(TPOR) Chapter 184: Some Kind of Child

“Alright. All in all, I’d say that went well.’

Zed opened the door to the room he shared with Festus but didn’t step in. He stood at the entrance, the door barely half-open.

Instead of walking inside, he raised his palm and drew [Force]. The rune came to life in the blink of an eye. At least that was how it looked. But Zed could feel the delay. His casting was getting faster and faster every time he advanced, but despite how fast it was, he knew there was still room for improvement.

Zed stared at the deep black rune. Its curved lines and general artistry was just as he always remembered it. The problem remained its color. He missed the days when it was simply purple. To him, that felt more force oriented. Black just gave off the feeling of something ominous.

He dispelled the rune and walked into the room.

Zed had played the part of being unbothered by it in front of Kid, but that was all it was, a play. With his runes becoming black, and that one black dot from Babajide’s attack still present on his chest, he had more than enough fear to go around.

When he closed the door behind him, he paused at the sight of the people present in the room.

Festus and Shanine sat on the bed, paused in conversation, while Eitri was at the window with the snog.

In between Festus and Shanine was Festus’ book of runes. Truth be told, it was supposed to be a grimoire, but Zed had heard Festus reject the idea enough times that he now just thought of it as a book of runes.

It was open to a simple rune Zed hadn’t taken notice of before and Shanine’s finger was on it.

Everyone kept their eyes on Zed.

“Uhhh…” Zed looked from one mage to another, unsure of what to say. Finally, he settled for addressing Eitri. “Have we named that thing, yet?”

Eitri looked at Festus as if asking for permission before he answered. “It doesn’t like me enough to answer any name I’ll give it.”

“So Chris also hasn’t named it yet,” Zed mused. “I wonder if that’s just laziness or disinterest.”

He turned his attention to Festus next. There wasn’t much to say, but he did have questions about Shanine learning runes. Wasn’t an Awakened unable to release mana outside themselves? He remembered someone telling him that all they could do was play around with the ambient mana around them. As such, a water mage would be unable to use water magic unless there was water around them.

Zed scratched his head in frustration as his mind contemplated the concept. If Festus was trying to teach Shanine about runes did that mean that there was some kind of loop hole in the room Zed wasn’t aware of?

This level of confusion is what you get when you skip an entire rank, he thought to himself.

“Spit it out,” Festus said.

Zed paused. “Spit what out?”

“You’ve got something to say, so say it.”

“I’ve really got nothing to say, though.”

“You do,” Shanine said, finally taking her finger off the rune. “You get this confused look on your face when you have something to say that’s not a complete joke.”

“Like you’re confused by the fact that you can say something that’s not a joke,” Festus finished.

Zed’s brows furrowed as he stared at Shanine. “Remind me of how we met again. And how do you know so much?”

Shanine shrugged. “You saw my beauty one cool afternoon and were instantly smitten by me. It’s why I hold all the power in our relationship. And I know so much because I pay attention.”

She had a smile on her face that insinuated that she was joking, but there was something else there. Zed had seen it when she’d used the word ‘relationship’.

Was she checking to see if he misunderstood what the word implied? Did she realize she shouldn’t have used the word a little too late? The smile was weak. It was also faltering.

There was a part of Zed that wanted to see just how long it would take before the smile became outright awkward. But it was only a part of him. He wasn’t inclined to make her feel awkward. So he broke the silence.

“It has just dawned on me that you have a portal power we can use,” he told Eitri. “Why haven’t we thought about it. We could’ve been storing my axe and our weapon in there all this while.”

Eitri shook his head. “It would be a bad idea,” he said.

“Why?” Zed asked.

“Because we all won’t be together at the place all the time,” Festus answered. “Imagine we get separated. That would mean you would be forced to survive without anything you own that’s in his storage space.”

Eitri nodded in agreement.

Zed thought about it for a moment before nodding.

“Also,” Eitri added. “It’s not like it’s some storage space in some infinite dimension. It’s just a portal linked to a secret room. And I don’t have all the space in the world in there.”

Zed looked between Eitri and Festus. “So, what you’re saying is that we can also get our own storage space?”

“Won’t be possible,” Festus said.

“Why not?” Zed folded his arms and leaned against the door. “It sounds like something that would be significantly useful.”

“There’s a rune for everything, Zed,” Festus said, his voice slipping into the tone he used whenever he was teaching Zed. “And sometimes, there are runes that are based on affinities.”

Zed cocked a brow. “When you say everything you don’t really mean everything. Right? Sounds a little too far.”

“Not at all. I mean there is a rune for everything.”

“So there’s a rune that can create blood out of nothing? Sounds a bit far-fetched.”

Festus tapped a thoughtful finger against his cheek, thinking about it. “There is a rune that creates blood. However, what I’m thinking about is the possibility of a rune that can create life.”

Zed’s jaw dropped. “There’s a rune that can create life? Isn’t that just traipsing into God’s territory? Are you sure we should allow people use such a rune?”

“I didn’t say there’s a rune that creates life, kiddo. I said I’m wondering at the possibility. Obviously such a rune would be vastly complicated and require a lot of other runes and sigils and scripts to create. But we digress. As I said, certain runes do require affinities. For instance, Eitri’s space rune probably works so effectively because he already has a level of affinity to spatial magic.”

“That, and the fact that I have a literal physical room covered in runes that bind the room to the one specific rune I use to open the portal,” Eitri said.

“So you’re saying there’s a lot involved in getting it,” Zed said. “But not that it’s impossible.”

Eitri nodded.

“And this room,” Zed continued. “How protected would you say it is?”

Eitri took a moment to think about it before answering. The snog crawled up to him, reaching as high as his knee and just sat there.

When Eitri was done thinking, he said, “Safe enough. I found it at the bottom of a wreckage, arguably underground. It would take intentional searching to find it. And it’s technically in the middle of nowhere.”

“I guess that’s a bust then,” Zed concluded, then turned to Festus and Shanine. “On to other topics. Are you teaching her to cast runes?”

He approached them, taking a seat on a free part of the bed’s edge. Looking down at the book he confirmed once more that it was a rune he didn’t recognize.

“What does that one do?” he asked. “I haven’t seen it before.”

“It’s a light rune,” Festus answered. “One of the simplest runes next to the detection rune.”

“Does it shine bright?”

“Depends on how much mana you feed it, I guess. The more mana you give it, the brighter it gets.”

Zed looked down at what was becoming the familiar curves and twirls of a rune. This one, however, had no complications whatsoever. It consisted of two curves and one line. They looked unreasonable but not impossible.

Out of basic curiosity, his finger drew the rune on the surface of the bed. He was about to channel mana into it when Festus stopped him.

“This is not the time to be a show off,” he told Zed. “We already know you can cast some runes with only a glance.”

“Wait, what?”

They turned to find Eitri with the most blatant look of confusion on his face.

“That can’t be possible,” Eitri insisted. “Just a glance? No.”

He chuckled darkly, as if to himself. Looking away from them, he muttered under his breath like a mad scientist making quick calculations that no one should hear.

“It’s really not that deep,” Zed told him. “It’s just simple runes like a detection rune. It’s not like I can look at some complex rune and learn it in one go. It took me all night to learn the sharp rune.”

Eitri’s dark chuckle turned into one that sounded very much like self-deprication.

“It took a beta mage one knight to learn a sharp rune,” he muttered. “One night.”

Zed looked at Festus. “You think he’s good?”

Festus shook his head. “But I understand what he’s going through. The fastest I’ve learned a rune was two days.”

“Even something as simple as a detection rune?” Zed asked, surprised.

Festus nodded. “Runes aren’t things we are supposed to learn how to do so easily. I think you’ve forgotten that.”

“But you just draw it and cast it.”

“Nope. That one’s easy. Any competent rune mage can do that.”

“The problem is in how fast you can cast it and how often,” Eitri said. He was done with his chuckling and his expression had taken on something more serious. If you show me a simple rune I could draw it and cast it. The simpler the rune, the easier it would be to draw. But I’d forget it once you closed the book.”

“It’s why rune mages have grimoires,” Festus explained. “So that they always have a bank of runes to draw from.”

“Is that what this is?” Shanine asked, pointing down at Festus’ book of runes. “Your grimoire?”

Festus shook his head. “No. This is more of a research book. A grimoire carries important and complicated runespells. This carries gibberish. Pointless scribbles at best.”

“Ouch,” Shanine muttered.

Zed laughed.

“I feel you, love,” he said. “Kind of disheartening to know you are being thought gibberish. But it’s got good spells in there, though. There’s one that just inflicts pain on people.”

Eitri’s attention snapped to Festus so fast it was a surprise his neck didn’t crack. “You taught him that?! Why the hell would you do that?”

“I didn’t teach him that,” Festus answered calmly. “He figured it out on his own.”

“What kind of rune does that?” Shanine asked.

Her question was usurped by Eitri’s disbelief.

“What do you mean he learnt it on his own. Do you know how much pain a person has has to witness to get a glimpse of that kind of rune. You have to witness someone going through a very high level of torture to have a glimpse of it.”

“No one was tortured,” Festus informed him.

“Then the only other way is to go through the same level of…” Eitri’s words trailed off as he looked at Zed. “The crash site. That’s where you learnt it.”

Zed nodded.

“Impossible.” He slipped back into thoughtful muttering before looking back at Zed. “I just thought that you probably had some attribute that numbed the pain.”

Zed thought about it and found himself equally confused as well. He didn’t have an attribute that numbed his pain. If anything, he had an attribute that supposedly enhanced it. That was the purview of [Hypersensitivity].

But he seemed to take pain far better than anyone had a right to. He’d always chucked it up to mages possessing better pain tolerance than the average person.

Eitri was frowning. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t see why not,” Shanine said. “He’s obviously learnt it.”

Eitri shook his head vehemently. “You don’t get it,” he said. “There are speculations about how much pain is required to learn that rune on your own.”

“Not enough pain to kill a man,” Festus muttered as if to himself. “But enough to drive a man mad.”

“That!” Eitri pointed at Festus. “That right there is how bad it is. You either get taught by someone who already knows it or you witness someone go through that much pain. Or you go through it yourself.”

All of them were looking at Zed.

“What?” he shugged. “You could say I experienced enough pain to kill a man. I’m sure in there was enough to to drive a man mad.”

“And yet… here you are.”

“Some people would argue that I’m a little bit mad though,” Zed said. “In fact, I have it on good authority that people think something’s wrong with my head.”

“There is another possibility,” Festus said suddenly.

There was a tone in his voice that worried Zed. It sounded experimental. Like he was mentioning a possibility he was willing to test.

“You sure?” Eitri asked. “What other possibility could there be?”

“More than you’d think.”

Already confused by the conversation to a certain degree, Shanine had gone back to tracing her finger very slowly over the rune in front of her, the one Festus had called a light rune.

“You understand that a mage gets stronger with each rank,” Festus continued. “That shows pain tolerance.”

“True,” Eitri agreed. “As a child you can’t handle some types of pain you can handle as an adult.”

“In the case of mages, it’s because of how much mana you possess as you grow stronger. The more mana you have, the less human you are.”

“Hold up!” Eitri panicked. “I haven’t heard of that one before.”

“Because you only start to realize it at Bishop rank.”

Zed’s mind went to one of his attributes. [Bone Density] implied that he was more mana than human. He’d never really thought about what it could specifically mean. He’d always assumed that it meant he had more mana than the average mage. Especially when he considered how significantly higher his mana aptitude was compared to his other aptitudes.

“The more mana you become,” Festus continued. “The less of other attributes you are. For instance, mana does not feel pain.”

“But Bishop ranks feel pain,” Zed interrupted. “Right?”

“They do,” Eitri confirmed. “The ones we fought at the forest definitely felt pain, and they were at the peak of Bishop rank.”

“That’s because having more mana means you are less human,” Festus explained. “It doesn’t mean you aren’t human at all. You only feel less pain than you normally would.”

Festus turned his thoughtful expression on Zed.

Zed gulped dramatically.

“Why do I get the feeling that we’re walking into the experimental part of this conversation?” he asked.

“That’s because we are,” Festus answered. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to check since you fought of a horde of men shooting at you while protecting nothing but your head.”

Zed wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that being reminded of how many people he’d killed in that fight only made him wonder at how much Exp he’d failed to collect by not using [Conqueror’s touch] on them.

All this killing is having too much of an effect on me, he thought. Maybe I should hold back on killing mages for now.

“So what exactly are you checking?” Eitri asked Festus.

“Just how much mana he has.”

Zed laughed. “If that’s the case, I can just tell you. No need to go into drastic measures.”

“Won’t suffice,” Festus said. “I’ll need more concise details. I’ll need comparison.”

Zed opened his mouth to answer but no words came out. Something told him the experimentation would involve a good level of pain. He wasn’t new to pain but he also didn’t want any pain. He needed to think fast.

What did he have that could best explain? What could he…

He snapped his finger in realization. “What if I can actually show you?”

Festus’ brows narrowed in confusion.

“What do you mean by show me?” he asked.

“I mean show you,” Zed repeated. “I have a spell… or maybe it’s not a spell. But I’ve got something that could work.”

“Something that could work?”

“Yes. It’s kind of like a video game.”

The look on Festus’ face said he wasn’t buying it. Worry was the only feeling it gave Zed. He could take the pain, he knew that. Chances were that whatever pain Festus was going to inflict on him wasn’t going to be too great. Zed would probably be able to take it. He could always regenerate, after all.

No! he scolded himself.

Festus was not like the others. That much was true. But Zed was not the jovial young man who’d woken up in the middle of nowhere with no memory of who he was or what he was willing to offer. He wasn’t that man with nowhere to go.

The fact that he could always regenerate was no reason to take any pain someone was willing to throw at him just because he allowed them.

“Cool your jets, kiddo,” Festus cautioned. “Your aura’s leaking out and you’re terrifying the girl.”

One look at Shanine’s slight trembling was all Zed needed to pull himself back together.

“For someone that goes through a lot of pain, you really hate it,” Festus said.

Eitri agreed. “Yea. Kid got very angry for a moment there. You sure he’s safe? I mean, with an aura with that kind of effect, I don’t think it’s safe enough to just have him floundering about.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Zed asked.

He checked his aura almost immediately and was glad to find it silent. Controlled. He had no idea when he’d released it in anyway.

Sure of his hold on it, he added: “You won’t lock me away, Eitri. I just want to put that on the record.”

Eitri laughed as if at a child threatening him. “I never said anything about locking you up. I said it won’t be safe to have you floundering about. Someone needs to teach you control.”

“Control has never been an issue for me.”

“Because you’ve never faced any real threat, strong enough to make you angry,” Festus said.

“What do you mean?” Zed looked between Festus and Eitri. “I face threats everyday.”

“False,” Eitri disagreed.

“His right,” Festus said. “You face dangers everyday, but not threats. To a normal mage, your fight with the anti-mages would’ve been a danger and a threat. But for you it wasn’t. It was simply dangerous. Your regeneration made it feel less of a threat to you than it would be to a normal person.”

Zed got up from the bed and paced around for a bit, his head filled with thoughts. What they were saying made sense. He’d basically treated every encounter he’d had since waking up in the forest like some kind of event.

They’d been dangerous, but he couldn’t remember ever truly feeling threatened. The only times he’d felt threatened where when he’d almost died at the party and when he’d fought his first monster and believed he could die.

He’d treated everything else like some advanced problem. Like an athlete who wasn’t sure he could make the high jump or win the race.

“Also,” Festus added. “We are talking about anger, emotions. Danger isn’t the only thing that can make you angry. In fact, some would argue that danger wouldn’t make someone angry. Anger is an emotion, and igniting emotions take different requirements.”

Eitri sighed. “Is there a reason we’re teaching him emotions like he’s some kind of child?”

“We’re explaining it to him so that there’s no misunderstanding,” Festus answered. “A moment ago he thought you were about to try and lock him up. I don’t know if you noticed, but he was more than ready to use every rune in his arsenal.”

Zed’s lips puckered sheepishly.

“No, I wasn’t,” he muttered.

Festus only laughed. “Sorry to tell you this, kiddo. But there’s a way your fingers twitch when you’re ready to fight. It’s common with every rune mage. But let’s see your idea of how exactly you want to show me how much mana you have? I’m not averse to trying it before trying mine.”

Zed found himself hoping it would work. His notifications always responded to his thoughts, and he’d never tried showing it to someone else. This would be the first.

The first was supposed to be Oliver, though.

Somehow he felt like he was betraying Oliver by showing someone else first. He had promised to explain it to him after all, but for some reason they had always gotten side tracked one way or the other.

I’ll show it to him the next chance I get, he told himself.

But first, he had to make sure it worked.

With a single thought, he pulled up his aptitude. The numbers appeared easily before him, then he thought of making them more visible. He willed them to reveal themselves.

Zed really hoped they weren’t just a figment of his imagination. Some kind of mind magic that helped him keep track of himself.

He got his answer from the expressions on Festus and Eitri’s faces.

They stared at him with wide eyes and open mouths. They remained that way for a few seconds before Festus broke the silence.

“What the hell is that?”