Return of the Runebound Professor

Noah carved every single one of Alexandra’s body runes out of her. He’d fully expected to have to stop when she had one or two of them left, but her soul was a lot more resilient than he’d thought.

By the time he was done, only a two runes remained within her — a plain Rank 3 Fire Rune and the Master Rune, Earthen Muster. Noah couldn’t tell exactly how, but he could feel that Earthen Muster hadn’t been used much yet. Its connection to Alexandra felt… weak, for lack of a better word. She’d clearly trained with it, but there was no strong connection between them. That was a question for another day.

As a result of his work, her soul had been riddled with hairline cracks. They grew to large fissures toward the edges of the mountain. The gentle wind around Noah and Alexandra had picked up to a howling gale.

Her soul was heavily damaged, but she’d made it through. Noah didn’t waste a moment in pouring energy from the Fragment of Renewal into Alexandra’s body the moment his work was done.

There was a chance he could have cut out her final rune as well — it was far from Flawless — but there was simply no point. She probably could have pushed through one more application of Sunder, but there was no way she could have managed to form replacement runes in this state.

Alexandra let out a hiss of pain and relief as the pearly-pink energy from the Fragment of Renewal coiled through her soul and caressed the top of the mountain. It poured into the cracks covering the ground and began to slowly stitch back together the immense amount of soul damage.

“I can’t believe it,” Alexandra muttered, sweat rolling down the side of her face as she looked on in awe. She knelt beside a crack as it sealed, running her hands over the surface of her soul. “Damage like this… it should have taken years to heal. And yet I was expecting so much more. Removing six of my seven runes and not ripping my soul apart shouldn’t have even been possible.”

“You didn’t think it would succeed and you still let me do it?”

Alexandra gave him a one-shouldered shrug. “It was worth the bet. There’s no point to life if you can’t continue improving. I was going to die one way or another, and you told me to trust you. I did.”

“You might have your priorities a little screwed up.” Noah shook his head and let out a small chuckle. He could feel Empty Proliferation’s power starting to wane. He’d been working on Alexandra for quite a few minutes now, and it wouldn’t be long before their time was up. Noah took one last look around her soul to make sure everything was healing properly, then adjusted his jacket. “There are a few things we have to briefly talk about before we return.”

“What are they?”

“Well — this one might be obvious, but I’ll say it anyway. You’re going to have to be careful. Your soul is incredibly weakened from where it was. Don’t let yourself forget.”

“You mean the soul damage? Can you not fix all of it? I thought it would—”

“It’ll be patched up within a few hours, but that’s not what I’m talking about. You don’t have Body Runes anymore, Alexandra. That means you can’t do a lot of what you once did. No more taking spells or blows straight to the face. Let the others know immediately so none of them accidentally run you through.”

“Right. I know. Probably a good idea to let them know I’m weakened, though. I’ll do that.”

“Good. And one more quick thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Think on what your new rune will be. I’ll be removing that Fire Rune as well.” Noah gestured over to the last of Alexandra’s original runes. It floated, flickering innocently, unaware of its imminent fate. “You’ll need a replacement. Something that really fits you. I’ll be able to help you make it, since we’ll obviously want a Flawless Rune.”

“Flawless?” Alexandra frowned at tilted her head to the side. “You mean perfect?”

“Oh, no. Flawless runes are better than perfect ones.” Noah waved his hand dismissively. “Perfect runes are only balanced in a single phase, while Flawless ones are perfect in all phases. Moxie and I figured it out a bit ago, so we can’t have you running around with a subpar rune.”

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Alexandra stared at him. “What?”

“Flawless Runes are—”

“No, I got what you said. But are you seriously telling me that there’s a version of a Rune that’s even better than perfect?”

“Yeah. But that really isn’t all that important. I need to talk about—”

“Not important?” Alexandra exclaimed, flinging her hands up into the air in disbelief. “After what you just showed me, I don’t even doubt you’re telling the truth. But how can you casually mention that you’ve got something that the noble families would go to war for?”

“Oh, I’m sure at least a few of them have figured it out by now.”

Alexandra’s eye twitched. “How significant is the difference in power between a Perfect and Flawless rune?”

“Magnitudes, I’d guess.”

“I’m going to faint.”

“Then I probably shouldn’t tell you about the other thing I figured out.”

Alexandra froze in place. Her gaze bore into Noah’s like two beams of molten lava. “There’s something else? Now you’re just pulling my strings.”

“A Fragment of Self. Every single being has one,” Noah said. “I won’t get into all the theory right now, but I think you more than any of the other students will need one.”

“You really need to slow down,” Alexandra half-begged. “What do you mean every being has one? You’re telling me I’ve got a whole extra rune that I don’t know about?”

“Yes. Please try to keep up. We’re low on time. Everything alive has a Rune of Self — well, except for demons. They had a fragment of someone else, but I’ve fixed that bit too.”

Alexandra swallowed heavily. “Demons—”

“Not important right now. Another time. What is important is that if you can manifest your Fragment of Self and imbue your own soul with it, you’ll solidify your connection between your body and your runes.”

“You mean I’ll basically become a demon?”

“A pseudo-demon, yes. You won’t get controlled by your emotions as far as I can tell, but your reaction speed and physical prowess will skyrocket. It’ll be like your whole body got unlocked for the first time.”

“That… sounds incredible,” Alexandra muttered. “How do I get it?”

“That’s the problem. You’re going to have to do some soul searching. Literally, mind you. Best I can tell, you need to perfectly understand yourself. Then when you do, you use the 3 basic components of rune creation—”

“Creation?” Alexandra exclaimed. “You can make runes? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Yes. Sorry, I skipped that bit. There’s a lot I’m trying to cram into a few minutes.” Noah snapped his fingers to pull Alexandra’s attention back to him. “The components are intent, an event that incites the rune’s creation, and the energy to condense into a pattern. Are you with me?”

Alexandra gave him a weak nod. More cracks pulled shut around her soul and she fought to gather her words for a few moments. “Yes. I think so. That’s another secret that the noble houses would murder entire cities for, by the way. Just in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t. I would appreciate you not sharing anything I tell you here with anyone. Not even Todd and Isabel or the other students. They know most of it, and I’ll tell them the rest as soon as I can. I just don’t want you speaking about it where anyone might be able to overhear.”

“Right,” Alexandra said, her voice as soft as a mouse’s squeak. “No talking about the earth-shattering revelations that you’re hitting me with one after the other. Even if I wanted to say anything, I might not get a chance to after you give me a heart attack. You’re sure the noble families aren’t aware you know of this?”

“They don’t. They’d have their dogs kicking down my door if they did — but if I’m honest, I don’t give much of a shit about those incompetent idiots at all. Now, what I do care about is the hard part of our original topic. I haven’t actually figured out how a human can make a Fragment of Self.”

“What do you mean? Don’t you have one?”

“Yes. I do. The method I used probably won’t work for anyone else, though. I had to use the magical energy that makes up my creation in order to do it. So that’s what I’m entrusting you with. I want you to deeply think on how you could get an event that will let you form a Fragment of Self.”

“Hold on. Please, just hold on a moment.” Alexandra raised her hands before her. “If I understand what you’re saying, I need to find some event that I can use as… what, a burst of energy to guide the creation of a rune?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Then what in the Damned Plains is ‘the magical energy that makes up your creation’ and why can’t I just use that?”

“I’m really scatterbrained today. I’m sorry. Escaping from the Damned Plains must have scrambled my head a bit. The energy I was referring to is the power that gathers around me after I kill myself.”

“After you kill yourself?”

“Ah, yes. I’m not sure if I mentioned, but I’ve died a few hundred times since arriving at Arbitage. I believe I’m functionally immortal.”

And with that, Alexandra — whose mind must have been under an immense amount of stress from all the Soul Damage it had just taken — finally lost her battle against the inevitable.

She fainted.

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