Racing ahead of the Magmus

Eo rolled down the window. Hot air seeped in. He rolled the window back up.

"Why are we still in a desert?! This is unfair."

"Stop whining. If you'd study the place you were in, you'd find out that Amdintel City is a city in the desert built around an oasis."

Eo suddenly looked annoyed, as if his teacher had scolded him for not studying.

"How old are you anyways?"

Seraph looked extremely offended, as if she had been told that she looked like a hag.

"I'm 20, thank you very much."

"Oh, so pretty old."

Seraph looked like she was going to murder Eo.

"Aren't you two both 16? I'm not too much older than you."

Reya pulled back her head in exaggerated shock.

"16?! I thought Eo was 6!"

Eo rolled his eyes and got off the vehicle. "Okay, let's get started on the rune formation."

To create a rune formation, one would have to run the essence through a material that would be able to conduct well. The wires that Eo had seen before were made of the same material as the golems. Eo had brought along the golem scraps, so there was no way the conductors he would use wouldn't work.

Eo scribbled down the image of the rune in his head onto a piece of paper and double-checked it to make sure it looked like how he remembered it. It sorta did.

Eo started using up essence to convert the scraps of golem armor into a wire. Then, he laid the wires out exactly like how it was back then. Then, he stared at it.

(This exact formation is made to find people over Purple Rank, spare them, and then drain the essence out of everyone else. The excess essence will race around conducting wires until it hits the essence drain, which were the essence golems.)

Eo thought for a moment. He needed to modify various parts of that formation to his own advantage.

(The new formation should be made to find all humans in range, spare them, and then drain the essence out of everyone else. The excess essence will race around conducting wires until it hits the essence drain, which should be some sort of battery.)

Eo turned to Seraph.

"Seraph, how far away are we from the Phase IV?"

"About twenty-ish kilometers. Why?"

"Only that far after half an hour?"

"Hey, the roads were horrible and all curvy. Why though?"

"Just need to see how much time I need."

Eo got to work. First, he segmented the unactivated rune formation. Then, he ran small tests in each isolated segment until he understood what it did. Sometimes he'd have to desegment two parts for more clarity, other times he'd have to reconnect two parts to get that section to work.

After another half-hour, Eo had managed to dismantle the formation into the functions he had thought about earlier. Now, he had to somehow tamper with each segment in order to get the result he desired.