Although his level was lower than he would have liked, he knew he had far more stat points than anyone at his level, save for perhaps a circle lord. With his upgraded race and his titles, he was a force to be reckoned with. Using the boon of Ezykes for the purpose that he had might have been one of the wisest decisions he had ever made. Now he would have a permanent bonus to the stat points he gained per level that few if anyone else could match.

With his stats in such good shape, there was only one more thing he needed to do before fighting Slothari. He still had two of his Pathway skills stubbornly hanging onto the last tier of Journeyman Rank. Upgrading them would give him multiple levels of potency, as well as granting him a domain in both of the fields.

He already knew what the Domain from Energy Manipulation looked like because of Edgar, but the one for his runic skill was still unknown. Given that it worked off of Divinity though, it would certainly be powerful.

His first task was upgrading Runcrating Expertise, mainly because he had a clear shot at it. If he managed to upgrade one of his other runes to the next tier, then he would be guaranteed a rank up. Naturally, the one he wanted to try was the Rune of Beckoning. It was his second rune, and one that had decreased greatly in usefulness the stronger he got.

Over the next day or so as the army trekked across the Fetid Plains, Jonathan practiced with his rune, trying to find the insight that would allow him to bring it to the next level. The main problem was that the rune had a winding conceptual path. It already had a concept that seemed like a completely ideal to Jonathan. What exactly came after Beckoning, while still maintaining the same effect. Revenge had been a natural extension of Hatred, but what was a natural extension of this rune?

Jonathan pondered the end results of all of his runes. Going off of logic, the final runes were those of the thirteen elements, the most powerful concepts in the universe. Everything else would be descended from them. For example, Hatred, although it was a more metaphysical concept, was likely a fusion of the paths of Darkness and Fire, the former for the conceptual nature, and the latter for the energy that it used.

He gave the elements far deeper thought than he had before, considering not only their basic forms, but their true meanings and domains. Edgar had given him a few kernels of insight on this, from his studies in Telvaria. The natural elements were the easiest, as they were the most straightforward to understand. Earth had many subordinate concepts, but the foremost of those was Gravity, which Jonathan assumed was the rune right below it on the grand pyramid of runecrafting.

Water represented a more esoteric concept than Earth, the nexus of which was adaptability. Edgar hadn’t exactly explained it well, as most of his learnings were directed towards Air, but it had been enough. At the core of that element was an aspect of resilience and change, one that allowed water to continue existing forever. Whether it was boiled, frozen or vaporized, it would always return to its original form. It could fill any container that it chose, without leaving a gap behind.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Fire had been even harder to understand, given Edgar’s limited understanding of higher order physical concepts, but what Jonathan had gotten from the man was that it controlled energy. Drawing on his knowledge from Earth, he assumed that Edgar meant things like electricity and naturally, kinetic energy, the thing that created heat in the first place. The reason concepts like gravity were not under its purview was because, although they were forms of energy, they were potential energy. There was nothing there, no spark of heat or power to draw upon its patron concept of Fire.

Air was the subject that Edgar had talked about at great length. At its core, it represented freedom, but as to how that was represented, that was up to the one using it. Edgar had already created a skill that could lower the weight of whatever he used it against, but that was just a basic interpretation of what Air actually meant. Air was what permeated the cosmos, ensuring that everything remained moving. It was similar to Water in its ethereal nature, and oblique conceptual power.

After the four natural elements came the more esoteric ones. Life controlled not only life itself, but all forms of growth, from the evolution of stars to the creation of galaxies themselves. It often worked hand in hand with Earth, whether to create planets filled with life, or to simply use gravity to accomplish its goals.

Death was the antithesis of life. There was little else to understand there, as in Telvaria, many Death cultivators were shunned. Edgar knew little about the element, save for its use in necromantic rituals and the like.

Light was the element of purity and unity. On the surface, it seemed like Order in many ways, but it was fundamentally different. Light had no mass, and as such, its ideal universe was an empty one, devoid of all save for its radiant glow. It was often used by the more religiously inclined in their service of the gods.

Meanwhile, Dark was the element of space and vastness. It represented the void between stars, and the means of traversing them. Jonathan had already fought a few Dark practitioners, and he remembered the spatial abilities that some of them had used.

As for the next order of elements, Time and Fate, they were essentially what came on the box, or at least, that was what Edgar had said. What Jonathan took this as was that they were too complicated to easily explain.

Finally, there was Order and Chaos, the two elements that warred for dominance over everything. Well, the Void was really the final element, but Edgar knew nothing about it. Order was the force of stagnation, for lack of a better word. It wanted everything to be static and unchanging, creating a crystalline universe in which everything was perfect, but devoid of life.

In contrast, Chaos was the force of entropy. It prevented Order from enacting its grand scheme, and in turn, it was prevented from tearing everything apart in search of the greatest disarray possible. If given its way, it would separate the universe into a primordial soup of particles, each of which represented a portion of its entropy. Of course, this would eventually defeat the point of the element, but that was why Order existed.