“Okay,” Lee said, looking down at the remains of what had once been a crab the size of a small mansion. Its legs had been strewn about the lazy river gurgling off to their side and the smell of fresh seafood permeated the air to such an intense degree that Noah could practically taste it. “What else do you need?”
“Honestly?” Noah tilted his head to the side. “I don’t think I need anything else. That got me just about all the other runes I think I’ll need. We already harvested a Wind Rune from the bird monster earlier today, so I don’t think I’m going to have much trouble at all from here on out. I’ve got all the components I need.”
Lee nodded sagely. She snagged one of the massive crab legs lying on the ground. At some point during the fight, just about every one of them had gotten torn off. Something told Noah that was more because Lee had been preparing for her meal than it was because she felt the need to incapacitate her opponent to claim victory.
She lifted the leg, swinging it around and nearly taking Noah’s head off in the process. He ducked out of the way as the huge chunk of orange-chitin armored monster passed just over him.
“Sorry,” Lee said. She took a big bite out of the meat trapped within the shell. “You want some?”
“Maybe later,” Noah said. He swallowed. His mouth was watering a bit. The crab did smell quite good. It had been a while since he’d had some good seafood. “Maybe if we start a fire and cook something after I’m done.”
“Does that mean you’re going to make your rune now?”
“That’s the plan,” Noah said. “There isn’t really anything else holding me up anymore. Between all the runes I’ve already got and the ones we grabbed today, I should be clear to try and make a large-scale volcanic movement rune.”
“That name sucks.”
“I’ll figure a better one out,” Noah said. He sat down near the bank of the river, in the shade of one of the giant crab legs. “Keep an eye out, yeah? I don’t think this should take too long.”
Lee gave him a thumbs up. She probably would have said some manner of affirmative if her face hadn’t been buried in the crab leg.
Noah suppressed a laugh. He let his eyes drift shut. Then he plunged himself into his mindspace.
Darkness bloomed all around him. Shimmers of the white Beyond that riddled his soul bathed his skin in their sharp glow as he found himself surrounded by his many Runes within the sanctum of his soul.
Noah paused for a moment to gather his thoughts.
Volcanic… something. I need to think larger scale than a single eruption. It’s more than just a fire rune. The scale needs be big, but not so big that a Rank 5 can’t properly contain it. And the name has to be cool.
Nobody wants to be stuck with a badass rune that has a lame name.
Noah briefly let his senses drift over Unraveling Disruption. A small frown pulled at the corners of his lips. The predominant power of the rune was chaos. Sure, the other elements were definitely still there — but it was in the same manner that a cake had egg and flour and butter within it.
The same general result was roughly true for many of his other runes, but not quite to the same extent as his Keystone.
“That’s rather interesting,” Noah said to himself. “At a certain point in your combinations, do the powers that went into making a rune kind of start melding into it to such an extent that they become more muted as they’re twisted toward a specific goal?”
It wasn’t like he didn’t have access to the components within Unraveling Disruption. They were just so muted that, if he hadn’t been looking for them, there was a good chance he’d have missed the energy entirely.
And in another rank or two, the chaos elements of the rune would almost certainly overwhelm everything else. It was like the focus of the rune was completely changing and consuming the smallest parts of it.
I wonder if that’s because of the chaos elements or because it’s simply growing. Are humans truly different? Could a man call himself the same as the child he once was?
Noah grimaced.
Things had gotten to a dire state indeed if he was thinking up philosophical questions under his own will. That did briefly make him wonder if there were rune philosophers, but that was a question for another time.
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They wouldn’t help him right now.
At the moment, Noah knew what he needed to do. His gaze raised to sweep over his soul.
There were a number of different wind, water, earth, and fire runes stored up within his soul and floating in wait for him. He wasn’t sure how many more he could have fit in if he’d wanted to.
The count was already well past the standard 7. Many of the runes floated at the edges of his soul, shadowed out and entirely unreachable. But that was perfectly fine with him. He didn’t plan to have them filling space for much longer.
“Right,” Noah said, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
The first order of business was to create a vapor rune at the Rank 4 level. Vapor was water and heat — and he wanted to make sure to include some wind as well. Adding in some pressure elements early on would do well for helping direct the final Rank 5 toward being… well, explosive.
Noah had taken 2 Rank 5 runes from the crab monster that he and Lee had just killed. The first was called Boiling Stream, while the second was named Slicing Cracked Torrent. All of its other runes had been Monster Runes. Fortunately, these two were more than enough. Along with Unrelenting Sky Gale, the Rank 5 Wind Rune he’d gotten from a relatively weak bird monster earlier in the day, he had no concerns at all about being able to make his vapor rune.
And so Noah got started.
He carved the Rank 5s apart one by one, reducing them to their components. He did the same with the Rank 4s and 3s, slicing everything apart until their components no longer contained any flaws within them.
His hands and thoughts moved in a blur. Noah had done this enough times to no longer have to think too hard about many of the smaller tasks. Tearing Rank 3s apart and putting them back together was light work.
Within just a few minutes, he’d reassembled a number of workable Rank 3s for his Vapor Rune. He tested each one of them to make sure they were flawless before shattering the excess runes and using their power to fill his good ones up to the brim, preparing them for combination.
Noah didn’t stop when the Rank 3s were complete. He focused his intent and narrowed his eyes, bringing the runes together with a brilliant flash. But, no more than a few seconds after he’d finished his creation, he drew on Sunder and carved it back into its components.
He swapped some of the components, focusing his intent for a second time, and brought everything back together for the second time.
Power prickled against his skin. This time, as the light faded, a grin pulled at the corners of Noah’s lips. The Rank 4 before him was finally what he was looking for.
Pressurized Vapor
A quick test confirmed that it was flawless. Simple, yes, but also exactly what he needed it to be.
He had his first Vapor Rune.
Noah’s soul shifted slightly, but the pressure exuded from any Rank 4 was nowhere enough to cause a significant change in his mindspace. Not anymore.
He didn’t waste time letting himself sit around looking smug. This was just the first step in making his new rune, and he was too excited to put everything together to let himself stop now.
Noah banished the Vapor Rune to the corners of his soul. He made a second one in short order, exactly the same as his first. But he still wasn’t done. With a thought, he summoned several of the other runes he’d collected toward himself. A grin split across his lips.
Then Noah got back to work.
***
Time slipped by. Noah couldn’t have said how much. He lost himself in the song of his runes, tearing them apart and putting them back together in a flow state. Every action happened so naturally that he barely even had to think about it.
Every part of his being knew what it was reaching for. One by one, the finalized Rank 4 components for his new volcano rune came into being. The fragments of the runes they had once been shimmered and danced all around Noah like a sea of fading stars. His mindspace was so stuffed full of magical energy that Lee probably would have taken a bite out of it.
Noah didn’t even notice.
And then the preparations were done.
7 Rank 4 runes floated in wait before him, each one flawless.
Pressurized Vapor
Pressurized Vapor
Grinding Stone
Grinding Stone
Molten Earth
Molten Earth
Earthen Bastion
The combination actually had slightly less lava-related magic than Noah had been using in his previous attempts. But it made sense. An eruption was about more than just the actual lava. It was about a mountain to contain that pressure for long enough for it to build to a breaking point. It was about the shifting earth that would squeeze the proverbial soda can. It was about the pressure itself.
This was it. Noah was more confident than ever. These components were the ones he needed to make his next rune. But there was only one way to tell for sure.
Noah let out a slow breath. He wrapped each of the 7 Rank 4s with his intent. The rune he wanted shimmered at the edges of his thoughts, only a single move away from reality.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Then Noah brought all of the runes together.
A brilliant flash tore through his soul. It was followed by a wave of pressure that buffeted his hair back. The other runes in his soul creaked in anticipation.
As soon as the light faded, Noah forced his eyes open once more. He squinted through the dots dancing in his vision to take in the new Rank 5 floating before him, orange-brown power pulsing through its wavey pattern.
Power emanated from it in hot waves. Noah drew on his new creation without hesitation, shifting his attention to different aspects of the rune’s power to test each one of them. A smile slowly crawled across his features.
Then, finally, he released the rune.
Volcanic Cataclysm
A laugh bubbled up from between his lips.
Noah had created his 5th flawless Rank 5 Rune.
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