10

In a forest a figure was seen racing through the trees dodging various weapons that seemed to emerge from everywhere, the figure like a monkey grabbed a branch using it as a fulcrum turned his body upside down changing his direction in such a miraculous way and headed in the direction most of the weapons emerged from.

Tilting his head slightly a bone spear zoomed past his ear burying itself strongly in the trunk of a tree, a few seconds later Layton finally saw the humanoid figures again, they had four fingers and their skin was a rubber like substance that provided them with a perverted defense and enabled them to throw weapons with enough speed and to span a large distance accurately their skin also secreted a liquid that made it impossible for others to hold their weapons without paralyzing themselves, they were one of the void races that solace had captured and kept imprisoned in his tower, Layton had been thrown to this layer of the tower that housed a semi-plane with a complete eco-system to survive a few days after constructing his rune, he wasn't allowed to bring anything in other than the clothes he had been wearing then and the rules solace had embedded in the semi-plane was one that forbid any outsider from creating any weapon that had lethality and so Layton could only use his runes to survive.

In the past weeks during his exile here his use of his runes started to be proficient domineering color had grown by leaps and bound and he had started to recover 1% of the perception he had when he first used the rune. His color was now in a passive state and was perpetually active the rune was incorporating its characteristics into his soul, so far only his domineering color had been successfully incorporated into the mist, the rest because of his low proficiency had not been able to achieve this.

His perception now covered up to 500 meters anything more than that started being fuzzy, the farther the more unclear it was. His armed color has only been achieving a soul striking effect if he exhausted all of his mist to activate the rune, Soul mist was like mana used by traditional mages that were known in so many works on earth.

His overlord domineering had been greatly discounted when facing this races because they were born in an extreme environment and were a hunting race that always hunted powerful creatures and so weren't affected very much by his overlord, his overlord domineering has only been able to stun them for a few seconds.

Layton activated his overlord to stun the humanoid figures and then burst into full speed heading toward the only one having an ornament on his body, today wasn't his first time running into these creatures so he was a little clear about their characteristics, the figure who wore ornaments was the hunting leader and once the leader was killed the hunt was unconditionally stopped, they returned to their tribe and performed a ceremony to select a new one, of course this wasn't the main reason attacked the leader, the main reason was that any leader selected seemed to have acquired to shield others perception of their figures, if Layton's domineering wasn't strong enough and he could vaguely have a premonition of danger before it happened, Layton would have been killed by this race a large number of times.

With a full burst of speed Layton appeared in front of the leader clenched his fist and activated his rune with all his strength using up almost all his mist, an invisible fluctuation appeared on his fist and immediately his fist came into contact with the rubber like skin the fluctuations ignored the defense and struck the soul directly killing him.

Without looking at the result Layton immediately ran and left the area before the rest recovered from their stun.

Although it seemed a lot of time of passed the truth was the attack had only taken a few seconds, Layton's perverted perception made it that he was able to use minimum movements to achieve the best effect, so no time or unnecessary action had occurred during his counter attack, if Layton was not in solace's tower he had the ability to destroy a kingdom on the plane himself now, on this plane knights did not have any access to supernatural abilities and were only able to improve physique, in other famous planes, knights not only had the ability to influence the element around them they also had life energy that helped temper the body and increased the power of their moves.

In the plane Layton was born the highest a knight could achieve was a grand knight which was not equal to a wizard apprentice, grand knights only had the ability to threaten a few weaker apprentices, Layton was being chased like a dog only because the creature in this layer of solace's wizard tower were too perverted, if any of the creatures escaped it would mean a disaster for any mortal kingdom.

Layton having felt the hunting tribe leave his perception started looking for shelter in which he would spend the night, after some minutes of searching he finally found a somewhat cramped cave that would be able to hold him for the night.

After settling in Layton relaxed and started meditating, although wizards did not use meditation to increase their mental strength again but meditation was still useful, it allowed one to feel their runes more deeply and helped in transforming soul mist making the runes characteristics to be imprinted on it, this was one of the advantages the wizarding profession has once the soul mist had been thoroughly imprinted the rune it would make it very easy for spells to take effect and would have miraculous effects, Layton remembers in one of the miscellaneous notes he found in solace's study that recorded that the mythical wizard Leylin one of the top powerhouses in the void during his apprentice days had used the most common dark element rune but had meditated crazily imprinting all the characteristics of the rune in his mist further transforming his soul, optimizing his common and made him exert a wizard level combat power during his apprentice a feat that only a few rare runes could achieve, the advantage of that action made his wizard path smoother, it's even rumored that if not for Leylin's actions during that time it is unlikely he would have even broken through to a level 3 wizard talk less of becoming a mythical wizard.

Layton had already tasted the benefits of meditation in the transformation of domineering color to a passive ability, Layton was perceiving his rune and its connection to the spirit plane trying to make use of it to improve his overlord, Layton's intuition was telling him that the best way to increase the integration between the rune and his mist was through domineering overlord, Layton kept exploring this obscure connection as he had done numerous nights before flipping through the knowledge he had in his mind trying to find the key he needed to complete the transformation, after a few hours of fruitlessness he stopped and observed the night outside, it was raining and a small stream had formed close to the entrance of the cave, there was a rock in the path of the stream seeing this rock Layton couldn't help but catch a flash of aura,

'that's it cohesion, but overlord is too abstract for me to grasp and forcefully knead together, I need more knowledge, no even without more advanced knowledge I can still knead it' Layton thought his brain turning rapidly, his inspiration talent at work making his mind turn countless faster than normal

'yes, yes if I can't grasp overlord directly I can start with the rest, they are originally one rune I'm the one that differentiated them in the first place, it doesn't have to be exactly like the comics this is a real world now.'

With a joyful gleam in his eye Layton couldn't help but laugh out loud, the problem that had plagued him for weeks was on the verge of getting solved, the past few weeks on the run from various beasts and that hunting tribe had almost grinded Layton's self-confidence to dust, his painstakingly modified rune hadn't exerted the overwhelming effect he imagined something had gone wrong during his breakthrough to become an apprentice his connection to the spirit plane that was supposed to be clear was obscure as he had fainted inexplicably during the test run of the rune, solace had already inspected him and they could not find what went wrong, Layton himself had few memories about the day of his breakthrough, although the event did not reduce the rarity of his rune it still discounted the effect it was supposed to bring, and now after weeks of fighting and painstaking meditation he finally found the dawn again, he confidence restored and it reflected in his aura taking advantage of the opportunity Layton quickly merged all the domineering types together they all integrated smoothly and with his laugh an overbearing aura radiated from him distorting the environment dispersing the rain clouds in the dark night sky and the remnants of the aura radiated outward sending countless beasts in the forest howling with fright, anger and vigilance.