Chapter 67: Mix and match

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Noah said as he and Lee headed back toward his room after dismissing the students. He lowered his voice. “Are you really just a Rank 1?”

Lee sent him a shifty gaze that Noah was starting to get familiar with. She turned her eyes away and cleared her throat aggressively.

“I’m not mad,” Noah grumbled. “I just want to know how much stronger you are than you implied.”

“Rank 3,” Lee admitted. “Rank 1s of de – ah, my kind, don’t last very long. Either you get stronger quickly or you die.”

Noah nodded his understanding. They walked in silence for a few minutes.

“What did you teach while I was out?” Noah finally asked. “I’ve been lax on my stretches – again – but I’m sure you’ve covered more than that.”

“Basics of Imbuement,” Lee replied, clearly relieved to break the silence with a new topic. “Moxie and Emily already knew all of it, but it was new for Isabel and Todd. At least, it should have been from what they said.”

“What’s that mean?” Noah asked, pausing as they grew closer to the T building.

Lee’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah, you weren’t there. Todd already knew how to Imbue.”

“Huh? Why? Did he study?”

“No! Get this. He was doing it on accident,” Lee said with a snicker. “Can you imagine that? He was mistakenly doing Body Imbuement. He’s a natural at it. Didn’t even realize what he was doing until I pointed it out.”

Noah blinked in surprise. “Seriously? That’s great to hear. But what was he–”

Noah trailed off, realization washing over him. “Damn. That explains a lot. He was Imbuing his eyes to use his heat rune, wasn’t he?”

“Yep! Not the most advanced application, but Imbuing a body part tends to make it better at whatever the aspect of the magic you’re imbuing it with. So, with heat, they got better at sensing heat. I suppose they might have also gotten really hot as well, but that’s why intention is important when Imbuing anything that’s actually meant to do something.”

“Interesting,” Noah mused. “Any idea why Todd was so good at it?”

“None. He clammed up when I started asking questions, and I didn’t really care too much. It’s much more fun to just practice. Isabel wasn’t too bad at it herself. We just practiced some basic body Imbuements and got into a little sparring. I didn’t even know it was possible to do temporary, on the spot Imbuements like what Todd was doing. Haven’t been able to replicate them myself yet.”

They reached the entrance of the T building and headed inside. Noah glanced over at Lee as they headed up the stairwell.

“You’ll have to catch me up on this stuff before our next class.”

“It shouldn’t be too hard. I don’t have to worry you accidentally killing yourself with overdraw. That’ll shave off a lot of testing time.”

Noah repressed a grimace. “Lovely.”

Arriving at the door, Noah could hear Brayden’s snores even before he unlocked it. He and Lee silently stepped inside.

“What now?” Lee whispered. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not sleeping in here.”

“I never said anything about sleep. He’s going to be out until tomorrow at the earliest,” Noah replied. He walked over to his desk and scooped up his quill, ink bottle, and a pile of papers. Sliding his flying sword into his belt, he crept back out.

“Hunting again?” Lee asked once he’d closed the door.

Noah chuckled. “Considering I’m still a suspect, that’s probably a monumentally stupid idea. I won’t deny it’s tempting, though. It’s been too long since I filled my runes. I had to spend a bit of energy making Moxie a Greater Wind Rune, but just a few kills should get that taken care of.”

“So what are you doing?”

“Theorycrafting.” Noah held the papers up in front of him. “How much do you know about Rune combinations? It’s got to be at least a good bit since you’re Rank 3.”

“I know some. I wasn’t lying about having Runes that humans don’t, though. I’m not sure how relevant my information will be to you.”

“Well, then you can just keep me company. I’m going to go to the library and see what I can dig up on combinations. There’s nearly nothing there, but I’m sure there’s got to be at least a tidbit of information. In the meantime, do you think you could compile some information on demons? I need to know a lot about them.”

“The library? Really? You?”

“Hey, I’ve used it before. Just because I don’t like sitting still much as of late doesn’t mean I’m incapable of it,” Noah muttered. “You have no idea how much I’d rather just go punch things and use magic. Luckily, learning new magic is interesting.”

And I can’t afford to just keep making decisions based on what’s fun.

“Miracles do happen,” Lee said. “But you’re right, I doubt you’ll find much there.”

Noah glared at her. “Aren’t you supposed to be encouraging me?”

“I’m relaxing. That was one of the things I wanted to do as part of the contract – the one that isn’t technically enforced.”

“Oh, whatever. I’m still going to try my luck.”

Lee snickered again. They headed across the campus, the dusk light washing over them and making their shadows dance in its orange hue. The library was largely empty when the two arrived.

Two librarians sat at the desks, taking to each other in hushed tones even though nobody else was there. When Noah and Lee approached, the two fell silent.

“Can I help you?” one of them asked, pushing a strand of hair out of his pale face.

“I’m looking for information on Rank 2 Runes.”

The librarian glanced at the ranking on Noah’s uniform. He twiddled his thumbs together.

“What sort of information? I’m limited on what I can share by your rank, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll take just about anything. Maybe just a list of Rune names to start with? Anything you can get beyond that would be appreciated.”

After a moment of consideration, the librarian nodded. “I can help you with that.”

He stretched his hands out, causing a current of green and yellow energy to arc across his fingertips. It swirled into a spark, then expanded. A disk of spinning sickly green light lit the dim library entrance.

The librarian reached into it and pulled out a short stack of books, handing it to Noah.

“Two outdated dictionaries on discovered Runes. No information on their make,” the librarian listed. “One compendium of Rank 2 monsters, and one travel guide of Arbitage and its surrounding areas.”

“Thank you.” Noah took the stack and headed into the library, choosing a chair next to one of the tall shelves and flopping into it. Lee grabbed another chair and dragged it into the middle of the aisle before sitting down. Noah sent her a pointed glance.

“What?” Lee arched an eyebrow.

“You’re in the middle of the aisle.”

“Do you see anyone else here?”

Noah just shook his head. He flipped the first book open and started to read. He had the whole night to kill, and he had to give the Hellreaver Ape one thing – it had made him very good at functioning on small amounts of sleep.

***

Hours ticked by. Noah’s quill scratched messily on his paper, laid out on the travel guide and braced against his leg, as he compiled what little information that he could from the books the librarian had given him.

Sweeping Shadow

Molten Flame

Churning Wind

Freezing Wind

Cracked Hail

Reaping Grass

The list went on, but it didn’t take Noah too long to spot the common pattern in the Rank 2 Runes. Just to confirm his suspicions, he nudged Lee, who currently had her nose buried in a book about baking.

“What?” Lee asked. “I’m getting to the good part in the story.”

“That’s a recipe – you know, never mind. Could you tell me the real name of one of your runes? Or is that too secret?”

Lee shrugged. “I don’t care that much about it. Only humans have the weird hangup. Strong Runes don’t matter if you can’t use them. My Shadow based Rune is called Cursed Concealing Shadow.”

An extra descriptor for every Rank. I really want to know what a Rank 5 Rune would be called then. Would it be the world's most ungainly mishmash of words? You could trick your opponent into saying it out loud and then kill them while they fumbled over it.

Noah chuckled at his own thoughts and Lee tilted her head to the side.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, sorry. I just thought of something funny. Uh… can you say what Runes went into it?”

“Four Greater Shadow Runes, Two Cursed Runes, and one Concealment Rune.”

Three. I’d imagine the more runes you combine, the harder it’ll be to find another combination that works when you hit the next rank. So simple names would probably be better for the long term.

“Do all of your Runes have three word names?”

Lee shook her head. “No. My Shift Runes don’t. They’re called True Shift Runes. All Greater.”

“Do they only have Shift Runes as components?”

“No. There’s also an Absorption Rune in the mix.”

Noah nodded thoughtfully. Two Runes in the mix likely made a more focused result, but that would also limit the functionality of the Rune. Ideally, he’d be able to find a combination that covered a wide spread of things without being so complicated that it would be impossible to combine in the future, but that was a reach.

He jotted down his current runes on the paper.

Wind

Wind

Ash

Ash

Vibration

Vibration

Vibration

Noah tapped his quill on the paper.

“Intention matters when you Imbue things. I assume it also matters when you combine Runes?”

Lee nodded. “Yes, but you can only work with what you’ve got.”

“Logically.”

If I left these alone, I bet they’d just end up becoming something like Flowing Ash. Or Shaking Ash. Something like that. The Ash is indeed interesting, but I’m not sure if it’s the exact combination I want.

Sunder will let me test out a bunch of combinations, but if I have to refill my Runes every single time I swap them out, this will take forever. Not to mention I’ll waste all the energy I’ve gathered on –

Wait.

Normally, people only use a small amount of energy to Imbue their rune on something. That lowers the capacity of the rune until it’s filled back up to its max capacity again, like chopping off the top of a bucket and gluing it back on.

But… they also can’t split apart runes after combining them.

“Lee?”

“What now? I’m getting to the good part.”

“How much of a Rune can you Imbue?”

“As much as you want, I guess,” Lee replied. “But only an idiot would Imbue too much of their Rune at once. You can’t control it if you fully Imbue it, so it’s basically useless unless you’re trying to give it to someone. Why?”

Because, if I keep a giant collection of Runes that I’ve completely filled, I can mix and match them. I can use Sunder to then split them apart and store them by completely Imbuing them in the paper, removing them from my mind while I test other combinations.

If someone else tried to do this, it would be all over the moment they combined their runes, as then they wouldn’t be able to ever take them apart again so there’d be no point to it – but that’s not the case for me. I can just keep testing combinations until I find the perfect one. I can find the perfect combinations for every single Rune I make.

Noah swallowed as a tingle ran down his spine and up his arms. The scope of the idea was terrifying. It would mean eventually walking around with a veritable armory of full Runes. If anyone found out, he’d have an enormous target painted on his back.

Then again, that’s already true for just about everything associated with me. If I can pull this off, I could be more powerful than any other mage my level. I’d be able to swap my Runes to anything I needed and save the old ones by Imbuing them entirely into something.

That also means I don’t have to be as careful with my first combination, so long as it actually works. And, even if it doesn’t, I know Sunder can split it apart.

“You’re drooling,” Lee said, looking at him from over the top of her book.

Noah wiped his mouth and his cheeks turned red. “Sorry. I got really excited.”

“About what?”

“Something stupid,” Noah replied, struggling to contain his excitement as he set the books back down. “I need to get a little more energy for my Runes. Care to help? It’s about time I reached Rank 2.”