to soul bind them. This way he could test his circuits in his Modicuit but use them through the items. Later when he perfected the design, he could use the strange glyph and rune combination to transfer it back to his Modicuit through the resonance created by his mana.

Now with a clear goal in mind, Jude spent the rest of the night trying to figure out a way to soul bind items.