The Runic Alchemist

Damian happily lifted the heavy cube with some difficulty and carried it outside to the workshop. Even with strength stats rivaling those of a second-ranker, he was sweating and breathing heavily after the effort. Definitely not something a second-ranker could just take along whenever they traveled.

It shouldn't be a problem for a third-ranker, though. That woman, Mindseer, could handle the job if he brought her along. The Highswords were going to follow behind him, no matter what. He only had 50 dungeon batch spots, meaning the other 50 would all be from the Highswords—and whether they wanted their commander to return or not, none of them would dare miss this.

A batch of 100 people could share a single dungeon entry. It would be foolish to assume they'd just leave him to slowly grind higher levels in the dungeon. He had spells to ensure his group's safety, but it wouldn't hurt to craft some emergency shields and other safeguards just in case. Mindseer, if she agreed to form the mana contract, could prove quite useful. Still, this was something he needed others' opinions on, so he stopped overthinking it.

Reize and the others gathered near him curiously, eyes fixed on the massive steel box etched with a giant runic circle. Reize already knew about it since he had told her, but she was still surprised he had completed it so quickly. Damian himself had expected it to take at least three or four days, so he was pleased with the outcome.

"Is it really ready?" Reize asked.

"What is it? What is it? The drawing looks the same as the spatial storage bracers you made," Lumi chimed in from the side.

Damian was surprised Lumi could even recognize his intricate and complex runic circles. Then again, if someone stared at something long enough… She was obsessed with his method of crafting runic tools and had tried hard to understand it. Yet, it was pointless. Only Damian could truly comprehend the runic circles his eye skill revealed to him.

For him, unlike others, they weren't just drawings—they were equations and specific data that made sense. Maybe if he taught someone from a young age before they learned traditional runes, there was a chance they could grasp his runic circles. But for those whose understanding of runes and runic arrays was already set in stone, it simply wasn't possible.

"I need to check if it works or not," Damian said. Then he added, "Let's empty Dreamlight's liquid mana storage first."

Mana couldn't be stored inside a spatial tool—something he had to keep in mind. However, each person he brought inside could carry one 5-liter mana container. That would total over 200 liters of liquid mana. More than he could even make or store in Dreamlight's reserves, so it should be fine if just a few people held onto it whenever they stopped using the ship.

There was always the option to take the ship out of storage and let the generators refill the tank, but they'd have to wait—and that wouldn't work in emergencies. At least 30-50 liters of liquid mana needed to be on hand at all times.

After emptying the ship's mana reserves, Damian used up all the leftover mana and made sure all the runic features were completely disabled, even going so far as to use mana threads to drain the enchanted pipes of mana entirely.

The enchantments weren't large enough to cause problems for the supreme-grade spatial storage—it was runic items that always made spatial storage tricky. Activating the storage cube, Damian placed one hand on the ship to store it inside. The vessel shifted, producing a metallic noise, but after moving slightly, it stopped.

It didn't get stored. The test was a failure.

"That's how items too big for storage react, right?" Reize asked.

"I don't know… I've never tried storing something this huge," Damian admitted.

"Let me try," Lumi said, pulling out a simple store-bought basic-grade spatial storage item. The internal space should have been around a 30 or 40 cm cubic box. She picked up a large metal pole—taller than all of them—and attempted to store it inside.

Reize was right. The metal pole shook, vibrated a little, and then stopped. It was a strange phenomenon. Damian had to assume it was mana generating a powerful attraction force inside the storage, but the object resisted because its full mass couldn't be transported.

That confirmed it. Damian returned to work, leaving the heavy cube in the workshop. Just like all his other crafts since acquiring that recognition spell, the supreme-grade cube—and everything else he had made—could only be used by him and his descendants. He was tempted to do the same with Dreamlight, rebuilding certain parts, but he decided against it. If he did, Reize wouldn't be able to pilot it.

It took another full day before Damian managed to forge an 8x8-foot steel cube, reinforced with the new metal he had acquired—a supreme-grade spatial storage cube. This one was so heavy even he couldn't lift it without potions. He had to get Sam and Einar to move it outside to the workshop. Stay updated with My Virtual Library Empire

This time, it was a success. Dreamlight was fully stored inside.

The many students gathered in the workshop erupted into cheers as if they had all contributed to something incredible. It was incredible—though Damian doubted the "together" part.

He couldn't even use a weight control spell on a runic tool. Achieving supreme grade with just two spells had taken an immense amount of time and effort, not to mention a ridiculous amount of wasted steel and that rare metal. He couldn't afford to mess with it by adding weight-reducing features. Storage and recognition were already difficult enough.

There was no way they could bring this cube along without sacrificing valuable fighters. They were already down to just 50 Highswords in the 100-man dungeon, and every single person was invaluable.

He had to find Mindseer and see if she would agree to lift it for them.