Chapter 92: Prepped Up!

[Rune Gauntlet]

Item Rarity: Unique

Item Level: 0

Category: Magical Equipment

Creator: Kael Ardent

Condition of Use [Kael Ardent]

Passive – [Heat Control]

The composition of this gauntlet allows the wearer to use high temperature runes and suffer highly reduced backlash.

Lore:

[Rune Gauntlets] are not recognized within the tower’s established item classifications.

This object was created through necessity rather than knowledge, and functions in ways the system does not fully account for. While crude in concept, its execution borders on brilliance.

This is a light gauntlet forged from Heat-Resistant Metalloid, internally lined with treated Black Basilisk Leather and sealed through unconventional craftsmanship.

Designed to house and wield runes directly, this gauntlet functions as a containment and mediation device, allowing rune activation from the palm.

***

More notifications soon followed.

***

System Recognition:

[You have created an Unclassified Unique Item]

+1 Dex +1 INT

[Your understanding of Runes has slightly increased]

+1 INT

***

Kael stared at the window long enough that the blue light ring around him felt like it was judging him for breathing.

“Unclassified,” he muttered in a low voice, half amused, half bitter. It wasn’t pride that made his mouth twitch; it was disbelief. The Tower had a category for everything: killing, stealing, breathing too loud, and yet when he built something that actually kept him from cooking his own hand off, it suddenly went oh wow, we don’t have a box for this.

He flexed his fingers inside the gauntlet again, slowly, testing for pinch points or a bite of metal that would tear skin. The inner leather lining gripped without suffocating. It felt warm, not hot, like the kind of warmth you get from holding a mug too long. The socket in the palm sat ready, waiting, and the rune nested there with a snug inevitability that made him feel, for the first time since he’d arrived, like he’d forced this place to play by his

hands.

His shoulder twinged where the arrow had hit earlier, phantom pain more than anything now, a memory his nerves hadn’t let go of. That pain was a quiet reminder: one mistake, one slip, one “let’s see what happens,” and he’d be screaming into an empty tunnel again.

He couldn’t stay on that topic longer, as it would only depress him. So he went for the best part.

“I’ve been getting a lot of these lately,” Kael muttered, because the only way to cope with absurdity was to name it out loud. The titles. The stat bumps. The warnings. The threats. The contracts. The way the Tower kept slapping him with “Congratulations!” like it wasn’t also trying to murder him every twelve hours.

Still… he needed to know where he stood. Not emotionally, he knew he was hanging by a thread, but statistically. The Tower loved numbers. Kael was starting to understand that the Tower didn’t just love numbers; it worshipped them.

“Status Screen”

***

[Status Screen]

Name: Kael Ardent

Level: 1

STR: 32

DEX: 38

INT: 26

STM: 23

Titles:

[Legend] [Chaos Bringer] [Murderer] [Exterminator] [Artisan] [Craftsman] [Magic Maker]

***

He read it twice.

Then a third time, slower.

“Damn, for a level one, those are some insane stats.” He thought as he realized how incredible his growth had been in the past day. And this was just from crafting.

Not a single level-up. Not a proper climb. No party, no mentors, no “training arc,” no comfortable montage. Just him, a hammer that might as well have been cheating, and a desperate need to not die. If anyone outside saw this screen, they’d assume he’d slaughtered a dozen bosses. In reality, he’d been sewing pants like a lunatic in a room full of humming dead machinery.

Kael flexed his hand again. The gauntlet moved with him, smooth, obedient, not clunky the way he’d feared. It didn’t slide. It didn’t rattle. It felt like it belonged.

It was a good way to keep a weapon on him at all times. And a good way to confuse those who’d think it’s an armor when it was in fact a tool of killing and defending oneself.

He could already picture someone’s eyes catching the shine of it in daylight, reading “gauntlet” and thinking “defense,” not realizing it was a trigger mechanism. A disguised threat. A lie he could wear openly.

He pointed the gauntlet at a nearby wall, the one he’d already scorched and battered and used like a practice dummy. The room smelled faintly of burnt leather and hot metal, a scent that clung to the back of his throat. He took a breath through his nose anyway, steadying himself, and pushed his mana into it.

The weapon obeyed, instantly.

The rune in his palm surged with magic and heat, then shot a powerful wave of magic outward. The fireball that formed was bigger than anything he’d managed with the staff, a fat, swelling orb of flame that shoved itself into the air like it was eager to exist. For a fraction of a second, it lit the room with a fierce orange pulse, turning the blue-lit corners into deep shadows.

It slammed into the wall and splashed into heat and sparks, leaving a blackened mark and a faint crackle of cooling stone.

Sadly though, the power felt lackluster despite the great size of the fireball that came out.

It looked dramatic, big enough to scare someone who didn’t know better. But Kael could feel the truth behind it. There was no force. No pressure. No punch. It was heat made visible, a flash of danger that didn’t carry weight.

Good for cooking a man alive, useless for blasting him off his feet or breaking a barricade. It would probably turn someone into a kebab if they were to get shot right in the face with it, but the thought of blasting someone away, breaking walls and destroying fortifications with a fireball was sadly not in the books for Kael.

He grimaced. “So you’re basically a fancy torch with attitude,” he thought, and the gauntlet sat there like it didn’t care.

“If I find other runes, I might be able to use different types of magic.” Never the pesimist Kael always looked for a new way to grow stronger, and the way to do it, was to leave this forsaken place first.

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