As the intensity of the symbol's shine increased, a vortex formed around as it absorbed the energy in the room.

Seeing what was happening, the three friends couldn't help but keep their eyes wide open, so they wouldn't miss any details.

"We... We did it. We fucking did it!" Travis shouted as he raised his arms in the air.

"This moment will go down in history," Nathan said as he tried his best to prevent the tears from falling from his eyes.

"Yes, but something doesn't seem quite right," Marianne said as she pointed at the wooden plank.

As they looked over the symbol again, they realized that a few cracks had appeared in the wood. Not only that, but some of the symbol's lines were becoming wider than others.

Concerned that something may go wrong, they decided to stop the energy absorption.

Nathan extended his hand toward the symbol and infused it with energy again, making it stop its absorption.

"Shouldn't it release the energy inside?" Travis asked while arching an eyebrow.

"I think it is not happening because it can still contain more energy," Marianne explained.

"But what is going to happen if we infuse it with energy again? Is it going to continue absorbing energy, or is it going to release it?" Travis asked.

"There is only a way to discover it," Nathan said as he injected some energy into the plank again.

After doing that, the symbol resumed its energy absorption from the point where it had stopped. Seeing that, Nathan made it stop again before anything could go wrong.

"Ok, it doesn't release the energy. I think we can confirm Marianne's theory." Nathan said while laughing.

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"Maybe we can release the energy manually," Marianne suggested.

"That doesn't sound like a bad plan," Travis said.

Following that, the three collaborated to release the energy contained within the symbol gradually. Once there wasn't any energy left, the symbol stopped shining, but the cracks in the wood remained.

"Ok. We have a functional symbol, but now we need to fix the problems that appeared after we activated it." Nathan said with a smile."Where should we start?"

"The cracks on the plank seem like the most urgent matter to me," Travis said.

"Yeah, it could be troublesome if the symbol broke into pieces while it contained a large amount of energy." Marianne said while laughing." Maybe we could try to draw it on a more resilient material."

"Not a bad idea. We should test how multiple materials react to the stress of containing large amounts of energy." Nathan said as he began to write on a piece of paper." Anything else?"

"The symbol was deformed at the end. We should try to find the reason why that was happening." Travis suggested.

"I think it may be because we haven't been as precise as we should." Nathan confessed." If you look at it carefully, you will realize that the wood has a slightly different color in some areas around the symbol. I think we have applied energy outside the contour, making it somewhat infused."

"Well, this is the first time we managed to make it work. I'm sure that if we continue practicing, we aren't going to have this kind of problem again." Marianne said.

"Sounds right. Let's try to be as precise as possible from now on then. If the problem continues, we would have to find another reason that could cause that imperfection."Nathan said.

After that, the three friends called it a day and went to rest in their rooms.

The next day, they continued with their experiments.

Knowing how to create functional symbols, they began to draw them on many different materials, such as stone slabs, iron sheets, or fabrics. Soon after, they realized that the results depended on the material and the type of energy they used.

For example, if they created a symbol on a stone and made it absorb earth-energy, there wouldn't be any problem, but if they did the same with wool and fire-energy, the wool would end up in flames before it could finish absorbing the energy around it.

That meant that each time they used the symbol, they would need to consider where they had drawn it and what type of energy they wanted to use.

Also, after many tests, they became much more proficient at drawing than before, and they soon confirmed that the symbols' deformation was because of their own incompetence.

Like that, they continued practicing their skills and developing the creation of runes for the next few weeks.