Natural runes and artificial runes.

Two days passed and everything returned to normal except John who was still recovering, Alex and his friends were walking towards their first lesson in the camp, they arrived at big hall made completely out of stones neatly arranged with beautiful flowers decorating the compound, there was two huge pillars and a huge door at the front, the door was currently opened as kids flocked in.

When they entered the hall, Alex and his friends sat at the back, the hall was made in a way that the back seats are higher than the front ones so it had a stair system. They came late because Derek wanted to see what happens when you ask for extra food at the canteen and the result was the lady gripping Derek's ears and reprimanded him for almost 30 minutes even Alex wondered if mouth ever felt painful. It was horror for Derek who stood with an unbelievable wide eyes, the boy preferred to be flogged than endure this torture, the word 'never again' rang continuously in his head. The hall was rowdy, some kids marveled at the beauty of the building while others just chatted among themselves.

After waiting for awhile a man with long silver hair, anchor beard and white robes stepped into the hall, the rowdy hall turned silent, the kids stared at him while he walked down to the podium.

On the podium he stared at the curious and eager kids, he smiled and spoke softly.

"This is your first lesson, so I will begin with knowledge you are supposed to know by now, our history is essential but it will come later, so the topic for today is about runes, runesmith studies deeper and more complicated runes, but as a warrior you need to Know the basics about runes, you all know we have two types of rune don't you?", Silas questioned with a deep voice, looking round most of the kids nodded then he pointed out a kid to answer.

"The two types of runes are natural runes and artificial runes", the boy answered proudly.

"And how many natural runes can we obtain in a lifetime?", Silas added.

The hall turned silent as none of the kids knew the answer to that question, Silas smiled, he had expected this result, he motioned for the boy who answered his first question to sit and continued.

"To know the number of natural runes we can obtain in our lifetime you need to Know the complete power ranking or known as warrior levels. They are four main stages divided into nine levels which are; the body, the spirit, the domain, the saint...", Silas paused to let his words sink in, the kids got rowdy, such ranking has never been heard, some of them began to whisper while some shouted, the noise and disorder in the hall was getting higher.

"SILENCE!!", The loud voice reinforced by the runes in the hall made the kids silent, they almost felt their eardrums burst, even Alex shuddered as the pain is not something that can be ignored.

Silas continued with a slight frown" now the warrior rankings are;

Low level warrior

Mid level warrior

High level warrior, this is the body stage.

Top level warrior

Peak level warrior, the spirit stage.

Legendary level warrior

Transcendent level warrior, the domain stage.

Mystic knights

Mystic saint, the demi saint and saint stage.

"I shall restrain from speaking about the mystic knights and saints for they have been extinct for an unknown time, the only time they appeared was the era when Force came, that era....". Silas stops and coughed.

"Ahem, forget about that, so the reason why even from the beginning you train your senses is to breakthrough into the spirit stage when you have reached the ceiling of the body stage. Without a strong body and high senses there will be no spirit and without spirit there is no domain. The body stage is the beginning of a warrior's path, it empowers their muscles, bones and mostly builds the heart into a different organ which is the source of every warrior, a single level difference can be decisive in battle, but there are also cases where such level difference can be crossed, which is,

1) born into a high race, their racial advantage gives them an edge over weaker races.

2) your mastery in your weapon, there will be a stage where your weapon mastery can make you cross levels, but it's almost impossible to reach such a stage.

We the silver blood are under the blood race, we are the only race that possess phantoms, we are strong, our natural rune is first the phantom for the awakened and for non-awakeners your first rune is when you become a low level warrior. The blood race is powerful, some of you might think that with our power we should rule the vastlands but that's not possible the other races also have their own unique abilities and all racial abilities are powerful, active or not. Back to our topic, natural runes defines your race, no race has the same rune, natural rune increases when you get to a higher level, the stronger you are the more natural rune you have and a single natural rune is ten times better an attack artificial rune which was why the focus of rune technology has moved from trying to enhance ourselves with runes that have little to no effect to a different aspect, where artificial runes are made to coexist with our natural runes and make us more powerful", Silas raised his index finger and said slowly.

"Like this".

His body glowed for a moment and a light silver armor covered his body.

"WOW!!", The kids were shocked as some of them stood up to get a better look, their eyes were filled with both awe and amazement. Satisfied with their reactions Silas continued"artificial runes can do much more, like healing small wounds, communication with people far away from you, enhance clothes, there are thousands of uses, if I were to start listing them it would take the whole day but there's still a downfall, people with weak bodies can only have few runes and this is just the minor path, artificial runes has been researched to the creation of new and helpful jobs that had the capabilities of natural runes although weaker, some of these jobs are; the potion makers, mystic battle helpers, hunters and other strange jobs I don't feel the need to tell you. The main success in artificial rune technology was in making weapons, protections and also beautiful large buildings and increased comfort, we the silver bloods don't place much thought on comfort but the humans does, I would not go into details. So artificial runes are powerful, it has helped us evolve technologically but the ruling party, the deciding factor is your natural rune and the humans have come to realize that which is why they.... Sorry, that was not in your lesson, forgive me.

••••

Outside the hall two men were chatting while they watched Silas, the first one spoke.

"Silas and his obsession for humans and their technology is becoming a problem, he has mentioned them more than once, I don't understand why he respects them so much". He frowns and complained about Silas.

"Because they are very smart, they created most of the weapons of war and they are also strong" the second man said with a chuckle, the first man was always grumbling about Silas.

"Hump!, They are also the most foolish race for what they did back then, they are fools, they sent away a good advantage that they owned!", The first man sneered.

"They made a mistake, everyone makes mistakes even the smartest ones", the second man justified.

"Well it was a foolish mistake", the first man said mockingly.

The second man changed the topic because if he were to continue they may stand here all day so he said"at least he's got the kids attention, you don't know what it means to control those small fighter, they're tiny horrors once rowdy and believe me, you do not want to face then in that state".

"Hump!", The first man snorted.

••••

"Where the powers of natural runes are more evident are on powerful families such like our chieftain's name, Alderigde. Names like this like this were inherited from the first era, when people like this activates their natural runes, it gives them a huge advantage.

"You came for a question Asher, I was busy then, ask your question ", Silas said to Asher who was at the last row, he was a warrior so he could see Asher even from such distance.

Asher stood up and said" my question is why white horses, meaning we are silver bloods does not mean we should select horses of similar colour right?". Asher kept a straight face even with all the kids staring at him like he was stupid. For them the white horses were cool so why question such a thing, Alex just kept his head down and thought' what's with Asher and the word RIGHT'.

Silas smiled and said"good question Asher, let me clarify this for all of you, we do not use white horses, those horses are a special breed found by the silver bloods since the first era and domesticated, those horses have special characteristics that links with our blood so our phantoms also strengthens them. An enhancement phantom does not just make us better, it makes us bulkier, heavier, our cell properties increase, our blood becomes more viscous and glows and finally our spiritual state is at its peak. You all should know that the higher the level of a warrior the more they understand control, which is why some powerful warriors can run on water, most could ride an ordinary horse and not kill it because of their weights. And lastly, an advice for you young warriors, there is a famous saying in the vastlands which is..." He has not finish talking when all the kids recited"never underestimate anyone especially beings that are not humans!!". Silas laughed and said with a serious face" the humans generosity are indeed known, but this is the true saying; never underestimate anyone, race or beast even plants, nothing is as it seems in the vastlands, one careless move and your dead" . All the kids nodded with pale faces, the seriousness in Silas words pierced deep into their minds.

"Alright we are done for the day, we shall continue on your next class, dismissed".

The heavy sound of the door opening rang loudly, the lights in the hall all went off as sunlight poured in through the opened door. Alex squinted his eyes to adjust to the sunlight, he was deliberating on the matter of telling the professor about his problem, from what the professor said Alex was sure that the rune was a natural one and all natural runes were inherited, that means it wasn't the old man's fault maybe it's from his dad, Alex was totally confused.

"Alex come, we are going to have our first rejuvenating bath, well not for you but I'm excited", Derek hollered from the distance, Alex had stopped moving for as he was engrossed with his thoughts. Raising his head he smiled and ran towards Derek, when he approached, Asher asked with concern"are you okay?". Alex nods with a smile, seeing his response Asher was relieved"let's go!", The impatient Derek shouted while pulling the three of them towards their destination.