Already?

"Hey kid wake up."

"mmm..."

Cyrus felt a little muddleheaded but quickly brought his attention to his master.

"Come, I think what you need now is some practical experience."

Cyrus quickly got up and followed after Ignatius.

"Coming!"

Cyrus followed after Ignatius and entered a room at the far corners of the mansion, when he entered he discovered a workshop of some kind.

"This room is reinforced so that in the case your runes explode it won't damage the building and put the mortals outside at risk."

Ignatius explained as he pushed a few things around to create room for Cyrus.

"Come sit here. Use your ki and scribe a rune in the air. Lets see... try a fireball rune."

Cyrus nodded and shifted his mind, with his palm facing up a rune of fire manifested above it. When it finished drawing Cyrus activated it with a thought and it turned into a fireball.

"Well... you've already reached Intent stage huh?"

"Master?"

"Ah right, master is ranked roughly into Lesser, Greater, Grand, Completion, Perfect and Divine. Depending on the Law some will have Grand mastery removed since it might be too weak so it has no difference between Grand and Completion. Something like Rainwater has no Grand stage while Water has Grand stage."

Ignatius flicked his hand and a rune manifested next to the fireball.

"Each stage is decided by the attainment you have, Lesser stage needs Intent, Greater stage needs Will and Grand stage needs Soul. Intent is what it means, for the rune to manifest with your intention. Will means that you simply have to will the rune to manifest it and Soul is to manifest it before you can even Will it. The difference is not just speed, but power and accuracy as well."

Many runes formed around the fireball faster than the blink of an eye.

"After the Grand stage it is no longer focused on speed but rather understanding and power. At the completion stage you will be able to manipulate runes anyway you want. With complete understanding of the Law you can shift even the element of a fireball."

One of the many runes surrounding Cyrus's fireball shifted and changed slightly, it then manifested into a blue fireball radiating coldness.

"Despite being a fireball, I changed the element to Ice. See here? It's still fire, but it radiates cold instead of heat."

Ignatius flicked his hand and the Ice fireball was snuffed out.

"At the Perfect stage you will be able to draw out 100% of a rune, lets say a fireball rune. Compared to a Lesser stage like you, forming a 30 cm diameter fireball is probably default for you. For a Perfect stage rune master however, the fireball would be stronger even if they made the same rune as you did."

One of the smaller runes surrounding Cyrus's fireball turned into one of similar size.

"Even with the same size and same amount of Ki inserted it still radiates more heat and power than yours does. The Perfect stage brings out the true 100% of a rune, none of the Ki is wasted in manifesting the rune's effect."

"As for the Divine mastery level... well it's hard to say. One hasn't appeared in generations. Legends say the runes they form can rival a gods but we don't have any information regarding Divine level mastery. We just know it exists."

Ignatius stared at Cyrus for a moment then said, "Come, since you have already reached intent stage it's better to learn to use these runes in combat. This way when you attain Will you'll be able to control yourself in stressful situations."

Ignatius left the workshop and walked to the yard beside the building.

"How do you think us Rune Masters fight?"

"Uhm... using runes to conjure attacks?"

"Well you aren't wrong. However that's too vague, which is kind of perfect. Runes can in a sense do everything. We can summon a storm of blades like a master blacksmith and we can bring forth a tidal wave of flame."

"What limits us Rune Masters are not material like a blacksmith and it is not mana like a mage, instead it is our understanding. How much do we understand these runes?"

Above Ignatius four runes manifested in the air.

"See these runes? With their current orientation they bring forth a tidal wave of fire."

With a snap of his fingers Ignatius activated the runes, a huge wave of fire rushing from the left.

"By understanding the individual runes we can mix and match the runes to our desire. Just by changing the orientation of these four runes I can bring forth instead a flame with the element of water."

On the right an equally big dark blue flame came forth. The two clashed and a fog of steam came forth. A snap resounded and the steam was then pushed into the atmosphere.

"We are not mortals, Cyrus. As Phoenixes, the elements of the world beg for our commands. Unlike mortals we do not need materials to draw our runes on, no need for talismans."

Cyrus hadn't think of it before, they were rune masters. And yet they were inscribing the runes into air itself?

"However do not think this skill is only available to us Phoenixes, as long as one is skillful enough in controlling their Ki they can inscribe Runes into the air too. It is just extremely inefficient. It takes no Ki for us to for runes in the air but for them?"

Cyrus nodded in understanding and Ignatius continued.

"Good. I take it you have finished the books I told you to read in the study?"

"Yes master."

"Then come at me, give me your best shot."

"...Excuse me master."

Cyrus focused his intent to attack his master but nothing really happened, a basic rune of directional intent appeared but there was no attack.

Refocusing his intent, a runic fireball appeared to his left and launched towards his master. Seeing the success Cyrus quickly manifested another rune, changing the composition soon another fireball was sent hurling towards Ignatius the fireball however was six times larger.

Cyrus's thoughts quickly cycled. The larger fireball blocked Ignatius's view of him. Cyrus quickly mixed and formed a rune of water and fire causing an explosion of steam blocking the view further.

Just in time, as the steam exploded the large fireball was snuffed out by a wave of Ignatius's hand.

Cyrus started slowly circling Ignatius in the steam, Cyrus had placed a rune above Ignatius high up in the sky with the invisible attribute so in essence only Cyrus could sense it.

Using the invisible rune to point at Ignatius's approximate location Cyrus circled the rune as he summoned runes that fired icicles at a delayed timing as well as preparing mine runes between him and Ignatius.

Cyrus didn't know if Ignatius was going to move or not, and he wanted to make sure he regretted it.

However this was not enough, after a few seconds of this a sigh resounded from below the invisible rune. The steam was pushed away by the sigh and the runes were damaged and faded away, the mine runes were deciphered the instant Ignatius laid his eyes on them and were subsequently dispersed.

"Well... I can certainly see you have no talent for combat. No matter, you will have to learn eventually."

Cyrus was stunned, the comment on his talent for combat hurt him a little.

"Cyrus this is not a chess game. I didn't even say I wasn't going to move and you simply thought that yourself."

'But you haven't even moved from that spot!'

"Did you think that invisibility rune in the sky was unnoticeable?"

Ignatius snapped his fingers and it dissipated.

"Cyrus, I want a proper fight not one dragged out to eternity. You would just be wasting our time. You are facing ME not someone of your pitiful cultivation level."

Cyrus was feeling a little angry at the comments on his own strength.

Countless smaller balls of flame manifested around him, rushing Ignatius like comets. Ignatius waved his hand a rune manifested as a shield appeared blocking the small comets.

As the tiny comets landed Cyrus pushed his Ki to manifest a giant rune in the air, as the comets ended a giant pike of ice manifested from the giant rune above falling onto Ignatius.

Cyrus didn't take a break and quickly manifested more runes, the ground below Ignatius's feet turned into sand and from the sides the grew tendrils of earth, latching onto his thighs and dragging him down.

Cyrus made sure to hide the runes for the sand transmutation and the earth tendrils inside the materials itself, so Ignatius didn't have direct line of sight to dismantle them immediately.

As a rune appeared above Ignatius again in the form of a shield blocking the ice, Cyrus was not idle. In his mind he quickly compounded the runes for exhaustion, weakness, slowness and heavy together.

When the ice pike made contact with the shield Cyrus quickly cast the debuff rune onto Ignatius, him sinking into the sand was fastened but not by a lot.

Running out of ideas Cyrus compounded the runes air, spear, spin and pierce together. Eight spinning spears of air appeared around ready to launch. Aiming at Ignatius's eyes, thighs, chest, stomach and arms Cyrus launched them all at once.

"Maybe you're better suited to be an elemental master..."

As Ignatius said this a wave of Ki came from him, runes gathered near his eyes as he glanced at the coming spears immediately dismantling them. Another glance at the earth tendril which crumbled and stepped out the sand which was quickly turned back into earth. The ice pike above broke when the shield retaliated with a burst of force, causing it to break into extremely tiny harmless pieces floating down like glitter.

"Well, at least we know your fighting style now."

Cyrus was starting to get a little miffed at the nonchalant attitude of Ignatius and no comment on how good he was.

"Come. Lets return to the workshop."

Back at the workshop Ignatius prompted Cyrus to manifest another fireball rune. Just as Cyrus willed it, a fireball rune appeared in the air.

"Haha, I was right. Tell me kid that rune you did after the tendrils, did you do that in the middle of battle or have you prepared the rune beforehand?"

"In the middle of battle."

"Good! That means you broke through to the Will stage somewhere between the tendrils and that rune. The Will stage isn't all about calling forth runes at will it is also being able to mix and match at will, to a certain extent. Some runes are just too complicated to mix together."