The Arcane Emperor - Chapter 164: Flee

Rainer’s vision alternated between an empty Arcane tattoo on his hand, another copy of the [Arcane Tattoo of Storage] in its marble form, and a final one that was charged with his grandfather’s [Arcane Haste] on his other hand. It was with disappointment that he earlier found out that [Arcane Haste] was canceled by [Arcane Awakening] and vice versa. The stored version was no exception. It had lessened his desire to learn his grandfather’s skill, especially given his lack of any success towards it.

In the background, much of his party currently in [Sleep Learning] was playing with numerous [Arcane Tattoo of Storage]s that Rainer had charged with [Arcane Awakening]. Given that they would all be borrowing it for continued Tier 2 Trials as they gathered classes, it was good practice. Even if some had the goal of learning from the skill rather than just practicing with the increases. Though whether limited by the item for safety or for another reason, affecting the skill that came out in any way proved challenging, so learning may be difficult.

Combined with Art’s recent reward to make his poison more portable and partially usable by others, they were well on their way for an unbeatable Trial set. At least for the 2nd Tier. Of course, it wasn’t only Art willing to offer up some more of the generally useful rewards for this purpose. It was practically a requirement after all, if they wanted to share in it, assuming they had something of value to share. Not to mention every piece added guaranteed they’d be coming back alive with all the items in hand.

Talvara, an Avatar of hers in any case given how her main body was busy, was driving herself mad as she repeatedly used [Blade of the Void] before throwing away the tattoo and picking up another nearby. Thankfully, he could replicate a charged version in [Sleep Learning], so he didn’t have to fill one up each time. The Void-being truly couldn’t accept her inability to learn the skill/spell hybrid.

Rainer himself was thinking over how he would recreate this item. Its formula wasn’t as complicated as expected, seemingly relying on knowledge copied from his Soul, but it was the material that was the problem. How could he possibly replicate a marble that transformed into a runic tattoo of an unknown material that then somehow stuck to his skin and then turned nearly invisible when not used?

Not to mention the whole thing of it taking exactly one Earth day to recharge. That the planets he’d been to so far seemed to share a length of day was the only thing that didn’t have him pulling his hair out at the last issue.

There was nothing in the enchantment that made it do any of the aforementioned. What sort of magical item was this? Did the Dungeon do this on purpose, creating an otherwise nearly impossible thing, so that it couldn’t be replicated? Still, studying the runes inside wasn’t pointless. Especially the variety of Void ones he’d never seen in the Void version of the tattoo. But recreation was still a necessity.

As much as he didn’t want to consider it, sooner or later, someone he lent the tattoo to for their Trial might die. And that would mean further risk for everyone else alive. Replication was the obvious answer, obvious until he had gotten a real look at the item with [Arcane Revelation]. Would he have to somehow make up for the lack of such a specialized magical item with further enchantments?

It was for that reason he thought of passing [Arcane Revelation] along with the tattoo. Perhaps Sarah might be able to work her magic with [Enchantment Manipulation] even better with that aid. However, there he came across the first problem. They could see exactly what he saw but they couldn’t make sense of it the same way. Given that it was basically an Aura skill that worked with Arcane Power as well, he suppose this wasn’t unexpected, if a shame.

Even if it could function on Arcane Power, it was still a skill of Arcane Aura, and perhaps required something physical of its user that others didn’t have. Not even his grandfather was an exception.

“Rainer,” Kara whispered beside his ear. With the changes so long ago from Talvara, it left his ears more sensitive, like an Elf. It truly would have been a pleasant experience if he hadn’t known why the Wolfkin was bothering him.

“Later.”

“Please?” she drawled out with practically a purr.

“I’ll do it without the tattoo.”

“But that’s no fun,” he could practically hear her pout.

He turned around and looked at Kara, “We can duel later.”

“You would leave me unprepared for my future Trials?” she asked in faux offense, deliberately lowering her tail and ears to look even sadder.

“Why would something like me be in your future Trials?”

“I was not aware the great [Archon] Nvos knew what would be in my future Trials. And to think he would take advantage of a poor maiden like me last night and just send me away with nothing to show for it, sleeping in the cold.”

“Once,” Rainer conceded, not bothering to argue that he too was sleeping in the ‘cold’ outside, as they all were, or that if anyone took advantage of someone it was her.

“Once,” she nodded and gave him a beautiful smile before moving away from the group.

Rainer chuckled. She wouldn’t enjoy this duel as much as she thought she would. She wasn’t the only one who could cheat. Maybe he’d ask for a bet first?

The moment the flipped coin hit the ground, Rainer charged forwards, expending much of his Void Will in less than a second. The Void Tattoo on his hand lit up as Kara was frozen, only managing to shift into her Werewolf form and cover herself in a massive amount of Aura. How did she bring up her defenses so fast and, more importantly, with such great strength?

Kara fully expected Rainer’s actions, knowing the sluggishness in her Aura that would happen and therefore prepared ahead, aided by her new passive skills and various items. What she didn’t expect was for her Arcane Tattoo to be rendered useless by a second [Void Hold] from Rainer himself. One from him focused on her body, another from his Void tattoo focused on her own borrowed Arcane copy.

She could only complain internally as Rainer’s own Arcane Tattoo blasted past her Aura with a stored [Arcane Awakening: Final Arcanum] and he himself used the same skill right after to end her life before she could even make a move otherwise. She had only the consolation that she had managed to survive such a powerful first attack. While he couldn’t add it in, he could enhance the tattoo’s attack himself with [Soul Presence] after the fact.

“That was cheating,” Kara complained after reforming herself, ignoring that he had only removed a ‘cheat’ of her own.

“I’m aware,” he said with a smug grin.

She took one look at his impossibly blue eyes and practically growled at him as they found a place even further away from everyone.

Feeling more relaxed than usual, Rainer figured it was time to try and recreate the spell he nearly formed in the Dungeon’s forest clearing Round. Hounds of Arcane-Fire encircled him as he used [Soul Presence] and [Arcane-Fire Manipulation] in concert. He focused on their forms, remembering clearly the Souls of the hounds he faced before and letting his Soul imprint that into the magic.

Any time his energy faltered he used the [Sleep Learning] space to recharge it, and in turn used [Arcane Invigoration] to keep his Soul intact. But no matter how much he replicated the past occurrence, he couldn’t feel any runes naturally forming in is mind.

He sighed. Forcing this type of spell creation just wasn’t possible it seemed. The need was just as important as the magic itself. The creation of something like [Arcane Blade] was a rare opportunity, and nothing that could be faked.

Switching gears, Rainer focused internally, trying to find any sign of his recent passive skill gains. But whether it was [Soul Perseverance] or [Spell Haste], he found evidence of neither in his Soul.

Knowing it would be the opposite of a real break to train [Soul Presence], Rainer took the time to fully read through the variety of books he had quickly skimmed through during his short time as a thief.

Rainer snapped Talvara out of her rage-induced fuming and called her over.

“What?!”

Rainer didn’t take offense at her tone, finding it incredibly amusing given what she was angry about, and rather asked about her Soul.

“Do you think your main body could wear the tattoo and heal?”

Talvara just gave him a weird look.

“Do you think sending Arcane into my Soul would be wise?”

Rainer rubbed his nose, quickly deciding that no, it would not in fact be wise. He had been too concerned over her injury to give it proper thought.

Her anger faded as she smiled at him, and ran her hands through the hair of a seated Rainer.

“Thank you for the offer, but I will be fine.”

“I’ll think of something.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” she remarked, playing with his hair some more. Something about the way the Void and later Arcane changed it made it more appealing. “Keeping your hair longer?”

Rainer chuckled. He had accidently grown it a bit too long with [Arcane Invigoration] last night and Luna refused to cut it with her Flame. He hadn’t realized just how guilty she felt for the hand-breaking earlier, even if it was hardly worth a mention to him. Given her Flame had seen large improvements, she had to get to used to that as well.

And when he recreated his body in here, it matched the current reality.

“My hairdresser is out of town.”

Talvara hummed in thought, trying to put the strange phrase into a context that made sense. She had gotten used to it talking with Francis.

“Make me more of those Void Tattoos. I’ll fill them with skills I think you might have the slightest chance of learning.”

Rainer’s eyes widened as he did just that. He had never abandoned his goal of using Void and Arcane together. An ancient Void-being’s skills sounded like a perfect next step.

It was the next day, the slightly too white sun setting over endless fields of green and the occasional forest.

“We should go back to the Dungeon,” Sarah complained, everyone else echoing her thoughts.

Rainer just awkwardly shrugged, having no argument. The world was empty. Towards the end of the day he had given up just walking around and searched with [Void-traveling]. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a magical plant in sight. The only anomaly he saw was that the plant life had unusually strong Life Energy. It couldn’t be considered magical but it definitely wasn’t ordinary. Normally he automatically filtered that type of thing out. It was different enough in plants that he couldn’t even drain it if he wished to.

Having spotted a few wild vegetables, he wondered if they might have some use for that reason. Bringing some of them back to Art to prepare for mass use might make this trip partially worth it. At least he felt relaxed and more than ready to return to doing something far more difficult.

In fact, he guessed his natural filtering ability with [Arcane Revelation] was what made the stored skill so useless for others. Any enchanted item must look like just a block of blue, rather than separate runes. Normally he didn’t see life flowing through everything around him, nor the world energy that would otherwise be blocking his vision.

He figured he could visit the Giant’s Plane next. He hadn’t Soul Marked one of them in the Dungeon for nothing, and who knew what other races he’d find there. Though given his last experience, he’d have to go alone at first to such a place. Everyone else could join the rest in the Dungeon with his Avatar.

A few more hours passed as they collected samples at Rainer’s behest; the moon, which was completely absent their first night, seemed an odd mix between a new one and lightly shining.

Gunthar’s head suddenly snapped towards the moon, before he swiftly moved towards Rainer.

“Sorcerer, we must flee!”