Chapter 68: Stali Boots (Part II)

Thurni custom-made these boots for Stali; besides the technique of engraving a Rune onto two items through a special process to make it function normally, the Runes on these boots are also quite unique.

Serving as the primary Rune is a Master-level Passage Rune—this Rune makes poor road conditions like rock, vegetation, snow, and mud as easy to traverse as a flat road. It is a match made in heaven for Rangers who need to climb mountains and cross ridges daily.

The second Rune is the common Speed Rune, which can increase the user's movement speed; it is also the style engraved on boots in most cases.

The third Rune is a rather rare new product: the Expansion Rune, which allows equipment to increase or decrease in size within a certain range according to the user's physical dimensions.

For Dwarfs, equipment of Exquisite Quality and Legendary Quality is meant to be passed down as heirlooms from generation to generation.

For weapons, being a little longer or shorter does not have much impact, and furthermore, the eldest son of a Clan can use replicas of heirloom weapons from a young age to get used to their size and weight.

For armor, if the size is slightly small, one can barely squeeze into it or control one's weight. If the size is slightly large, one can pad it with two extra layers of lining, and if that really doesn't work, eating more at every meal to get fatter is not a difficult task for the vast majority of Dwarfs.

But for boots worn on the feet, if the shoe size is too small and pinches the feet, one surely cannot cut one's feet to fit the shoes? If the size is too large, even with padding, it is inevitable that they will not stay on the feet.

Stali considered that if his descendants had different shoe sizes than his own, then wearing these legendary boots, let alone moving as if flying, might even make it difficult to take a single step. For this reason, he specifically requested Thurni to design this brand-new Rune.

In the thousands of years that followed, Stali and his descendants established countless merits wearing these boots and perhaps escaped death many times, but during the Dark Age, the Shanbao where his Clan was located suffered an invasion by Greenskins.

His descendants chose to perish with the fortress, and with the fall of the fortress, these Stali Boots were also lost.

Hundreds of years ago, Krag Master organized an expedition, and with the help of his powerful Rune Power, they successfully broke into the lower levels of the Shanbao and recovered this legendary piece of equipment.

Subsequently, Krag Master deduced and replicated the Runes on these boots; whether he succeeded specifically, no one knows, and these boots have also been kept deep in Krag's treasury.

"Sigh, who would have thought that I, a dignified chosen one of the Ancestor Goddess, the third son of the High King, and the youngest Rune Master since Thurni of the Mountain Kingdom, would have my first piece of Legendary Quality equipment be a second-hand, uh, no, n-hand pair of shoes?"

Sinuoli muttered in his heart; he was ungrateful after getting a bargain, and ever since he tasted the sweetness of the Iron Chisel Ring, he had a high interest in Runes that could be actively triggered.

Although he was grumbling, Sinuoli still unceremoniously took off the leather boots he was wearing and put on these Stali Boots.

The first moment they touched his feet, what Sinuoli felt was a sensation completely different from the softness and snug fit of his original high-quality calfskin boots.

"Hiss, these boots are actually made of Dragon skin!" Sinuoli couldn't help but exclaim.

On second thought, it was indeed so; to carry three Runes, special materials were required, and judging from the stories in the epics, this was highly likely the skin of Drakxion.

Thinking of a creature once so powerful being slain by his ancestors and then made into boots to be stepped on, Sinuoli couldn't help but feel a sense of shared honor.

Sinuoli stood up and stomped his feet; the effect of the Expansion Rune was triggered, and Sinuoli could feel the boots slowly shrinking until they fit his feet perfectly.

"Let me see if there is anything else!" Sinuoli said while dumping the box containing the shoes onto the table; a note floated out from inside.

"Don't die too fast!" Sinuoli read out word by word; these four characters were not written in the commonly used Common Tongue, but originated from the Dwarfs' own script.

The original Dwarf script was created by the Mother Goddess Valaya, and every letter contained a small amount of the Winds of Magic, which was also the prototype of Rune Magic.

It can be said that in the era of the ancestors, every letter and every bill carried magical power.

How much power this set of characters contained was determined by the strength of the writer and the medium carrying the characters; each of these four characters from the hand of Krag the Grim had power no less than an ordinary Rune, so Sinuoli found them exceptionally strenuous to read.

Because they were relatively troublesome to use, Dwarfs almost only used them on extremely important occasions such as signing treaties and writing the Book of Grudges.

For Dwarfs who had awakened their ancestor bloodline and mastered Rune Power, they could write them directly, and the Rune magic within their bodies would automatically attach to the characters.

As for clansmen without Rune Power, they needed to use a Rune pen or ink containing power to write them.

Taking the Great Book of Grudges, Demazkron, as an example, the grudges on it were written in the blood of the High King himself.

Feeling the lightness from the bottom up, Sinuoli couldn't help but want to go out for a run.

He simply went out and headed toward the Rune Smith Guild to find Tiezhuoshugong. Walking on the downward stairs, the effect of the Master-level Passage Rune manifested.

Sinuoli felt as if he were walking on flat ground, completely without needing to concentrate on controlling his body or slowing down to avoid falling, and at the same time, his knees no longer bore extra pressure.

Under the combined effect of the Speed Rune, Sinuoli's speed increased by half. "The effect must be even more obvious when climbing mountains or trekking through swamps!" Sinuoli thought to himself.

"Don't tell me my little sheep is going to fall out of favor before I've even ridden it?" Sinuoli felt he was falling in love with the feeling of walking on his own two feet; his pace was fast, and in the blink of an eye, the gate of the Guild was right before his eyes.

Returning the greetings of the peers he met along the way with a smile, Sinuoli headed straight for Tiezhuoshugong's Forging Room.

"You're back!" Iron Chisel Master smiled and patted Sinuoli on the shoulder. "I heard you are going to Weifengbao in a few days? Young people are just full of vitality."

"At your age, I hadn't really left Everpeak much! How is it, are you confident about taking charge alone for the first time?"

"It's hard to say, Uncle, I feel I still have a lot to learn. I plan to master the Rune of Wrath and Ruin these days so that I can have some lethality when facing potential opponents."

"Good, if there's anything you're missing or don't understand, just come and ask me. It wasn't easy to give you special instruction before, but now that you've finished your apprenticeship, let's just count it as academic exchange!" Iron Chisel Master readily agreed.

Thanks to Black Bear Stronghold's Bear Fatty for the monthly ticket, and Don't Ask Too Much Sorrow for the tip.

Asking for tickets, collections, and tips at the beginning of the month, ha.