The First Legendary Beast Master

Karl joined the Acolytes in the central room and motioned for them to sit around one of the round tables.

"First up, you need two basic skills to be able to help with the job. [Life Leech] and [Holy Weapon]." He announced, then used [Follow Me, Little One] to transfer the skills.

He didn't have high hopes for Life Leech, but it transferred without issues. Blue Dragon Clerics had an affinity for knowledge, and even if it wasn't something that they would use, they had an easy time learning most skills.

Even when they didn't have Karl to just imprint it in their brain.

"That skill is spectacular. No wonder the Librarian likes you when she hates people in general." Janet whispered to herself, too low for the others to hear.

"You all can drop the disguise spells now. Keeping them active will use up energy that you're going to need by the time that we're done training you on these techniques." Karl insisted.

But before that, he had to try [Skill Merger] and see if he could come up with something.

If he combined [Runecrafting] with [Holy Weapon], what would happen?
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It took an immense amount of focus to bring up two such technical skills at once, especially when he couldn't activate them in his mind to see the effect.

"Sir?" One of the Acolytes asked carefully.

"Give me a moment, I'm trying to mentally blend a pair of skills to teach you the basics because you can't use Runecrafting as a complete skill until Royal Rank. I don't know any of the subset skills that come before it, so I need to isolate a portion that will let you learn now, and not hinder your advancement."

Karl's answer had tails wagging furiously, and Cara was laughing so hard at the sight that Fizzspark nearly fell off her back.

Karl lost track of the time, but eventually, he had something workable. He had to eliminate ninety percent of the knowledge in Runecrafting, but with the knowledge from Holy Weapon, he had a new skill.

A skill he couldn't use.

[Trade Skill Already Known] The system informed him.

But he could visualize it in his mind, so he started with Mark.

{Pack Master Karl offers Knowledge} Skill [Apprentice Runesmith] will be transferred to gentle pet Mark.

Mark frowned. "Why is the system making fun of me?"

Karl chuckled. "It does that to everyone when I use that skill. Did you accept the skill?"

Mark nodded. "Yes, it taught me Apprentice Runesmithing. It's incredible. This is precisely what we need to add Runes to weapons and make them better. Used with Holy Weapon or Life Leech to create a base enchantment..."

The Acolyte trailed off, seeing all the possibilities for future creations.

"Exactly. The smiths here are already turning out high-quality weapons. If you add Holy Weapon and Life Leech along with some enhancing Runes, we should have something that any Commander would drool over."

Behind Karl, Forgemaster Granite cleared his throat. "Before we get too far, is there some particular reason that the Church sent you a whole group of catgirls as Acolytes?"

Karl sighed and made a noncommittal gesture. "Yes and no. I am a Beast Master, so they're naturally drawn to me. But I suspect that the reason was more of a power play, a flex on the Royal Family.

They sent half the team away for being politically connected. But we still needed Acolytes, which left them no choice but to send the other five to us. The scans would have told them right away what the truth was, and it would have detected the transformation spell.

Honestly, it's above our pay grade, and it's easier to just let them play their games while we make new smashing tools."

[Smashing Tools!] Thor cheered.

He really wanted one of those hammers. It would work great with his Gravity Slam skill in human form.

"Mark, can you use that skill you have to enhance bows? Or is it limited to metallic weapons?" Karl asked, changing the topic.

Mark thought about it for a bit, then nodded. "It should work fine on wooden weapons. It's more like I've got an introductory primer to the skill and basic runes. There aren't many restrictions, just a lot that I don't know yet."

"Well, if I can teach it to everyone, then we can start getting you all to work."

Karl sent the skill out to the other Acolytes, and the girls giggled as they read the message.

"Alright, we have more melee weapon users than ranged, so we will split the tasks. Who wants to do bows today? I need two volunteers?" Karl requested.

Janet and Mabel raised their hands.

"Perfect, you two will do bows today. I wish I had a better written primer to help you get started, but I will write you out a handful of options for the base Runes.

If I understand how this works correctly, you will need to add the Runes and the Spells as the weapon is created, so you will have to work with the existing bowyers. They know how to actually make the bows, you know how to do the advanced enhancements.

But because you're new, we will bring them in here where I can supervise everyone.

The other three of you will be with the smiths. Forgemaster Granite, if you would please pick someone patient for them to work with.

This is all new to everyone, but if they do it right, a Runesmith should be able to create magnificent enchantments."

Forgemaster Granite nodded.

"What is their path forwards after this?" He asked as he chose the three smiths for them to work with.

"Well, the advanced form of the knowledge should be a Dwarven Runemaster, but as none of them are Dwarves, I guess it's just a progression through the Ranks of Runesmith to Runemaster?" Karl guessed.

Mark nodded. "I think that's right. I can see the option in my system, and the next step is Journeyman Runesmith. But I can't buy it with skill points. It looks like the only option is to practice until this gauge is full."