Return of the Runebound Professor

Chapter 518: I Wonder

“Rejoin me,” Noah commanded. He extended his mind to the rune, meeting the rush of freezing energy. Up until now, he’d been treating the Fragment of Self like it was any other rune. He’d thought the pressure was something that he had to push back against.

That was impossible. It was the pressure of his own soul, after all. You couldn’t push up against something with itself. Instead of pushing back or trying to wrest control of the power, he relaxed.

The strands of black holding his Matter Rune shuddered. Then, without a sound, they released it and slithered into the floor of his mindspace as the Fragment of Self rejoined the rest of his soul.

It embedded itself on the ground, a glistening pattern that stood as still as stone in a shifting sea. A chill crept up Noah’s chest and set into his bones. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it was unnerving.

He could almost hear the thoughts echoing in his mind, feel the blood running in his veins, taste the power he bore within his soul. Noah felt like a violin left to the side for years before finally getting its strings tuned.

Extending his thoughts to the Fragment of Self sent a tremor running through his body. Energy pumped in him, but not in the way that ever had before. Noah’s lips pulled apart of their own volition as he tried to make sense of the strange power. He stared at his hand. Everything felt so… alive. Each single movement wasn’t just a thought but a thousand different miniscule reactions within himself flashing through his nervous system to deliver the command his mind gave, and Noah could feel every single one of them. He could control every single one of them.

His finger twitched by such a tiny amount that his eyes couldn’t even properly make out the motion — but he could feel it. His body felt like it had truly become his for the first time in his life. A disbelieving laugh slipped from Noah’s mouth.

“This is incredible,” he breathed, holding his hand up and staring through the cracks between his fingers at Sunder as it floated above him. For the first time in his life, his body actually felt like it belonged to him — and this technically wasn’t even his body.

Then again, Vermil died a long time ago. I’ve gone through so many new bodies that I think this is definitely my body at this point. Vermil died back in the Scorched Acres. I’ve just stolen his visage and cleaned it up a little.

Noah let out a shaky breath. He let his hand lower, vividly aware of the space it took up by his side, and paused before his eyes lowered from the sky. Sunder wasn’t the only Master Rune floating above him.

The Fragment of Renewal joined it, the two immense runes bearing down on his entire soul and each other with immense pressure. A small frown creased Noah’s lips. The Fragment of Renewal. The Fragment of Self.

The same kind of rune? But that can’t be right. My rune definitely isn’t a Master Rune by any stretch of the imagination. It didn’t have enough pressure. Wasn’t big enough either. I don’t know if I’d call it a normal rune, but there’s no way it could be a Master Rune… right?

Noah looked back down to the Fragment of Self. It remained in the floor of his mindspace before his feet, the only patch of golden lines that wasn’t flowing in the invisible current that wound its way through the rest of his soul.

It didn’t look like a Master Rune, and Noah had no idea what its inverse would have been if it was. He didn’t understand the Fragment of Self nearly enough to try and figure that out. His frown deepened.

The names are way too similar to be a coincidence, but there’s at least one key difference aside from their power. The rune I took from the goddess is called the Fragment of Renewal, not the Fragment of Self. My rune isn’t called the Fragment of Noah. They’re reminiscent of each other in name, but they’re not exactly the same.

That unfortunately didn’t answer much of his confusion. Even if the two runes weren’t identical in make, the similarity between them was a little too much for him to overlook. He wasn’t so sure he bought the idea that the goddess’ rune was a Master Rune purely because she was more powerful.

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

Maybe there’s a way to expand upon or improve the Fragment of Self and make a stronger rune that represents you?

Noah just had no way to know. He couldn’t exactly call the goddess up and ask her advice. He got the feeling she still wasn’t too pleased about how he’d yanked some of her power in the first place.

I do still need to get her a fruit basket or something. She hasn’t smited me yet, so maybe she’s not too pissed. I wonder what kind of fruits gods like. Mangoes, perhaps?

A small smile pulled at the corner of Noah’s lips before it fell away and he shook his head. As much control as the Fragment of Self gave him over his body, it didn’t seem to help keep him focused any better than normal.

“I just don’t understand this,” Noah muttered to himself. “The Fragment of Self resembles the rune of a goddess… and it also resembles a Demon Rune. Two things that couldn’t have possibly been more different.”

Noah crossed his arms in front of his chest and tapped his foot on the ground as he dug through his mind, forcing himself to think harder. The similarities that his rune had to that of a Demon Rune had to be the key he was missing. There had to be something in them that would let him figure out how to help Lee.

I thought mine was a Demon Rune until I connected to it and lit it up from inside, letting me read the pattern. Okay. So that’s one step. Either I or Lee need to connect to her rune. That might let her pull it free of that mess that she combined… but that doesn’t fix the problem, does it? She’d still have a Demon Rune in her soul messing up her desires.

I suppose I’d have to see another Rank 4 or higher demon to tell for sure. I’m also not really following how Demon Runes change demons so badly to force them to basically become embodiments of their emotion.

The Fragment of Self was definitely exhilarating. It made Noah feel alive… but no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t feel like any part of himself was actually being influenced. He wasn’t suddenly any more suicidal or impatient than he had been before — and those definitely would have been the desires that would have gotten amplified by a Demon Rune. He felt more like himself, not like a caricature.

“So what’s the difference between me and a Demon?” Noah mused. His foot stopped tapping and he started to pace, his eyes tracing the flowing lines as they danced across the ground before him. “I suppose there are really only two options. Either it’s the owner of the rune or the rune itself. Demons are connected to their runes far more strongly than humans are. But that wouldn’t explain why they hyper fixate on one emotion when a rune gets to Rank 4. Could it be a difference in the runes themselves, then?”

Noah shook his head in response to his own thought. The rune he’d made had resembled a Demon Rune so strongly, and the whole point of a demon rune seemed to be to amplify them. The same as the Fragment of Self.

So why does my rune just make me more… me, while theirs turns them into a slave to their desires? It doesn’t make sense. There has to be an answer, but I might not be able to find it pacing around inside my soul. I’ll have to find someone to test on. I have to really get a close look at a Rank 4 Demon Rune when it’s inside a demon and figure out what it does to them.

Back in the mortal realm, that would have been pretty difficult. It wasn’t like there were Rank 4 Demons strolling around everywhere. But down in the Damned Plains, Noah wasn’t even slightly worried. He’d already kicked the hornet’s nest enough to draw the attention of some enemies.

There wasn’t even a need for him to go looking for Rank 4 Demons. They’d deliver themselves to him. His lips pulled up in a smile.

“Don’t worry, Lee. I’ll have this figured out soon enough,” Noah promised. “I just might have to break a few demons to do it.”

A faint pulse of pain probed at the back of his mind. The cracks in his soul still hadn’t healed over, and he’d been putting off using the Fragment of Renewal until his work was done. He’d gotten so caught up with the new rune that he’d nearly forgotten his own headache.

Noah extended a hand toward the Fragment of Renewal, calling the pearlescent rune down toward him. He was mildly surprised to find that it responded. If he could access his magic again, then twelve hours must had have already passed. His hand pressed against the Master Rune’s surface and a river of relief poured over his head like a refreshing shower. He exhaled as tension knitting his shoulders evaporated and the pain in his skull relented.

The cracks strewn about his soul started to knit themselves back together. It would take them a bit to fully heal with how extensive the damage had been, but the Fragment of Renewal would deal with them soon enough.

He turned — and froze. Somehow, in all of the excitement, Noah had briefly forgotten the fact that he hadn’t just made a single rune.

He’d made two.

The other half of his efforts floated in the air, spaced equal distances from the Crumbling Space and Natural Disaster, its name as naked as Noah had been the day he’d first gotten himself killed in the Scorched Acres. A Rank 4 Rune, roughly at 25% full.

Warped Matter

“Would you look at that,” Noah breathed, delight sparking in his eyes. “I wonder what you do.”