The Runic Alchemist

Damian was having really hard time deciding whether to laugh with her or run away. She was seriously scaring him at this point, but before he could decide on any one thing the old lady came from behind the table and smacked the laughing girl on the head with a small stick. With a cute \'oww\' the girl finally stopped and looked at the library lady while gritting her teeth and puffing her cheeks.

"Hahhaha.."

Damian couldn\'t help but laugh at that which proved to be the worst decision possible as both of them glared at him. Damian tactfully ignored them and immediately started to read his runic book. But the damage was done. The library lady lectured them both to keep quite in the library for 10 minutes straight before going back to her position behind the front desk.

The girl with giant blue magic circle glared at Damian and sat opposite him other side of the table.

"What\'s your name kid..?"

"What is your name..?"

Damian did not have a good impression of the brat in front of him at all.

"I am.... uhm... Sheela. Hmm !"

It was clearly a fake name but Damian did not care, not like he gave a damn about who she was. The magic circle behind her though, now that was something else. Damian could not get a good look at it since it was on her back and the middle section was hidden behind her figure. Damian really wanted to draw the thing and find out what it really did.

"Maximus."

His name was already fake so he saw no problem going with that.

"Maximus.. huh..? Aren\'t you like mimimum and your name is maximus..? Isn\'t that a bit ambitious..?"

"And who are you? An obnoxious, judgmental brat that thinks she\'s witty because she has read two books more than the average people..?"

"You are so not cute at all...!!"

"Whatever go away.. I wanna read."

"Oh ! You reading runic history..? Aren\'t you a bit too small for that..? I\'m sure they have some picture books somewhere here..."

"What do you want lady..?"

"Okay.. okay.., I\'m sorry. I was just bored okay? Everyone here is either an old man or grumpy looking scary man."

"Why don\'t you try going outside then...?"

"I did, but the streets are too noisy and smelly. And people are really mean, the ships and sea were pretty though."

"What are you? Some noble\'s daughter...?"

"Ohh? How did you know I was nobility..? I knew it, I\'m just too ladylike I can never pass as a common girl."

"Common girls don\'t come to library and get bored..."

"Ahh ! That too..."

Damian ignored the annoying girl and closed the runic history book, it was repeating itself by now. The old man was really rambling on and on about divine runes and their glory.

Damian picked up the intermediate spell book and just checked the names of the various spells listed without going into much detail.

There were some really interesting spells such as [Blaze of fire], [Water whip], [Air tornado], and Damian\'s favorite [Earth golem] which was kind of really complex spell as it required user to have a string of mana attached to the golem after it\'s creation to keep it working and controlling it. But once mastered it could really open new paths in Damian\'s research.

If a material was sturdy enough Damian with his runic magic circles could make a modified version of the spell to reduce it\'s material cost even more and have a golem that would be usable for a long period of time.

"Ahh.. Don\'t waste your time kid. Intermediate spells are far above what your tiny body can handle..."

"And you can use them..?"

"Of course, who do you think I am..?"

"A very nosy, annoying brat..?"

"Don\'t call me brat, you brat !"

"Wow ! What a great argument.."

"Hmphh..."

Damian thought for a second while looking at the pouting face of the annoying brat, instead of reading from the book if he could make her do the spells he could learn them at twice the speed. Not to mention he could stand behind her and draw the blue magic circle in peace.

"If you can do them... Will you show me..?"

"The spells in this book... Can you do them for me..?"

She smiled smugly at that and looked at Damian while being all proud of herself and nodded enthuasticaly.

\'Who was this simpleton..? Why was she running alone in the city with such a sheltered mindset..? Did she run away or something..?\'

However all that was secondary, Damian was getting his spells and that\'s what the most important thing was. Damian put back all the books from where he had picked them from, the librarian lady nodded after seeing that.

The weird girl led him to the one of the open ground that were reserved in the city specifically for training and such public activity. This was one of the benefit for living in a society that was heavily influnced by martial arts and specially when all the common people who couln\'t get good jobs would regularly train themselves to become a pugilist.

The pugilist class was considered the people\'s class. Every fifth guy was a pugilist, all it needed was a thicc brain and relentless training of the body. One might prepare for their whole life and would never be able to get Spellsword or Mage class but Pugilist class was the one where efforts were always rewarded. When you can do nothing, you could still become a pugilist.

It was afternoon and the whole ground was empty, there were two trees conveniently standing right in the middle of the ground where they both walked together. She was humming some weird song while walking as if she had no care in the world. And after a few seconds Damian realized why, he had doubts but he couldn\'t be sure but now that they were in the open it was obvious.

Four people in commoner\'s clothes were following them while keeping a constant distance. They did not give of any bloodlust just that plain fighter vibe. Must be her guards.

Damian had noticed that after using and seeing the real magic flow he was really sensitive towards magic. Even when people were suppressing their aura, he could still feel the sheer quantity and quality of mana from a powerful source.

And three people following them had this unnatural amount of mana in them, which seperated them from the common people. Even the girl in front of Damian had mana that was just a bit above average in quatity but the quality of her mana was really refreshing and pure. he had never gotten such a feeling from anyone\'s mana before. Was it because she was a child..?

"Okay, this place looks fine. Now tell me which one you wanna see..?"

"Which ones can you do...?"

"All of them !!"

"Even the golem ones...?"

"Uhm.. uhm.. Yess.."

"Why don\'t you show me the one that you like the most..?"

She brightened her complicated feeling face and walked a bit ahead to do the spell. Damian had already took out papers and quill with ink in the library when she wasn\'t looking and had it in his hands. People observing them must be thinking that he was writing down the chanting so even that wasn\'t an issue.

And so Damian finally copied the whole structure of the giant blue runic circle while ignoring the one the girl was chanting and was forming on her hands. It seemed like a green circle which produced a real fast spinning wind, must be that [Air tornado] thing. Damian had already seen this one when he was travelling with mercenaries.