Bringing forth the essence of an object was easier said than done. Inscribing runes on his Armament had spoiled him. Arthur’s inscription skills had been developed lopsidedly. He’d learned how to inscribe a rune and deal with an object's rejection before ever learning how to summon the very essence that needed to be inscribed upon.“You’re still doing it wrong, Arthur,” Cyprus advised, “this isn’t a process you can force. Treat it like it’s an animal. Coax it. Lead the horse to water. Don't try to drown it.”The ancient elf had given advice of a similar strain for the past twenty minutes, and while Arthur knew he meant well, hearing the same thing over and over again was grating. Normally, a dedicated inscription skill would do the heavy lifting here. Doing so without it wasn’t impossible, or even particularly difficult if Cyprus was to be believed, but Arthur wasn’t having any luck. Three fruitless minutes later, Cyprus called his practice to a stop. “You’re getting nowhere with this,” the old elf sighed. “Honestly, I never thought it would be a problem, but your strength as a rune scribe is actually what’s holding you back. You rank in the top 0.01% in your ability to handle an object’s rejection. Your energy is always primed to face it, practically frothing at the mouth. It means you end up using a sledgehammer where only a mallet is necessary.”Cyprus summoned a tiny shard of astral rock, barely a centimetre wide. “To rectify this, I want you to practice inscribing the control rune on this little rock.”Arthur took the astral stone from his teacher and frowned. “I don’t understand. Isn’t this stone too small to accept the control rune?”Cyprus’ eyes twinkled. “Not quite, Arthur. While there certainly are techniques you can use to enhance the size of an object's essence to give you more canvas to work with, none of them will be needed today. Your solution will be far simpler. Just make the rune smaller, (...)