Sela-Car told me I was about half as strong as a dragon, and it immediately led to hours of more experiments in which I had assumed I would be poked and prodded, but really I was just activating runes and casting small spells; for the most part anyway. She did have me deposit some blood into a small glass tube like a doctor might use, and I did that by pricking my finger with Mori. Suma fixed it up and Sela-Car placed it into the middle of a premade magic circle on a table.
After about four hours she finally said, “Okay, I think I have enough now, let us try making you a rune.” She fluttered over to a wooden crate and began using magic to float out supplies. She pulled out what looked like paint brushes, clay sculpting tools, a bowl, and a small daljar. “Any preference on what type of rune we should start with first?”
“I have put a lot of thought into it, and I think wind runes will be my primary methods of attack and augmentation. Could you make some to perform specific tasks?” I asked.
“Okay, I have done wind and air runes before, so we can test with those first. After the tests are done, I will begin designing runes to perform specific actions and spells for you. Where are they going to be located?” Sela-Car asked.
“On my weapons, so you will need to make them a bit small.” I said.
“Could I see the weapons?” She requested. I nodded my head and summoned Destiny, Mori, Aegis, my Jericho armor, and Twilight; my new war hammer.
“Here you go.” I said as the last of them appeared.
“You have… a great many weapons.” She said examining them all. “Hmm, I see what you mean by needing to make the runes small, there is not much room on these to work with.” She turned away from them and towards me, “There is something you may not be aware of. Runes are focusers of magic power, and are made by infusing paints dyes and clays with mana, but they have limiters. No matter how powerful the mage activating them may be, if the runes cannot handle it, then they will fail and possibly even be rendered inert. One of the ways to prevent this is by increasing the size of the runes, or the concentration of mana used when making them.”
“So, if you decrease the size of the runes, then there is a chance they will break under Jake’s power.” Suma realized.
“Exactly,” Sela-Car confirmed.
“You said we could increase the concentration of mana, what does that mean?” I wondered.
“It means you will prepare all the materials for the runes yourself, and I will use those materials to craft them. This is a rather… uncommon procedure, but I have done it before. Nobles actually prefer this method because the runes are personalized to the intended user’s power levels. However…” She stopped.
“However?” I asked concerned.
“You have Chaos Magic, thus any runes you give your mana to, will be Chaos runes. Meaning most standard rune designs will not work for you. I will need to build you a custom rune pattern then modify it to fit the needed actions.” She explained.
“Okay, let’s do it.” I said excited to get started. We spent about thirty minutes mixing clays, dyes, and paint with my mana, which she had me deposit into a daljar first to prevent any risk of automatic inversion. But afterward, everything was ready.
“Okay, I will begin creating the runes, give me a moment.” Sela-Car said and got to work applying the paints and clays to a cloth canvas on the floor by floating it to it with magic. Suma and I left her to work for a while. We walked around her old school and she told me about what she used to do in the classes and about her memories of attending the academy. We explored for an hour before going back to Sela-Car’s laboratory to check on her progress.
“Almost ready?” I called out as I walked into the room. Suma landed on the perch I had mounted for Suma on the shoulder of my armor; that way she didn’t have to fly so slowly, and her feet don’t poke into my skin.
“Not quite, the process is more difficult than I imagined. This may take a day or two.” Sela-Car said without turning to face us. She was deeply concentrating on the problem at hand.
“We are leaving in just a few days, will the runes be ready in time?” Suma wondered.
“I… believe so, but if they are not, I deliver runed supplies to different battlefields every month, so you will not need to wait long. I can always bring the designs to you.” She offered.
“We would prefer to have them ready before we depart.” Suma said, she almost sounded annoyed.
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“I will do my best.” Sela-Car said, ignoring Suma’s tone. “The day before you leave, come by. I am confident I will have finished by then.” I sighed and agreed, but before I left she had me fill up several daljar so she could make more materials as needed, and probably do a few extra experiments.
“Now all we have to do is wait,” I said as Suma and I walked out of the building.
“You left her a detailed list of the runes you wanted right?” Suma asked.
“Yeah, honestly I expected a bigger reaction to the paper though. Ceil thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.” I joked.
“What is bread?” Suma asked, and I briefly considered opening a restaurant of human foods for Neame. But alas, it's off to war instead.
I sat on my couch in my apartment on Earth thinking. Thinking about what was coming tomorrow, thinking about my life and how much it had changed, and thinking about how I was going to break the news to my mum. I left Atmosia for a while to have a talk with her, but I had no idea how to do it.
“I guess I can decide during the drive there.” I said standing up and going to my car. It wasn’t a long drive, but I had come up with a plan of sorts to break the news. First, I would take her out to eat to butter her up, then we walk from the restaurant to her favorite dessert place, Cream de la Cream, and buy her a slice of cake or some muffin tops. On the walk back home, I would break the news to her. I walked up to her door at just after five o’clock and knocked.
The door opened and she answered surprised, “Jake!” She hugged me tightly. She thankfully let go before I passed out, but it was a close call. “What are you doing here?”
“I decided to come back for a few hours and thought maybe you would like to go get something to eat? My treat.” I offered.
As soon as I said that her face dropped and got serious.” What happened?”
“What… nothing… why do you think something happened?” I stuttered.
“Jake, you hate going out to eat at restaurants. You have since you were a kid. The only reason you would willingly go is to soften the blow for something.” She stated. I didn’t know whether to be impressed or frightened at how well she knew me.
“Can’t I just want to do something nice for you?” I lied. She looked doubtful but gave in for now. She hadn’t eaten dinner yet and was quite pleased, and slightly worried, when I suggested her favorite restaurant.
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Suma’s POV
I landed in the grassy lot outside of my old school. I had many memories held within these walls, most not so good. I did not particularly wish to go back inside, but I was not here for myself. Jake asked me, before I sent him back to his world, to check on Sela-Car’s progress. I swallowed my anxiety and flew inside. It did not take me long to reach her laboratory, and inside I saw she was hard at work, but not on Jake’s runes.
“Madam Sela-Car,” I said catching her attention.
“A Suma, good evening. I assume you are here about the runes?” She said turning back to her work.
“I am.” I answered her. She put down the materials that she was using magic to float above a metal pylon.
“Is Jake not joining us?” She wondered after noticing his absence.
“No, he is with his mother right now. He needed to tell her that we were going to war tomorrow.” I explained.
“I see, that is a shame. I would have liked to see his reaction to the completed products.” She said then flew over to a metal container and opened the lid. I fluttered over to the container as well and looked inside; it was full of all of Jake’s weapons, and each had been emblazoned with different runes. “I must say, it was quite enjoyable to work with Jake’s mana, and creating these runes was an interesting puzzle.”
“And you made sure to account for Jake’s inversion magic?” I questioned.
“Yes, everything will work exactly as he requested. The inversion magic he has is… astounding. Before he arrived, I had assumed that I knew everything there was to know about runes, but if they can be inverted, then that means that what I knew was only just the beginning. I cannot wait to research all of the new possibilities that his magic represents. It may, no it has, changed the very way I think about runes.” Sela-Car beamed. Admittedly, seeing her so excited threw me off a bit, she had been so stoic until now, almost emotionless.
“… Well… thank you for doing this.” I told her.
“Will you be able to carry it with you?” She asked.
“I believe so, but if I cannot, Jake can retrieve it later.” I answered. I thanked her again and wrapped magic around the container to carry it. I was able to, but it was still quite heavy. I would need to fly low to get it home.
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The POV of Grand Duke Udoka Sopra
I was perched in my office alongside my nephew, Baronet Halyard Sopra. He was giving me an update on the oddities that were the named Neame, Suma, and her familiar, Sentinel, or Jake. “It seems they are shipping out to Masha Peak tomorrow,” Halyard said.
“I wonder how they will fare?” I said. I could almost picture it, Sentinel striding in, Suma perched upon his new “armor” that Halyard told me about.
“One can only imagine how they will do in training.” He said readjusting the position he was perched in; a nervous tic of his.
“What is bothering you nephew?” I asked.
“Nothing…” He denied.
“I have known you for thirty years Halyard, and I know when you are lying.” I stated. He relented with a sigh.
“This… Jake… is powerful… too powerful.”
“You are afraid of him?” I asked.
“Not afraid, confused by. There are a great many questions about him, and we have only rumors for answers. How did he get such strength? What are his intensions? Where did he come from?” He explained.
I nodded my head in agreement, “It is true we do not know much about Jake, at least nothing we can confirm. We only know what he has told us, and we must trust it is the truth.”
“But is it the whole truth?” Halyard said.
“You should not let these rumors worry you,” I told him.
“Would you say that if you had heard them?” He asked.
“I have,” I told him, “and they are as ignorant as the people who came up with them.”
Halyard shook his head, “But it would explain much would it not? If he were a Viking...”