“I can try and figure out the runes necessary for something like that,” Melon said, shifting around a bit. “But how do I—should I just tell you the runes?”

“If we can’t use those clay tablets Haiko made for the actual systems, you could use them as a workboard—it’s probably easier to carve the outlines on something like that,” August said, scratching at his chin. “We’d have to do that part anyway because I don’t know what all the runes look like, even if you tell me, right?”

“Yes, I suppose you’re correct,” Melon said. “I just hope I can actually recreate such a thing in the first place.”

“If you can’t, that’s alright,” August said, “You can always link up with the others if you get stuck—how you spend your time is completely up to you.”

“Then I believe we all have something to occupy our time,” Rittan said, clapping a fist down onto his palm. “If either of you is in need of any assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thanks, man,” August said, “Same to you.”

Melon eyed the exchange with a visible fascination before realising she’d been included in Rittan comment.

“Thank you, Rittan,” Melon said, “I will seek you out if I am in need of something.”

Rittan moved back to where the others were with a parting smile, and August turned back to the unfinished series of runes.

“What was I doing—the [Break] rune,” August said, “Should we cut this strip of runes out of the plank first, or can we do that after we finish?”

“So long as the system remains in an inactive state, you can modify the shape of the object as much as you wish,” Melon admitted, “It might be best to do it now—just in case of accidental activation?”

“Works for me,” August said.

August removed the [Bone Saw] from his inventory and shifted the plank over until it was hanging off the side. It wasn’t a particularly large offcut, to begin with, but the width was still the same. By the time he’d cut one end off, he was already considering using [Etch] to do the rest, a thought that was resisted solely by the fact that he didn’t really want to waste any more of his mana. Melon seemed to have some serious trouble with standing around while he was working because her body language seemed even more restless than before—she seemed to be going through a cycle of almost working up the courage to speak up before psyching herself out again. Three sides cut left him with the rune system hanging off the edge of the table, right at the tip of the offcut. The saw chewed through the line they’d carved the initial workspace with—the little rectangle of plank fell to the ground with a barely audible thump.

“Perhaps we should place the rune system at the edge next time,” Melon said, “That way, you would only need to cut once.”

“That would be the smart thing to do,” August agreed, scooping up the piece. “Lesson learned, I guess.”

He placed it back down on the benchtop, shifted the other plank with the outlines on it until it was nearby, and then placed his fingertip close. August carved the final rune, making sure not to do anything that would ruin the previous work, and then pulled back to look at it—a small pillar of line-marked wood with seven smooth symbols carved into one side of it.

“That’s all, huh?” August wondered, picking it up by the unmarked sides. “Wonder if it’s going to work.”

“I see no reason why it shouldn’t,” Melon said, leaning forward to see it. “You simply need to activate it—the same way as you did before.”

August shifted the totem around in his palm before swiping his thumb over the first rune in the sequence. That same wavering effect took hold of it, and then something at the bottom of his vision began to shift—the mana bar that had all but faded away from his vision was moving now—not exactly quick by any measure—but still, it had never moved fast enough for him to actually track it visibly before.

“My mana is regenerating slightly faster,” August wondered. “I guess I’m stealing the mana from inside it?”

“You’re directly absorbing the mana from it,” Melon said as if she’d already suspected it. “That wouldn’t normally occur with just physical contact—which means you must have some collection system attached to you.”

“One of the skills I unlocked said I could interface with runes directly,” August said, placing the totem down. “It’s probably that one.”

The regeneration effect stopped instantly, but he made no move to pick it back up—he wanted to see what would happen if he waited until it had some time to actually absorb something substantial.

“Back home, we had these little indicator lights to report whether a battery was charged or not—red for empty, green for full, orange for charging, that kind of thing,” August said. “Can you think of a way we could do something similar?”

“There are usually displays that report all of the details of a system, including the amount of mana in a very precise way, but we lack all of the existing infrastructure for that,” Melon murmured, “Perhaps we could use an emission rune to produce some light when it reaches full capacity? It would use up a small amount of the internal mana to function, so it may end up flashing, but—”

“Hold on,” August said, turning to look at her. “How hard would it be to turn a storage system like this into some actual lights, so we could see at night?”

The sudden increase in attention seemed to catch her off guard, and she quickly straightened back up from where she’d been bent over, studying the rune system.

“It—wouldn’t be very hard at all,” Melon said, ducking her head a bit. “If you wish, I could show you how to do it.”

August stared down at the messy piece of wood and wondered just how much potential actually existed here. He snatched it back up off the bench and watched his mana bar jump up in an instant—from just over halfway full to just under the maximum—as he stole everything from inside of it on contact. With two of them recharging at the same time, he was pretty sure he’d find it much more difficult to run out of mana—four or five, and he doubted he’d be down for more than half a minute at a time.