Fate/Beyond Chapter 6: Prep Time. (Patreon)

"182... 183... 184!"

I was repeatedly kicking a tree over and over. And due to my enhanced physique, the tree took as much damage as my leg with each kick. My body was packed with lean and powerful muscles that screamed strength yet didn't hinder my mobility. A body far more improved than anybody in my age should have. 

"185!!!" *Crack!*

The bark of the tree shattered with my last kick along with my tibia most likely. Suppressing the pain I cast recovery as the bone healed at a rapid pace. To speed it up I pulled out a custom snack bar I made that contained a shitton of nutrients, minerals, and calories. My own creation that I made with mealcraft, the new forgotten branch of magecraft that I learned.

It was a lot like how mages created their own mystic codes but with food instead. It was pretty hard to learn at first as I wasn't really acquainted with that portion of magecraft. But its effects were more than worth it. Making it wasnt too obscenely difficult either.

For example, this dense food bar in my hand had the ability to restore the regeneration of stamina as well as recovery of fatigue temporarily. The effect wasn't too large but it wasn't nearly negligible. It also tasted incredibly good, as cooking with this method enhances its taste as well.

This magecraft's name was mealcraft. It allowed me to prepare meals with magical properties, allowing me to basically enchant and enhance food. Its concepts strongly resembled that of reinforcement and bounded fields. 

So I had to learn those 2 first and actually be able to use them to an extent which took around a month to learn and get them to E rank. Currently, my physical training was mostly on the back burner for that so my physical improvement wasn't as impressive. Still, that didn't mean I neglected my body.

Bounded fields took a while to get down but once you establish your first one the others are significantly easier. They worked by knitting magical energy together into a network and spreading it over a base area. By doing so you can isolate the outside from the inside of the bounded field which allows you to add effects to its inside using runes and sigils and all that junk.

Which meant I had to finish learning runecraft first. And I managed to acquire a runecraft too while working on my physique, after all, runecraft was what I started with and one that I never stopped practicing. Although I might have neglected training it slightly.

Now, while I say I managed to acquire the rune craft skill now it is still pretty garbage currently. I don't have much time to practice it other than reading as I devote most of my time to body improvement. After all, I didn't need to be good at runes to do mealcraft. Just decent enough.

And that was going rather well, my stats were slowly but surely approaching E- which meant the very start of supernatural, meaning mostly unattainable by the average modern man. I have also discovered that my system's ranking is slightly more detailed than the normal ones.

Mine actually had the F class. Which stood for the capabilities of a baseline modern human. And while E class bordered on supernatural it could maybe be achieved by normal methods no matter how improbable.

Anyway, with rune craft now I had managed to complete the quest but I decided against collecting the reward for now. I wasn't in a hurry anyway. I wanted to get material transmutation(aka. transmutation) to at least D- runecraft to D- and my physical stats to F++ or E- before trying the dungeon.

My physical statistics were currently hitting 2.5 kind of ridiculous considering my size and age.  For comparison, the average adult man is a 1. My frame was packed with compressed lean muscles, although my frame itself didn't change much, in fact, some may consider me rather skinny at a first glance I was completely ripped underneath.

It made sense considering my hellish routine. I ran till my feet bled and I coughed blood. I punched and kicked trees until my hands and feet were nearly broken. I did exercises until my muscles tore. And pushing myself this much without recovery didn't matter thanks to madjick.

I had basically created an infinite bodybuilding exploit at this point with mealcraft and healing. I could already punch as strong as a professional heavyweight champion. And my kicks were strong enough to crack trees. 

And on the topic of runecraft, I had discovered why my progress was so slow with it. It was because I was approaching it wrong. I was thinking too rigidly. Going too by the books had blinded me.

I was overcomplicating the subject for myself.

Runes are magic's version of an alphabet and language. But it is ultimately the one who draws them who gives the runes their meanings.

That was the reason why magicians used different runes for the same effect. Of course, that is only the precise meanings as most runes follow a pattern. 

I was simply drawing the runes while knowing their effects and expecting them to work. But now I have dissected it into 3 steps.

1. Imagining the rune and creating it. Memorization.

I picture the rune in my head, visualizing its meaning and properties and imprinting those properties onto the image. Giving meaning to the rune. Without that, it is nothing more than fancy squiggly lines.

2. Imprinting the meaning and drawing the rune. Materialization.

I take the memorized meaning in my head and focus on it as I draw the rune. Granting the meaning to the drawn rune. Creating an actual mystery. While with enough mastery this step could probably be skipped to use instant cast but I still wasnt at that level.

3. Chanelling mana and actualizing the mystery. Execution.

The simplest step. After everything is set up I just channel the desired amount of od into the rune to realize its mystery and activate its effects. Depending on the type of rune this could be used multiple times but alas I can only use single-action ones for now.

If it wasn't apparent I took inspiration from coding which I was familiar with when using runes. Likening it to coding made it much easier. Besides runes were just coding with magic to me. The same process.

Memorize the meaning of the words. Input them. And execute them. 

Currently, though I had a hard shortage of runes at my disposal. The only ones I knew were Ansuz, Gandr, and Kano.

Ansuz allowed me to create combustion and light things aflame. But it was pretty weak, at F+ it was enough to combust a thick book. 

Gandr, a spell I was familiar with. It is a curse that deteriorates the inflicted target's bodily functions.  It could also be shot out like a projectile, though mine was as strong as strong as throwing a sandbag at most. 

Kano, it was a rune that messed with perception. I could inscribe it onto myself on my clothes or a bounded field to either make them harder to perceive, blurry, less eye-catching, and all of that stuff. 

But unfortunately, the book I had didn't really detail how to inscribe permanent passive runes so I couldn't really use it effectively.

So that made me learning bounded fields nearly fucking useless. Because mage association motherfuckers are stingy bastards who only put 3 runes into a single book you paid full price for. 

So I had to improvise. Besides, I only needed the knowledge of the runes to grasp the concept of enhanced food. The other half though...

Reinforcement.

That fucking thing.

I am lucky that I am seemingly talented in that branch of material transmutation as well as having a plethora of information on it. And even with all of those factors it still took over half a month of dedicated practice and several gallons of blood to learn reinforcement. Which also meant that I had to learn structural analysis which was comparatively simpler and somehow more complex.

In fact, the whole goddam branch was hard. Over half the month was spent getting to a desirable level with it. Structural Analysis was done by sending your od through the object and observing the structure through said od as well as deriving information from it, allowing you to form a blueprint of the object in your mind. The more you use it on something the more detailed the analysis is. The same goes for its proficiency. The better you are at it the higher quantity and quality of information you can derive from it. This wasn't too hard to learn, but was harder to be proficient at.

Reinforcement though was a whole nother beast. It wasn't called one of the hardest simple spells for nothing.

It consisted of sending your od into the target to reinforce it. Simple right?

Wrong, dead wrong. In fact, you should be ashamed for even thinking for a moment that anything in this dammed world would be anything even near the concept of "simple". Shame on you. I will find you and put a sealing designation on you for even entertaining the thought.

If I simply picked up a wooden club and forced my magical energy into it there are several outcomes. Most likely one being that the club explodes in my hand. Or it simply collapses, becomes incredibly fragile, etc.

Because fundamentally all things resist mana to a certain extent as it is a foreign factor. Trying to force it into something blindly is a recipe for disaster. Put too much in it blows up, put too little and you just wasted your od. And things with higher magic resistance are harder to reinforce obviously.

So to properly reinforce an object you need a solid and firm grasp on it. Aka, structural analysis. Then you need to regulate how much of you put into it, if your concentration slips and you put in too much juice...

Boom.

So yeah, there is a very good reason why a majority of mages do not use reinforcement on their bodies unless they are ultra-talented or something.

Because they don't have a death wish. And neither do I. So until I am good enough with it or I grow the balls to do it I will stick to inanimate objects. But with learning reinforcement, I had all the ingredients to cook me a meal.

And with that, I finished most of my preparations. After all, I believe the best way to learn is through experience. 

So now, it was time to finish my first quest.