Chapter 166: Tasty

Noah didn’t fly for too long. He didn’t need to get too far from the group, and flying would stop him from using his tremorsense. A dark form at the top of a dune caught his eye. Noah changed his angle, dropping to the sand a few dunes away from it and activating his tremorsense.

Noah didn’t need to get any closer – it was a Stinger, and a normal one from what he could tell. He was at a good range to start walking, and so he set off.

In the distance, whenever he crested a dune, Noah could occasionally catch glimpses of Moxie, Lee, and the students’ forms. They were close enough that he could get to them within a few seconds of using the flying sword.

Sand shifted beneath Noah’s feet as he trudged, sending his senses into the earth as he walked. It wasn’t particularly exciting, but it did give him a little time to think. Noah’s mind drifted back to his Runes.

He dug through his travel bag and pulled out a sheet of paper, balancing it in the crook of his arm on top of his grimoire. It would be too difficult to get his quill and continue walking, but he had a new Rune to test out.

Noah touched a finger to the edge of the paper and drew the slightest amount of power from Deafening Thunderstorm. A tiny crackle rose from the paper as Noah signed a little dot into it. He lifted his finger, then grinned and lowered it again.

Lightning burned a tiny line into the paper as he dragged his finger down. It wasn’t the cleanest, but it was more than functional as a writing tool if he didn’t mind being a little sloppy. Either way, it was good practice.

With all the changes that Noah had just made to his Rank 2 Runes, it was a good time for him to catalogue everything he had before he inevitably forgot about something important.

Active Rank 2 Runes:

Pyroclastic Resonance (Perfect)

Pyroclastic Resonance (Perfect)

Focal Quake (Perfect)

Howling Maelstrom (Perfect)

Howling Maelstrom (Perfect)

Trilling Monsoon (Perfect)

Deafening Thunderstorm (Perfect)

There was absolutely no reason that Noah had to designate all of them as perfect, as it was somewhat redundant, but he couldn’t deny more than a little egotistical pleasure in seeing how far he’d taken Vermil’s initially lacking Runes.

Beyond the Rank 2 Runes, though, there were the new Rank 1s he’d gained in the process of stitching everything back together.

Rank 1 Runes passively in my soul:

Greater Shadow

Greater Shadow

Greater Wind

Rank 1 Runes that I’ve added to Vermil’s Grimoire:

Greater Gale

Greater Gale

Greater Shadow

Greater Shadow

Greater Ash

Noah ended up going through two pieces of paper because of how sloppy his lightning-charged writing was, but he was still pleased with his work. The more he catalogued, the easier it would be to figure out how he could help everyone repair any of their Runes.

The Shadow Runes would likely be useful for Lee when he Sundered her Runes. The Gale and Ash would hopefully come in use at some point in the future. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have them.

A ripple in the sand caught the attention of Noah’s tremorsense. He slipped the papers back into his bag and let his grimoire fall to his side, sending more of his attention to see what had caught his eye.

It was a Stinger, buried beneath the sand in front of Noah about ten feet down. Apparently, they were capable of going a lot deeper than just the surface of the dunes. He glanced back at Moxie’s group.

They were headed his way, but it would be quite some time before they arrived by his estimation. The Stinger was on its own, so Noah decided against killing it. He wanted to leave something for the kids to do, after all.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Noah took a wide loop around the monster, continuing on. Stingers would be good monsters to start learning against. It was the Frills and any variant monsters that he was more concerned about.

He continued his efforts as Moxie and the others followed after him. He suspected it wouldn’t be too long until they ran into something. There was no way for Noah to properly check all of the desert around the students, but his hope was that he’d catch the attention of anything strong enough to pose a threat to the entire group.

Sure enough, after about fifteen minutes of walking through the desert, Noah heard a distant thud. He glanced over his shoulder to see Isabel’s stone armor poking over the top of a Dune. There was a black, shiny form across from her, a barbed tail swaying in the air against the blue sky.

Looks like they found a Stinger. Good one to start with.

Noah’s tremorsense snagged a flicker of movement in the dune at the edges of his range. It wasn’t long enough for him to get a good image of whatever had caught his attention, but it had been moving in the direction of the others.

He darted off, bounding across the sand and using pulses of vibration to keep the sand from slipping out beneath his feet. A blast of wind sent Noah over the top of a dune, and he landed on the other side of it with a grunt and a spray of red sand.

Noah’s tremorsense immediately picked up on what he’d noticed before – a pack of Frills, swimming through the sand just a short distance beneath him. They were moving fairly quickly in the direction of the fight.

Interesting. I wonder if they’re scavengers, heading over to clean up whoever loses the fight. Either way, they aren’t going to make it. Let’s see – Deafening Thunderstorm doesn’t have a ton of energy in it, but for some weaker monsters like this…

Energy crackled at Noah’s feet as he dug his toes into the sand, letting Deafening Thunderstorm’s power thrum through his body. He directed it down through his heels, using tremorsense to take aim at the pack before releasing the magic.

A loud crack split the air and the sand beneath Noah whumped, exploding up around him. He didn’t get to see the bolt of lightning shoot out since his feet were already on the ground, but he could feel it.

Lightning was unlikely to travel too deep into the earth on its own. But, the Frills were – unfortunately for them – fairly close to the surface. His magic slammed into one of them, and Noah’s tremorsense showed it splattering and falling still.

Noah cursed as he realized that the sand beneath his foot was molten hot. He hopped back, grimacing in pain. A moment later, energy slithered into Noah from the dead monster. The sand around him trembled as the other three Frills shot up, bursting from the sand all around him and leaping for his throat.

The air around Noah crackled. He let Deafening Thunderstorm rip free. The smell of ozone filled the air as faint streaks of white and yellow arced across his body, then erupted free in a burst of magic.

Screaming hisses rose up and Noah shifted to the side, letting the three dead monsters tumble, slamming to the sand and sliding to stops. The smell of burnt flesh mixed with the ozone, and Noah’s hair stuck on end. Energy sank into his body and he scrunched his nose.

That was a lot more effective than I thought it would be. I did use the majority of the energy in my Deafening Thunderstorm Rune, though. Won’t be doing that again for a bit, but damn it was sick. Todd would have loved it.

Noah brushed a few specs of sand from his shoulders, then gave the Frills a cursory glance. They’d been fried pretty thoroughly, to the point where he was pretty sure their fangs weren’t going to be of much worth anymore.

With a shake of his head, Noah set back off into the desert to continue his patrols. He sent a glance over to check on the others. They were moving once more, and Noah didn’t see any sign of the Stinger.

They must have taken care of it already. Nice.

As Noah walked, he turned more of his attention toward his tremorsense. It had been incredibly useful, both in the Vibrant Woods and now in the Red Barrens, but the trees in the woods had actually worked in their favor – aside from when the jaguar had attacked. Their cover had meant that having just twenty feet of tremorsense was more than enough to spot most things coming, and Noah didn’t need to sense much farther out.

But, in the desert, where he was starting to realize that just about everything lived belowground rather than above it, twenty feet of senses weren’t quite what he needed. His senses needed to be able to sweep over a larger area, or he’d never be able to actually scout properly.

Noah’s lips pursed in annoyance. There was only so much he could modify his Body Imbuement. It had already been made, and there were limitations of strength. Adding more power to it would just increase the sensitivity, completely overwhelming his mind with information and making it useless.

This is probably where a proper Imbuement or a Formation would really come in handy. Having something that could more accurately control the energy would be a gamechanger. Then again, Formations supposedly take months. A normal Imbuement, though… might be worth looking into.

Even as he thought, Noah didn’t stop walking and letting his mind travel through the desert sands in search of anything that could catch his interest. The sounds of another fight rose from where Moxie’s group walked.

Another Stinger had attacked, but judging by the flashes of ice shooting through the desert, it looked like it was Emily’s turn to try her luck. That probably meant Todd was next. Noah’s face darkened. He’d promised Todd to help find a way to improve his situation – he just had no idea how to actually fix things.

I wonder if those monster bath things could help. At the very least, I can find something big and kill it, selling its parts for a bunch of money.

Noah’s tremorsense picked up on a Stinger in a dune a short distance from him. His fingers twitched and he shot himself forward with a blast of wind, releasing the Rune and calling on Trilling Monsoon in its place.

The desert air was far from humid, but Noah still pulled enough water from it to form a small swirling vortex above his palm. He shot it out in a tight stream. It struck the Stinger, which was buried less than an inch below the dune in hopes of catching something unaware, and drilled a hole straight into its back.

Sand erupted into the air as the Stinger burst free, clicking furiously. Its tail whipped in the air above it as Noah landed on the ground. Before it could even rush him, Noah thrust a hand toward the monster.

A churning spike of wind slammed into the Stinger’s face. Chitin shattered as the magic drilled into the monster’s body, ripping its brain apart. The Stinger collapsed, sliding down the side of the dune, and energy slipped into Noah’s body.

That was a nice stress reliever, but that wasn’t particularly difficult. I know there are some stronger monsters somewhere in the desert, and I want to find them. I should probably wait until night for that, though. My new Runes are amazing, but I need to test them out against a real threat to see how good they actually are.

A glance back at Moxie and the others showed that they’d stopped moving. It looked like they’d decided they were deep enough into the desert to stop and start setting up camp, which worked fine for Noah.

He needed to take a little time to rest and let his newer Runes gather some more energy. Then, once the kids were situated, he’d set back out and find something actually worth killing. After he’d seen the dead fire tarantula, there was no doubt in Noah’s mind that the Red Barrens were more than they initially appeared.