Chapter 20: To eat everything one has to offer

Three years past since he had entered the academy. Sitting atop a branch of the large tree outside his dorm Aion sweated profusely. Having just completed the twenty seventh rune, making him evenly matched with those at the ninth level of the primary rank in the human stage. 

With the twenty seventh rune completed he would now be able to use minor teleportation and the runes as a medium for a holding bag. According to the book he would be able to teleport a distance of one meter and hold up to two cubic meters of things inside his personal holding bag space. 

Unfortunately because of the hunger and pain he felt, Aion was in no mood to attempt anything new, instead he headed to the cafeteria where the academy provided food for the students. 

He was rather well known as the Soul Rune technique grew his appetite by a small margin every time it was used, and immediately after it was used Aion would have to eat at least six times his normal amount. 

In the academy Aion was known as the Gluttonous Knight. Nicknames were generally given to those of great merit or strong individuals, for example Bar was titled the One Armed Sword. But Aion received his as a form of mockery from the other knight department students. 

Reaching the cafeteria Aion ordered enough food for fifteen people and began to eat like a starved beast. This sight to the other students wasn’t anything new as he had done this multiple times throughout the years. 

“Aion every time you eat like this you seem to have reached a new level, I've been wondering for a while now but what kind of technique do you practice that does this. Usually the higher you go the less you have to eat.” 

Zack sat by Aion and began speaking without expecting a reply, he knew that when Aion ate this way little could distract him. 

“Un.” 

“Little Bro that doesn’t answer anything. But that's not a problem because we have Clad coming next month and from what I've heard she can force you to clarify everything. Although having to deal with her is kinda a pain, you know she’s too blunt about everything.” 

Remembering her Aion had to agree although he didn’t really notice at the time he realized that Clad was completely blunt in all her statements. 

“Practice.” Zack looked at Aion who just stood up. 

“Aren’t you a bit too diligent, and why do you hide your presence all the time aren’t you a knight? Sigh whatever, after these three years I still can’t figure out your core’s level, rank, or stage.” Aion smiled as he didn’t have a core and was still able to fight evenly with all the other students, in fact his speed could be called extraordinary. 

In comparison to Iris he was still considered somewhat faster as he had caught up to her today and reached the twenty seventh rune putting him on even ground with her, who had just reached the ninth level in the primary stage. He would always be up to date on her because they exchanged letters that were delivered by a certain senior assassin. 

His speed in healing his soul went up as his understanding increased and every time his soul recovered it would grow slightly stronger making it easier to heal. 

“I’m an assassin.” Zack hearing this laughed. 

“You’re the only one who thinks that all the other knight students see you as a knight and are after you because of that. But that's not important your eleven now and the other Knights are gonna be bringing their mounts from now on so its going to be harder for you without one.” 

This was something Aion had been long prepared for as Melli had reached the peak of the third rank and could put any beast under heavy pressure with its soul after that it would just be a fight between Aion and his opponent. 

“Un, prepared.” 

“Good, while me and Big Bro Bar can protect you sometimes we can only stop those in a higher rank than you, if we stopped everyone it would make you look weak.” This was something Aion was used to normally he would be challenged by noble students of all the departments and someone would only interfere if an intermediate or advanced rank were to step in. 

Lisa sat in her office grinning, in these three years the number of students requesting to leave the knight department had greatly lessened. The reason was quite obvious to anyone, all the attention of the nobles was focused on Aion who time after time would defy their orders and beat them for obstructing his path. 

The only complaint she could have was that his preference went towards hand to hand or a dagger combat. And although she could not tell what level his core was in, the Senior Assassin Instructor told her that he reached the eighth level a while ago. 

After a year or two more she even planed on taking him as her personal student, no other knight instructor would take him because of his weapon choice. This year the students would begin training in mounted combat and cooperation with their contracted beast, so Lisa was planing on helping Aion acquire a suitable one. 

Aion now full and rested went into his dorm room to test the usage of arrays trough his runes instead of  forming them with elemental energy. First he focused on the three sets of nine runes on his body one on each arm and one on his back. 

After focusing on the runes Aion found that the first of every third rune represented the holding bag array and activated it instantly, putting a shirt he held in his hand into the space inside the runes. 

By focusing on the runes he was also able to feel what was inside and was surprised by the size of it, the space was not two cubic meters but six. That was three times the amount said in the book. 

Thinking about it Aion immediately focused on the minor teleportation runes which were every third rune. Focusing Aion was able to teleport about three meters. Smiling Aion laughed, this was much better than he had first expected as the Soul Rune technique had constantly let him down in terms of raw strength it made up for it in the use of arrays through runes. 

After five teleportations Aion was thoroughly exhausted. For teleportation five was the limit before he would fall from exhaustion, for the holding bag he could not feel anything from using it. 

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Quickly falling asleep in his bed Aion entered his soul. Inside his soul Alexander sat silently, at first he continually yelled about a deal or threatened Aion with the destruction of his family but that was pointless and he was ignored. 

Currently Aion was thinking of what his next two arrays would be. Through the use of the gray energy Aion figured out that it could be used to activate all arrays but in a much weaker form.  Both darkness and holy element arrays were the only elements that were not weekend greatly, losing only about twenty percent of its effectiveness. 

Because of this he decided that he would use a healing third rank array and a shadow chains array. These were sensible and well thought out as both would benefit him greatly. 

“Aion I have an offer, you seem to be quite interested in arrays and such. I was forced to memorize three rank seven arrays and forced to completely understand one of those. Aside from that I have the churches holy element technique Angel’s Wings. If you let me go in a similar form that your teacher left I'll give and explain these to you.” 

This was the first time that Aion had been interested in one of Alexander’s deals. All other deals consisted of empty promises in the form of material wealth. Considering the deal it didn’t sound bad after all he would lose nothing from having Alexander leave his soul and having a seventh rank array throughly explained to him might help his understanding of arrays that stagnated on the fourth rank. “Un, first teach then release.” 

“Good, you've finally listened. As for what body you put me in it doesn’t mater as long as it's the most long lived available.” Alexander reasoned that his lack of talent in cultivating elemental energy would be solved as long as he had time, he knew that some elemental beast could live hundreds of years without reaching the grand stage. 

“Un.” Alexander smiled as he planned to kill Aion and his Grandfather as soon as he had enough strength. But because of that very grandfather he wasn’t willing to risk giving Aion fake arrays or a fake cultivation technique. 

“Then let's start with the technique, memorize it then we’ll continue on to the arrays.” Having said that Alexander focused on materializing the book and holding it while Aion memorized it. This was easy for Aion, after all he memorized all the arrays in the library before being able to understand the content. 

“Now that your done, memorize the first array then materialize it while I teach you what it does and how it works.” This took longer as it was a large seventh rank array. 

“Good now I'll explain it. It's called Flesh of the Faithful And is a seventh rank holy element array. What it does is fairly simple, anyone in contact with the array will have their vitality drained and offered to the one who used the array, if used to an extreme even the flesh of a person will be consumed and offered to the caster of the array. This was intended to help us nobles of the church and give some meaning to the existence of the commoners.” 

Following this Aion began to learn step by step how this array worked. The learning process was not short as it took twenty days for him to understand it even with Alexander explaining everything in detail. 

Aion instantly understood what his next arrays would be, he would use Flesh of the Faithful and a slightly modified version that he came up with. 

Aion called this new array Soul of the Damned as it would need darkness elemental energy and “ate” the souls of those in contact with it Nurturing the soul of the caster. The only issue was that being a seventh rank array it would require Aion to reach the eighty one rune mark before being able to use it. 

As for Alexander in order to better understand his technique he etched it into his soul, and Aion moved him into the large tree outside his dorm reasoning that it was the longest lived creature he could think of. 

The tree that formed a core and began cultivating elemental energy was a big topic among instructors but quickly ignored as it couldn’t really do anything. After having inscribed the two arrays Aion found out something greatly disappointing from his Grandpa. 

“Aion I have studied the Soul Rune technique and there’s something you must know while continuing it. It's weakness doesn’t begin to show at the grand stage but at the intermediate rank of the human stage.” Ban sighed before continuing. 

“If you continue, even reaching the Eighty first rune will only make you equivalent to a peak intermediate human stage warrior. What you need is to understand your element whatever it might be and form a core.” Ban in his weaker version of the technique reached the one hundred and eighth rune so he was able to grasp it’s capabilities. 

“Un, grandpa.” Aion was distraught by this news as much faith that he gained in the technique from it’s use of arrays had just been lost. As for forming his core it wasn’t possible without having stronger blood essence or somehow understanding an element that didn’t appear in any form outside his soul. 

Dreading how he would advance quickly enough to return to his family of crows and let them know that he had grown strong as soon as possible, Aion looked towards his Grandpa for advice. 

“Having said that I have a temporary solution this is the same array but it will help you finish the first eighty one runes faster. At least this way we can have more time to figure out a solution and either strengthen the technique or have you form a core.” Aion received the new Soul rune array and looked at it, it did not change much only forcing six runes to be inscribed instead of three. 

This would increase the usage of his soul as “ink” and the pain but it would also increase the speed he would be able to progress. And by the time he finished he would be able to think of a way to make a core or strengthen the Soul Rune technique, after all that was the second reason he studied soul based arrays to such an extent.