Chapter 29: Runes

The middle-aged man narrowed his eyes at Aurora's words. He had worked hard to make this cave, and she was calling it a disappointment. He was also surprised that she could keep her calm after all that.

"Getting full of yourself just because you've got good talent, huh, little girl?" the middle-aged man said with a chuckle.

"Well, yes, I've got good talent, so shouldn't I be proud?" Aurora asked, tilting her head cluelessly.

The middle-aged man was speechless at this. Somehow, this little girl was getting on his nerves now.

He decided to teach this little girl a lesson and covered the whole room with his spiritual energy, beginning to pressure the entire group.

As soon as the pressure descended upon them, everyone except Aurora fell to their knees and coughed up blood.

The middle-aged man saw Aurora standing completely fine, without even a frown on her face, and narrowed his eyes even further as he thought, 'She withstood my full spiritual pressure that easily!! My work just got harder, huh? She's troublesome.'

Well, Aurora had to fight Aadi under his spiritual pressure in their training, so this spiritual pressure was just a light breeze for her.

'Early-grade Heaven Profound Stage! Just as I thought, things are getting out of hand, as he's a runemaster as well. Fortunately, I didn't use my Bloodline; it can be my trump card now,' Aurora looked at the middle-aged man as she remembered Aadi's teachings about runes.

---

After a full eight-hour fighting session, Aurora was now resting, leaning her back against a boulder. She looked at Aadi, who was busy eating a weird fruit he had gotten from who knows where.

"Master, I want to learn about runes," Aurora asked, as she was fascinated by the 'fight' between Aadi and Asty and remembered what Aadi had done at that time.

"Huh, you've got good talent for alchemy, though. Do you want to be both an Alchemist and a runemaster?" Aadi asked after he swallowed the whole weird fruit. He didn't really have a problem with teaching runes to Aurora; it just depended on her.

"Not really, I'm content with being an Alchemist, but I'll encounter runemasters in the future, right? So, I'm asking so that I know how to counter them," Aurora shook her head and responded.

"Hmm, I was gonna teach you that anyway, just a little later, but if you want to learn now, I'll explain the basics for you," Aadi said as he lay on the same boulder, fully relaxed. "It's way too complicated for the current you, so if you don't understand anything, just ignore it; you'll understand it in the future."

"So, you can understand runes as a tool one can use to control the atmosphere's energy as well as the atmosphere. We draw symbols and characters that resonate with the atmosphere and do many miracles. We can make these symbols and characters using our spiritual energy, but that's too taxing, so only high-level runemasters who have massive reserves of spiritual energy make runes with their spiritual energy."

"As for others, they use inks made from various rare ingredients and use them to draw runes. This method is mostly used, as one can't really use the first method on a large scale, no matter how massive their reserves are. Of course, there are exceptions like me and Asty."

"On that day, I used these runes to make a defensive formation around you and strengthened this whole space to a ridiculous level, as I was expecting Asty to fight me with full power, but sigh, whatever."

Aadi stopped here, letting Aurora digest all the information, and only continued after he saw Aurora was about to ask a question. "Don't question now; you'll understand later."

Aurora had a vein pop on her forehead, but she kept silent and listened to her unreliable master.

"Since every single rune has a function, we can combine many runes under certain conditions to generate a particular phenomenon. This is called Rune Formations. I'll demonstrate it to you."

Aadi said as he pointed his hand upward to the sky, and three strange transparent characters appeared just above his hand. These three characters were connected to each other in a triangle with many tiny lines.

All of a sudden, a big blast of flames shot from the triangular formation into the sky. As if finishing the task, the rune formation faded away after that blast.

"You must have sensed the surrounding Profound energy when I made that rune formation; it's because rune formations don't take Profound energy from the runemaster, as they use atmospheric energy."

"So, if you fight a runemaster, observe the opponent's spiritual energy, as they can make formations like I just did. Check if they use ink; if yes, then check its quality. Also, observe their movements carefully; never underestimate them, as they could just be pretending to get beaten and make a formation sneakily."

Aadi finished his monologue as he thought this was enough for Aurora for now. He knew there were many flaws in his explanation, but she would have to discover them herself.

Aurora nodded and repeated Aadi's explanation in her mind.

---

Aurora saw through the spiritual energy of the middle-aged man and determined that it was of a Heaven Profound Stage Artist. She turned towards the others and helped everyone get to the corridor, thinking, 'These guys are really cannon fodder; that's why I didn't remember their names.'

The middle-aged man just let Aurora do her thing, as he didn't really care about the others; they would die anyway, so who cares where they are? They couldn't get out of this place.

As both of them were plotting their own plans, they were oblivious to two beings who were sitting on top of a nearby pillar.

Aadi had sunglasses on and a big bucket of popcorn in his hands as he watched everything from above. Asty, as always, was sitting on his head and occasionally popping popcorn in her mouth.

"Will you interfere if things go wrong there?" Asty asked.

"Don't worry; it won't reach that point. Just watch, as this will be my disciple's first real battle. Hehe, I'm really excited," Aadi replied as he munched on the popcorn.