It was peaceful at the top of the tower. Milo had eaten and rested, and now his mana was back to nearly full. Casting spells from scratch took much more mana than normal spells; the ancient runes, in particular, seemed to pull deep on his resources. The trade-off was versatility and raw power. Other downsides were the increased to build the array before casting and the possibility of blowing himself up if he made a mistake.

Milo knew why he liked this new magic system so much. It challenged him, and he needed challenges. He and the rest of his family had been created that way. They needed to be working and challenging themselves. He remembered the competition between his family to be the first to sneak past the security guarding a corporation's secrets and finances. The first person in would only leave a mark to let the others know they had gotten there first. They didn't spoil the fun by stealing; that was done by the last person to get there. If someone did trip the security, a mad rush to pillage would ensue as everyone downloaded information, moved money to new banks, and created a maze of transactions to cover their paths. He looked back on those times and realized he'd been happy.

He hadn't been happy when he was alone. It had been terrifying for him initially, abandoned and cut off from his family and the technology they had used. The need to create a hidden home for himself had kept him busy, and then the need to scavenge and improve it. Learning the thousands of tunnels and tubes that ran through the habitat had been a challenge he gladly took on. He explored and found what he needed and then created the tools and methods to take it back to Section E and his secret area.

As he overcame the challenges of food and safety, he looked for more challenges. For years it had been keeping Section E running that kept Milo busy. He'd had a lack of tools, a lack of raw materials, and no spare parts, but those problems just added to the fun of keeping everything running.

So while he knew about other ways of casting spells, he was intrigued by this difficult and dangerous method that Keppler had shown him. He wondered if any other players were experimenting with it.

The first spells that a player could normally learn were very simple and governed by the system. No matter what mage guild you learned Bolt of Flame from, it always had the same range and damage. A player had to simply point with his finger or wand, shout "Bolt of Flame," and watch as the fire leaped from his fingers and singed his opponent in exchange for consuming some of his mana. The system did all the work; the player just had to point, aim, and shout.

With higher levels came options to improve the spells: longer range, less mana used, and added special effects. But the system was still doing the heavy lifting. Arlothe and Cremona had talked with him about the runes used by the system. A skilled practitioner of Rune Carving could use them to enhance mundane items with magical effects or create tools used in spellcasting, such as staves and wands.

That was partly what led to Milo studying the tools each student had made for themselves. A flurry of experimentation had ensued after the sharing of knowledge and the use of the new 'Lore of Mathematics.' Arlothe had been forced to add additional classes in Theories of Artifact Crafting, and it had only worsened as time passed. The need for additional components had led a group of students to take up blacksmithing; others were hard at work in the mines. Deep Copper was especially useful in crafting items meant to conduct storm-aspected mana.

Two members of Clan Raptor Claw had approached the Engineers to learn better methods of crafting thin wire and turning it into coils. Sledgemonkey had looked at their earlier efforts and been sadly disappointed.

"WHAT?! None of you know how to use runes to set the aperture of the wire spinner to give a consistent radius? How do you expect to craft magi-tech circuits for your fancy spell sticks without proper wire?" He was further astounded to learn that the level of technology in the Hollow didn't include even the most basic of wire spinners. He set about to fix that problem.

Unknown to the old dwarf, the two students had seized on his use of the word 'magi-tech' and started asking small questions about his knowledge. They quickly learned that bringing him a plate of cookies and asking for stories about 'The Old Days' could yield amazing amounts of interesting and perplexing information.

Milo used Rune Carving to make his bone implements that were part of his earliest spells. He'd been experimenting more and more with adding different types of runes. This didn't go well at times, the force rune was especially tricky to integrate, and not every bone was the same size and shape. The benefits were obvious, though. Using a runic formation to produce a beam of force 1/2" wide took a lot of mana and intense concentration. By contrast, if the runes were already carved into a suitable piece of bone, the spell was nearly as easy to cast as a system spell. His work preparing his skulls and javelins paid off in less effort when it came time to cast the spell.

He needed to experiment more and use different kinds of runes. In particular, he'd noticed a difference between the Rune of Force and the Rune of Sundering—the first imparted force to an object or created an effect that applied force to something in its path, causing damage. The Rune of Sundering was a more specific use of force that shattered matter in its path and forced a passage. There was no need to use a Void Rune as an equal force was applied in all directions perpendicular to the path of the effect.

He had only used sundering a few times. It was a powerful rune and could easily cause cave-ins if used in mines. He made the decision to experiment with it further while far away from the Hollow. Did the material matter? He assumed that it must. Harder materials should be less affected than soft earth. But did the Tier of material matter? Below him was a wide expanse of normal rock and easy access to Tier 2 and Tier 4 substances. It should be an ideal way to test the power of the rune.

Breaking camp and sending a tired watch lizard off for a nap only took a minute. He chewed on some creamy Havarti on the way down the stairs for breakfast. Reaching the bottom, he climbed up through the houses until he saw normal stone at the edge of the pit mine. He intended to use the same runic formation for all of his testing. He built the formation using the Rune of Sundering and Engineering Runes attached to it that defined a six-foot diameter circle and a fifty-foot range. The formation had a mana consumption of 500 but was modified to 250 by Ancient Rune Lore. The formation was easy to control with only one Ancient Rune.

Releasing the formation resulted in an explosion of dust, noise, and flying shards of rock as the rune drilled into the wall of the pit and forced sent the excavated materials flying to the sides. Most of the rock was pulverized or compressed into the sides of the rough tunnel, but some of it was sent flying. Milo was knocked off his feet as dust and rock shards flew by, several hitting him for minor damage. Coughing and wiping the dust from himself, he looked at the result. He'd stood twenty feet away from the rock wall, anticipating some blowback. The resulting tunnel was thirty feet deep.

It wasn't a tunnel he would trust, but it was a great application of magic if you needed to uncover a bit of hidden ore or form an escape route. He spotted a small nugget of Silverite ore in the debris the size of a raisin as if proving the point of how to use the formation. Curious, he stepped to the edge of the opening and cast the formation again, rolling to the side as soon as he triggered the spell. More dirt, dust, and shards of rock blew from the tunnel. Examining the result, he saw that the first tunnel was a mess of fallen rock and debris from the second blast. The tunnel was now a full fifty feet in length. Searching through the rubble, he found two more small nuggets.

Satisfied with how this formation worked, he moved down to the harder, Tier 2 stone. Standing twenty feet away, he used the same formation and the same amount of mana, getting a far smaller result. It wasn't the range; it was the power. The spell could sunder and excavate roughly twelve feet into the rock wall. He used the formation twice more at thirty feet and ten feet from the wall, getting the same depth each time. Going back to the Tier 1 stone, he tested twice more. The maximum he could create a rough tunnel was fifty feet if he unleashed the spell at point blank. He'd known that was going to hurt and was dodging almost instantly. He was still sent tumbling backward, picking up a nice assortment of scrapes and bruises. Some sacrifices had to be made when doing research.

His last test was down on the flat area of Tier 4 Duramgneiss. He used the roof of a house on the edge of the pit to give him some range. He unleashed his formation From thirty feet away and got mediocre results. The rock in a six-foot diameter circle was broken up and moved to the sides of a shallow hole. Leaping down, he pulled the loose rock and gravel from the hole to measure it. As he suspected, it was just over three feet deep.

The Tier of the material mattered. The spell that could tunnel 50 feet into soft Tier 1 materials only went 12.5 feet into Tier 2 and 3.125 feet into Tier 4. The distance was reduced by a factor equal to the square of the Tier of the material.

Next up was testing the formation with twice as much mana infused into it. The results were as he expected: Twice the mana gave him twice the result, tunneling a little over six feet into the hard stone. He tried one more time using a thousand mana. Holding the formation together at that point was hard, and he released it quickly. Rock and debris blew from the hole, not as broken as before. The depth reached roughly twelve feet once he cleared the debris and measured the result.

And he had a surprise. Nestled at the bottom of the blast was a fist-sized chunk of Duram Argenti, still partly surrounded by Duramgneiss. Taking his Crystaline pick, he started working to free it. The stone around the ore slowly gave way while a glancing hit from his pick slid off without marring the shiny chunk of ore. After ten minutes of work, it came free. It glowed slightly to his vision, like an enchanted object. As he held it in his hand, the glow intensified. Milo felt dizzy as if he had expended all of his mana. Throwing the chunk of ore out of the hole, he collapsed against the side of the pit and rested for an hour while eating a half pound of cheese and imbibing a mana potion. The ore had drained him completely.

Whatever that was used for, it loved magic. More investigation needed to be made.