A set of lights that didn’t need them to feed it a steady stream of fuel by hand in order to function would go a long way towards making the Lakeside Hovel safer at night. The fires were needed for cooking, but they were a costly way to illuminate a rather small area.

“We should probably try and make a few of those before the end of the day,” August said, “How many more runes would something like that take—a basic light, I mean.”

“At its most basic, you would need a reference rune, at least three setting runes, and an emission rune,” Melon said, closing her eyes for a moment. “That is on top of the runes needed for the storage system that you’ve just completed.”

If they were anything like the previous ones, he should have no problem carving them out with [Etch]—but he was already developing a backlog of runes that he was using but didn’t actually have unlocked.

“Okay, now that we know these actually count as functioning runes, I’m going to start unlocking them,” August said, eyeing the two new ones he’d just carved. “If you feel up to it, could you outline the runes for a light system?”

“Of course,” Melon said, making an aborted reach for the discarded chisel. “May I?”

“Go ahead,” August said, “If there’s a tool you need, and nobody is using it already, feel free to just take it—just leave it here when you’re done with it.”

Melon mumbled out a quiet thank you, and he turned his attention back to the runes in question. He focused on the rune at the very top of the system—easy enough to pick out, considering it was still under that odd wavering effect—and then used [Analysis].

A rune that has been etched into wood with mana.

[Activation] Unlocked.

—and just like that, the shape of it was burned into his mind, as easy to recall as the rest of them were. A glance at his mana showed it had jumped up to just under halfway, the contact with the battery enough to bring a fair way back to full—and it was still rising. He turned his attention towards the entry in the [Rune Library] to read the description.

A rune designed to activate systems.

He should have expected it, honestly—August turned his attention towards watching Melon working while he waited for his mana to rise back up to full. Her carving was getting better, although he could see a few flakes of flint where she had pressed too hard and further fractured the edge of it. The first six runes seemed to be identical to the storage system, enough that she probably didn’t need to actually recarve them. His mana bar flashed once, drawing his eye back to it, and then without waiting, he used [Analysis] once more, this time on the bottom-most rune.

A rune that has been etched into wood with mana.

[Break] Unlocked.

Basic Mana Storage System Blueprint Unlocked

With that, he had the entire system mapped out in full, and the blueprint seemed to finally coalesce in his mind—it was still unlike the other standard blueprints in that there was no ancillary knowledge to be found surrounding it, but it was something, at least. The entry in the library said—

A rune designed to close systems.

—which he had expected. He flipped through the menu until he found the blueprint entry and opened it up—

Basic Mana Storage System

Absorbs ambient mana that comes into contact with an object and then stores it for later use.

August nodded at the words before turning to check on Melon’s progress—and found that she had made it into new territory. The outline for the mana storage system remained unchanged, but instead of the [Break] rune, another [Connector I] had been added directly after [Energy Storage I]. After that was a rune he didn’t know, followed immediately by [Continuous]. Another two unfamiliar outlines came after it, and she was working on a third that he also didn’t recognise. Rather than waste the mana attempting to analyse an outline that might not even work, he brought out a new offcut to use and started sectioning off the very end of it. Melon had twelve runes—thirteen, now, which must have been the last of it because he was pretty sure she was outlining the [Break]. Too many to run along the width of the plank, given the size he was forced to draw them at, so he used [Etch] to score a rectangle along the length of it, from the tip to about a foot down, before marking out the grid for each of the runes until he had thirteen little squares to work within. He spent the mana needed to cut the entire thing free and then smoothed out the edges while waiting for Melon to finish.

“I think that’s it,” Melon said, straightening up. “It’s been a while since I’ve actually seen the medium rune, but I think I’ve got it correct.”

“Medium rune?” August prompted. “Spirit medium or the measuring kind?”

“It’s the latter,” Melon said, titling her head a bit at the question. “Such an imprecise rune is rarely used anymore, but without a way to gauge the exact measurements, it’s the simplest way to provide a general potency setting for the brightness.”

Melon ran a finger down the series of chiselled outlines before her fingertip came to rest beside the third last one—a bunch of squiggles that meant pretty much nothing to him, although that was the case with most of them, even the ones he knew the function of. Whatever informed the pattern of each rune was beyond his comprehension.

“That makes it a setting rune,” August asked. “[Continuous] is another one?”

“That’s correct,” Melon said, “Continous sets the rate, Diffused sets the shape, and Medium sets the potency—those three are the setting runes.”

August tracked her finger as she pointed each one out and then raised an eyebrow as she placed her finger against another rune he couldn’t identify.

“This is the basic reference rune for light,” Melon said, “The setting runes that come after it is curating how the output is structured—”

Melon drew her finger down to the second last rune and stopped again.

“This is the emission rune, which is where the final result will emerge from,” Melon said, “There are many other setting runes you can use to further structure it, but as it is now, the light will simply emerge from the rune itself.”