Chapter 131: Conflict of Ideas

Mixing the old gauntlets with the remaining silk fiber took Kael little than less than half an hour before he managed to create a chain that was about four feet long.

He worked fast, but not sloppy. The old gauntlet had to be broken down without wasting the parts that still mattered, and the silk had to be woven into it in a way that would actually carry energy instead of just looking clever on paper.

Kael’s hands moved with that familiar rhythm again, the one that came when he stopped thinking about fear and started thinking about function. Brokk’s hammer did the heavy cheating, but cheating still required intent. Each strike shaped a ring, each ring was corrected, smoothed, tightened, then linked.

When the chain finally took form, it didn’t clatter like junk. It settled on the table with a dull, confident weight.

It was bulky, but not too heavy. Each ring was connected perfectly with the other. And it was just long enough for Kael to have it hang between both gauntlets in front of him.

The rings weren’t simple loops either. They had that faint mesh texture in places where silk fiber had been integrated into the metal, like a hidden skeleton inside each link. Kael lifted it once, let it hang, watched how it moved. It didn’t kink. It didn’t twist itself into a knot. It behaved, which was exactly what he needed. If it snagged mid-fight, it would turn his “solution” into a strangling rope.

It looked a bit awkward at first, but this was the only way for him to not lose the effect of his runes as he could channel the power of runes from one arm to the other.

The awkwardness wasn’t cosmetic. It was conceptual. A chain between wrists looked like a handicap. Like something prisoners wore. Kael hated that image, but he hated being limited even more. If the chain allowed him to treat both arms as one runic circuit, then he could live with looking ridiculous. Living was the only style that mattered here.

This way he could also set up an assortment of runes on each arm and have them cast different abilities at once.

That was the dream. Not just punching harder, but layering effects. Fire from one palm, stabilization from the other, Heft applied at the right moment instead of always, Anchor smoothing the whole thing. If he got it right, he wouldn’t be a guy using runes. He’d be a system using him as a conduit.

Once he created a small loop that fitted the chains on both arms, he went to test.

He fitted the loops around each gauntlet carefully, checking the contact points. Conductivity depended on contact. A loose fit meant energy leak. Energy leak meant heat. Heat meant skin cooking. Kael’s mind didn’t drift to hero fantasies here. It went straight to burns and failure modes.

Using the left gauntlet which had no runes in it, he aimed and released his energy.

He expected a response, even a weak one. Some hint that the circuit recognized the left arm. A flicker. A pulse. Something.

Instead of a fireball, he received a baking.

The sensation was immediate and vicious. The metal didn’t just warm. It surged, like all the energy that would normally get translated into a spell had nowhere to go and decided to become heat instead. Kael jerked his arm back instinctively, and the blue internal energy bar dipped a sliver as he forcibly shut the flow.

Thankfully the leather underneath the gauntlet managed to chase away the heat otherwise his arm would have gotten cooked.

Even through the lining, he could feel the threat of it, that creeping burn trying to bite through. The leather did its job, but it wasn’t magic. It was insulation. If he had held it for another second, insulation would have become a thin lie.

“I’m an idiot,” Kael muttered as he realized the problem.

The chain worked too well. That was the funniest part. His idea wasn’t wrong. His implementation was incomplete.

Connectivity was good, it was actually too good. Synergy was also good. Since he didn’t change anything structurally and only improved it. The energy path was clean. The gauntlets were talking. The chain was conducting. That wasn’t the failure. The failure was that the left hand had become a closed circuit with no mouth.

He forgot an important factor.

The release source on the left arm.

For his right arm which had [Anchor], [Heft] and [Fire]. The releasing point was the rune of [Fire] itself. For his left arm however, he didn’t have any.

It was merely a gauntlet without a release point.

Kael stared at his left palm, flexed the fingers once, and felt stupid again. The Tower didn’t reward intention. It rewarded correct design. A gauntlet without a release rune was like a furnace with no chimney. Everything you fed it stayed inside until it burned the container.

Thinking a bit, “Can I use a support rune as a releaser?”

He didn’t like the idea, but he didn’t dismiss it. Support runes weren’t supposed to be mouths. They were supposed to be filters, modifiers, stabilizers. Still, the Tower had already shown him that “supposed to” was a weak concept here. If it functioned, it functioned.

He hammered a slot for a Rune in the palm of the left gauntlet.

The slot formed quickly, the metal yielding under Brokk’s hammer like it wanted to accept the rune. Kael seated Excise carefully, making sure it sat flush. He didn’t want it rattling loose when he punched. He didn’t want it popping out mid-fight and turning his hand into a heater again.

[Anti Synergies detected! Overall synergy dropped severely!]

[Excise and Heft are competing for output! Solve the Synergies as soon as possible.]

Kael didn’t even need to release the energy to realize what happened.

The notification itself told him the truth before the pain could. Heft wasn’t just a modifier. It was greedy. It wanted priority. Excise was also greedy in a different way. It wanted to cut. To refine. To remove waste. Both wanted to touch the same stream first, and the Language of Gods hated when two runes fought over the steering wheel.

Both were competing for the same thing. Unlike what he thought that Excise would reduce the burden of Heft’s doubling the mana consumption, it felt more like the two were fighting for who would be prioritized first.

Kael could almost feel the imaginary circuit in his mind, the path energy wanted to take, and the two runes yanking it in opposite directions.

He was at an impass.

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