The Runesmith

Chapter 349: Tier 3 Evolution.

“Woof!”

“Hey, calm down, just give me a moment…”

“Awoooooo!”

Roland was looking at an over-excited ruby wolf that was jumping around his backyard. The moon was peeking out from behind some clouds and barely illuminating the night sky. Even with no natural light, the two could casually see everything. There was no need for runic lights thanks to easily produced spells that allowed for night vision.

Agni knew that today was the day that he would be allowed to turn into a new form. His owner just needed to choose the option and the transformation would take place automatically. Monsters did not have to go through tiresome trials to finalize their tier 3 ascension but their change was sometimes brutal. They could turn into entirely different creatures with different skeletal structures and sizes.

‘He won’t set the whole place ablaze after the change, right?’

After some deliberation and input from the Solarian church nun, he had decided to use the most unique evolutionary path from the four choices available. All of them had their pros and cons with the exception of the volcanic variant that seemed the weakest of them all. The Lesser Mystical Ruby Fenrir for instance would probably be quite powerful but also the largest one of the bunch.

A fully adult Fenrir was a tier 4 creature and it was larger than a wooly mammoth. Even the lesser version here was supposed to be comparable to an elephant. Then there was also the possibility of the mystical ruby variant becoming even larger as it was a rare variant. It would become quite hard to bring Agni in a Fenrir form into the city or even into the dungeon as he might become too large to fit through some of the tunnels.

Then there was the Orthrus which was a lesser form of the more known Cerberus. It only had two heads instead of the three the other legendary creature was known for. It was an evolution that belonged to the hellhounds and many of them ended up as a variant. While this was an interesting option, Roland almost instantly tossed it out after putting in some more research.

The biggest problem with this one was that Agni’s personality would be split between the two heads. It would create a whole new being born out of one with none of the two heads being the original Agni. When advancing further into a Cerberus the process would somewhat repeat itself to a somewhat lesser extent but the main problem was still there. The main persona would be somehow divided into two and then three heads and that was not something that Roland wanted. After all he and Agni went through, he wished to keep his canine companion’s brain intact.

The third option was the most basic one. It would just transform Agni into a finalized version of the Dire Ruby Wolf. Probably if it wasn’t for the fourth option, Roland would have decided to pick this one. The size wasn’t as huge as that of a Fenrir, nor were there any problems with him losing his identity. However, the Sunlight Wolf was something that could not be ignored, a divine beast form was something special.

‘Sister Kassia confirmed it so it should be fine…’

His main gripe before consulting with the nun was the Solarian Church. He wasn’t sure how those fanatics saw monsters related to their god. It wouldn’t be strange for them to either want to capture all divine beasts or even to try to exterminate them. Perhaps a monster born of the sun would be seen as a blasphemy against Solaria.

Luckily this wasn’t the case and they were seen more as something worth protecting instead. It was like a lucky charm for the church, some religious convocations would even flock to be near such a beast. They saw it as a blessed creature by their deity that could bring them good fortune.

‘But not like I’ll make it easy to identify his status.’

Roland nodded while bringing up the options screen. Thanks to his recent research into status screens and runes that could alter it, there was no problem in giving Agni a special evolution. Even if someone tried to identify him they would be given faulty information. If they got a sniff of divine energy he could easily deflect it. Constructing divine runes was not a problem and he could always claim that to be the source of the magical wavelength his wolf was using.

When Roland compared Agni’s base stats to his own when he was at level hundred fifty, it wasn’t that much off. He had received a big boost from getting his Runesmith Lord class but had lost a lot due to his scribe class. Now the big question was if it was possible for Agni to receive a larger multiplier as well. Considering that his Overlord class was somewhat rare, there was a possibility to apply to a divine beast.

“Agni, do you want to drink a potion for the pain?”

His wolf was quite intelligent and his stats showed it. This didn’t mean that he was on the level of a regular human. The intelligence stat in this world worked differently on monster races and mostly reflected magical power. There seemed to be a hidden debuff depending on the being's race when this was taken into consideration. Yet, at least he was somewhat able to understand Roland’s words and the meaning behind them.

“Worf!?”

“Is that a no then? Okay, if it gets too painful just tell me.”

After shaking his head Agni gave a resounding no to the pain relief potion that Roland had prepared. The time to change was finally there and so he clicked the option on the screen. It didn’t take long for the transformation to take place as Agni’s body started changing. A glow resembling the rising sun engulfed his body and soon turned into wild flames.

‘This is quite the light show…’

Roland stood to the side with a slight look of concern plastered over his face. While he knew that flames should not be able to damage a wolf born in a volcanic dungeon, it was heart-wrenching to see him burning up before him. It also didn’t help that he could hear various whimpers that were preceded by crunching sounds of bones being shifted around.

‘Why is it so bright… maybe I should have done it inside the workshop instead.’

His hand moved towards his magically enhanced eyes. He assumed that an evolution of this caliber could have been dangerous in an enclosed space. Records of monsters getting birth in an explosion of magical energies were out there. If Agni was turning into some sort of flame hound it was possible for his flames to damage all the runic equipment down there.

‘Here come the flames, I need to contain them.’

A pillar of flames was starting to form and was shooting straight up. It engulfed Agni’s entire body and illuminated his whole compound. To halt the advance of these magical flames he activated a shielding spell that he previously created. It created a dome of around fifteen meters in diameter around Agni. It also lowered the intensity of the light to not make it less suspicious.

This allowed for the flames to be contained and prevented all his wind turbines from catching fire. A blaze of flames was raging inside but he could tell that Agni wasn’t suffering any damage. It was the reverse, his health points were going up just like everything else. He could see some of the stats ticking quickly up before settling on certain numbers. Finally, after a few minutes, the blaze started to subside and the next form of his canine companion was revealed.

“Agni, how do you feel?”

“....Wooof…”

The first bark was a bit weak but soon he could see him regain his composure. The pain of getting their body twisted and changed was probably not something for the faint of heart. He could only imagine what Agni had to go through. Some monsters were recorded to even pass out during their evolutions if they were too extreme.

“Awooo!”

A resounding howl filled the compound and it was accompanied by flames dancing. A large wolf with a flaming mane stood before him. Agni’s size had increased, it was now comparable to an adult horse with his head reaching higher than that of his master. It would seem that riding on top of this flaming wolf was now a possibility, that is unless he received damage from the flaming parts.

‘The flames are subsiding… he is starting to look more like a ruby wolf now?’

At first, he thought that Agni went through a full transformation. Instead of a wolf covered in rubies, he was more similar to a Flame Wolf which was another variation of a volcanic canine. His entire body was covered by flames which when examined by his mana sense exuded a strong divine wavelength. On the outside, they looked like regular old magical flames but were actually holy in nature. For a moment it looked like it would become a problem but soon after, his form reverted to one of rubies.

The ruby horn was still there and it was just more pronounced and a bit pointier than before. On the outside, he didn’t look that much different than the old dire wolf form with just an increase in size. This was how he expected him to look if he ever went with the Alpha Mystical Dire Ruby Wolf variant.

“Are you feeling alright Agni?”

“Woof!”

“Good. Now, can you turn into that flaming form you had before?”

“Worf?...”

He tilted his head to the side before giving it a go. The evolution had been just reached now so his canine companion still had some problems grasping his skill. After a few moments, a change started taking place again. The red rubies started to shift into flames that covered his entire body. The inferno raged and Roland could feel the increase in temperature.

‘Those flames are strong enough to turn the ground into glass, his stamina isn’t going down and neither is his MP, this is like the books described, good he'll actually be able to switch between forms.’

His main worry when considering this class was hiding the divine energies. While the church considered creatures with them to be blessed, cultists didn’t. Perhaps it wouldn’t raise the ire of the Abyssal cultists but there were some necromancer groups that despised such energies. Sometimes they made it their problem to get rid of beings like Agni before they became a problem as they casually carried around their greatest weakness.

“Okay that’s enough Agni, can you turn off that skill you are using?”

“Woof!”

In a few seconds, the flames subsided and his body was back to normal. Roland took a glance at Agni’s status screen to see something interesting. There was a note by the class's name indicating the current form. Previously it showed ‘Divine Form’ but now it changed into ‘Ruby Form’. It was a clear indication of the shifting ability and the good fortune coming his way.

‘That’s an interesting multiplier, do gods in this world believe in lucky numbers?’

After glancing over the increased multiplier he started going through some of the other improvements, one of them was the divine element affinity. While Agni had been granted this affinity it didn’t mean that he was capable of producing healing spells. Roland concluded that he would most likely only be capable of enhancing his flames with this new element. This would make it easy to contend with the undead creatures down in the dungeon and allow for a quick level-up experience.

Besides gaining a few more skills and the capability of producing divine spells, Agni’s charisma and luck stat had gone up. Roland wondered if this was one of the reasons for the sun church believers seeing these types of monsters as lucky.

To confirm his theory about Agni being more built for attacking spells he also saw the advanced destruction magic passive skill. It would allow him to produce better spells and perhaps infuse them with divine energy to produce some unique effects. However, this didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be able to learn any restoration spells that were usually locked behind priest classes. Devine monsters were different from human classes and the possibility was there, perhaps if he continued to level he would be able to unlock that spell tree as well.

“Woah slow down there…”

While he was looking over the stats, Agni started jumping around the whole compound. His body had increased in size and coupled with the increase in agility brought some downsides. He was clearly not used to the increase in his stats and after a few jumps collided with one of the wind turbines.

“Hey… stop moving!”

Before he could stop him from causing even more damage he saw him rocket into the air while in his divine form. He activated a strange skill that made his paws shine brightly. A magical circle appeared right under his hind legs which acted as a platform. He was able to actually push himself off it to jump higher where he created another magical ledge.

“He can do that?”

This started to remind him about his crash landing when he was trying to test out his levitation spell. Agni kept rising into the air while moving in one direction as if fascinated by the view. It was as if he was fascinated by the moon that had shown itself behind the clouds. Yet his wolf companion forgot about the rule of the world, what went up had to eventually come down.

“He's not looking at his mana at all…”

These platforms were not a skill, they were a magical spell. They all required a chunk of his mana that was getting drained rather quickly. Soon Agni would feel a sharp pain akin to having drunk a frozen beverage too fast. It would make him fumble the next magical platform to send him spiraling down toward the ground. The wolf had no experience in controlling this spell quite yet and found himself on a collision course with the nearby forest.

“You’re lucky that I’m here…”

Roland’s voice called out to Agni as his now enlarged form started to slow down. Before he could crash into the trees below he was caught in a levitation spell that lowered the speed of his descent. He was then able to regain some of his balance to produce some of those platforms and finally land down on his own four legs. His owner had followed the zig-zag pattern that went in the direction of the forest.

“Hey, stop trying to lick me…”

After the danger was gone Roland found himself getting assaulted by a canine tongue. With the increase in size, Agni didn’t even need to stand up on his hind legs anymore, he could just directly assault his face instead. Luckily, Roland still had the strength advantage in this case and was able to push his overzealous friend away.

“Bleh… Calm down, we need to get back before anyone notices… and remember, you are forbidden from showing that flaming form to anyone unless I tell you to, do you understand?”

“Woooo?!”

It didn’t seem that Agni was too happy about having to hide his true form from others but after getting glared down by his master he lowered his head.

“Good… I think you’ve gotten too big to fit into the house now…”

Even though the size was not comparable to a Fenrir, a horse-sized wolf would not fit well into his home. Some of the rubies covering his mane had become sharper and so did his paw claws. The floor and walls would become scratched up if he let him roam around too much. Instead, he would need to have his own dog house which was big enough to contain his enlarged new form.