Chapter 112 Runes

In the opening of the woods, a soft breeze calmed Lucas down. He needed to figure out how to answer his teacher's question.

'Where do runes come from? If we take Venion at his word, then it means that nature provided them somehow.'

'And that's why we don't trust anyone at their words because that's the most stupid thing I've heard.'

'It did make sense, if mages appeared due to them having affinity with the magic in the air, they could perceive it in certain ways. The first mage had to figure out what magic was, they would need to immerse themselves in nature's beauty to figure out how it worked.'

'Are you telling me that if some schmuck lived long enough in the woods, he could somehow find out how magic looked?'

'Hmm, if that's not the case, they could've been taught by others? There are multiple religions in this world that have their own respective gods, perhaps they taught the humans?'

'That's way too farfetched, even for you. Plus, that doesn't answer the question, where did these so-called gods get them?'

'Then do you have any better ideas?!'

'Gods don't exist, but magical beasts do. What if beasts who are naturally more susceptible to magic found out the flow of magic.'

'But how would that explain the runes? Humans could've easily copied their techniques, that's not what I'm protesting. But did you see any runes when we used our magic vision on Micheal when he performed a spell?'

'Nope, nothing there. Then are runes purely artificial?'

'What do you mean?'

'There are countless runes, but runes don't always have to be used in order to activate a spell. We have magic and heat vision that don't require any runes. Muscle strengthening also doesn't require anything.'

'You have a point, the same can't be said about the casting methods, though. We've seen runes being spoken aloud and being formed into hand signs, both are the basic way of using runes.'

'But we can also use our willpower to manifest the runes in secret, though we can't keep them in our body, the moment they're ready, they are released. So we can't prepare them in advance.'

'We saw Micheal use something entirely different, runes were replaced by normal words and then there's Elam who formed the runes into a circle to activate the magic instantly.'

'Damn, we have a lot to research, don't we?'

'We don't need to use all these methods ourselves, only the most efficient are enough. Wait, we're getting off track. Every method of casting spells did use runes in the end, but that is just the act of activating magic.'

Lucas tumbled down a deep rabbit hole of possibilities and hypothesis. Nothing was left out of his scope, anything that could be related to magic was checked, yet nothing came up. Every time one part of him found something, the other half could easily debunk it.

Time passed, but the scenery never changed. The soft breeze was still present, while the sun in the sky stood still. He wasn't paying it a lot of attention, but it felt like time had been paused for him.

His new teacher patiently waited. Unlike Gilbert who would start summoning a chair to read a book or two, or Elam who would conjure a couch to sleep in, he simply stared at Lucas. He was extremely neatly dressed and gave off the presence of a statue due to his limited movements. The only sounds he made were the leathery noises his gloves made when he clenched them.

Even later did Lucas start to make a face that he found a possible solution, but wasn't happy with it.

"Did you figure it out?", the man asked with his slight deep voice. He had been standing for such a long time that he needed to clear his throat before speaking.

"All I could think of was that it comes from feelings...", he felt disappointed in himself before he even said it. Feelings were not logical nor reasonable, how could they be the origin of runes?

"I can tell that you don't think this is the right answer, but you are mostly correct. The first mages weren't necessarily humans, but they needed to perceive the magic in their own way. Some sought places where magic was a lot denser, in the hopes of finding magical phenomena that could explain it. They didn't understand the concept of magic, so they could only feel that there was something in the air. Only after centuries of research did one of them find that they could interact with the magic in the air. All researchers eventually found their own way to perceive the magic, but few knew how to interact with it and none knew how to preserve it for later use."

"Decades later did they find a stable enough method that could interact with magic, pure emotions. It is recorded that when one was dropped into a pit overflowing with magicules they could corrupt the body, but if the subject had pure anger and hatred in them, it resulted in a monstrous being that killed many. Through uncountable experiments did they find that they could link their emotions to the magic."

"That's where runes come into play, they are the interpretations and feelings of the creator symbolizing what they found. That's why if you were to go to a different country and look at the runes they use for fire there, they will be different. Every mage has their own perception of the world, and runes are meant to convey that. Did you know that the very first mages could only use magic if they could reproduce the exact same feeling that they once had? Making it practically useless in battle?"

"Hundreds of years later, did they reach Rank 1 and created their own Mind Sphere. Some call it the soul, others the mental dome, but in Frigus it's called the Mind Sphere. We can carve the meanings and perceptions of magic into our dome, making us never forget them. That's the use of our Mental Sphere. Now, I think this is more than enough theory for now, let's first get you to use magic again before I continue."

"Yes, master.", Lucas didn't like using the word master since it would show an obvious submission, but he knew that the man in front of him knew a lot more than any other teacher. The presence he gave off was clearly too mystical for him to be a normal mage, he had to be someone special.

Lucas' continued his training and explained his current situation in detail to his new professor. Since Lucas couldn't even perceive his strength, it meant that he reached a rank far above him. If there was anyone that could help him out, it had to be him.

What followed was a horrid experience of his teacher injecting magic in his body and controlling it remotely. The feeling of someone else's magic inside his body felt so unnatural that he had to take a moment or two to force his barf back down his throat. The experiments continued on and on until his body got so tired he almost fell asleep, only the feeling of acid at the back of his throat kept him awake.

When he assessed his current situation, he made some progress when it came to his manipulation of his own magic, but he would still be quite a ways off to using it. He stood up, looking around, he noticed nothing had changed in the environment for the entire time he was present.

"Where exactly are we?"

"Hmm? Didn't you pay attention? You're at the top of the mountain?"

"What!?", the forest and chill breeze was in complete contrast to the white hell that was the climb.

"Now, that's enough for today, go back to Elam and follow his lessons. When you get back here, we'll continue. I've also heard that Gilbert started to give daily lectures, you should follow them when you have the time. Now, goodbye and good luck."

"Huh?", before Lucas knew, his teacher had grabbed him by his collar before throwing him in the air. When he landed, he felt the wet, cold snow softening his blow. The freezing wind and storm was back to haunt him.

'We're screwed!'

'No, I don't feel exhausted anymore.'

'Hah! Is he testing us again? After all that training? Hahaha, we'll show him!'

Lucas smiled while he started to downwards journey to reach Elam's cottage. His motivation had peaked, a teacher that challenged him was something he needed.

At the peak, the Contact was looking through a portal at how Lucas was doing. He was putting in enough effort to satisfy him.

"He's indeed a quick learner, though he lacks knowledge of the basics. I can see that he's an unrefined gem."

"Didn't I tell you I wasn't wrong this time?", Elam said, while a slight grin appeared on his face. He was laying down on a bed of grass with a daisy in his mouth.

"You know I, no, that we dislike unnecessary murder. Your mistake costed us a precious life that we couldn't ever repay to his family."

"I know, why do you think I didn't take any students for years."

"Your intentions were obvious. For making such a mistake you didn't bother doing your work for years, I know that all too well. I do wonder why you started to take students again, there have been multiple years with promising students as far as I can tell from the records. Still, I'm glad you followed through on your promise."

"I always discourage my possible pupils by giving them the most ridiculous riddles so that no-one can answer them. Even if they do respond correctly, I simply tell them I'll only accept them if they can stop a single attack of mine. None passed then, but the moment I opened my eyes at him, I could tell that there was something strange about him. Like the world was telling me to try once more."

"Your eyes? Oh, it is unfortunate that the procedure went off course. The Dark Eyes are only meant to be used at certain times and shouldn't always be active. That would simply overstimulate our brain. I apologize on the team's behalf."

"Don't worry about it, I learned to live with them. I kind of see it as punishment for my mistake."

"If you can see it as such, I'll take my apologies back. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to attend.", the contact seemingle flashed and fanished from the clearing.

"I know I'm right this time. All of this will end, I'll do anything to make that future a reality.", Elam stood towering above the portal the Contact was using earlier. His eyes were focussed on the one he placed all his hopes on. "I'll make it right."