The Pope’s Runic Force Experience (1)

In the afternoon the pope went back into the white palace and got inside his work room. Today will be his last day to work as the pope, tomorrow he will only be grandpa Auguste. Even on his last day many papers still piled up on his desk. He needs to read it one by one and sign it, in some cases the pope needs to send some personnel to investigate it.

As this is his last day, the pope decided to look into things more seriously as he does not want to leave too many problems for his colleague who will be his temporary substitute to manage the church until an appropriate successor is chosen. The pope actually still has a good successor, his children, Cardinal Arthur and Cardinal Sera, but both of them have their own duty. The pope finally decided to choose a younger successor this time.

The pope, hoping that the holy one will guide them to him, a good candidate that can help manage the church, the pope decided to wait until the best one can be found in the church younger generation.

'The best choice is to wait until we find some young members from the church branch all over the human domain to awaken the highest tier holy element runic crest. All the cardinals have the highest tier holy element runic crest, but the church needs the one who it can trust. A young one is the most appropriate because the church can guide them and foster a sense of belonging to the church.'

Someone knocked at the door while the pope was still thinking in his mind. Looking at the door the pope realized that it's already this time of the day. He can see a young man coming into the room while bringing some snacks and tea.

"Good afternoon grandpa, I've just heard the helicopter sound a while ago and know that you should already be back home. As always, this time of the day is our afternoon tea time, I've already prepared honey milk cookies and jasmine tea which is your favorite."

"Thank you little Zeon, you are always good at making this cookie, how's your day?"

"Same as always, doing my training routine every morning, but from today on I have Li and Toast to train with, it won't be lonely with them accompanying me to play around. I've also tried the runic force training equipment in our training facility today, it's hard to increase the runic force power, is there an easier way to do it grandpa?"

"It's not easy if you want to hone the runic force in your body. As you know not everyone has the chance to master the runic force. The chance of someone to master the runic force is different between each person, usually it depends on how well off their family condition is. Your body needs a balanced diet with a lot of nutrients and you need to train your body each day without break. It's better if your parents have the runic force, usually you will also have a higher chance to master it. Which version of the runic force training room have you already tried?"

"The room with the huge boxing gloves and the robot with weapons."

"Hmm.. I see, you should try all of them, maybe you will find at least one as your specialty. Everyone has their own way and view of things. As you already tried them you should already know 2 versions of runic force application."

"Can you explain it from the beginning grandpa? Although I already know some things, maybe with your experience and explanation, I'll find something new to learn."

"Our scientists from the old days formulated that humans are born with natural runic engravings inside their body. These runic engraving is composed of seven major points in our body. They are located in our head, our hands, our feet, our heart, and our stomach. They connected to each other from our head until our feet. They are still incomplete, it's only a major point similar to a boulder without anything on it."

Grandpa Auguste looking at Zeon as always writing important explanations on his little note, he takes the jasmine tea that Zeon made and takes a sip while enjoying the aromatic scent from the tea. Grandpa Auguste put the tea on the table and continued with his explanation.

"But eventually this is just some empty passage without anything else. It needs some fuel to activate it. The fuel came from the universe itself, our scientists call them dark matter. Dark matter is a component of the universe that is scattered in space. There are only some fragments of it that can get into our planet. Our body will naturally absorb this fragmented dark matter to automatically fuel the runic engravings. A complete major point, a complete connected passage, and a fully fueled runic engravings will generate what we call runic force. Our scientist has found a better way to accelerate this process by growing a healthy body. That's why we need to have a well balanced diet and train our body. The boulder will automatically be carved as we grow but the process will be faster if we do those things. The more intricate the carving is, the higher chance it will give birth to something else that we call a runic crest."

"That's a lot of information, grandpa. So that means in space there will be more of this fuel and humans can be stronger if they can absorb the dark matter directly from space?"

"That's what the theory says, but as you know, humans can't breathe in outer space. There is no oxygen in space, but those beings can definitely do it, the being that we call as gods. Actually, our federation has learned from the dwarves and the elves that there are some creatures or races who can wander around the space with their body. Naturally they are super strong creatures and we hope that we will never meet them."

Zeon definitely understands what those beings that his grandpa doesn't want to explain. They are a higher life form different from what humans have ever faced before. The closest one similar to those higher life forms that humans ever faced is the demon. The one who comes to earth is only the lower ranked demon. As the gods need excitement and entertainment, they won't allow a race to get wiped out easily without any fight.

"That's scary grandpa, I hope the holy one will always protect our safety. What about the application of runic force?"

"The first runic force application is to enforce our body with runic force. Usually people will clad all over their body with runic force like wearing a coat. This is okay, but from my experience it will consume a lot of fuel. As everyone has different dark matter absorption, we should use it wisely. For a stronger person like me, it's okay to do that, but there's a way to make this body reinforcement more effective by focusing the runic force into one part, the highest point is to focus the energy into one major point."

"What's the difference between one part and one major point grandpa?"

"One part for example when you focus the runic force into your hand, the runic force will wrap it like a glove, this is good but there is still some wasted fuel in it because some part of it is still flowing in the passage. One major point is the hardest, even I can't do it as in this state you need to collect the fuel in one point. For example you can catch a reinforced bullet with two fingers and defend a sword with one finger."

"Alright, I understand. That's really cool!"

"The second runic force application is to enforce the weapon with runic force. The principle is the same with the body. The more concentrated part is enforced with the runic force, the more power that can be exerted from it. For example when slashing with a sword, rather than imbuing the whole sword with the runic force, you can enforce the sharp position that you used to slash. Another version is stabbing with a spear, you can enforce only the edge of the spear to pierce even the hardest defense. This version of application is the most popular one as weapons are always stronger than the human body, especially a higher grade artifact."

"Then what do you think about shields as a main weapon grandpa?"

"As the wise man said that the best defense is a good offense and I also think so. Shields are good but they are not as versatile as other weapons. I recommend you to use a sword or spear. Their attack pattern is better than a shield or a gun. Of course the best one is our own body. If you can make your body as hard as a shield and sharper than a sword then that would mean you already go beyond what a normal human could do. Sadly no human has ever reached this state with their body alone, but it's not impossible. The biggest possibility is an item from another planet or item from the god's shop."