With renewed gumption, Wyatt walked through the forest ground like it was nobody’s business. See a beast? Toss a fire. If it was a wood-type beast, he was going to enjoy the maximum pleasure of on-sight fireworks. If it was any other type, he’d clump together some twigs and branches before shooting out his Primal Fire.
Through experimentation, he quickly found out three things that raised his brow.
The Stamina drain that his Primal Fire required, for one, was massive. Every cast consumed a whooping 500 Stamina. Of course, as beloved as he was by the Main God… he assumed it was the greedy Ambient Mana’s fault. This wasn’t a small drain, as it sapped both his in-game Stamina and his brain power. With his 100 Stamina per minute Natural Regeneration, he needed to be very prudent lest he worsened the throbbing pain that he was still feeling in his head from his transmigration.
From his past life, he also knew that draining his Stamina completely would have grave consequences, especially in combat. He’d be forced to log off while his character would disappear—though not at a speed that would prevent whatever he was fighting from gobbling up his flesh. He wouldn’t wish this on anyone: the piercing pain that came with that wouldn’t be mitigated by the log-out process at all. The player would then be put to sleep with phantom nightmares, a whole new category of short-term mental disease that War of Gods spawned….
Second, he could cast a normal fire by commanding what was now quickly becoming the Primal Fire Runeword in his Mind Space. The Fire Runeword changed every time he used it, morphing into the Primal form. He assumed that this would be true of all his elements, provided that he could draw them completely in the first place.
Anyway, casting normal fires was still possible, although… it turned out to be even more taxing than making a Primal Fire. The reason was that he’d have to rely on his memory from his past life to separate the Primal from the Fire. This taxed his brain, something he’d be happy about on any other day—since it was one of the means by which Mage players could exercise their Cerebral Limiter—except today, with that massive migraine that he was feeling more and more of.
Third, the Primal Fire was special. Wyatt could morph it in many ways, not just in terms of shape, but characteristics, too. This required more experimentation—and even more Stamina, which he didn’t have. Granted, if he could turn his Primal Fire into Void Fires or Quasar Fires…. he’d be swimming in dough!
What was more startling, though, was that after he drew his tenth Primal Fire for the day, something seemed to change. While the Flame Eater Bear on the side was regretting its decision and getting roasted from inside out (smelling quite good, he had to say), Wyatt found that he could see… strange things. Red golden lines that looked like a spider web suddenly appeared, spreading out as far as he could see. They were like the sketching marks of an artist at work, beautiful if rough.
Wyatt’s entire person seemed to change, about him an air of… worldliness? He spread out his Domain completely and was flabbergasted from what he found, or rather, felt.
These lines… were pure Fire Ambient Mana. Nothing more, nothing less.
And from what he knew, there was only one thing that could allow him to see pure elemental Mana: Sainthood!
Saints, or Tier 5 Lifeforms, were no joke. The sheer pain that came with Awakening 100% of a Bloodline alone deterred no less than a few hundred trillion people that had hit the appropriate Transition Trial Level Requirement. Not to mention the difficulty of Sainthood Transition Trials, just that tearing agony from completely Awakening a Bloodline had rendered more than a few hundred million people temporarily vegitative. It was one of the biggest scandals of War of Gods.
And yet, back then, knowing that, more and more players still chose to go headlong into that abyss by the day… precisely because of these lines that he was seeing!
These… were the Lines of Laws!
These Runic Leylines, as they were often called, constructed the very fabric of the Myriad Realms. And the chance to study them, given good enough brain processing capacity, would allow a Saint to affect the laws of any world in War of Gods!
The compilation of insight that only Saints could make using Realm Mana, known as the Saintly Codex, was the tool by which to impress Saintly laws upon reality. Saintly Words from the Saintly Codex, as a result, were precious treasures that few could find and fewer could afford.
The last Saintly Word that a lucky bastard sold to the Secret Dynasty… emptied the entire conglomerate’s coffer. Even then, Louise Conto had been so happy that she’d even invited Wyatt on a space trip!
And now Wyatt was looking at them, not just sensing them as most Great Mages would, but directly looking at them! Provided that he could write his own Saintly Codex, he was guaranteed the path of Sainthood!
This was the second time within one day that he’d realised that, Know-It-All or not, he was already a monstrosity in this new timeline.
“Sigh. What a burden,” Wyatt grinned while he waited for the Flame Eater Bear’s insides to be completely cooked. Bear paws were a delicacy, y’know, the best way to celebrate right now!
｢Killed a Level 4 Flame Eater Bear. Normal EXP +50. Bonus EXP +100. Current EXP: Level 1, 500/2,000.｣
What made Wyatt even happier was the fact that the bear also dropped an Apprentice Robe for Mages. Given how low the Drop Rate was even at the lowest Levels, he was quite happy to don his new gear.
｢Apprentice Robe (Ungraded, Level 1 Robe)
[Requirements]: 15 INT
[Durability]: 50/50
[Physical Defence]: 5
[Magical Defence]: 10
[Attributes]: +5 INT, +5 VIT｣
That and the Miscellaneous Drops aside, his haul had been quite good: he’d got more than 200 Bronze coins to play with. Wyatt looked at the glass house in front of him solemnly. He couldn’t help recalling the imminent beast tide.
. . . . . . . . .
The Village was bustling as per usual, but the atmosphere… didn’t feel quite right. Players were running back and forth. NPCs were shouting at the top of their feeble lungs. Wyatt could even hear screams that he was sure were coming from some player being chased by the Village Guards.
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Some idiot probably fleeced—cough, experimented too much. Their guts must have swollen so big that they even dared to blackmail the only Tier 2 NPCs in a Village, tsk. Wyatt felt like visiting the jails, just to gloat, hehe.
He walked all the way to the Village Square, passing through many of these nonsensical scenes. Wyatt’s black heart completely forgot just how hard it was to kill any mob at these Levels. Last time around he was doing even more negotiating than these guys, only to get thrashed and jailed for a good 3 in-game days.
The Village Square was almost devoid of people except for children. A few mouldy statues stood behind a water fountain that had already run dry. These sculptures were supposed to collect Divine Faith for Gods and sometimes Saints, but judging from how bare the Square was, it was unlikely that these Gods were receiving even the tiniest trickle of Faith.
But it suited Wyatt just fine. He wasn’t here to look at Gods, but rather to work on the new Runeword that he got by levelling.
The Mage closed his eyes and came to his Mind Space again. There was a small Runeword, almost like a child, that orbited the nine elements.
“Condense?” He was a little startled, but not in a bad way. There was another Runeword that had no offensive ability in the early Levels for the first Level Up, but it seemed that his luck was working, hah!
Wyatt—and most Mages—had a love-hate relationship with the Runeword Condense. The main function of the thing was to coalesce elemental-type Mana into liquids and, at the higher Tiers, solids. Most Tier 1 Runeword Combinations had this Runeword mixed in, almost always making the Runeword Combination harder to learn. It also consumed quite a bit of MP.
He closed his eyes as he connected the Primal Fire and the Condense Runes in his Mind Space, a crazy experiment that Wyatt wouldn’t have tried before he could sense the Runic Leylines. Suffice it to say that the consequences without were something he wished on only his worst enemies, or, eh, if a friend wanted an incurable coma….
Runic Leylines weren’t just external things, for they birthed and governed all of the Myriad Realms’ creations. Balancing a Runic connection such as Wyatt was trying to achieve was something basic to the Saints and even Grand Mages that were on the brink of Sainthood. The Lines of Laws could alert those intimate with them of any impending failure, so that they could stop and start over.
Once such a connection was made, it would be simply impossible for these Mages to fail to draw a Runeword Array, which was the basic form of spells at the Grand Mage and Saint Mage Tiers. All this for the simple reason that their Mind Space had established a brain-to-muscle connection that would forever be engraved in their memory.
Without the assistance of Runic Leylines, though, perhaps one in a hundred quadrillion would succeed by pure dumb luck.
What was the use, you ask? Why couldn’t Mages just draw them in reality without having to use the Mind Space connection method?
To understand that, one must understand another mechanic of the game, Runeword Hazarding. Runeword Combinations were complex and even multidimensional, requiring calculations that the normal brain might not be able to perform. Drawing them randomly would create messes so unstable, in most cases, that the resulting explosion and implosion would release terrifying energy, even for Tier 0 Apprentices.
This was the problem with the Mage Class. None of the other Classes had to perform Runeword Hazarding. In other words, they didn’t have to risk their lives for a chance of learning a skill. Warriors, for example, were tied to Divine Tattoos, which were words from the Divine Language of the Karstisar. The Warrior Temple taught their kind to etch these Tattoos onto their bodies for a fee. And they were fundamentally different from Runes, too, because Runes were characters that needed to be connected to form words, or Runic Combinations and Arrays, while the Tattoos were ready-made tools that could enhance a Warrior’s attack or defence.
Of course, the tradeoff went both ways. Warriors had less variety—and money—as a result, while Mages could perform almost any spell that they could conceptualise and successfully Hazard.
Still, the terrifying consequences of a failed Hazarding wasn’t something NPCs could bear. This was one of the reasons why NPCs like the Village Chief Lady Margaret was so exceptional, even though she showed herself to only be a Great Mage. In fact, if one could settle down in a City that was guarded by a Mage-type Magistrate, it would be hard for any investment to fail, simply because the City would be just that safe.
To players, the game was quite lenient in this aspect. Apprentice Mages were granted three chances per Level with no penalty of failure. They could experiment in any which way they wanted without the fear of killing all the NPCs and players present and becoming wanted criminals with sky-high bounties. Official Mages, or Tier-1 Mages, had two chances per Level, while Tier-2 Great Mages had none—another reason why Wyatt was so ecstatic over his ability to perceive Runic Leylines.
Speaking of, one of the most lucrative professions in the post–War of Gods Milky Way was Runeword Hazarding. Players could, by paying a certain price, strip their own memory of a Runeword Combination and put that up for sale. Twenty some years later, at Wyatt’s last information reading, the daily transaction value of the industry was over 100 quadrillion Credits….
Wyatt’s mind connected the two Runewords Primal Fire and Condense like tentacles of an octopus pulling debris of two boats, one massive and one tiny, together. The first time around, he failed barely 5 seconds in. He knew the general theory: he’d have to collect parts of the two Runes and then bind them together, making a… third… connected… Rune—shit!
Wyatt facepalmed. It was the same as that first time, when the Ambient Mana engraved the Primal Runeword onto his own Fire Runeword! Quickly recalling the sensation that he’d prudently recorded when the two Runewords first merged, he tried again.
This time, instead of drawing parts of the two Runewords together, he instead etched out Primal Fire first, then overlaid Condense on top.
20 seconds passed, then a minute, then five. Wyatt’s forehead beaded with sweat, but his face showed an ecstatic expression. It was working!
Just when he wanted to celebrate, the Runewords became unstable, then—
BOOM!
“Arghhhhhhh!”
A soul-rending pain shot through his already throbbing head.
｢Warning: Your Combinatory Runeword is unstable and will be erased from your Mind Space in three… two… one. Player detected to have opened the Runeword Hazarding system. As you are using a higher-level technique to combine Runewords, your Hazarding Chances will be halved. You currently have 5/6 chances left at your current Level.｣
Wyatt’s headache subsided after two minutes. His hair was dishevelled, his eyes bloodshot. His fist was clenched so tightly it was bleeding.
“Fuck this!” he said. A bestial anger washed over him, his aura radiating out. The kids that were playing on the Village Square were terrified. Many of them… just wetted themselves on the spot.
“What’s going on here?” asked an approaching Village Guard in his gruff baritone.
Wyatt slowly unclenched his fist. His face curling into a smile, he turned and waved his hand in greeting, “Mr. Guard, how are you?”
“Did you do this?” asked the Guard coldly.
“Do what?” Wyatt blinked innocently.
“Did you terrify our kids?”
Ya, I did, what’chu gon’ do, you gimp?! The Mage snarled inwardly. On his punchable face was still a smile, though that suddenly changed into a grimace, then a sob…. “I’m sorry, Mr. Guard. I lost my temper a bit just now. Got some bad news from the frontier, y’know. My… my… my wife… she….”
“Oh, fuck, not this again?!” the Guard mumbled, not knowing what to do. Wyatt smiled inside. Anyone else might have missed it, but not an expert with a Domain. It seemed that this sort of excuse was quite nifty, he noted. The Guard, on the other hand, turned awkward. Then brimming with pity, he patted Wyatt’s shoulder as he looked ahead at the statues. “She’s gone to the Gods. You need not worry, my friend. I’m sure her sacrifices would see her through their Divine Kingdoms.”
“Yes, yes,” Wyatt nodded. Hehe, if only Divine Kingdoms were that simple. The Guard picked up the kids with his… buff arms and made a quick exit.
Wyatt’s smile disappeared afterwards. Questions after questions occupied his head.
First, what was this Combinatory Rune thing? Was it something he should still pursue? “Primal Fire” was one, he just knew, but why hadn’t he heard about any of these in his past life? Mind you, the Secret Dynasty network was wide and covered tens of Realms, with dozens of Gods among its members. To remain unknown even by the Gods… he realised he’d just stumbled upon a massive secret.
Second, if Grand Mages and Saints didn’t use Combinatory Runes, how exactly did they connect these Runes? Wyatt had branded himself as smart when he thought of this method, but it seemed that this was something not even Saints had done! Why not? And was it something that they looked down upon, something to be rejected?
All the more: why did Wyatt feel, very much instinctively, that Combinatory Runes were the best form of Runic connections?