Zero sat at a table at the centre of a small poorly lit room. In the room were eight dark wooden book shelves which stood along the walls, each of the five rows stacked with a variety of books. A large circular carpet of wool was spread out below Zero who was centered right in the middle of the room.
This was a small library. No upstairs. Just that area where Zero sat with one hand on his chin and the other held a chalice of steaming water: It was a dark colour with dancing skeletons on it, and it was adorned with tiny purple gems.
The book flipped on its own as he continued to read in silence, sipping from the chalice periodically.
On the floor beside him were two stacks of 20 books and on the table were random books piled informally in front of him.
Near the table his staff stood upright, and his book was placed on another wooden chair.
The brown book eventually shut and floated on top of the messy piles while simultaneously another book flew in his view from the stack beside him, as it opened he immediately scanned the pages.
The room was empty. Brocker and Vesecoroth were nowhere to be seen.
Afterwhile.
The library door creaked open, and a twisted horn was thrown from it, sliding along the carpet.
Zero was politely sipping before the bone bumped the table.
The remaining water jumped from the cup splashing on his nose. "HOT" he said, wincing as it burned and grabbing his coat to wipe it profusely.
Once it was gone he peaked to the side seeing a thick twisted horn piece.
Bending from his chair he grabbed it, as he moved it around his face full of intrigue.
"Atonishing...its width and…" he said knocking on the horn with his ear next to it, "its not hollow either mmm"
Then a shadow loomed over him, Zero looked above him, seeing Akito: blood flowed from a fresh round shaped wound over his scarlet eye.
"You pulled it off, why? Is this your way of coping with all those innocent prisoners you ate hehehe" Zero teased.
Akito's new muscular body tensed, his hair had grown back wilder than before.
"Aw come on disciple if you don't talk, this isn't fun." Zero kept his eyes on Akito's eyes the whole time.
Akitos face hardened, he slammed the table and Zero raised his eyebrow.
"Teach me, now" he demanded.
Zero lowered his brow, throwing the horn away, and all the books around were enveloped in his mana and flew back to their original places. Clothes also flew toward Akito who grabbed them from the air
"wear these first"
Akito didn't realise he barely had clothes on.
"They are highly enchanted so you won't have to worry about them breaking, at least for the time we spend in this prison."
"Right now as promised I will teach you. Sit but not that chair." Zero pointed at the chair beside him, but the flew in one and out the other for Akito as he sat down.
Zero just froze as Akito blinked confused.
Suddenly Akito shot into the air, and near the entrance on the ground.
He lay on the ground, smoke coming from his behind.
"What was that!"
"I tried to tell you the seat was reserved." Zero said plainly.
The book of deluxe remained on the seat, its purple sapphire dimmed in its glow, a small line of smoke coming off it.
Akito sat in a chair opposite from Zero and away from the book with attitude.
"So Akito, what do you know about arcane magic?"
"Not so much, just the basics, like it's the manipulation of external mana using the users intent to control rather than the soul like mages. Which is done using runeism.
"Runism is?"
"Formulaic practices such as runes, sigils and glyphs."
"Are you sure you are not a scholar?"
"My late father and mother taught me; they both had different scholarships in arcane institutions. My late mother enchanting and father smithing"
"From what I see you seem to be only capable of smithing."
"Yeah, enchanting was always pretty boring to me, but the reason I know anything at all was because I was around two talented people, master," Akito proudly puffed his chest, his teeth showing.
"Good thing you're with me now."
Akito frowned.
"The point of this specific training is to bring you up to runeist tier of understanding, knowledge and capability. Now let us begin with the first runeology Enchanting" Zero pushed a book to him, "We know that enchanting is just a weaker form of runeism because each runic symbol is temporary due to being placed on the physical and not the spiritual." Zero manifested water from his hands flowing it into his Chalice, filling it. He slid it next to the book.
Akito looked down to both of them side by side in front of him.
"What I want you to do is to inscribe a magical attribute of heat onto my cup and levitation on my book."
Zero sat back on his chair, flicking his hand in the air, two rows of books from another shelf floated and formed a stack from the floor up, "As you do that I will finish this shelf up."
Akito looked at the items somewhat overwhelmed as he scrambled in his brain.
He knew how to inscribe but couldn't remember the specific sigils.
"Uh Zero, i don't know the sigils for—" he asked voice low
"It's right beside you, hurry up. I am feeling rather cold" Zero said before he could finish.
Akito saw a hand book reading "Enchiridion of Sigils."
Don't be written in runic tongues. please!
Akito grabbed it, and flicked through it, finding that it wasn't filled him with confidence.
The book had the actual words for each sigil in common.
He found them levitate and heat.
Ok so just mother taught me, three steps: Plan out placement and size, practice formation and finally go for it!
He first mimicked the pattern on the table first, no sigil was made he just pretended, for 10 minutes.
Two she said, to draw false sigils to check formation is correct and accurate. One wrong part of formation could ruin the whole process and make it just dissipate or even make the attribute faulty.
Akito drew false inscriptions, each time he was about to finish the sigil he would stop just before finishing and start comparing his false inscription with the one in the enchiridion, if looked it wrong he would rub it out with his hand and do over. Which he did a lot but when he did it right he would leave it there as inspiration.
Lasting for 10 more minutes
Each time he got better and better until finally.
"The final step apply the magical attribute." Akito said, taking his time writing them perfectly.
This took a final 10 minutes, then once drawn completely the book levitated, rotating in the air and the cup heated, which akito watched for a few seconds before calling out.
"Master, come look."
Mana enveloped the cup bringing it to him.
He grabbed the water, took a sip tasting it. Then downed it one go and placed it gently on the table.
"I would like it hotter. Next time, increase the duration of the heating attribute."
He then pulled the book and messed around with it in the air,
"Longer duration is good for this."
"Did I do great!?"
"No, you are terribly slow akito. Why did it take thirty minutes to do two sigil inscriptions, this is basic formulaic practice and it's taking you that long."
Akito was speechless.
Zero with two fingers in quick succession wrote five sigils across both palms of his hands, pulsing purple, books from the last few rows of shelf two were all pulled toward Zero and placed down in the stack. On his all the books he had read, floated within the air being pushed back into their correct spots.
Zero moved his hands in the ways he wanted the books to go.
Akito just ducked as books flew over his head, but he was also in awe.
After clearing each book on the desk and making two new stacks of books. Zero drew a sigil on the table.
The table heated, sizzling the skin on Akito's hands, he immediately took it off.
Akito touched it slightly to check.
Then repositioned his hands, but his eyes remained on Zero.
"How did you make runes that fast?" Akito wondered.
"Don't be so surprised, there are arcane scholars out there who can do it just by speaking, and others who can do it just by thinking. I myself can do none of that. You won't survive a day out there with those habits."
Akito looked forward with a serious look on his face.
Zero lifted a jug of water from under the desk and placed it on the table,
"You will be tasting the water from now on, keep doing this, learning the sigils hand book and read that enchanting book. It will help you understand the runeology more deeply. I will assess you at the end of the week."
Zero stood up with books floating behind him including his own staff and book who bounced in the air behind him. Leaving.
Akito kept trying.
Day in and day out he was awake with no sign of vescoroth or brocker it allowed him to work harder and more.
After two days he got to 20 minutes of only many false inscriptions and one real.
After two more days he made 10 minutes of many false inscriptions and one real.
The rest of that week he had reached 2 minutes of two false and one real.
Zero throughout would randomly come in and place books back. Sometimes sitting in the room to read as well, only when Akito himself was reading but when he was using the inscriptions Zero left so as to not be disturbed by Akito's many outbursts of impatience.
Akito would go to prison to eat prisoners whenever he was riddled with hunger, which was every day and few full corpses, most prisoners at this time though had starved to death. This made it easier mentally for Akito to devour them.
On the 7th day, Akitos worked so much he ended up spacing out his head on the desk. He wasn't asleep but he was resting his exhausted brain.
Until "ready?"
He jumped up "Master!"
Zero sat down at the table.
Akito shot to his feet standing back from the table,
"Ready for the test."
"Y—yes!"
"First enchant yourself with a wind resistance."
Akito false inscribed once then wrote a sigil on himself, mana washed around him.
"What now—?" Akito caught Zero hand raising, his heart dropped as a gust of wind blasted him. The resistance worked keeping him in one place and he only a little. Another gust blew, which hit Akito a little harder making him skid as his tracks dented the ground.
The resistance kept him upright again though he felt that one way more than last one, either the sigil he wrote is faulty or Zero is just that strong.
Zero slowly extended his full palm as gale blasted toward, Akito it ended up pushing him off his feet and bursting the library doors open, the gust persisted for a few seconds before dissipating.
Akito held his stomach groaning before he got up.
"Well done. Now try this"
The staff of deluxe flew toward Akito who grabbed onto it.
"This staff is real cerdian, as you know this material is resistant to magic so it will be tough and it's extremely heavy when it wants to be as this relic is able to negate the weight for the user and itself. I want you to make a rune that makes the weight real for both parties."
Akito inspected the staff for a moment , running his finger along it, then he ran to the table, placing the staff upright.
He flicked through the pages speedily, finding the sigils he wrote fake inscriptions on the table then looked at the Staff then looked back. He proceeded to draw a magic circle, placed the staff in the middle and activated the circle.
Akito once the mana accumulated thickly around the staff looked at it for a moment then drew the rune along it, Akito broke a sweat as the mana accumulated was very intense. Arcing within the air.
Finally once he had done, he dispersed the circle, Zero walked over, and couldn't lift nor could deluxe lift its own or negate its own weight.
"Well done Akito you have shown your capability, i applaud you"
They shake hands, Zero then turned around pressing his hand lazily against the staff of deluxe instantly breaking the rune, and dissipating it.
The staff flew up happily behind him.
Akito's jaw slacked "that's just unfair!"
Zero chuckled to himself.
Two figures entered the room, Zero turned around and said "Ah, great timing."
Akito looked back, seeing Brocker and Vescoroth
"How did it go?" Zero leaned back on the table
Brocker spoke "Master, we successfully sold every single slave, off"
Vescoroth threw the 2 large pouches of gold coins, mana enveloped them as they levitated toward Zero who had a knowing smirk.
"Brillant work."
"We used most of the money as told to fill the cannery with all the ingredients you wanted, so that's what's left, and current state of Viscura at the moment; informants tell us that most of every force has migrated toward the the region of aurora heavily fortifying it, they expect your arrival there to free the devourer."
"There are forces in umbra but its one force and currently your undead have been found out and are fighting an all out war against serenity. I was told it started only a week ago. Though the status of the field at the moment is equal, I wouldn't count on it as those undead won't last the full force of an order in Viscura."
Brocker finished.
Zero just kept looking at his money
"Master"
"Don't worry about all of that fluff, in due time it will be dealt with. At the moment, I want to go cook something then sleep."
They were all speechless
Zero already outside the room shouted from along the whole way "Train Akito till I wake up. Thanks, " he cackled.
The bonewalkers then began fighting against Akito in the hall again.
A dust explosion erupted Akito jumped out his staff in hand, he landed as Vesocoroth sped toward him, slashing in an arc. With his new body akito was able dodge each slash then he swung his staff down on vescoroth who backed just out of the range of it and rushed straight back in Akito manoeuvred out the way of the first slash then blocked the second one their weapon locked in clash for a moment.
Until vescoroth hooked his sickle under the staff, fiery mana swirling around him, raised the staff up enough for him to slip under it with a scorching uppercut with his left sending a jaw shattering shook through akito cranium but Akito pushed back against the uppercut, pushing his head down growling gutterally.
Though Akito focussed so much here that he forgot about his weapon, Vesocoroth hooked the weapon right out of his hands. Which allowed Brocker to enter the from Akito right swinging as Vesecoroth backed out of the fight.
Akito managed to block it but barely, he staggered back.
Brocker shuffled toward within a stance, gauntlets ready.
Akito once steady went for claw, brocker simply blocked and sent a punch that threw Akito's head back.
But Akito head butted the gauntlet and began biting it ferally. Brocker held the position confused.
As Akito tried to rip his gauntlet off with his sharp teeth which couldn't even penetrate them.
Vescoroth standing at the side face palmed.
Akito then scratched Brocker which he ended up scaring his bone, Brocker lifted his gauntlet up in anger and tried to slam into the ground.
Akito jumped back immediately, he was now in crouch position.
He growled, "Akito wake up!" Vescoroth said as he threw the staff at him.
It hit Akito in the head, knocking him down.
Vescoroth and broker stood side by side just watching in disappointment as Akito woke up.
"Sorry guys lost myself there hehe" he scratched his head.
Wounds healing on his body.
Vescoroth appeared, as they clashed weapons.
"Could you not have given me a little bit to recover first?"
They kept clashing, and vescoroth slashed akitos mouth open and then slashed from his stomach up all the up hooking into his chin—the blade going through his lower jaw and into his mouth, keeping both jaws from parting.
"Shut it"
The rune on his arm lit up, causing the deep gash he made through his stomach all the way up to chin to erupt, spitting fiery blood everywhere then it ignited within his mouth as a fiery burst of blood exploded from within Akito burning him from the inside too.
Akito grabbed the vescoroth skull, "Luckily I don't feel any of this!" and brought head back to deliver and headbut but Vescoroth swung his burning body over his body sending him flying toward Brocker who was ready with a punch cocked.
"WAITTT!"
The fist flew forward through the stomach of Akito,
Brocker deactivated his gauntlet as Akito slumped to the floor.
Groaning, he stood up—the gaping hole in his stomach began to heal.
Brocker just stood unmoving and Vescoroth watched from a distance, picking up Akito staff again.
His eye travelled between both silent bonewalkers.
"Question, do you guys always fight this brutal or are you doing it intentionally?"
"Is this brutal?"
"What did he say!" vescoroth shouted.
"He said we fight brutally!"
"We do!?"
Well I guess that is my question answered Akito sighed in his mind.
Brocker lunged in, and unexpectedly, Akito flinched, shouting "I hate this!"
They fought over night until Zero woke up.
Akito even with his new body was still nothing compared to these two experienced bonewalkers. He didn't get better at all nor was he able to fight them at a somewhat competent level at any point.
Finally, his voice reverberated through their minds.
"Akito go eat then come play the piano while i eat."
"Brocker and vescoroth do your rounds today."
They all stopped. Brocker and Vescoroth obeyed immediately, running to their duties.
Akito smiled in joy, as he limped over to eat some prisoners after a while he skipped back to the piano room fully restored.
Akito entered the room he was previously experimented in, there was Zero sitting near the operating table on a chair and eating 3 dishes of food he had made.
"Wow, did you make all that?"
"Yes I did,"
Zero pointed to each one "This is carcass soup."
The bowl was a thick soup with visible chunks of vegetables and smaller pieces of roasted meat.
The soup itself was a browny colour with the hint of grey.
"Its not mortal mea—"
"No its venison"
"Where did you get venison, there is none in Viscura anymore."
"There's an underground market…"
"Oh that makes sense—they are traded in."
"What did you really think two bonewalkers walk in broad daylight to sell slaves and buy ingredients for food, not to mention that everyone is on high alert now?"
"Okay i get Master move on."
"I didn't make the bread, but I made the curdled cheese and the scrambled eggs"
He dipped his spoon into the soup that was thick enough to stay in the spoon and he ate it.
His face lit up with each moment of the flavour dripping all over his tongues.
Akito just watched
I wish I had an appetite for real food. He must be mocking me.
Akito walked over to the piano and spotted something wrong
"Where are the old notes?"
"Discarded them, so play something else, Akito."
Okay then.
Akito began to play another tune he knew.
As he played Zero ate, and took his sweet time, he dipped the bread into the soup and when it was finished he ripped the rest of the bread and mixed them with eggs and cheese.
Akito played softly for the time being.
Zero stood up while Akito played, completely absorbed by the piece.
Zero began to work behind him.
Then once Akito was done with the piece he turned around seeing the food gone and Akito staff loads of books around the place as Zero was reading.
"Hey why didn't you tell me to stop?!"
Akito jumped out of his chair and stormed to Zero, who sat reading.
"Sit" Zero said flipping a page of a book.
Akito sat quietly without a word, his previous indignation gone.
"This lesson will also last a week but it will be slightly different, as you are already quite proficient in this runeology. We will just focus on sharpening your skills with runes mainly."
Akito nodded
"Tell me the four conditions for a rune to be made."
"Function part, activation part, limitation part and everything must be equal."
"Good"
"Assuming you understand the law of balance"
"Law of balance?"
"you write a rune with its parts and that law of order will always fill in your rune and balance it out."
"Yes, pretty much."
"Its different with chaos"
"How different? Are we limitless?" Akito almost jumped from his chair at the thought
"No—actually the opposite chaos enforces the law of runic language, and makes it much harder to make a rune."
"What? HOW SO?!"
" So 'For chaos governs, limits and penalises your runes' " Zero quoted.
"That doesn't sound so bad. Does it not mean you need to put 4 parts within a rune rather than 3 because it's penalising you for breaking a limit rather than just deactivating the rune when you break the limit.
"Yeah pretty much it."
"How does it make it harder though?"
"That's it, honestly just wanted to scare you." Zero chuckled.
"Well it didn't work, move on to the next master!"
"I want you to now focus on improving on making runes efficiently with this new format and quickly"
"Use the enchiridion. And your training for black smithing in these two books will give you tons of knowledge on it. There is not much practical work we can do here for that."
Zero gave him a book in his hands.
Akito held the books.
"The great smithy"
"Atrefacts, runic weapons and trinkets"
"A week should be enough but your schedule is changed, broker and vescoroth will be here the whole week until i run out of food. So you will sit here studying until i notify you of my slumber then you can fight them. Once I wake I will call you to play the piano for me as I eat and also make sure you are eating throughout the week as you will only hinder your own progression."
"Take this book, it has mana nullification with it, you can write any amount of runic symbols in it and it won't work. Practice with this."
Over the next week,
Akito practised diligently getting better and faster making runes.
His runeism got better but his combat didn't. He actually got worse and the bonewalkers continued to destroy him each time without stopping.
Zero on other hand would each time he awoke call for Akito and bonewalkers to go on their runs.
His routine: Zero would wake up, look in the mirror and fix his hair with his mana. Then shirtless he would run around the prison for a while with the cold air hitting his body.
He would then drop low and perform the multiple exercises he learned from Akito.
Once he finished he would run to grab a bucket from the cannery and fill it up with water.
He would strip himself, douse himself with cold water and pick up the clothes running back to Vivian's abode to dry off as he ran.
He would run out grab cook book, find all the ingredients in the cannery placing them within a sack then
Following each instruction, carefully as he makes the recipe. Once done he would set everything up and wait for akito to begin piano, eating slowly usually with a book in front of him savouring the taste. Zero ate one meal per day that was enough for him.
Then Zero spent the rest of the day reading, most of the time in the same room as akito.
He would head to bed as soon as he realised he was nodding off.
At the end of seven days he walked in.
"Times up. It's time for the final lesson"
Final lesson? No.. test?
"No need. I am getting pretty bored of this anyway. This part is pretty fun."
"Uh ok…"
"Stand up"
An alive prisoner was brought in with a sickle receding from around his neck.
Vescoroth stayed at a distance watching intently.
The prisoner shook in fear but he kept his mouth shut. Looking behind him he immediately saw Brocker shadows curling off his hollow body. He straightened, keeping his eyes forward.
"Now runeism is the most complicated out of the other runelogies pertaining to the fact it's about inscribing onto the soul."
"Chaos itself allows you to interact with the soul but it doesn't make it any easier."
"So I took measures to make it easier for you, which is the reason I gave you the lich eye. Open it"
Akito's eye slowly opens revealing the empty socket—a green fire ignites within it.
"Now I want you to look carefully at this prisoner as I explain to you the basics of internal mana"
Through the eye, Akito sees a second spirit body within the physical body of the prisoner. And within the body at the center of it is a fiery orb emitting power from it.
"You see the core?"
"The soul?"
"Yes, exactly that is the sign he is living." Zero smirked
Akito rolled his red eye at Zero stating the obvious.
"See the mana filling the second body?"
"That's his mana pool and second body is also called the soul body. When you move it moves and it's the body you will be in if you're ever outside your own physical body."
"Your soul body is where all the mana is housed which is produced by your soul, your soul body is also where the mana is manipulated and channelled from reflecting your output and input."
"Now deviating to existential wounds. You see you can take any hit on the physical and somewhat recover from anything, even something disabling as long as your soul is intact and it's especially helpful with your soul body. Now if somehow you were against an enemy with the ability to attack the soul and hurt it, you could be put out for life. Even a small cut on your soul would cause an insane amount of pain."
"Though luckily you have the soul body which can protect you from such things. Don't misunderstand, you will feel a lot of pain trust me. Sadly I am incapable of directly dissecting the body like i would have wanted and in general i am very limited on how I can interact with the soul such as only through the means of spells, and chaos delegation related things like snatching the souls from people's bodies but we can observe what happens when firing—soul attack spell!"
Zero conjured fiery soul-like bolt purple, and slowly shoved it inside the prisoner who shook his head violently.
"Don't worry it won't hurt you physically"
The man didn't feel anything for moment
Akito saw the ball of mana seep into the man's body and slowly spread around the soul body
"Whats supposed to—" the prisoner erupted in flames, same with his soul body which melted from the fire, "AHHH ITS EVERYWEHEREW!" he screamed
Zero stood beside Akito watching with a happy expression on his face.
The bolt of up the soul body and melting it as it became deformed.
Akito couldn't look anymore his lich eye saw the damage within but his normal saw the pain of the man his eye squinted
"Stop it now Zero." he said calmly.
Zero drinking a cup of water, gave him a side long stare in confusion.
"Only a little bit he won't die but his soul body will be damaged temporarily."
The man flailed on the ground and couldn't get the fire off.
"ZERO NOW!"
Normal eye closed shut but he could still hear the man
Zero splashed some water on him
"Here some water" Zero snorted.
The man continued to flail around on the ground.
Zero grew bored, and looked at Akito's face.
Struggling to watch the man in pain.
He sighed and clicked his fingers, stopping the fire immediately.
Akito lich eye shut as his normal eye opened.
"Thank you Master."
"You make no sense to Akito , you and her. Well at least she accepted it." Zero muttered to himself.
Her?
The man laid on the ground, not able to stand up. His soul body was now very deformed.
"Now that you understand a little bit about mana. Let go on to the final part of this soul inscription: runeists do it multiple ways. One being a rod that is made of a weightless metal that won't hurt the soul body even when pressure is applied, this rod also has runes that absorb mana into it. Which works allows you manipulate the density as it makes it more sensitive to mana.
"Density?",
"Yes mana has density and they have measurements but we will just talk about the points of mana density. There are three points: you want to reach the phase point which allows you to phase through the physical body. Once you do this you want to find the finest point. The point is where the external mana is able to be touched, then you want to increase and decrease until you find a middle ground they call it that. I call it a spiritual oasis, because it feels amazing reaching that point."
"And make sure you don't densify it too much or you will end up getting your hands stuck within the person."
"I would say it takes significantly more concentration than with a rod so due to this no more combat training and i will not be visiting this room.
"Read these three books. They will tell you in depth what I briefly explained to you in much more detail and other things I didn't mention oh yeah and practice on prisoners until he eventually dies."
Diary of soul necromancy by vivian
Soul and mana study
Bodily anatomy by vivian
That book was black and it had an engraved satisfied cat face on the end.
Zero left without saying a word
Ok I didn't understand or catch anything he just said except reading and the importance of concentration. But it's ok Akito you can do this!
Akito remained focussed for a week.
Focussing entirely on his runeism work.
He read, practiced, failed multiple times and even killed the man but Zero had trapped the man's soul in his body for weeks so even when he did Akito could still practice.
Akito kept practising, kept reading not once did he hear a sound from outside, Zero didn't come in once and ask for piano to be played nor did he come in at all. Akito was left his focus.
A week passed.
And Akito had just achieved the oasis point Zero was talking about. He was overjoyed at his achievements and mentally exhausted.
Zero came in to check on Akito
"I did it Zero!"
He went over to akito pulled him up, "welldone disciple"
Akito smiled softly, "You know—"
"Now its time for the final part" Zero interrupted
Zero scurried out of the room.
Akito eyes widened "i wonder what next" he said as excitement brimmed within him.
They entered a room with a fireplace, two chairs and a bed on the side and multiple other random items.
This was Vivian's abode.
Zero sat on a stool in front of the fireplace and threw off his coat.
"What do you want me to do?"
Zero hunched over and leaned forward slightly, his back muscles widened, expanded and flattened giving Akito a smooth and wider surface to work on.
"I want this done to me." Zero raised a large scroll and gave it akito who placed it on a small desk beside him.
A big glyph had a myriad of shapes layered on top of each other, and somehow runic symbols were weaved into the picture of an eye which sat at the center of all the chaotic shapes. It was oval shaped, around it was a 4 pronged star. Which also had many shapes branching from it.
"A GLPYH?! I was thinking it couldn't better than Zero. I haven't properly attempted a sigil on soul and you want me to do a glyph!"
"Its not that hard."
"For you! i have never even done a glyph"
"Do you know what it is?"
"Yes its a large combination of sigils woven mostly but it is able to contain multiple runes, short and long forms which benefit up to 100 and beyond. But this is something an expert of either of the runelogies can pull off, not someone who just learned them!
"And why did you draw something so complex!" Akito even amongst all the complexity within the picture the eye stuck out most it made chills run down him.
"I trust you Akito, just don't make a mistake or I will end your life."
Zero smiled, lightly meaning every word of what he said, and Akito could feel it.
"No pressure disciple, just do what master says, you will be alright and take your time. Ideally I would want it done in a week though."
"Ok um…Zero one questi—"
Snoring sounded from Zero who fell fast asleep.
"Why does he trust me so much? I have his life in my hands now."
If I really wanted to, I would give him an existential wound and end him for good…
But I won't…
He has helped me and I am excited for what next so let's not let him down.
Zero grinned, before falling deeper into sleep.
Akito continued he first thinned his mana to find the phase point his fingers phased into Zero's back, then he found the finest point "went to far, lets go back" and he continued to adjust his mana, for 30 minutes till he found the where is his uriel of mana? I wasn't able to feel like he said he could. I had to manually find it.
Once Zero found the right spot, he looked at the scroll, turned to the soul using his lich eye, and planned it for a few minutes the false drew and in the air for another two minutes then placed his non-thinned hand on Zero's back to keep himself steady.
He began to draw, he free flowed doing every curve, every bend in every direction.
Upward downward all over Zero's back making sure it was perfect,
The glyph was extremely mentally demanding; he had to take a break every 2 or 3 hours because he would randomly lose focus.
He was working overtime on this glyph.
He didn't give up, each time he breaked he spent it studying the glyph recalculating angles and figuring out his next move. Each time he breaked it got easier to get back into the swing of things along with breaks getting shorter
Slowness and hesitation of his ability made the first day feel so long to him, and second day and third.
Everything felt slow but by the fourth he was rewarded doing it much faster he was now just half way done.
He kept going, and had almost finished on 6th day he spent the majority of the eating as he hadn't in the last 5 days
Then on the seventh day, Zero woke up as Akito finished and fell to the ground, his hands shaking.
Zero roared in joy "perfect!"
"This is great, akito thank you"
He scurried over to the door.
"Does he not feel pain? He must be an undead like all of us, way too unresponsive to pain unless that is how reacts."
Akito just lay their
"I am glad I did it, I have become so much better. Well done akito."
Akito reaffirmed himself.
It has now been 2 months and one week.
What was next?