Scene 3b - 3rd Stage Core formation

Rune floated a few inches above the ground with her eyes closed, hiding the demonic gaze that distracted from her angelic face. You would never have guessed that just hours ago she was still screaming to the heavens in anger as the mana of fire and poison surrounding her exploded with a rage that could never be erased, only sated by revenge.

Suddenly, Rune's hands twitched open and closed, creating ominous cracking sounds. Her eyes slowly opened as she floated gracefully to the floor, staring at the mix of fire and poison mana around her.

Shifting her left hand, she pointed to the sky and started drawing lilies with the mana around her, trying hard to remember the memory she had seen. The memory came as a vague shroud filled with clutter that covered all the details except for the water lilies that matched her bangle.

Her thoughts wandered as she remembered that distant night. The silver moonlight had caused Vince to shine like a prince as he leaned close to her, his black hair covering his eyes whispering, "Keep it safe." In the next moment, he had run away like a rogue, leaving her stunned her face lit up bright red.

She always wondered why he had given it to her. Though it didn’t matter, as it came from the boy who had snuck straight into her heart inch by inch and firmly planted himself within.

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With a scowl, she erased the water lilies in front of her and pulled out a huge pillow from her ring. As she hugged it, her mood soured from the fact that no matter what she did Vince never made a move on her, even though she knew he was interested in her.

He would always pull back at the last second, the last moment when they were about to cross the line. It annoyed her that he always became distant when things became too heated, quickly leaving the scene by fleeing to the slums for days on end without telling her where he went. It made her worry so much that she stopped trying to advance and stay as what they were now.

Siblings in name but not by blood, was it because he thought of her just a younger sister and not a woman that he acted in this way? She was too afraid to ask for the answers she sought.

For hours she thought about Vince, the elusive memory, and everything that had happened in such a short span of time. Growing exhausted from over thinking things, she sat up while holding the pillow and pulled out her books about fire and poison.

The point that seemed to make the most sense in solving these problems was to become stronger. Following her gut, Rune started rotating her mana around to find three orbs mixed in a haze of red and green orbiting inside her upper dantian, with the rest of the space filled with red and green gas.

‘It’s a start… but I can do better!’, Rune didn’t think this was enough, with only three cores she had a long way to go before she considered herself strong. In the same way as Vince with the exception of the pillow, Rune began to absorb vasts amounts of mana from the air as she read.

She threw herself into the path of an asura, leaving all distracting thoughts in the back of her mind and only thinking of becoming stronger.