The Warg-Troll’s corpse was already cooling behind him, but Max didn’t let his guard down. The forest had a way of throwing surprises at him when he least wanted them, and the path back to his shelter was far from secure.

  The first attack came less than five minutes later.

  A pair of goblins, both wearing scraps of mismatched armor, leapt from the undergrowth with the kind of enthusiasm only an ambush could bring. One had a jagged spear, the other a short sword so rusted it looked like it would snap in half if he breathed on it.

  Max sidestepped the spear thrust, letting it glance off his chest plate. The impact sent a faint ripple through the armor’s runes, and before the goblin even realized it, a sliver of that kinetic force rebounded into its body. The creature yelped, stumbling back into a tree.

  Max blinked. So the armor really does push back… interesting.

  The sword goblin came in swinging. Max met it with a point-blank firebolt, sending the creature tumbling backward in a smoking heap. The spear goblin tried to rally, but a quick follow-up fireball ended the encounter in a flash of heat.

  The second attack was harder.

  Three mutant wolves—larger than any goblin and faster than the troll had been—burst from the treeline ahead, their black fur bristling and eyes glowing with feral hunger. They split up instantly, one darting right, one left, and the last charging him head-on.

  The head-on wolf leapt, jaws wide, but Max planted his feet and let the armor do its job. Its claws scraped across his forearm plate, and the rune glow pulsed again—this time the wolf yelped midair, crashing to the ground as though it had hit an invisible wall.

  Max pivoted toward the left wolf, swinging his staff and unleashing a wide burst of flame. The fire caught both flanking wolves, forcing them back just enough for Max to focus his shots and take them down one by one.

  By the time the last wolf fell, his mana bar was dipping low, and his armor had taken several scratches… all of which were slowly vanishing as the self-repair enchantment worked in silence.

  Max smirked. “Home stretch.”

  By the time he finally reached his shelter, the sun was sinking low, bleeding orange light through the canopy. He ducked inside, dropped his gear, and sat cross-legged on the floor.

  His eyes went straight to the Runeforged Battlegear. “Alright,” he muttered. “Let’s see if we can make you even better.”

  He pulled the set into his lap and dug out the small enchanted stylus from the Tutorial Dungeon. The concept seemed simple enough: inscribe the rune, channel mana, lock the enchantment. Should be easy.

  It wasn’t.

  The first attempt ended with the rune fizzling halfway through, leaving a faint scorch mark on the plate but no magic. The second ended with the armor actually rejecting the rune, the lines glowing briefly before fading as though the gear itself was unimpressed.

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  By the fifth attempt, Max’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, so maybe I’m missing… everything.”

  He leaned back against the wall, thinking. There had to be something—some piece of information—that he just didn’t have yet.

  The thought hit him like a spark. The store.

  He opened the interface, navigated to the Enchanting & Crafting Manuals tab, and began scrolling. The prices ranged from a few hundred credits for basic crafting guides to tens of thousands for rare blueprints. Then he saw it:

  Practical Application of Basic Runes – Volume I

  Includes guided instruction for safely inscribing and binding runes to common and uncommon materials. Covers mana channeling techniques, compatibility checks, and damage-resistant scribing methods.

  Price: 20,000 Credits

  Max stared at the number. That was most of what he had left after buying the armor. He winced.

  But the idea of waiting—walking around with untapped rune slots—gnawed at him. With a sharp breath, he tapped Purchase.

  A second later, a crystalline shard appeared in his hand, similar to the one that had explained the tutorial basics weeks ago.

  Hold crystal and channel mana to receive instruction.

  Max gripped it tight and let a stream of mana flow from his core into the crystal. It flared brightly, and a surge of knowledge hit his mind like a crashing wave—diagrams, scribing strokes, mana control techniques, and warnings about material incompatibility all layering in at once.

  When the light faded, he was breathing hard but smiling. “Oh yeah… now we’re talking.”

  He set the armor on the floor and began on the first rune. The tip of the stylus scraping gently over the Arcane Steel as he followed the glowing guide lines in his mind’s eye.

  Rune One – Damage Deflector.

  This one was tricky—each curve and line had to be perfectly balanced to avoid wild backlash. By the time he finished, the rune pulsed faintly, locking into the armor with a shimmer. It cost 50 mana to finish the enchantment but it would be worth it.

  Effect: Deflects 15% of incoming physical damage back to the attacker. Upgradeable with higher-grade catalysts.

  Rune Two – Rune of Stone.

  This one was simpler but required deep mana infusion to “harden” the enchantment. As the last line connected, the rune flared in an earthen brown glow before fading into the metal. This one also cost 50 mana.

  Effect: Increases armor’s blunt-force resistance by 25%, reducing damage from maces, clubs, and other impact weapons.

  Third Rune – Rune of Power

  The final design from the crystal’s instructions wasn’t defensive at all—it was aggressive, almost predatory. Three jagged streaks spiraled outward from a central point, each line etched with smaller hash-like marks to channel rapid bursts of mana. This rune wasn’t about enduring an attack—it was about ending the fight before one landed.

  Max carved the pattern into the waist and thigh plates, feeding mana into each channel until the grooves glowed a fierce, electric white. The moment the last mark locked into place, a sharp, electric rush surged through him, and for an instant, his muscles felt lighter, faster—like his entire body had been rewired for speed.

  Rune of Power – Enhances the wearer’s movement speed by 50% for 10 seconds. Upgradeable. Cost 100 Mana

  The armor seemed to hum differently now—less a steady heartbeat, more a coiled spring, waiting for the moment it could unleash that burst. For 200 mana spent now, he got a hell of a lot of boosts in a fight later that kept on giving.

  When the last rune locked in, the armor’s runes pulsed in sequence—left shoulder to right, chest to back—like it was acknowledging its own upgrade.

  Max sat back, grinning. “Now that… that feels like a proper Level 10 setup.”

  The self-repair hum was still there, but now layered with a deeper, more resonant thrum—the sound of three runes ready to bite back at anything dumb enough to hit him.

  Tomorrow, he thought, he’d take it out for a spin. And if the forest thought it had seen him at his best before… it was about to learn otherwise.