Chapter 100: Runes, Part One

It took a while for Diana to calm down. She paced around and murmured some gibberish to herself while Ciaran was making dinner.

"Listen to me Rony, you need to learn runes. If not for your Water and Wind, then for the other elements." She said, trying her best to stay calm and collected.

This got the boy's attention. He always wondered how other mages used multiple elements, even when they were only blessed with one.

If he had access to more, he could have more options, but that came with a price, mastery. For example, Diana was wholeheartedly invested in her Moonlight. Because of that, she was able to make great progress as both a mage and a Warrior.

Ciaran on the other hand was a Duo element user. It gave him more versatility, but it also split his focus in two. Should he try and incorporate even more elements into his repertoire his progress would slow down to a crawl.

He was of course aware of this, but the opportunity to learn new things was mesmerizing. Ever since he experienced Fire through Ariadne, he wanted to make contact himself. The element seemed so different than the ones he knew, and yet, so familiar.

"Where can we get more runes, I want to see if I can use them? I don't like your Moonlight ones. Nothing personal, I just don't feel any resonance." He said as he tried to draw them in the dirt from memory.

He drew lines, and in the beginning, it looked like he would create perfect copies but the final product was just a bunch of doodles.

The boy was confused by that and tried again and again, but the result was the same.

"It's not going to work Rony. You can't just learn a rune, you need to carve it into your soul, or you would simply forget it, seconds after you see it."

"Well, not really forget, as you will have a memory of it. Maybe you would even be able to remember what it felt like, but it will always remain out of reach." Diana said.

She calmed down considerably. Seeing the boy struggle like a normal person for a change was a welcomed sight for her. She did want him to learn, and she wanted to help him achieve whatever he wanted, but she was a Warrior first and a mage second.

Unlike her Martial Rank, her magical one had stagnated. It wasn't about element computability with her, nor was it about comprehension.

If Warriors empowered their bodies by channeling the elements within them, then Mages used their souls to command the elements and manipulate them by casting their 'influence' outside themselves. And therein laid the problem, she had no idea how to do that.

She had asked her grandfather many times, but all he told her was to figure out the small stuff on her own.

Seeing Ciaran have no difficulties with magic, even when he was deprived of all shortcuts stung her pride. Yet, when she saw him struggle, she came back to reality.

'He probably feels the same when it comes to me and my Martial powers.' She thought, as her jealousy faded.

Diana had always been on the top. She was always the prodigy and people were always beneath her. She didn't think less of anyone for it, but she was conditioned by the status quo.

Seeing a boy six years younger than her succussed, and become her equal in magic, even when he was put in a disadvantaged position, had wounded her pride.

But in the end, he was her partner, and his succusses would benefit her as well.

"Ok got one." He spoke.

She looked at his doodles and he did in fact write down a rune. He then wrote it in the air using air magic, and it felt like a rune too.

"The Wind said it's the 'fly' rune. I will give it a test drive after dinner." He said oblivious to his partner's inner turmoil.

After he had his fill, the boy lazed around the fire, his eyes glued to the sky.

"What do you want out of life?" He asked suddenly.

She was startled awake from her daydream of self-pity. She looked at him with a puzzled expression.

"What is your long-term goal, or goals, depending on how ambitious you are. For now, we share a common short-term one, to complete this mission and get the hell out of here, but what then? We both strive to reach a higher rank, to gain more power, but to what end?"

She found his question stupid. Then she thought about it, and there really wasn't any answer she could give him. She strived for power because people would never leave her alone, but they only cared about her because she was powerful, and would grow even stronger in the future.

It was a vicious cycle, and because she was stuck in it, she never truly considered what she wanted to do if the choice was ever presented to her.

"I just want to learn new stuff. Gaining more power is just a bonus. I want to learn magic. I want to learn martial arts. I want to learn science, in all of its forms. I want to learn history, so I can laugh at the mistakes of old people. I want to learn geography by traveling all over the world. And, as my partner, at least for now, I want you to help me achieve all of that."

"But I can't just take from you Diana, that is not how this partnership works, so tell me, what do you want." He stared at her with his brown eyes, that hid both the vastness of the sky and the entirety of the ocean behind them. She couldn't answer him and looked at the ground in shame.

He got up and stretched, ready for some after-meal exercise.

"You don't have to answer me right away, but I want an answer. I look down on ignorant people. I used to pretend I could tolerate them but I can't. So, think about it, and tell me what you want, and I will help you out to the best of my abilities. "

He left her there, sitting on the ground with a face stained with grease and meat in her hand. He casually gave her an existential crisis and flew into the sky to play with his new toys.

'He makes me rethink my whole life, says the nicest thing anyone has ever told me, and all that because he overate and had nothing better to do. Fucking Air-heads.'

Her grandfather had warned her the boy was of one of the most infuriating natures. His Water might have made him, into a natural psychopath, but that was manageable. But his had made him into a true menace. He said what he wanted, and did what he felt like, with no regard for anything or anyone else. Air was truly the most selfish element.

Clueless about just how much his 'small talk' had impacted his partner, he decided to see what using runes would feel like.

His efficiency had gone up. Using 'fly' his speed in the air was much higher. He was able to maneuver better, and he was able to keep his speed and control at a higher altitude. His overall power had skyrocketed but it didn't feel right.

It felt like he was treating his Wind as a tool, and not as a sentient being. Which for a normal person, would make sense, but Ciaran refused to do so. His Wind and Ariadne were the only reasons he survived that hellish mountain, and he refused to simply use them.

He asked the Wind and it answered, but the boy couldn't understand. The answer was too complex, it required far more than a few words, and at his current level that was all the boy could understand.

If he couldn't get a straight answer, he would research it on his own.

He drew the rune again and summoned all of the Wind he could.

"Show me your connection to it. I am too dumb to understand you, so give me a visual demonstration." He ordered out loud.

Diana heard him and was curious about what do boy was doing. He was flying a few meters above the ground; a giant sphere of air was surrounding him. In front of him, there was a glowing Air Rune. The wind intensified and then disappeared, the boy lost consciousness and began falling to the ground.

The Ranger was badly startled, she made a mad dash for him and caught him before he hit the ground. Before she could yell at him, she noticed he was out cold, and she could feel his soul was exhausted.

"What did you do you, moron? How did you even manage this?" She yelled at him anyway.

Soul exhaustion was a phenomenon that happened to magic practitioners when they strained their souls. Ordinarily, it would take someone of Ciaran's caliber weeks of nonstop usage to get to this point, and yet here he was, done and out only after a few seconds of rune reading.