Chapter 443: Direction and Guidance

First clarify the need, then design specifically according to that need.

This is the design philosophy for most products, and rune assemblies are typically developed using the same approach.

Following this logic, Gao De first listed his basic stats:

Mage rank: First-stage 1st-circle mage

Mental force: 186

Mana: 26 drops of liquid

Spells: 44 cantrips, 23 first-circle spells

Specialization: 【Adaptation】 (Intermediate Ice Protection Body, Spell Resistance Body)

Additional: Mandora Magic Eye, third-grade (1/72) — distance vision, insight, truth seeing

Clearly, his strengths lie in exceptional mental force and a wide array of spells; combined with the specialization 【Adaptation】, his capabilities are comprehensive, granting him the ability to handle most unusual situations.

His weakness is his low total mana, insufficient to support unrestrained spellcasting.

Additionally, the third-grade Mandora Magic Eye is a major mana drain, requiring careful, frugal use even in normal circumstances.

Furthermore, his first-circle offensive spells are severely lacking, with only 【Frozen Blade+】 available.

Although 【Frozen Blade+】 is exceptionally powerful—even overpowered—it is therefore typically reserved as a last resort, rarely deployed, and is a single-target spell.

As a result, in most combat scenarios, Gao De relies primarily on cantrips.

The purpose of a rune assembly is to leverage strengths and compensate for weaknesses.

After analyzing his strengths and weaknesses, Gao De quickly determined his needs:

Enhance endurance and expand offensive capabilities.

For the former, he could directly reference He Xi's 【Wild Breeze】.

This rune assembly achieves absolute peak performance in boosting endurance.

As for the latter, Gao De would need to design it himself.

Having defined his needs and direction, Gao De immediately began the formal design of the rune assembly.

That is, drawing the rune assembly design schematic.

Magical arrays have array diagrams; runes have rune diagrams—this is commonplace in runology.

But for rune assemblies, the design schematic is an entirely new concept.

The reason is simple: within the existing runology system, "rune tuning rate" is an unavoidable threshold.

Through rune tuning rate, rune masters confirm whether runes can form an array, whether they will activate, whether they can be successfully inscribed on the chosen mana-conductive material, and adjust rune composition, arrangement patterns, positions, and connection methods based on the tuning results.

For rune assemblies, this process becomes exponentially more complex, leaving no room for a design schematic—each rune assembly is custom-made by the assembler through painstaking, step-by-step rune tuning.

Of course, for Gao De, this is an outdated method of rune assembly creation.

He learned the new runology system pioneered by He Xi, whose core is no longer the supernatural "rune tuning rate," but the mathematical "calculation."

Using the Six Fundamental Rules of Runology, he could first design the array, then calculate whether it could be successfully inscribed on the mana-conductive material.

"Four first-grade mana-gathering runes, separated by four diffusion runes, then embedded with one first-grade storage rune."

For enhancing endurance, since 【Wild Breeze】 served as a reference, Gao De quickly settled on his design approach and produced a preliminary schematic.

But in expanding offensive capabilities, Gao De encountered difficulty.

This was not due to lack of creativity or weak fundamentals.

The main reason was that He Xi had passed away too early and taught him too little; Gao De had seen too few rune assemblies—or rather, only 【Wild Breeze】—leaving him uncertain where to begin.

Like writing: even the most talented author must read enough works before creating his own.

Gao De set down his pen and fell into deep thought.

Anna, who had been quietly watching Gao De, curiously leaned her small head over, glanced at what he had written on the parchment, and after two looks asked: "Brother, what are you thinking about?"

"I'm trying to figure out how to design a rune assembly that enhances offensive capabilities—where to start." Gao De, in his focused state, did not register who had spoken; he answered instinctively and unconsciously.

Anna noticed Gao De's distress and contemplation, pouted her lips, thought seriously, and softly reminded: "With so many mana-gathering and storage runes, why not add some conversion and output runes?"

Gao De froze, then slapped his hand. "Of course!"

With the idea in mind, Gao De immediately resumed writing, enthusiastically and intently refining the schematic.

Anna, whose head had already leaned over, did not pull back; she simply stared wide-eyed, watching every movement Gao De made.

Once the concept opened, implementing it concretely became far less difficult for Gao De.

Roughly ten minutes later, a preliminary rune assembly schematic was complete.

Of course, it was extremely preliminary.

It still required calculation to verify whether the array was viable, then adjustments based on the results until it could fully function.

Before that, he needed to determine the mana-conductive material and its exact dimensions.

The latter was not difficult—he was designing for himself and knew his own body measurements perfectly.

For the mana-conductive material, after careful consideration, he decided to use huitong, a highly cost-effective material commonly used in first-grade rune assemblies.

Huitong is a variant of brass, with a mana resistance rate similar to brass; after He Xi's testing, it was 45.6%, or R=0.456.

Its mana conductivity is not outstanding among supernatural materials, but it has two major advantages: easy to shape and inexpensive.

Once the mana-conductive material was chosen, the mana resistance rate was fixed.

With that, he could calculate the robustness value using the Six Fundamental Rules of Runology.

"No, the first rune array doesn't hold—the actual robustness exceeds the theoretical maximum by 9.52; reduce actual robustness or increase theoretical maximum."

"To increase theoretical robustness, either increase the number of runes and rune pairs, or choose a material with lower mana resistance. The latter is ruled out for now; the former..."

"My current rune process level has reached second-grade, which is 7, but second-grade rune assemblies are beyond my capacity—I can't wear them yet. So I must design according to first-grade rune process level, which is 5."

"Calculating by area, this region can accommodate at most 31 basic runes; currently 28, so I can add 3 more."

"Add two more first-grade mana-gathering runes and one diffusion rune."

"Still exceeds. Must reduce actual robustness—replace four first-grade mana-gathering runes with lower-energy sub-runes: zero-grade mana-gathering runes."

"Now it holds. Proceed to calculate and adjust the next rune array."

(End of chapter)