Return of the Runebound Professor

“Lee?”

“What?” Lee asked, raising her head up from the small mound of leaves she’d piled on top of herself. It had been an hour and a half since Noah had combined his runes, and while he’d been playing around with his new magic, Lee had tried to make herself a cocoon of dried leaves. It wasn’t working too well.

“I’ve got another question. Just how hard is it to find a perfectly combined Rune?”

“A good number of powerful demons had them from what I’ve heard, but in terms of people I actually met – not many. I’ve only got one myself, and I found it – I’ve got no clue what actually went into it. I’d say it’s probably really hard, especially up here.”

Noah nodded thoughtfully. That lined up with his own suspicions as well, and made him lean even harder toward building a massive library of Runes to mix and match. If he found a perfectly combined Rune – great. He wasn’t going to rely on luck, though.

“One more question, then. How much would it cost for you to get me one more Skinwalker? It’s a service to the university, after all. These things are dangerous.”

Lee let out a long suffering sigh. “You suck. Do you see my blanket? Do you see what you did to it?”

“One gold.”

“Ten.”

“Won’t the school pay you more now that you’re a Rank 2?”

Noah paused. “Probably. But I’m not paying you 10 gold for what amounts to about ten minutes of work for you. Three gold.”

“Three gold isn’t enough to buy anything.”

“Are you kidding? That’s three of my fancy uniforms. That’s enough to buy so much!”

Lee pushed herself out of the pile of leaves and flicked one of them from her hair. “Wait, really? I thought a meal was one gold.”

“One silver,” Noah said, aghast.

“Oh. Whoops. I mixed up gold and silver.”

Noah’s eye twitched. “You’re telling me you would have gotten those monsters for ten silver?”

“One gold it is!” Lee zipped off before Noah could say anything else. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Somehow, it felt like he’d just gotten scammed by a child.

He rubbed his forehead. Either way, he’d gotten what he needed. Lee was out of the area for a little while. Noah took the grimoire from his side and flipped it open, flapping through the pages until he arrived at a blank one near the end of the book.

There weren’t many blank pages left, but he’d only need one for his purposes right now. Noah grinned to himself, closing his eyes and slipping into his mindspace. It felt a little odd to only see a single Rune appear from the darkness, but he was about to rectify that.

Sunder lowered, shifting down to hang directly above Noah as he approached the Greater Pyroclastic Resonance Rune. At least, he assumed it would still be called a Greater Rune, considering every Rune that had gone into it had been Greater.

He swallowed heavily, pausing for a moment. A flicker of indecision ran through his body. If Sunder didn’t actually work exactly how he thought it would, all his progress would be gone and he’d be back to square zero – or worse, left with a damaged Rank 2 Rune stuck in his soul.

Noah’s eyes narrowed.

I’m not second guessing myself. I saw the vision. I know how Sunder works. I’ve seen it work on monsters. I know it can do this. Intention and power is all that matters.

He reached up and touched Sunder. Energy sparked, pouring through the back of his hand and into his body. His veins darkened, but to Noah’s surprise, the intensity of the pressure was slightly better than it had been the last time he’d called on Sunder. It was still overwhelming, but not quite nearly as bad as it had been.

Reaching Rank 2 and getting that extra energy to strengthen my soul did a lot. I wonder if I’ll be able to properly control Sunder soon.

Noah’s veins pulsed black and his bones creaked under the pressure of the Master Rune. Grimacing, he raised his other hand and reached for the Pyroclastic Resonance Rune. Thoughts of the Sunder rune would have to wait before he let it rip his body to shreds on accident.

Energy sparked at Noah’s fingertips as they brushed across the Rank 2 Rune. Then it leapt free, slipping from his body and instantly relieving the burden. Noah let out a relieved breath and straightened as a black line flashed, splitting the air.

It carved straight through the center of the Rune. Energy swirled around it as the lines of the rune pulled apart, swirling into the dark expanses. Seven sparks glittered from the destruction, blooming all around Noah.

One by one, his former runes snapped back into existence around him, each one burning with power. Noah held his breath for a moment longer, waiting to see if anything else would happen, but it didn’t. He let it out in a huff.

It works.

Each of the Runes was completely full as well, which pleased Noah even further. Combining the Runes hadn’t drained their energy. There had simply been more energy to fill in the Rank 2 Rune because of their synergy, even though it wasn’t perfect.

That does beget the question of what energy was actually used to combine the Runes, then. It had to be something, and if the power didn’t come from Runes, then it must have come from elsewhere in me. Is there another energy source that I’m spending and unaware of? I’ll have to look into that.

Noah would have loved to fiddle around with his Runes more, but he still had work to accomplish before Lee got back. He opened his eyes, dismissing his mental space, and looked down at the blank page in his grimoire.

Pressing his hand to it and envisioning his Greater Wind Rune, Noah gathered a small portion of the energy, about half of what he’d used to Imbue the Rune for Moxie. He pulled the energy away, draining it permanently and sending it out through his fingers.

Lines seared into the paper, forming swirling lines. Noah raised his hand away, smiling as he saw the Wind Rune manifest itself. When he gently probed at it, he could still feel the energy lying within the paper.

That’ll do.

Noah closed the book and lowered it. Now, all he had to do was wait for a little longer until Lee got back.

***

“Got it,” Lee said, dropping down beside Noah over an hour and a half later with yet another bag slung over her shoulder. He swore, jumping and turning to look in her direction.

“What happened?” Noah asked. “It took you so long. Did anything go wrong?”

“No. I got distracted watching a squirrel sleep.”

Noah resisted the urge to grind his teeth. Lee was doing him a favor. It had only been an hour. That was still far faster than it would have been had he done it himself.

“Thank you,” Noah said. “Skinwalker?”

Lee nodded. “It was pretty hard to find. I don’t think there are many more on campus. It doesn’t help that I’ve been killing them the last few days. I got hungry.”

Noah opened his mouth. Then he let it close with a click. Technically, Lee was just helping the school. There wasn’t exactly anything to complain about there.

“Good job, I think,” Noah said. “Just don’t get caught.”

“Sure thing. I was planning on doing that before, but now that you’ve told me not to, I’ll make sure to keep that in mind.” Lee tossed the bag onto the ground in front of Noah.

Noah rolled his eyes and grabbed his sword, running the bag through. There was a strangled hiss, then it deflated. A rush of power entered Noah’s body, and he caught a glimpse of a warped face through the hole in the bag before he looked away.

He didn’t need to look to tell that the energy had already refilled his Greater Wind Rune.

“Do you just hit them on everything in your path?” Noah asked, repressing a disgusted grimace as he nodded to the bag.

“Well, I don’t exactly try to avoid things. It keeps them less aggressive,” Lee replied. “Don’t feel bad. They’re pretty stupid.”

“I never said I felt bad. We’re doing them a favor. Maybe they’ll come back as something less evil.”

“Who knows? Could be that death is just the end,” Lee said with a shrug. “I guess you wouldn’t care, given that you seem to be immortal.”

“No, death is–”

Noah broke off, then shook his head. “Eh. We’ll find out when we get there. Thanks for the help.”

“I’d say it was no problem, but it was really about one gold worth of a problem. Why’d you need another one so soon though?”

“Wanted to test out gaining energy in my Rank 2 Rune.” Noah stole a page from her book and shrugged. “Are you complaining? It’s a free gold.”

“Fair enough. I’m going back to sleep, then. Don’t make me mess my leaf blanket up unless something is actually wrong.”

“One more thing – could you think about what it means to be a demon and try to summarize it? I’m going to need to learn how they act if I’m going to pass off as one.”

Lee snorted. “That’s easy. How do humans act?”

“Well, I guess it depends on the – ah.”

“Yup. They’re all different, but a lot of us tend to be pretty arrogant. If I had to choose a defining trait, I’d go with that.”

“Well, maybe think on typical traits and stuff like that? Just something I can work with.”

“Sure. I’ll see what I can come up with.”

“Thanks.” Noah sank back into his mental space as Lee got to work reburying herself.

As soon as he arrived, Noah gathered his energy and enveloped the seven Rank 1 Runes, bringing them together. They merged easily, sliding together without any issue. There wasn’t even the resistance he’d felt the first time he combined them, and he soon found himself standing before a Pyroclastic Resonance Rune, fifty percent of the way full.

Weird. Why was it so easy this time? I didn’t even feel the energy go off. Is it because my soul already adapted to housing Rank 2 Runes? Fascinating. It’s like a balloon, then. It got stretched out from the initial combination, but was still stretched after I Sundered it. I bet I’ll get some more growth when I form another Rank 2 Rune, then.

Either that, or I’ll have to wait for Rank 3. Depends on how much each one makes the proverbial balloon stretch. Yet another thing to look into. Damn. At this rate, I’ll forget my list of things I want to research before I manage to get around to solving them.

Noah let his eyes open and dismissed his mental space. There was still one last thing to do before he’d be satisfied for the night. He glanced down to Lee, who was now a small mound in the ground.

Shaking his head with mild amusement, Noah took out his grimoire and flipped over to the Greater Wind Rune he’d Imbued in it. Placing his finger on the page, Noah pictured the rune in his mind.

And then, he drew.

Energy coursed from the book and into Noah’s body, forming into a brand new Rank 1 Greater Wind Rune in his mind. Noah’s lips stretched into a wide grin as he felt the Rune awaiting his command. He glanced down at the book, but the rune was still there. He’d managed to avoid draining all of the energy.

Perfect. Maybe I’ll be able to salvage the page.

This is incredible. Once this Wind Rune is full, I’ll replace one of the Ash Runes and see if that’s the perfect combination.

Noah resisted the urge to let out an evil laugh. He’d never been one for them, but he felt like the world was opening up before him. Had Lee not been trying to sleep right next to him, Noah might have actually let it slip.

Instead, he sat down on the ground and leaned against the light purple trunk of a large tree. It wasn’t the most comfortable place he’d ever slept, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Tomorrow, he was going to put his new Rune to use. He almost felt bad for whatever monster happened to be in his way.

Almost.

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