NOVEL NEXT Chapter 37: Runes
Aalam
Aalam was a bit disappointed by his second uniqueness. On paper it was awesome, +200% to all stats in a way that didn’t interfere with Id or boosts in effectiveness from abilities or classes. But it required him to be in his own Territory and, more important, it required his Territory to be large enough to empower that +200% boost.
At the moment, with the new Territory the Hiralian prince had claimed for him, he was only getting +36 to most of his stats, +24 to Aura and Attunement, and +12 to Luck. Before Mila managed to get him that Territory, she’d been benefiting from his uniqueness more than he had, its boost to noble category skills like his Lord skill strengthening their bond and giving her a 3.125% boost to all her Law affinities.
Still, a +24 boost to Attunement followed by a further 12.5% boost from his Heavenly Spark Pure Soul ability was rather good, his effective Attunement at the moment 243, and, since they’d arrived on Hira, he’d already managed to raise seven of his Law Eggs to peak grade.
Congratulations!
Your Law Egg of Temporal Relativity has advanced to peak grade.
Your soul is affected by your understanding of Laws.
Perception +32, Spirit +8, Soul +8
Perception is already at maximum.
Nascent Energy Converter ability activated.
Free stats +32
Spirit is already at maximum.
Nascent Energy Converter ability activated.
Free stats +8
Soul is already at maximum.
Nascent Energy Converter ability activated.
Free stats +8
Just as his eighth Law Egg reached peak grade, Aalam noticed something interesting, an unnatural change to his Territory. It was over 7 kilometers away and, from what he knew, his connection with the Territory, especially given he was not the direct lord, shouldn’t have been strong enough at his rank for him to have those types of senses, so it seemed Prince was more useful than he thought.
Feeling good, Aalam rose off his rock and decided to go investigate, jumping to the shore and then starting to run. The superhuman movement was fun, and he tried using his Law Eggs of Inertia and Kinetic Energy to speed himself up, but he wasn’t very good at it, so, for the first six or so kilometers, he was actually slower than if he just ran normally.
He was starting to get it at the end, but then he stopped as he reached the location of the anomaly.
There was a small hamlet in the middle of the forest, some type of fruit farm, and all the citizens who’d been living there were dead. From the looks of it, they’d somehow managed to survive the monsters that had started showing up during the integration, animals transformed by the rising mana levels, but then they’d been killed anyway.
The woman who’d killed them had piled up their bodies in a heap between the hamlet’s three main buildings and was drawing runic symbols around the pile. These symbols had an odd aura of death and life Laws, both somehow twisted, and they were the cause of the unnatural feeling he’d felt from the area.
The young woman looked human, but with all color removed and then dark and light reversed, but the oddest thing to Aalam was her white pupils. Aalam couldn’t understand the point. Pupils were black because they allowed light in. That was their function. So how could the woman see?
As soon as he arrived, however, even without normal eyes, she still somehow noticed him. Then she instantly attacked, so Aalam decided to figure out how her senses worked later, pushing his left palm forward and, for the first time, using his new prized possession as an implement of death.
Left Hand of the Runescribe (G-Legendary) [Growth]
A fingerless glove for the left hand of a humanoid made from processed Mutant Juvenile Vitalized Rollie-Pollie scales, this artifact contains a minor pocket dimension and a telekinetic connection to twelve flying needles within. Each flying needle is made from the processed scales of a Vitalized Rollie-Pollie Queen, effectively indestructible below C rank, and is designed to channel the power of one of the twelve elements. Through the use of an Orb of Devouring during its construction, the Left Hand of the Runescribe can devour other materials to improve itself and, through the use of a Token of Soulbinding, it gains more power through the Law advancements of its creator.
Effects: Minor Pocket Dimension, Telekinetic Connection, Conductivity, Qi Channeling, Mana Channeling, Psyforce Channeling, Runescriber Enhancement
Requirements: The Heavenly Spark Soul King or one of his servants
The fingerless azure glove on his left hand shone silver for a split second and two golden needles flew out.
Each was about a meter long, with one end pointy and sharp. Around two thirds to the end, the golden material they were made from split and wrapped around a visible 10 cm diameter orb before coming together and straightening again. But the most impressive bits were actually inside, thread taken from the Shield of Twelve Elements there to guide the specific element the needle was designed for and intricate scripts to help enhance the needle’s conductivity and channeling of elemental energy.
Of the two needles which flew out, one had a brown orb and the other a yellow one, representing the elements of earth and air respectively, and each were controlled by one of Aalam’s separate minds.
Sadly, though, he wasn’t very good with them yet. They both attacked her together at the same time, yet she easily managed to dodge them and continue her attack, and she was wielding a sword emanating Laws of ice and death, so Aalam was pretty sure he’d die if he were stabbed.
His glove glowing silver again, he summoned another needle and grabbed its end with his right hand, this one with a red orb. Then he began to channel mana into it enhanced by his peak grade Law Egg of Molecular Acceleration and swiped it in front of him multiple times, each swipe creating a line of fire, as he stumbled backwards.
This bought enough time for the other two needles to catch up and the woman had to start dodging them again. Though, sadly, as he didn’t actually have a telekinesis skill yet, he couldn’t move them anywhere close to the speed his powerful Spirit would normally allow.
Realizing he was going to lose if he didn’t change things up, he switched control of the earth flying needle to the mind controlling the wind one and summoned another needle to start flying around, this one with a gray orb. The earth and wind needles then began to fly together, as if tethered to each other, making them even easier to dodge, but the death element flying needle did something completely different.
As Aalam bought time by running away, waving around fire, and distracting the woman with the paired flying needles, the death flying needle flew up about five meters and started writing a rune into the air, the entire process taking about five seconds. And, when it was completed, a wave of psyforce powered raw entropy flew down at them, making use of Aalam’s full effective Spirit, and the woman’s motions paused as she was hit by the energy.
Barely affected by his own power, Aalam managed to take that moment to attack. The earth and wind flying needles both hit the woman, empowered by his Law Eggs of Inertia and Kinetic Energy respectively, stabbing into her gut and sending her flying. Then Aalam threw the needle of fire at her, setting her clothes on fire when it stabbed into the arm that wasn’t holding her sword.
He underestimated her, however, and she managed to send a burst of mana and qi out from her body, the three needles which had stabbed her all flying out as she bled gray blood. Then she started running away, heading outside his Territory, and he followed.
“Aalam, what are you doing?” Mila sent over their bond.
“Chasing an invader,” Aalam sent back, sending an image of the fleeing woman along with the words.
There was quiet for a second, Mila probably talking to Nana Xara, and then Mila yelled back. “Aalam, that’s a Nightwalker. Undead nobility. Don’t chase her alone.”
Aalam didn’t even bother to respond, however, as he was having too much fun. Invaders were F rank at most, and he was powerful, while that short fight had done more for his Law advancement than his past day of meditation.
Congratulations!
Your Law Egg of Kinetic Energy has advanced to peak grade.
Your soul is affected by your understanding of Laws.
Strength +16, Agility +16, Endurance +16
Strength is already at maximum.
Nascent Energy Converter ability activated.
Free stats +16
Agility is already at maximum.
Nascent Energy Converter ability activated.
Free stats +16
Endurance is already at maximum.
Nascent Energy Converter ability activated.
Free stats +16
In the next couple minutes of chasing, he managed to raise his Law Egg of Inertia to peak grade, and, after seeing the woman’s usage of her ice Law, he was really close with his Law Egg of Molecular Deceleration as well. All he’d then need was to raise his Law Egg of Multi-Dimensional Geometry, the Law he was actually best at, to peak grade and he’d have a peak grade Law Egg for all twelve elements.
Then, after advancing his race, he’d be able to look at his class options and know if he would have to train his other Laws up as well to unlock better classes.
He was a bit lost in his excitement, so he almost missed when the woman met up with a small horde of zombies, which all then attacked him as she continued to flee.
They were a lot slower than she was, however, and he sent two needles out from the Left Hand of the Runescribe again, this time one with a blue orb representing the water element and the other with a silver orb representing space.
While Mila had spent her time between challenges two and three in the tutorial studying contracts, Aalam had spent most of his time getting combat training from one of the training spirits with his two lesser minds while using his main mind to train with another spirit in the study of magical runes. As Nana Xara had predicted, he still wasn’t much good at fighting, but in runes he’d proceeded at a breakneck pace.
Runes were the building blocks of everything in magic, stable multi-dimensional structures of qi, mana, and psyforce, where the amount of each resource at each point in the rune and how they were elementally attuned created different forms of power. Then arrays were just sets of runes combined to make an effect.
Artifacts worked by creating unpowered molds of arrays which would activate when qi, mana, and psyforce were poured in, and skills worked pretty much the same way, only with the molds created in a cultivator’s soul so the array’s effects could be activated much quicker.
Arrays created outside the body, so long as they were stable enough, could be just as powerful as a skill, and that was what the Left Hand of the Runescribe was designed to help with. Aalam had invented a few of his own arrays from the runes he’d learned, and, as he was given a bit of time as the zombies were slow and he could keep away from them, he got to test one of them out. He used his Law Eggs of Molecular Deceleration and Multi-Dimensional Geometry to create a two rune array, using a basic space element rune to twist an ice aligned water element rune into a much more powerful configuration.
He had to use about a third of his mana, but the array was formed after only six seconds, the lines of energy drawn by the needles of water and space, and, three seconds later, the 25 zombies chasing him were all completely frozen, as was all the plant life around them, and, as they were unable to move, he used the two needles to smash in their heads.
