Chapter 186

A few days passed, and Ludger spent most of them thinking—really

thinking

—about his next steps.

He’d taken over one of the empty guild offices, turned it into a makeshift study. The desk was covered in parchment sheets, scribbled formulas, and half-finished diagrams of mana circuits. Most were centered around one question:

how to teach Healing Touch faster.

He knew the spell by heart—it was practically instinct now—but explaining it to others was a different beast. The spell relied on more than control; it needed

intent

layered with empathy, rhythm, and a mana pulse that mimicked a heartbeat. You couldn’t brute-force that into a person.

He leaned back, tapping his quill against the edge of the desk. “If I could chew the knowledge smaller,” he muttered, “make it digestible… maybe they could learn faster.”

That idea stuck. He started writing—sketching simplified mana-flow charts, listing common mistakes, even breaking the technique into phases:

contact, sync, stabilize, heal.

The way he saw it, if the process was laid out like a roadmap, even novices could follow it with minimal risk.

It made him think—if he published these notes, could his

Teacher

job gain experience from it?

It would be a perfect feedback loop: teach once, earn forever. Passive XP by helping others. “Would be nice,” he murmured, half-smiling. “If teaching through paper counted as teaching.”

But then came the catch.

Healing Touch

was originally a

dryad skill

—their exclusive racial ability to channel vitality from nature’s flow. His system had let him bypass that limitation, but that was

him.

Could he really pass that on? Could his strange blend of classes and system quirks actually

translate

into teachable skill? Or would it just fizzle when others tried?

He stared at the parchment in front of him, lost in thought. “Why are some spells race-based anyway?” he muttered. “Mana’s mana. If I can use it, why can’t anyone else?”

No one had an answer for him. Not yet. But as the lamp burned low and the ink stains deepened on his fingers, Ludger knew he wouldn’t stop trying to find one. If there was a way to teach power beyond bloodlines, he’d find it—even if it meant tearing apart everything people thought they knew about magic.

After hours of scribbling formulas and dissecting spell logic, Ludger’s mind started to fog. Thinking was good, but too much of it made him feel caged. He needed movement.

He stretched, cracked his neck, and muttered, “Time to remind my system I’m not just a bookworm.”

The labyrinth was the perfect place for that—monsters, danger, and just enough unpredictability to shake the dust off. So he packed lightly, slung his back over his back, and made his way north.

By the time he reached the northerners’ settlement, the air was thick with shouting and laughter. A large circle had formed near the center, men and women cheering loud enough to rattle the air. Someone was fighting—and whoever it was, they were putting on a show.

Ludger slowed, feeling the ground tremble under his boots. Not enough to cause alarm, but steady, rhythmic—impact from heavy strikes. Definitely not a half-assed spar.

He pushed through the crowd, and when the northerners saw who it was, they parted with a few smirks and knowing grins.

Then he saw it.

In the middle of the ring, Kharnek and Freyra were smashing their foreheads together like two bulls in a contest of pride and bad ideas.

The ground still quivered from the force of it. Both of them stood locked, eyes wild, muscles tensed, neither willing to yield. For a long, ridiculous moment, it looked like neither would. Then Freyra’s eyes rolled white, her knees wobbled, and she collapsed backward like a felled tree.

Kharnek stood over her, swaying slightly, then raised a fist in victory—only to wince, grimacing as he rubbed a rising lump on his own forehead.

“Ha!” he barked, half-laughing, half-groaning. “Still can’t beat your old man, blockhead! Damn it, what is skull made of?”

The crowd erupted in cheers and laughter, slapping their chests and stamping their boots.

Ludger just sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “And people wonder why they think northerners are insane.”

Kharnek looked up, noticed him, and grinned wide despite the throbbing on his skull. “Ah, kid! You came just in time to see my daughter’s glorious defeat!”

“Glorious,” Ludger muttered. “Sure.”

He glanced at Freyra’s limp form, then at Kharnek’s equally dented head.

At least they’re consistent,

he thought.

Ludger pinched the bridge of his nose, looking between the unconscious Freyra and the very-much-not-innocent Kharnek.

“…What the hell happened here?” he asked flatly.

Kharnek grinned, the kind of grin that usually came right before a bad idea—or right after one. “Ah, that! My brute of a daughter decided she was ready to challenge me again. Said she’d learned some

Imperial trick

.”

Ludger’s brow arched. “Imperial trick?”

“She called it… what was it…

Overdive

?” Kharnek said, trying to recall the word. “Yes! She puffed up her chest, shouted about surpassing the old ways, and then swung at me like a bear on fire.”

Ludger closed his eyes briefly. “Of course she did.”

Kharnek’s booming laugh rolled across the clearing, followed by a wince as he rubbed the growing bump on his forehead. “Ha! Told her she’d need to get

much

older before she could take me down. Spoiled, stubborn brat thought she could win with fancy Empire tricks!”

He grinned again, pride obvious despite the bruise forming above his brow. “Still, good spirit in her. Nearly cracked my skull before her knees gave out.”

Ludger glanced at the cratered patch of dirt where they’d clashed, then at Freyra snoring face-down in the dust. “You both need supervision.”

Kharnek laughed harder, winced again, and waved a hand. “Bah! That’s what you’re here for, kid. You handle the thinking, I’ll handle the bruises.”

Ludger exhaled through his nose. “You’re doing fine on that last part.”

Kharnek was still massaging the swelling on his forehead when he looked over at Ludger, his grin returning.

“So, kid, why haven’t you shown that quiet face of yours around here lately? I thought you’d finished your southern job days ago.”

Ludger shrugged, adjusting his scarf. “I have. Just been busy sorting what comes next. Politics, planning, teaching recruits. The usual pile of nonsense.”

He glanced toward the distant shimmer of the labyrinth’s icy ridges. “Was heading there, actually. Need a run to clear my head. Let my muscles do the thinking for a change.”

Kharnek barked a laugh, deep and booming. “Aye, that’s fair. Sometimes the only cure for a noisy mind is a good fight. Though yours never seems to stay quiet long, does it?”

Ludger smirked faintly. “Not lately.”

The chieftain’s smile faded into something more curious. “My daughter said a few things about that last mission of yours. I asked what happened, but most of what she said sounded like nonsense. Something about buried halls and men with fire tubes.”

Ludger’s tone stayed even. “Not nonsense. Just complicated. We found more than bandits—organized supply chains, foreign weapons, house crests that don’t belong anywhere near these mountains. Nothing we can move on yet, but enough to know it isn’t over.”

Kharnek grunted, rubbing his jaw. “Hmm. Thought as much. She came back different, though. Calmer. Still loud enough to wake the hills, but…” He glanced toward the unconscious Freyra, still face-down in the dirt. “…less wild. At least until she decided to challenge me.”

“She’s learning,” Ludger said. “Just slowly—and through headbutts, apparently.”

Kharnek laughed again, wincing halfway through. “Aye, stubbornness runs deep in this family. You’d think she gets it from her mother, but no. That’s all me.”

Ludger smirked. “No argument here.”

The two stood in companionable silence for a moment, the cold wind carrying the distant sound of hammers from the growing settlement. Then Ludger adjusted his armguards and started toward the labyrinth trail. “I’ll be around after my run. Try not to start another duel while I’m gone.”

Kharnek grinned, thumb still tracing the lump on his forehead. “No promises, kid. No promises.”

The descent into the labyrinth was quiet—just the crunch of frost beneath his boots and the whisper of cold air curling through the tunnels. Ludger moved with the steady rhythm of someone who’d done this too many times to be cautious, eyes tracking the faint shimmer of ice along the walls.

Halfway down, he stopped near a jagged outcrop and unhooked a small pouch from his belt. When he opened it, the faint scent of iron drifted out, and the contents shimmered under his lantern light—fine, dark sand, almost black, like crushed obsidian dust.

He poured a handful into his palm and let his mana seep through it. The grains stirred, then lifted, swirling like smoke before flowing toward his armguards. The sand clung to the metal, coating it in rough layers that hardened and fused under his control. The once-polished steel turned matte and brutal-looking, dark plates tapering into angular ridges. It wasn’t pretty—but then again, it wasn’t meant to be.

Ludger flexed his fingers, the armor responding perfectly, moving as if grown from his skin. He wasn’t planning to rely on magic against the frost skeletons today. Fighting them barehanded risked frostbite with every punch. He needed protection that could

take

the cold and hit back harder.

He looked down at the crude, dark plating and nodded once. “Ugly works,” he muttered.

Then he started moving again—silent, focused, his breath fogging in the air as the first faint rattle of bones echoed deeper in the ice ahead.

Ludger advanced deeper into the first zone of the frost labyrinth, the cold air biting at his face, each exhale forming pale wisps that lingered before fading. The tunnels glittered with ice, faint blue light pulsing from frozen walls, but his focus never wavered.

The first frost skeleton lunged from behind a wall, blade raised, brittle shield creaking. Ludger didn’t even bother drawing a weapon. He ducked low, charged, and drove his sand-hardened armguard straight into its chest. The impact exploded in a spray of ice shards and frost dust.

Another one approached. He pivoted, shoulder first, and smashed through its ribcage. Bone fragments clattered across the floor. He didn’t need to think anymore—his body handled these fights automatically. Muscle memory, perfect rhythm.

Still, even as he moved, his mind turned.

Heaviness rune.

He glanced at his armguards—dark, rough, built for brute work. The idea crept in naturally.

What if I engraved the heaviness rune onto the extensions?

It would give his punches more mass, more authority. Theoretically, each strike could land with the weight of a hammer blow multiplied by mana compression.

But ideas always came with trade-offs. If he applied the rune properly, each hit would carry added force proportional to his mana output. It would increase striking momentum—great for crushing skeletons or breaking through thick ice barriers. In confined spaces like this labyrinth, that extra density could make short work of shield-bearing frost knights. It also wouldn’t require active spellcasting—just passive mana flow to trigger.

Still,

the weight would apply both ways. More power meant more recoil. The rune didn’t discriminate between “hitting harder” and “being heavier.” That meant every punch would also slow his follow-through and risk tearing his shoulder or elbow joints if the mana pulse wasn’t perfectly balanced. Worse, in slippery ice terrain, extra mass could throw off his footwork.

Then there was the mana cost. Maintaining heaviness rune across both armguards during continuous combat would drain energy fast. The rune’s effect built up in cycles—if he forgot to deactivate it mid-combat, he could end up dragging his own arms like anchors.

He shattered another skeleton with a short hook, frost cracking like glass against his reinforced gauntlet.

Useful,

he thought, shaking ice shards from his wrist.

But only if I can tune the activation window.

He could already imagine it—engraving the rune to activate only during impact, tied to a brief mana pulse instead of a constant flow. It would take precision, maybe even custom runework that combined the principles of impact resonance and the rune’s density lines.

Ludger exhaled slowly, stepping over another pile of frozen debris. “Alright,” he muttered to himself. “Let’s see how heavy I can make a punch before the ice starts breaking me back.”

And with that, he kept moving forward—both through the labyrinth and through the endless gears turning in his head.

Ludger decided to test the idea right there in the cold glow of the labyrinth’s first zone. He crouched beside a shattered skeleton, and etched the

heaviness

rune onto the dark extension coating his gauntlet. The grooves pulsed faintly once his mana filled them—dense, responsive, eager to obey.

He started small, feeding a thin stream of mana through it. The gauntlet grew slightly heavier—noticeable, but manageable. He flexed his wrist, rotated his arm, gauged the rhythm of the mana pulse. Then he doubled the flow. The weight surged. His arm sank slightly, and the metal groaned in his grip. Too much.

So he throttled it back again—careful, precise.

That’s when he realized something interesting. The rune’s responsiveness wasn’t fixed. By controlling the

density

of the mana inside the engraving, he could adjust the heaviness directly, scaling the weight and impact with the precision of a craftsman tuning a blade. It wasn’t supposed to be that flexible—but his

Sage

class lent him a finer touch over mana flow than most rune users could dream of.

“Less mana, less weight,” he murmured. “More control, less breakage.”

It became a rhythm—pulse, strike, adjust. Each hit echoed deeper in the frozen corridors, and soon the ground shook under his steps.

A frost knight lumbered into view ahead, taller than a man and built from ice-thick armor. It raised its sword. Ludger didn’t even slow down. He pushed a fraction more mana into the rune—not enough to anchor him, just enough to add lethal density—and threw a single punch.

The air cracked.

The frost knight didn’t just fall—it disintegrated. Ice shards burst outward in a violent bloom, scattering across the walls like glittering shrapnel. The echo of the impact rolled down the tunnel in a hollow boom that made even Ludger blink.

He lowered his arm, exhaled a thin breath of steam, and muttered to himself, “Alright… that works.”

The gauntlet was already cooling, the rune lines dimming back to their dormant state. Efficient. Precise. Brutal.

He stepped over the remains of the shattered knight, the faint crunch of frost echoing under his boots. “I’ll have to remember that one,” he said under his breath. “Heaviness… with moderation.”

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