The Runic Alchemist

[Desert region of the unknown planet, Damian POV.]

Even after using all his liquid mana to power the golden portal, the second Damian came out of it and landed on the sand dune, beside his mana generator that had come along with him, he could still feel a faint presence of the goddamn Demon behind them. It was much farther away than before. Still, Damian was sure the monstrous thing could easily sense them even this far.

The surviving Highswords also landed right beside him, along with two halves of Hellseeker and a massive lava monster. Mindseer screamed with a heartbreaking voice and launched herself wildly toward the monster, cutting it left and right with her aura blade even though it wasn't doing much besides displacing the lava from its one leg. But she wasn't alone, many enraged Highswords beside her, regardless of their factions, joined her. Fueled purely by rage and desperation.

Worldscribe and Silverspell were already chanting, and with a chance like this — in which the lava monster was balancing on one foot and still coming out of the portal above with its connection cut off from the one powering it — they launched their spells. Both conjured massive water spheres and drowned the lava monster, releasings tons of steam, hardening it and killing it at last.

Damian ignored them all, though, and immediately took hold of the steel rod that sent his aura inside the generator and fitted the now-empty container back inside, starting to generate liquid mana once again. The monster was finally down. Seeing that they finally had some time to breathe in a safe place, Damian immediately activated his newly acquired temporary skill: [Ascension Rank 2 (Temporary)].

In the next second, he was once again back in his astral plane, the transition much easier this time. Back in the same old dorm room. This time, he wasted no time sightseeing and quickly checked his options, turning on the computer. However..

Only three options were visible.

—-

The Runic Chemist Lord

Elder Runebreaker

Runic Forge Master

—-

Guess these were his fixed jobs now, and his initial growth period was over. Now he could only build his strength atop them and go further in these jobs. The other two were normal jobs, and he had always taken them as side jobs. The only job he wanted to level further was his one and only prestigious one.

Damian selected The Runic Chemist Lord option, and it displayed the growth options available in that.

—-

The Rune King (Mini Damian drawing multiple runic circles)

The Alchemy King (Mini Damian surrounded by many colourful potions and flasks) Discover exclusive tales on My Virtual Library Empire

The Runebound Monarch (Mini Damian, quite buff, with his entire body covered in palm-sized runic circles, flexing muscles)

The Transmutation Overlord (Mini Damian changing stone into lava around one hand and water into ice around another)

The Spellwright Monarch (Mini Damian engraving runic circles directly onto things, even those that were non-metal like wood, stone, and dirt itself)

—-

Five options.. These were his fixed second ranker jobs. He could only choose two from them. Even if he selected one, the other four options would still be available once he reached level 150. Like first rankers having three job options, second rankers had two path options for their jobs. Then Transcendents most likely had to master just one. What on earth did the fourth rankers even do then?

Only information of first and second ranker choice selection was available in public. And Damian knew at least things about these two for sure.

The Rune King and Alchemy King were his main simple path upgrades. He would receive a skill that would help in those aspects. In front of the three more interesting ones, they were too simple. No doubt they would give powerful skills, but the others were just that much better.

The Runebound Monarch seemed to be specialised for his use of runic circles in fights. With this, he wouldn't even need to make runic circles and could just directly launch spells in the fight most likely. He had tried doing something like that once with a mana ink runic circle drawing on his palm. Guess his body would be altered to manage the possible damage.

The Transmutation Overlord was a wet dream of every scientist knowledgeable in chemistry. Who wouldn't want to turn iron into gold? He could also make hundreds of chemicals hard to acquire from anywhere else with its help.. but it wouldn't be that simple, or the second rankers would have changed the whole world by now. It would be laden with many restrictions and limitations. He would only be able to change basic things such as water to ice and stone to lava. To reach a height of creating high-level chemicals from just water, he would have to update this path to maybe even beyond fourth ranker level.

The Spellwright Monarch was quite a surprise to him. The first thing he thought seeing it was, could he use it on Sacrium? Is that how those legendary runesmiths worked this metal? Not by any simple spell imbuing but with a specific skill for it. But this could have the same limitations, and yet.. this one was the one he could take the most advantage of with his liquid mana and massive spells.

If his mana was a limit as to how big and varied an object he could draw runic circles on, then he would break free from that restraint easily with tons of liquid mana at hand. But it was a gamble, without more confirmed information.

The risk was quite worth it, to be honest. He could either go with the safer path of becoming half pugilist with a body covered in runic circles — that would also give him the best chance of enduring Land Breaker's assault if he had no choice but to fight — or have a chance at becoming a truly overpowered runesmith who could use any object in the world to carve his massive runic spells onto..

'Choose the transmutation thing.. Maybe you can transform things into pure light element, that would be the best thing against the Demon Lord,' the voice claiming to be a prince said in his mind.

'Shut up! Who asked for your opinion? You freeloader, scheming bastard!' Damian replied.

'What stupid life I have received..' The prince muttered. 'The quiet of darkness was better than bearing this abuse, hmph.'

The balls this guy had! Damian was robbed of all his privacy — even his thoughts were not his own anymore.