“Bobo! Come play!”
Ana’s voice echoed out to the entire household, once again calling the Bobo of the house. When he came around, he spotted the two little girls that brightened up the house with their very presence.
Ana and Clara, the two girls from completely different worlds, held hands with each other and waving at Bobo with the other. Even Clara, the once quiet child, smiled with glee at his beckoning.
“Are you done studying?” Clara asked running towards Zeke with a gleaming smile.
“Yep, for now at least,” Zeke said, smiling back.
After the whole ordeal with the horde, as well as with everything else, these moments with Clara became more precious to him. He started to see her as his actual sister now, regardless of blood relation.
Thankfully, Clara was the same as she held onto Zeke’s open hand and forcefully dragged him towards the two.
“Come on! I want to tell you so many things I learned today from Vivian!”
Zeke, the Bobo, dutifully listened to Clara’s story of the day, mostly filled with learning about how the system worked. While they weren’t old enough to acquire initialization yet, they could still learn and plan for their future. Apparently, Clara had already made her decision.
“I wanna fight and cast magic like you!” Clara proclaimed.
“I just wanna kick butt!” Ana proclaimed.
He swore he could hear Cloud’s disappointed breath from the kitchen where he was cooking for their evening meal. He was, of course, helping out as well while listening to the girls. Once everything was settled into place, he started playing with the girls.
One of them was a fun game that Zeke made up with his barrier. He realized that he doesn’t just make flat, square shaped barriers–he could make anything.
The ‘Craft’ in Barrier Craft was important, as it wasn’t just a fully defensive spell. While it certainly packed a hard defense, what truly made it outstanding was its freedom. Though he did had to alter it a bit.
For instance, he couldn’t force the barrier to move after it was created. It was affixed in place at the time, never changing. He tried to see if he could, for example, put the barrier inside the monster to stop its heart or something, but apparently it either had to be somewhere he could see and he had to make sure nothing else was in place.
He might be able to do the latter, but that was more difficult than he expected. However, what he could do is change its affixation.
In other words, he created a round barrier, a sphere, which completely nullified its structure. Now, rather than a barrier, it was a construct made of mana. By removing its defensive properties, he could make it more flexible to his liking. Of course that completely gets rid of the barrier aspect, but playing a makeshift bowling game made up of mana constructs with the girls was totally worth it.
Even Cloud was interested in the game, often helping Ana who was getting frustrated from not getting even one construct pin out. Zeke also did this back when he made his first rune, which was apparently something that can happen once a spell or skill reaches level 5. Since it was level 6, Barrier Craft was capable of being adjusted to his liking.
Though he still couldn’t move it around to defend himself better, but it was getting there.
As time passed, while the meal was getting ready soon, Zeke started to show the girls what he learned. He showed the rune that he made for the first time and caused it to glow, this time adjusting the potency to make it shine a bit less bright than before.
“Whoa!” Clara exclaimed in awe.
“Ooh…” Ana cooed, touching the barrier where the rune was at. “It doesn't feel warm.”
“Bobo! Can you do something else?” Clara asked, getting Zeke to pause.
He wondered. Can he do anything else? Now that it was possible for him to draw runes, what’s stopping him from trying to experiment?
But it wasn’t as though he wanted to make something dangerous, which was what he intended in case he got himself into combat. No, it needed to be something safe for the kids. However, he thought hard on what to think about.
But instead, he asked for ideas.
“Fireball!” Ana shouted.
It honestly stabbed at him that he couldn’t do that yet, grimacing at the sudden mention.
“No dangerous spells in the house,” Cloud exclaimed, getting Ana to immediately deflate.
“Mmh…” Clara thought hard, crossing her arms in a thinking gesture. “Umm… something that can fly? Like a bird?”
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Zeke took a moment to take that in. That shouldn’t be too hard to make, right?
“Alright… I’ll see what I can do.”
Zeke took a moment, gathering his inscription pen that Cloud gifted him. It was apparently an old pen he used a long time ago, but was no longer in use. In return, it wasn’t exactly up to date, but Zeke didn’t mind at all since it was for free. Normally these pens would cost a crap ton of gold.
He looked into his Runic Library, which felt like delving into his mind into his own personal library where he could summon a terminal to instantly search up the rune he wanted to look for. It was incredibly useful, and definitely worth the first skill choice he made.
After making a decision, he nodded to himself. However, this would be the first time he would make several runes–in other words, an array for himself.
An array is a combination of runes working in tandem, rather than the single rune letter he used to make the light. It was more complex, adding in more rune letters that not only should mesh well with each other, but also contain several more meanings than the single-meaning rune he used before–and of course the meanings all have to mesh together just as well.
But before thinking on it further, he started the process. According to his studies, he first has to make a connecting rune–something that combines runes well together. It was something called a synergy rune, which was essential for making arrays.
Then came the only single-meaning rune: light. Afterwards were two mixed-meaning runes: illusion and transparent.
Normally that would be enough… but he decided to make it more pretty. He added in another rune–a mixed meaning rune that was a bit more complex to put in. A rune meaning ‘beautiful’ and ‘phantasmal’. Normally these meanings doesn’t mesh well–but in the end, that was all within the intent of the Runist in questoin.
Phantasmal wouldn’t normally mean beautiful, but ‘beautiful’ was a word that contained many sorts of emotions behind it. So with these in place, with another synergy rune on top of it, he made his first array.
It was… a bit of a mess, if he was honest. The letters were scratched up, and the appearance looked like a soggy mess of wet noodles rather than a beautiful array of ancient magical letters. Still, it was his first array.
Throughout the time, he spent more than half of his mana into the array, which would mean quite a bit of power into it thanks to his high Spirit. However, he was amazed that the girls were still looking intently at the barrier he drew on, amazed and perplexed.
He noticed Cloud watching with interest as well and asked. “How long was I doing this?”
“Oh, for… about a minute, I suppose,” Cloud answered honestly.
Zeke whistled. Normally this sort of thing would’ve taken half an hour or so, each rune needing to be infused with a careful amount of mana or else it would fizzle out. But his Inscription Proficiency from his latest skill choice once proved to be the correct choice.
“Alright,” Zeke said, lifting the barrier up as he stood. It was the sort of barrier that can move with no defensive properties–which was perfect for his runecrafting. “Who’s ready for a show?”
“Me!”
The girls shouted in unison, raising their hands up in the air as though answering a teacher’s call. He smiled, then he willed the rune on his hand to activate.
His mana flared, and the rune soon glowed. The array of runes activated, and the mana swirled within the barrier. It was a powerful current, something worth of half his entire mana pool. As it swirled, he felt each rune activated, with the synergy runes becoming the main point of conflict between the magical energy.
As it glowed brighter, something which made Zeke fear that it could explode and harm the girls, something soon came out of the barrier.
A lone being of crystalline turquoise light emerged from the flat surface of the barrier. It was small, the size of his palm, as it slowly came out of the rune array and flapped its wings that was larger than its entire body.
It flew up into the air, flapping its large wings and carrying itself up towards the ceiling with a light flap. Despite its body seemingly made of crystal, it flew up without a problem, becoming aloft with magic rather than the force of its wings.
Zeke watched the little bird like creature with… disappointment. It looked nothing like how he imagined it. He forgot to add the specific detail which was important for his runecrafting:
Imagery.
He only focused on the process of the runecrafting, rather than the intent of the final result. While it worked which he was thankful for, the bird that came out looked nothing like a bird. It was rather a butterfly, but bigger than it should. It was a bird, but smaller than it should.
It looked a little disturbing, if he was honest. He looked towards the girls who were watching the bird… butterfly… thing with widened eyes. He hoped it didn’t scare them.
“Bird!”
“Butterfly!”
The two girls shouted in unison, happy smiles on their faces as they immediately charged after the flying bird butterfly thing. However, it had no will of its own so it just kept flying about randomly.
It went so high that it left the children in the dust on the floor, but that didn’t stop them from trying to catch it with their hands. Pitter patter of feet and giggling ensued across the household as they ran over to each side, trying to catch the elusive creature.
The two men in the house smiled at the antics, right before Ana bumped into a nearby coffee table and made it tumble over. Clara then started jumping from chair to chair, giving Zeke no less of a heart attack as he went after the girls.
What was once playtime with the girls now turned into chaos as the bird made a mayhem in the house.
“Catch it! Catch the butterbird!”
“I’m trying! It keeps flying away!”
“No, stop, Clara! Stop jumping on the couch!”
“Ana, stop! You’re breaking everything!”
The two men found themselves trying to haul their little girls in but to no avail. Zeke tried to stop the bird from flying, but his lack of control made it clear that it won’t stop anytime soon.
This went on for several minutes more before the door to the house opened up.
When the door opened, both Mikella and Val appeared looking rather exhausted, looking over to the living room.
Only to find it being an absolute mess with the two men hauling the girls in, with Zeke holding onto Clara’s torso with her hands fully clutching onto a glowing butterbird.
Then the butterbird withered away into particles, leaving Clara to groan in displeasure after seeing her empty hands. Zeke, however, just stared at the women who came in.
“Uhh… hey,” Zeke said, grinning awkwardly. “Welcome back. How was your day?”