They say regret is wisdom learned too late, and in that moment, utterly drenched and shivering, Aodhán heartily agreed. His practice note had been torn to pieces by the cutting wind, and his hair fizzled and sparked in an unpleasant way.
The air stank of a scent vaguely similar to ozone, and although the energy in the air had stabilized, essence still moved erratically as if searching for a rune to charge. The damage the rune had caused didn’t end on his desk alone; rather, it had spread almost to his bed, covering an area nearly two meters in diameter.
Aodhán grumbled as he squeezed water from his clothes and hair, yet he couldn’t help but feel excited when he took in the damage he'd accidentally caused. It was amazing to witness the power of initiate runes. The wind rune had done little damage, although it had scattered the whole room, ripped off his fancy curtains, and scattered his bed sheets.
The water rune, on the other hand, had done comparatively more damage, but it was still negligible. A wet floor, a half-soaked bed, a soaked practice note, and a drenched shirt. Nothing too serious; however, Aodhán was thankful he hadn’t begun his test with a fire and wind rune instead. That would have been very destructive.
He spent the next few minutes cleaning up the mess, and after changing into more comfortable clothes, he sat down on his desk and began scrutinizing the pieces of his practice note that survived the explosion.
It was apparent that he had made a mistake, perhaps during the linking or the activation, and Aodhán intended to figure out what he had done wrong. He scrutinized the remnants of his practice note for a prolonged moment, but when he found nothing, he took out his textbook on runic theory and began searching for possible causes of runic explosions.
There were a ton of them, but after nearly an hour of reading, Aodhán managed to narrow down the list of probable causes to three. The first cause of runic explosions was incorrect rune linking, and it was the cause he was most suspicious of. Misalignment or improper placement of link points was one of the major causes of explosions in runic engineering, and considering the fact that he’d only just learned how to draw the links a few hours ago, it was very possible that he had fucked it up somehow.
The second cause of runic explosions was an overloaded rune. The second cause was closely tied to the third, his inexperience. In fact, the three major reasons were tied to each other. His inexperience had led him to fuck up the runic links, which had probably caused the runes to overcharge and explode.
It wasn’t a proper diagnosis, but Aodhán suspected he was right. He spent the next few minutes studying the runic links again, and when he was sure that he had perfected it, he cleared away the scraps of his former practice note and prepared for a second round of tests.
Rather than test out the elemental runes again, Aodhán decided to do something simpler. To test out a rune with a much smaller area of effect, so that if it exploded again, he could manage it better.
One potential reason for the runic explosion that didn’t rank high on Aodhán’s list was using the wrong base material. He didn’t see it as a significant factor because if runes could be inscribed on metal, ceramic, and even glass, then paper should be capable of withstanding it as well. Still, to err on the side of caution, he chose to use a different base material this time.
With a simple wave of his hand, he created a jagged lightning knife, and with meticulous movements, he carved the rune of strength on his table. Due to the rough surface, it took Aodhán almost half an hour to complete the rune, but when he finally linked it to an activation circle, he was satisfied. The rune was still a little rough, but it would work, and that was all that mattered. He jumpstarted the rune and took several cautious steps backwards as energy began to gather and condense into the rune. The rune absorbed the energy greedily, glowing brighter as more energy was funneled into it.
Aodhán grimaced, expecting another explosion, but surprisingly, the swirling energy soon dispersed as the rune reached its maximum energy capacity. It glowed a bright gold that soon subsided into the golden shimmer of runes that he was familiar with.
Aodhán warily observed the table for a few moments before moving closer to it. He lifted the table easily, but he noticed that he was expending much more effort than usual to do so. The difference was subtle considering his tier of advancement, but he imagined that someone like Synové or even Unrid would have a much harder time lifting the table.
Excited, Aodhán made a mental list of all the runes he’d learned so far and began planning. In total, he had learned nine runes, and he could already think of a couple runes that he could link. The first was FEHU and URDA, the rune of strength and the rune of durability. Linking both runes together was sure to produce an interesting effect. Also, linking either FEHU, the rune of strength, or URDA, the rune of durability, with THURISAZ, the rune of protection and defense, was sure to produce something magical.
Already, he could imagine the glowing script on the front door, but he soon dismissed the idea. Inscribing the front door with a script would make Unrid and Synové prisoners in their own homes. Nevertheless, a little extra protection wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Aodhán jotted down both combinations and moved on to the next. However, as he scanned through the list of runes he had learned, none of the remaining combinations seemed particularly useful at the moment. A few ideas crossed his mind, like linking ice and wind runes to create an air conditioning effect, but after a few minutes of consideration, he dismissed the idea. Not only would the script likely be more complex than he anticipated, but it also probably wouldn’t deliver the exact results he was looking for. Besides, with the weather still cool despite the dry season, air conditioning wasn’t a necessity right now.
The same logic applied to every other combination that came to mind, and after a lengthy deliberation, Aodhán decided to stick with the first two combinations and proceeded to cover the entire house in runes.
He began with his own front door, but after spending an entire hour drawing both FEHU and URDA on the door, he realized he would spend the entire day carving if he didn’t find the right instruments first. With that ingenious realization, Aodhán alerted Daruk and Aldric of his intentions and flew towards the shopping mall in Norbuik. When he arrived, he made his way directly to the runic section, which was filled with runic textbooks, equipment, and tools. The first thing he bought was an inscriber, a pen-like tool with a beak sharp enough to easily cut through metal.
It was surprisingly cheap, so Aodhán decided to buy a pack along with a textbook titled Guide to step-by-step runic linkage.
After paying for his purchase, Aodhán returned to the house and continued his work. He linked the runes he’d drawn on his door and then activated it. Energy condensed seamlessly into the runes, and after only a few seconds, the golden glow subsided into a slight shimmer.
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Aodhán observed the runes suspiciously, but after he ascertained that it wasn’t going to blow up in his face, he decided to test it out. Grinning in anticipation, Aodhán limited his physical strength to Tier 10 and punched the door.
Despite only using about half his strength, the door shattered, and his fist burst out of the other side, throwing several shards of wood into the hallway. The rest of the door soon crashed to the floor with a loud bang, causing Daruk to peek out of his room and frown in annoyance. “Do you ever do anything without destroying it first?”
Aodhán scowled at him, and for the second time that day, he made his way to the Norbuik mall. He returned home with a sturdier door and spent the next half hour fixing it before picking up his inscriber to start afresh.
“Please work.” He muttered as he placed the inscriber on the door and began drawing. It took him a considerably less amount of time to draw both runes, thanks to the inscriber, and after drawing the runic links and activation circle, he activated the script.
Energy swirled, and the script glowed intensely as it absorbed energy. Once the golden glow faded to a faint shimmer, Aodhán limited his strength to Tier 10 once again and punched the door. The door shook violently but remained mercifully intact; however, Aodhán was far from satisfied. He consulted his textbook again and frowned. He had expected the runes to be much stronger, but it seemed that at his current tier, a pair of initiate runes were nothing more than a minor annoyance—their power too weak to truly challenge him. In hindsight, he should have known; even the simplest of inventions was often covered in dozens of runic scripts.
After a few more minutes of studying, Aodhán realized his mistake. Instead of just linking a pair of runes, he could create a runic ring—or more accurately, a runic circuit—by connecting a total of eight runes in a step-by-step process. This would create a feedback loop where the runes would reinforce and draw energy from each other, producing a significantly more powerful effect.
Aodhán practiced the runic circuit on a new note to ensure that he got it right before moving towards the door to test it out. This time he linked URDA-FEHU-URDA-FEHU until he connected the fourth FEHU rune to the first URDA rune.
The entire circuit took up the entirety of the door, and after linking the whole thing to an activation circle, Aodhán carefully channeled energy and willpower into the script to jumpstart its charging process.
Unlike the smaller scripts, which had only taken a few seconds to charge, the circuit took almost five minutes. The air trembled as energy and essence condensed into the circuit. Little by little, the runes lit up as they drew in more energy from the air, and when the final rune lit up, the entire circuit flashed with a golden light that was bright enough to blind a sleeper.
Aodhán stepped back to admire his work and grinned. Compared to the work of professionals, the circuit looked crude and inefficient, but by the maker! It was beautiful. Aodhán was certain that it probably wouldn’t be as efficient as it should be, but he didn’t care about that at the moment. He dropped his inscriber, and to test his handwork, he restrained his strength to Tier 10 once more and punched the door.
The door barely rattled. Not even a creak or groan from the force of his attack, and with a wicked grin, Aodhán punched the door again, this time at full strength. Runes flared as his fist came in contact with the door, and although it rattled and let out a loud creak, the door held. Aodhán’s grin widened, and with an air of determination, he grabbed the inscriber and moved towards the window to begin drawing runes.
Time passed in this manner, with Aodhán filling his entire room with runes. He covered the windows in THIRUSAZ and URDA circuits, while he covered the floor with FEHU and URDA circuits. After that, he moved to the walls, fortifying the entire room, until a fully powered punch barely caused anything to rattle. The room glowed with golden light as each circuit activated, draining the energy in the air to fuel itself.
Despite the constant siphoning of energy and essence as each runic circuit activated, Aodhán realized that he couldn’t even feel a dip in the density of energy around him. As energy was absorbed by the runes, more rushed into his room, filling up any vacuum before Aodhán even noticed it.
When he finally finished with his room, Aodhán moved to Aldric’s room, which was still bare and undecorated. Aldric barely reacted to his entrance, save for a slight twitch of acknowledgement that Aodhán didn’t bother returning.
He left Aldric to his meditation and began his work. The lack of decoration made it much easier to draw the runes, and in record time, Aodhán was through with the walls. After that, he moved to the windows and then to the door.
He tackled the floor next, experimenting with the size of the runes and wondering if size had any impact on the power of a circuit. Due to the larger size, it took Aodhán almost double the time he’d used on the windows to finish the floor’s runic circuit, and as it turned out, size really did have an impact on the overall power of a runic circuit.
The runic circuit took almost an hour to charge, but when it finally did, it flashed so brightly that Aldric was forced out of his mediation. When the glow subsided, Aodhán punched the floor at full power and winced as pain lanced through his arm, and the force of his attack was ripped to pieces.
Aldric stood to his feet, admiring Aodhán’s work, while Aodhán waited patiently for the heartwarming gratitude that he deserved.
“Impressive.” Aldric commented after a few seconds and asked. “Do you think you could add noise-canceling runes to the walls? I’ve been unable to focus for the last few hours because someone kept punching things.”
“You ungrateful wench.” Aodhán scowled at him and pointed to the runic-covered walls. “This is the culmination of several hours of painstaking practice, finger cramps, and reading.”
“I see that.” Aldric shrugged nonchalantly and grinned. “How’s that lustful emotion going, by the way?”
Aodhán yelled and quickly bolted out of Aldric’s room before he could say anything more. “Fucking ingrate!” he cursed as he moved to Synové and Unrid’s room. This was the first time he was entering their room, and although he tried to prepare himself for the explosion of colors that he was sure to find, he hadn’t anticipated the dizzying array of vibrant hues and eclectic decorations that assaulted his senses as soon as he stepped inside.
It was so much worse than the living room. Mismatched colors filled the entire room, and Aodhán’s hands itched to tear them off. He contemplated running out of the room for a moment before steeling himself and muttered. “You can do this, Aodhán. You’ve slain Rizzels and Rugworts. You will not be felled by an explosion of colors.”
With an expression like that of a person crawling through the intestines of a dead mammal, Aodhán walked deeper into the room. He ignored the puce-colored curtains and muddy brown rug. He even ignored the lurid green walls, but despite his best effort, he couldn’t ignore the neon bedsheets.
He ripped the sheets off and was about to burn them to crisp when he remembered his promise to Synové. With shuddering breaths and a whole lot of disgust, Aodhán lay the sheets back on the bed and quickly turned away.
He took a deep breath to solidify his determination, and without looking back, he gripped his inscriber and began drawing. He barely managed to maintain his focus for half an hour, after which he couldn’t take it anymore, and in one smooth movement, he pulled off the annoying curtains.
The evening sunlight flooded into the room, accentuating each color and making everything all the more unbearable. With a mournful groan, Aodhán fixed the curtains and resigned himself to an hour of torture. He rushed through the whole thing, not wanting to stay within the room more than necessary.
Despite his increased speed in drawing runes, it still took him about two hours to finish drawing the runes. He didn’t even bother waiting for the rune to finish activating before racing out of the room.
As soon as he stepped out, he sighed deeply in relief, leaning against the wall. The glowing runes had only worsened the room's already chaotic aesthetic, but Aodhán had a hunch that Synové would adore it.
Shaking his head in disgust, he headed to Daruk’s room and knocked. He could sense Daruk’s core, but when no one answered, he pushed the door open—and immediately let out an undignified yell at the sight of a seven-foot ice arachnid standing in the center of the room.