First rune selection

After bidding farewell to Grace, Eiden headed to his room. He couldn't believe that his meeting with Mother had gone better than he had anticipated, and he was now free to focus on what he desired. "Luciana, how much time do I have before I meet Alice, and how long does it take to inscribe a rune?" he asked.

"You have around two hours before you meet Alice, and it takes weeks to months, even years to inscribe a rune," she replied.

"Is it possible to do it in two hours?" Eiden asked, hoping for a shortcut.

Luciana chuckled, "Yes, sure, maybe we could also make you a master in pioneering, formations, and elemental magic since you're such a genius and not delusional at all. The system provides a ridiculous shortcut, but you'll still need a few hours or days, depending on the complexity of your choice."

Eiden thought for a moment and then asked, "Do you possess any time-manipulation abilities?"

"Tell me, Eiden, how did the scientists in your former world presume time travel worked?" Lucy asked.

Eiden replied, "I don't know the exact specifics, but it went along the lines of speeding up an object to the speed of light, and then..."

Luciana interrupted him, "Exactly, you need to speed up the chosen object through time so that it can move through the axis of four dimensions. Then you need the right coordinates to avoid ending up in some forgotten corner of the universe or the mouth of a T-Rex or simply inside the walls of your living room. Traveling through time would require an insane amount of brain power to process not just your location in 3 dimensions, but in 4 dimensions. So, in short, you need complete mastery of space and time, but the most important thing is energy. Tell me, Eiden, what is the equation for kinetic energy?"

Eiden replied, "Okay, I get your point. I would have to produce insane amounts of energy to simply move an object as light as a feather from now to tomorrow."

Eiden continued, "Wait, but you moved me from my universe into this one."

Lucy replied, "Nope, you are still in the same universe. But traversing through universes complicates the whole spacial travel almost as much as time travel and also makes it so energy expensive that you would need to absorb half of this universe's stars to break into another one."

Luciana explained further, "I can't travel through time. All I did was essentially kidnap your soul before it passed on and drove it a couple of million miles to this world and stuck it into the body of a formerly living noble. Then I also healed your body. You're welcome for that, by the way, and voila! Here you are. Mind you, some stars were still harmed during the process. And there's no way in hell for me to repeat that unless you can get me some vampiric Dyson spheres."

"Eiden looked puzzled, "Vampiric?"

Luciana explained, "A regular Dyson sphere absorbs the photons from an imitating star. This one works differently, in short, it devours the star and converts its heat into electricity for storing it. And then when you need the energy, you just transform electricity into kinetic energy. Simple as that."

Eiden looked horrified at the thought of Luciana having used the energy from their Sun for their trip to this world. ''You didn't....''

''' You mean I didn't use your precious little sun for our little trip down to magic land and in doing so kill your precious girlfriend together with almost 8 billion people?''

Luciana reassured him, "Sadly no, all the energy was harvested in the star systems without any life forms."

"Eiden's sense of relief was palpable as he contemplated the fate of humanity. While he held no regard for the collective, his thoughts drifted to someone whose survival he fervently desired. Yet, he quickly refocused his attention to the perplexing question at hand: if his previous owner's memories were to be believed, there do exist some runes that are capable to manipulate time. But how does an individual overcome the seemingly insurmountable energy barrier that separates them from this incredible power?"

"Indeed, you are correct, but no sane person would ever use them. There is only one source of energy in this world that can power a time rune, and that is your soul. Essentially, every rune uses your life's energy as a basis for a spell to work. It is a law of equal exchange, you might say. Usually, a spell will take a few minutes to an hour of your life span, which, considering mages have different ways to increase their lifespan and regain their life energy, is not a bad deal at all also spells that use up more than a week's worth of your life span are on the extreme side. However, time runes are different. As soon as you try using a time rune, not only is your life forfeited, but your very own soul implodes. That is true death, Eiden, with no afterlife and no reincarnation. No matter what you do in life, you must never lay your hands on the river of time."

Eiden felt very disappointed upon hearing that. The only thing that was giving him comfort was the notion that nobody would be using time spells against him. "Very well, no time manipulation then. But since I have time, I can at least choose my beginner's rune and start to get familiar with it. Which rune do you think I should inscribe first, Luciana?"

"That entirely depends on what you want from them. Rune magic allows you to do almost anything you can think of. And there is no one type of rune that is stronger than the other; it merely depends on how you use them. Just think of what you want to be able to do."

Eiden started thinking about his many options. He wanted a spell to boost his physical attributes, use some type of ranged offensive spells, conjure shields, make illusions, and become invisible. All these things could be very useful in his future endeavors. "Let's go see what treasures the Duke's library holds."

Eiden went to his family's private library. Walking through the aisles, he could see thousands of books on varied fields neatly stacked on the bookcases. He stopped in front of the magic section and started to look for a book on offensive runes. There were eight among them that caught his attention:

Standard fireball

Njord's lances: produce sharp spear-like forms made out of water

Jaws of Hades: forms sharp teeth made of darkness that devour the enemy

Indra's wrath: produces several lightning currents

Scythes of Vulturnos: produces several wind blades

Rays of Ra: allows its user basic light manipulations, or in other words, the caster can form basic illusions.

Shadow walk: uses the powers of shadows to hide its caster

The domain of steel: forms a strong sphere of steel around its user

All of these spells could distinguish themselves as quite useful in the future, but which one should he use first? Well, considering he's planning on producing explosives in the near future, fireballs might be a bit redundant right now, even tho they might be a good start for mastering the fire element. On the other hand, Jaws of Hades looks like a really powerful spell, but it's also slow to cast, so it's not a good choice as a first spell since he would need support while casting it. He's also not such a big fan of Indra's wrath since it's difficult to control. Maybe when he masters the water spell first, he can use its water currents to control electricity. An offensive spell like Scythes of Vulturnos or Njord's lances, a preemptive spell like Shadow walk, and Domain of Steel are all a must to be learned as quickly as possible, but until then, Shadow walk is the go-to spell that will guarantee he survives long enough to learn them all.

Eiden looked at the magical clock on the wall of the library and saw that it was time to meet Alice. He took the four spells and quickly put away the rest of the books. "I will just have to start learning the spells later. I just hope Alice doesn't turn this training regime into domestic violence," he thought with a chuckle as he left the library.