Middle Finger

After a few hours of practicing that circuit and being sure that it would work in a reduced size, Mack took his dagger and maimed his left middle finger.

Four minutes later, a bloody runic circuit could be seen in his middle finger.

Mack touched his thumb on the back of his fingernail, and the entire finger blinked. That was the signal that the runic circuit was perpetually carved on his own body.

No matter if his nails would grow or his cells get older and die. That circuit would be there forever.

Seeing the circuit was done, It was time for Mack to test if it would work properly.

Every time Mack wanted to activate a runespell, he would need to touch the tips of his fingers with the thumb finger. Then the Compression circuit would activate and 'drain' Essence from his body and compress that Essence. While the runes activated on the finger would change how that compressed Essence worked.

This was possible all thanks to the multilayered design of the circuits. Otherwise Mack would need to carve those runes in other bigger parts of his body. And that would become cumbersome to active during a battle.

Mack could have also opted to carve those runes on tools, using his thumb to activate them. But by doing that he would lose the advantages of his freak body.

If he carver runes on tools than the used Essence for the circuits would be the Essence of the tools or from the environment and they were far less denser than the Essence inside Mack. And he would need to keep carrying all those tools with him all the time. And for Mack, that was annoying as hell.

A rune circuit could 'dictate' what the surround Environment Essence would do. Just like the Forcefield rune circuit that Mack carved. But even those, used Essence as a means for that. The Rune circuit would 'drain' Essence from Mack and change it. Then that Essence would act like a virus, Infecting the surround Essence and telling it to behave in the desired way. If the 'drained' essence was denser than the affected one, the desired effect would be better.

And that was the biggest advantage of Mack freak body.

Mack touched the tip of his middle finger.

~zummmmmmmm~

The 'Forcefield runespell' was activated.

But Mack didn't felt the 'Gravity' increasing like he expected.

"What a heck?"

The circuits were working.

But not as he wished!

[We did not account for that]

Mack suddenly felt his blood churning. Like several ants were crawling over his skin.

"Fuck. Whats this red wind over my hand?"

Mack touched again his fingers, deactivating the runespell, and the weird feeling along with that red wind stopped.

Mack felt slightly tired.

"We tested it several times!"

[Indeed. But not in a living being]

"Lets try to figure what went wrong."

Mack touched his middle finger again and activated the Forcefield runespell.

Mack looked around and could see the grass on the ground slightly moving in a circular pattern around him. Like wind was passing by it. It was the effect of Essence moving quickly on the grass and air.

Mack looked at his hand and arms, and they were covered in a reddish thin layer of wind.

Red Essence?

"Why red?"

[Maybe it's your...]

"Blood!"

"Essence is fucking moving my blood out of my body! Thats why I feel all my body churning!"

Mack touched his finger and quickly deactivated the runespell again.

"What a heck is going on?"

Mack passed his hand over his forehead.

His hand now was covered in red sweat.

Mack approached his hand to his nose and could smell the strong iron odor typical of blood.

He was indeed losing blood through his pores.

"But why? Why is this happening?"

Then Mack remembered the grass moving on the ground.

"Dammed! How could I forget that!"

"Essence tends to occupy all available space!"

[Indeed. It could be the reason. The only difference from the tests to the carved on your body is the source of Essence used. You.]

"Hmm"

[I think it creates an infinite loop of Essence leaving your body. Going 1km away and then trying to congregate more essence in the 10 meters radius. That's the normal expected behavior. But when it reaches the 10 meters radius, it goes to your body. Because it has more 'free space'. Because you are using it and consuming it.]

"Then it start to accelerate the process... leaving more quickly because of the flow...."

[Indeed]

"Just like a whirlpool."

"Shit."

[The more time it's on. The more it will speed up the flow and more blood you will lose per second]

"Until I eventually die. Yeah. I figured. There is no way my freak healing ability can cope with that after a few minutes."

[Correct]

"Do you have knowledge about something like that?"

[Unfortunately no. There are no records about something like that. This is a very peculiar situation. Essence does not flow naturally in mages because their gates are still there. And no warlock ever carved runes on their bodies because they didn't have the need to. They had a clear path. A long and slow one, but very clear and powerful. They did not have reason to do that because their bodies never mutated like yours.]

"And those tattoos in my body? The ones from the book? Was that the first time?"

[Indeed. This was made specially by your ancestor. Otherwise there was no way for me to communicate with you or transport you to the tower]

[In general. Warlocks never use runes. Even for daily tools. They tend to rely on their will the most. That way, even not wanting, they are training.]

"I see. So I'm indeed a freak."

Mack looked at his own hand and could not decide what to do. Should he leave it there and never use that runespell again?

Should he try to adapt that runespell somehow?

"Too much risk. I don't even have an idea of what to do with it."

Mack kept glaring at his left hand.

And his thumb touched his middle finger again.

~zummmm~

Not even two seconds later, a slightly red wind revolved around his body.

Mack looked at his right hand, legs, and torso. All the same. Blood kept leaving his body by the pores and crossing his black battlesuit.

"How it can pass through the battlesuit?"

[The same way normal air can cross it]

"You never told me that."

[You never asked]

"Tsc"

Mack could not believe. Was this Arcane learning how to behave this bad because of him?

"But indeed alien stuff is the best."

Said Mack, slapping his own leg, like one would do to a horse when praising it.

But Mack's hand never touched his own leg.

~stumble~

"What a fuck just happened?"

Said Mack, lying on the ground.

And one second later, the pain in his leg came.

Mack looked at his left leg, and it indeed was his leg. But not in the correct shape.

"Fuck!"

His leg had been broken and looked more like a ragged doll thrown to the side of his own body.

"HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa"

Laughed Mack, assaulted both by pain, surprise and joy, because he could not believe what had just happened.

He broke his own leg with a slap.