Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 274: Limitless Transformation

CH274 Limitless Transformation

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Alex had once wondered to himself, ”How far can I push Rune-Tech? Is there truly a ceiling to what I can achieve with rune formations? Can I shift freely between different types of formations—or am I forever bound to their rigid categories?”

For the longest time—back in his days at the DragonHold Enclave—there had indeed been such a limit.

He could, through Rune-Tech Magic, morph Spell Formations to his will. With the Rune-Tech platform, he could design stable runic constructs: Array Formations, Inscriptions, even dynamic structures such as his Rune Tattoos.

But there had always been a wall.

He could not cycle the runic functions between these different formation types.

A spell formation always remained a spell, an array an array, a Rune tattoo a Rune tattoo. The borders between them were absolute.

Until now.

At the centre of this breakthrough was his Velkarasolmir True Name’s Concept—Limitless.

The Limitless Concept seemed to strip away boundaries Alex once believed unshakable, reshaping the very framework of his Rune-Tech Magic and platform.

He didn’t yet fully comprehend the extent of this power. Still, ever since its awakening, he began noticing subtle changes in the potentials, effects and limits of his abilities. They had become less rigid to the confines that bound them.

And naturally, the principal seat of those changes lay within his Rune-Tech.

Revisiting his old question, Alex realised the once-impossible restriction was now surprisingly within reach.

With some effort, and slight adjustments to account for differences in runic foundation logic, he could now take any formation—Spell Formation, Array Formation, or Rune Tattoo—and convert it into another form.

This discovery had first emerged during his time in the Dankrot Forest with the Expeditionary Platoon. There, while analysing a healer’s buff spell, Alex had considered the possibility of taking the working principles of the Spell to use in the creation of Rune Tattoo.

His plan was to create a passive enhancement Rune Tattoo that would raise a recipient’s physical parameters automatically in their time of need. And if that failed, he at the very least hoped to design a Rune tattoo that would allow its recipient to trigger the buff on demand.

The idea was to have a healer’s spell on demand.

His quiet experiment led him to a startling truth. One of the hard limits that once restricted his Rune-Tech had at some point been lifted.

By compensating for the structural differences between spells formations, arrays, and Rune tattoos, Alex managed to directly transform a spell formation into an array formation.

It was a breakthrough beyond precedent.

Yes, a skilled runesmith could always design an array from scratch that mimicked a buff spell’s effects. But to take the spell itself and transform it into an array? That had been deemed outright impossible.

It wasn’t easy, of course. Some spells were more difficult to transform than others, and each came with its own challenges.

The very first formation Alex tested this newfound capability on was the natural Energy-Gathering Formation he had learned from Pangea’s Subspace Sanctuary World. He successfully converted it into a Rune-Tattoo—one he inscribed directly onto the Voidheart Core.

That single success opened countless doors of possibility... and with them, the inevitability of choice paralysis.

This breakthrough became the very foundation of Alex’s Grand Array Formation.

Normally, Array Masters painstakingly designed each component array within a Grand Array Formation, ensuring perfect synergy between them to maintain stability. But Alex had discovered a shortcut. Instead of building from scratch, he simply took proven spells that naturally complemented one another, converted them into array formations, and then tied everything together with a control formation to handle the heavy lifting.

The result? His self-designed Grand Array Formation—the very one that had played a decisive role in the defence of the Northern Dankrot Fort.

It was during this design process that Alex uncovered yet another perk of the Limitless Concept.

Unlike traditional mages, who learned spells through chants until they could eventually cast them without the chants—the process known as Instacasting—Alex realised that he had always approached spell-learning differently.

For him, learning a spell meant copying its formation.

It felt natural, as though this had always been his method, only he had never consciously recognised it.

The reason he excelled at altering spells formations compared to other mages was exactly because of he wasn’t actually casting spells the same way other mages did.

Where most mages relied on chants to subconsciously guide their mana into forming the spell circle, Alex bypassed the crutch entirely. He wove his mana into the formation itself through Rune-Tech –essentially inscribing the spell directly into reality.

That was why Instacasting had come so easily to him—he had never needed chants in the first place.

This realisation led him to a bold conclusion: if he could directly capture a spell’s structure, he had no need to learn its chant at all.

And he was right.

With only a grasp of a spell’s working principle, the chance to personally witness its activation, and a clear look at its formation in the instant of casting, Alex could eventually copy and reproduce the spell himself.

To test this theory, he had chosen an unusual candidate—an intriguing defensive spell he had witnessed during his recent campaign: a Goblin Shaman’s [Shield] spell.

The [Shield] spell used by Goblin Shamans was simple in design—its primary purpose was to create a protective barrier around their kin.

But Alex wasn’t interested in the shield itself. In his eyes, the defensive spell was crude and inefficient. What truly captured his attention was something far subtler—the spell’s point-target effect.

The spell contained a runic subroutine that allowed the caster to form a bond with those they recognised as allies. Once the link was established, the caster could selectively cast the [Shield] onto each target.

This made up for the defect of a Healer’s [Buff] spell in Alex’s eyes.

So he immediately isolated this runic component and dubbed it [Link].

That single discovery became the very foundation of his Grand Array Formation.

By embedding [Link] into the structure, anyone whose mana signature had been pre-registered into the Grand array would automatically be tethered to it upon activation. This meant the formation could directly target and apply effects to each linked individual—clean, precise, and without the wasteful diffusion of energy common to the area-of-effect spells used by healers.

With the [Link] as the base, Alex began layering other spells onto the framework. He added [Buff], [Rejuvenation], and [Protection], converting them into array-compatible forms.

To make the system practical in battle, he even introduced an automation sequence—allowing the array to continuously monitor linked individuals in real-time and intelligently trigger the right spell depending on their needs.

In essence, Alex had transformed situational, chant-based support magic into a dynamic, scalable support system.

But he wasn’t done.

For balance, he incorporated offensive and defensive measures as well: a refined human mage’s [Shield] spell for protection, alongside the offensive [Fireball] and [Fire Bolt] spells.

Then, in an unusual move the ran contrary to any orthodox mage school of thought, Alex deliberately stripped away the spells’ built-in mana limiters.

These safety checks, designed to prevent overdraft or magical backlash, were shackles in his eyes. By removing them, he gave the user freedom to pour as much mana as they wished into the offensive spells, allowing devastating burst of power, limited only by the energy within the Array formation.

Hence why Alex was able to cast the spells at Grand spell levels.

The culmination of all these innovations was a Grand Array Formation unlike anything seen before—an integrated battlefield system that linked all ally forces, shielded, healed, and empowered them, as well as unleashing massive firepower with surgical precision.

It was this array—born of his Limitless Concept and anchored by the humble Goblin Shaman’s [Link]—that had tilted the scales and all but singlehandedly secured the Fury Defence Force their victory in war.

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