Even though I don’t have any monster parchment, I know I can still test different materials since the foreign box was made of metal, albeit one I have never seen before.

So its time to ‘commission’ some scraps of materials to test this.

I was thinking of writing my knowledge down to make sure I never forget any of it, but I’m worried it’ll incriminate me if anyone comes across it.

After a couple days of testing, these are my results.

Parchment- Complete failure, requires testing with rarer base materials.

Iron- Glows white-hot and begins to partly melt. Complete failure.

Animal hide- I was thinking if parchment doesn’t work, maybe its thicker, non-refined equivalent would. It was also a complete failure, but rather than crumble it set on began to char, leaving behind the smell of burnt fur. Need a more secure testing area further away from people.

Wood- By far the worst results yet, with multiple sub-types of wood tested, all test have resulted in being incinerated into ash. I’m glad I relocated to somewhere more remote otherwise I could have set some thing on fire.

Rock- Complete failure, initial rocks wouldn’t work due to its roughness making me unable to draw accurate runes. Smoother rocks however just disintegrated into sand. Could be useful if I ever need sand though.

Steel- This was annoying to get a hold of. Had to buy a steel sword of someone, but the results were more promising. Like the iron it began to heat up but stopped shortly after turning red and eventually began to cool down, though I had to wait ages for it to be cool enough to touch. In the end to sword blade had the rune engraved into it, giving of a slight blue glow, but the rest of the blade was partly warped and useless as a weapon. After attempting to activate the rune with a rock over it, it began to heat up again, causing the rune to begin to glow before it was abruptly stopped. The blade had become too damaged for the rune to be functional. But it showed that this steel was far more effective than all other materials I have tried up to now.

This testing was some help, but I’m still without a appropriate material I can use, so this is being postponed until I can get better materials.

Though like Argus suggested, I should be able to use a rune on a steel sword, provided it has a lower mana consumption than the rune I have access to now.

I have still being getting impromptu lessons on runes from Argus, but since all of his information is from witnessing rather than doing, it is very limited.

Although he has been useful in identifying sub-sections of the rune and describing what they do.

My last remaining source of information is Lilith, the slightly insane witch.

To talk to her I just have to use mana that day before going to sleep and she will normally be waiting for me. But her chunk of floating rock is much further away since I came back to Fort Torben, which is comforting.

In the past I had a stalker that use to watch me sleep, safe to say she isn’t around anymore. But even though I know she isn’t anywhere near me, I always get the same feeling of being watched when I sleep.

Its creepy.

Over the next couple of nights, I talked with her, though she was more intent in inconsequential small talk.

Which I reluctantly participated in, I was getting invaluable information after all.

Over two nights I learned less than I hoped to, but I suspect this is intentional. Though she seems naive and excitable, it is likely just a front. After all, she is living in the Forgotten Lands, but perhaps I’m being too paranoid due to my background.

Firstly, I learnt a little about how magic affinities work, mixed in with completely irrelevant information about herself. Like how parents mix in unliked vegetables into your favourite food expecting you not to notice.

Filtering out the useless parts leaves me with this.

Everyone with an innate ability for magic has a main magic affinity, this is type of magic their first natural magic presents itself as.

Therefore, my highest magic affinity is shadow magic, whilst Lilith’s is soul magic.

People then have some lesser affinities, which are harder to detect without attempting to use that type of magic.

However, everyone will have multiple type of magic in which they have no affinity and will be completely unable to use that magic.

The less naturally gifted you are, the less types of magic you can use, with some people only being able to use one type.

This is the reason regular people cannot use magic, even if someone went through the effort of teaching them it won’t yield any results since they have no magic affinities.

The most common magic involves; elemental magic, transmutation, divination, enchantment and conjuration. All of these magic’s then branch into sub-magic, also known as a magic affinities like fire or lightning affinities which fall under elemental magic.

Furthermore, if you have a affinity under a broader school of magic, you have more chance of having an affinity with others within the same school.

However, some rarer affinities like soul or shadow magic don’t have a wider school they belong under.

The second bit of information I managed to pry from her is about ethereal runes.

Whilst hard-wired runes have to be made in advance, ethereal runes can be assembled in the middle of combat by using mana to form a rune in front of the caster.

This is process is slower the more complicated the rune is, which is also dependent on the intelligence of the person forming the rune.

I’m unsure of what possible effects you could achieve with this, and when I asked I was replied with ‘If you come to meet me in person I’ll show you some!’.

So naturally I dropped the subject completely and avoided all attempts to be lured into this widows web.