My spar with Aurel ended just like the previous one, it was an overwhelming victory for me. Aurel was much less displeased this time, but the recruits still looked very shocked. Since I was using a spear, I tried to emulate the leader, striking with my body and not just my weapon. Aurel coped better since he knew what to expect, but the spar wasn’t long, ending when I disarmed Aurel.

“I must say, fighting you again, you still have some ways to go before you reach the leader’s level,” Aurel said with a grin as we made our way to the lake to wash our bodies. Aurel was sweating profusely, but I wasn’t; I needed to wash to stench of alcohol from my body though.

“I know. By my estimate, I now have a much more powerful baseline as far as physical ability goes, but his technique is levels above mine,” I said, thinking back to the time we’d sparred against the leader. At the time the leader didn’t just dominate due to the advantage his physical ability afforded him, his technique also shut down any chance we had of putting up a fight, although, at the time I was proud of myself for faring better than Aurel did.

“It’s hard for me to say, after all, at my level I can’t tell how far apart you are physically, but I can say with certainty that your technique is lagging behind,” Aurel said, a serious look on his face as he tried to analyze the fights through memories that no doubt our discussion brought up.

“Where are you meeting the little demon?” Aurel asked as we dried our bodies after washing on the lakeside.

“The library. I’ll be heading there as soon as I change my clothes,” I said as I put on the clothes I wore last night, the unmistakable stench of stale alcohol and smoke assaulting my nose.

“The rain festival will probably start soon, what gifts have you prepared?” Aurel asked, fully clothed this time and heading to the sleeping quarters with me.

“I’ll probably just offer the same as the last one,” I said, thinking of the game I’d have to hunt soon.

“Don’t forget to invite me to the hunt then,” Aurel said.

“I won’t,” I said as I entered my sleeping quarters.

Once I changed my clothes I made my way to the library, in there I found my sister and her ward seated in the general area, Edmund’s grimoire laid open on the table in front of them.

“So, what did you discover?” my sister asked me as soon as I sat down beside her on the long chair she and her ward were seating on.

I took a moment to organize my thoughts before I answered, “As it turns out the blasphemer that wrote the book I told you about last night also wrote this grimoire.”

“Ooh! So, did that book provide any insight?” my sister asked.

“What?! Sire, you read a book written by a blasphemer?” my sister’s ward interjected before I could answer. I could only smile awkwardly as I understood all too well what the girl must be feeling as she heard my words; I could hardly believe it myself—me, Silas, had read a book written by a blasphemer.

“Aoirsha, you be quiet,” my sister said to her ward before turning to me, “well, did it?” she asked again.

“It wasn’t really a scholarly book, so I could be misinterpreting what was written, but yes, it did shed some light on the problem,” I answered.

To the side Aoirsha had a little pout on her face, obviously a little displeased by the whole situation. It was hard to tell what displeased her more, my sister commanding her to be quiet or learning that I read a book written by a blasphemer.

“So, what did you learn?” my sister asked, focusing her attention on me, the book on the table, and Aoirsha who sat opposite us now afterthoughts.

Poor Aoirsha, she must've come here to learn from Minerva, but it looks like she won’t be learning anything, I mused, “but I suppose this discussion could be educational.”

“From the way you described the problem father encountered, it seems the issue lies in how the runes are conjugated,” I began, wetting my lips with saliva, “as you probably already know, complex runes with multiple functions are broken into different sets that give specific commands; the problem is how to properly conjugate these different sets of commands into one whole set made up of multiple different sets.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Oh!” My sister—excited as she was—almost jumped off her seat as realization dawned on her, “so you're saying just inscribing the runes as separate independent commands is what is causing interference in the mana supply?” she asked, her voice noticeably excited.

Aoirsha, realizing she could learn a thing or two from our discussion listened with great attention, her eyes focused entirely on me, neck strained as she stretched it towards my direction, waiting just as eagerly as my sister for an answer. I couldn’t help but smile; even though Aoirsha was older than my sister and me, she still had traits of a child, I thought it was cute.

“Yes, the runes have to be combined into one, and there are apparently special phrases and words that can be used for that purpose—though I found none in that book, perhaps they might be written somewhere in this grimoire,” I said, turning my attention back to my sister as I spoke.

“So, that’s why mana was distributed unevenly, hmm,” my sister muttered, her chin held between her thumb and index finger, head slightly down as she got lost in her thoughts.

Sensing an opportunity to interject, Aoirsha asked, “Sire, I don’t get it, why can’t the runes just be inscribed as independent commands?” her soft melodious voice a whisper as she tried not to distract my sister from her thoughts.

“The runes have to direct the flow of mana along a designated path for the magic to be cast, even though a mage still has to control the flow of mana, we do not control which channel it flows through,” I replied, whispering unconsciously, “So, since runes create only a single mana channel, that channel ends up supplying mana to the whole multitudes of commands.”

Aoirsha was nodding along as I spoke, but she had a slight frown on her face that betrayed her, it let me know that even though she was nodding, she didn’t exactly understand what I was saying.

“With simple runes it is easy, they contain only a single command so a single mana channel is enough, but, with complex runes it is different; complex runes contain multiple commands, if a single mana channel has to provide mana to all those commands, there will be issues where one command line stops and another begins,” I added.

Aoirsha nodded her head, the frown on her face finally gone, indicating that she now fully understood what the problem was.

“Alright, let's work hard Silas,” my sister finally said, breaking her silence. She grabbed the grimoire on the table, dragging it over so I could view its content too; poor Aoirsha who sat opposite us couldn’t read the grimoire at all, but she didn’t look too bothered by that.

“What about Aoirsha?” I asked my sister as I felt too bad leaving her sitting opposite us idly.

“This might be too difficult for her to understand. Aoirsha, do you remember the basics symbols of runic magic?” my sister asked Aoirsha.

“Yes, there are thirty-eight,” Aoirsha answered my sister.

“Your task today is to form commands using those symbols, you aren’t allowed to replicate any already known commands, you must make new ones,” my sister said to Aoirsha before turning her attention to the book on the table.

“How far have you gotten?” I asked my sister, trying to figure out what page she was on. Instead of answering she flipped the pages and settled on the last page she'd read and I discovered I had read ahead of her.

“Is this good? Should I go back?” she asked me, “No, it's fine, let's read from here,” I answered.

My sister and I exchanged ideas and shared our opinions as we both read. Since I'd already understood the principles of constructing runes it was not hard at all for me to pick out examples of conjugated runes, and deconstructing the runes we eventually found some conjugating phrases.

We faced a little difficulty trying to figure out the functions of those phrases besides tying two or multiple independent sets of commands together; we knew since there were multiple phrases to use there must have been a system of selection, but figuring out that system didn’t come easy.

Time ticked by and before long the sun had set. Aoirsha had left earlier, and from the look Bor was giving us it was very clear our presence was no longer welcome at the library—the poor old man was too polite to say anything—so I asked my sister to stop here. As things stood we'd learned some of those important conjugating phrases, figuring out which to use in what context was the problem we needed to solve now and I knew that would take some experimenting.

“Do you think we could try out some runes tonight?” my sister asked me.

It was a question I expected, one I would've asked myself had my circumstances been slightly different, but having been awake for so long now I thought it wise to sleep tonight even though I wasn’t feeling any fatigue. I was like my father in that I could get absorbed by research, but I was still determined to keep myself in good physical condition at all times, this was basic for warriors.

“I didn’t get any sleep at all the previous night, so I need to call it quits here, and from the look Bor has been giving us for some time now I think it would be better if we ended it here for now,” I answered my sister's question, getting up as soon as I finished talking.

My sister looked in the direction of Bor, then around the library only to discover that we were the last ones remaining, “Ah! Where did the time go? I didn’t know it was so late already. You're right, let’s end it here for now,” she said, closing the grimoire and getting up as she talked. I waited just at the exit of the library for her as she returned the grimoire to its place on the shelves and we both left.

Back within the confines of my sleeping quarters, laying on my side I started to organize my thoughts. While we hadn’t made any significant breakthroughs, we'd made good progress and I felt there was just a little bit more to go; we were so close.