Two months disappeared like smoke in wind.
Kael spent them bent over stone tablets, his fingers cramping around rune brushes, his eyes burning from the microscopic precision required to inscribe lines thinner than hair. The System's evolution had upgraded his available rune manuals, and he'd purchased every intermediate text the shop offered—fourteen manuals in total, covering everything from defensive arrays to elemental channeling to the theoretical foundations of spatial inscription.
The credits flowed like water.
Academy stipends covered basic needs. Guardian funds covered everything else. Kael spent without hesitation—high-grade inscription ink, beast bone tablets, brushes crafted from the mane of a rare mountain lion whose fur supposedly conducted mana more efficiently than standard materials. Whether that was true or just marketing, the brushes felt better in his hand, and that was enough.
