Return of the Runebound Professor Chapter 928: Readying Up

Noah stood on the line.

It had been a while since he’d been on it. Standing here, on the infinite path of gold that stretched through a void of nothingness, surrounded by nothing but the muted memories of his increasingly distant life. But it wasn’t nearly as foreign as it had once been.

Every time he drew on the golden lines that wove through his vision, he’d stepped on the Line. It had been with him for a very, very long time. There would never be a time that it wasn’t with him in at least some form. In some way, Noah the line. Or perhaps the Line was him. Some tiny, minuscule part of it. That was the price he paid for existence.

But standing here on the Line itself… it wasn’t quite the same as looking at it from afar. The real thing was far greater than any memory, far more empty than any recollection.

It was nothing. Nothing, everything, everywhere. Even though this was nothing but an imprint of the true Line, it certainly felt real. It was indistinguishable.

A wave of terror prickled against the back of Noah’s thoughts. It bubbled up like boiling water and nearly managed to swallow his mind in the brief instant that he’d given it freedom.

Then his thoughts clamped down.

His jaw set. The fear shuddered and cracked, crumbling away. He wasn’t on the Line. And even if he was, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t here to stay. This was his soul. His domain. And all the power within it was his to command.

Noah blew out a slow, steady breath. He forced his hands to unclench. Several seconds passed in silence. The sound of echoing footsteps was nowhere to be found. He was the only one on this Line. And Noah wasn’t walking anywhere.

He was right where he wanted to be.

He could feel the sheer nothingness all around him. The complete and utter silence, so empty that it almost seemed to roar. It wasn’t just a lack of life. It was a lack of existence. Lonelier than the tallest peak and farther than the deepest depths of the ocean.

And as Noah let himself still, even the sound of his own body went silent. It wasn’t something that could have happened anywhere in the real world. The beating of his heart, the pump of blood through his veins, the very sounds that were integral to life itself — they could not be stilled.

Not unless one was nothing but a soul remembering what had once been.

This was silence.

Silence in true.

And this was what he’d been looking for.

Noah stood there and absorbed the nothingness. He would have preferred to leave, but could have stayed for years. It wasn’t something he was proud to admit… but this was familiar. It had been his life for so long that many of his other memories felt like pale imitations in comparison.

Then he pulled himself from within the quiet. He focused his thoughts.

His eyes narrowed.

Even though he couldn’t see the runes in his soul anymore, they were still there. was still there. This was still his soul, after all.

Noah didn’t breath out. That would have been breaking the stillness.

And there was no need for such grand movements.

This was already everything his rune needed to be.

There was no more appropriate place for it to be born.

Noah’s features relaxed. The tension gripping his back left. He sent his will outward.

And there, upon the infinite emptiness of the Line, Noah commanded a rune into being.

Then the Line fell away. Darkness swallowed the golden pathways and dragged them back into the depths of Noah’s soul as his consciousness returned to his runes. Pressure prickled against his skin. His eyes throbbed. Pale gray energy illuminated his palms.

He raised his gaze.

And, floating before him, was a Rank 5 Rune. It was strikingly plain. The weaving gray lines that made it up seemed almost too simple — but, at the same time, there was beauty in the simplicity. The lack of anything too complex seemed to wrap back around into creating something beautiful.

Noah’s throat felt dry.

He didn’t even dare utter a word. For some reason, speaking in this Rune’s presence so quickly after it had been born almost felt like blasphemy. Something about this Rank 5 felt… different. It wasn’t that it was stronger than his other attempts. It didn’t have more magical energy than a different rune of its rank.

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No, this was something else entirely.

It was just… .

Noah knew that it was Flawless before he even drew on the Rune’s power. It wasn’t just a Flawless Rune. It was one that suited him. It wasn’t that any of his other existing Runes didn’t. It was just that this one was borne of something that he’d already known for a long, long time.

It was familiar.

Ironically enough, the Rune had been combined of the exact components that he’d used during his first attempt at creating the Rune. But the difference between this one and the other one was so astronomical that comparing them felt like an insult in itself.

Noah let Absolute Silence’s power flow through his body, feeling the chilly gray energy as it coursed through his soul. Then he released it. A smile crept across his lips.

“That’s six,” Noah said. “One more to go.”

I have not seen a Rune created in such a manner before. Did it really change anything?

“How can you not tell?” Noah asked incredulously. “The difference in quality is huge. They aren’t even in the same league.”

Aside from their naming, the components and power seems the same to me.

Noah grunted. “Well, it isn’t. This one is right. The other one wasn’t.”

I won’t argue with you there. It’s your rune. You’d know more than anyone else. And that leaves one more to do, does it not?

“One more,” Noah said, giving Absolute Silence one more glance as the Rank 5 floated back to join the others in their ranks. It still had to be filled — but he had so many Runes to work with right now that it was a simple task. He didn’t bother waiting around.

Noah just drew on Sunder and shattered a few of the runes he hadn’t used, drawing the power out from them and sending it coursing into Absolute Silence until the rune had been filled to the brim. Then he let the magic fade away, a pensive look crossing his features.

I trust you can return the remaining runes to my pages? They are already open.

“Sure,” Noah said. “I might end up using a few of them later, but I don’t know yet. I need to think for a moment on what the last of the Disasters should be.”

He let his eyes crack open back in the real world, pressing his finger to Grim’s open pages and quickly Imbuing the runes that he hadn’t used back into the grimoire’s pages. Then he plunged right back into his soul. He was so close now. All he had to do was determine what the last of his Rank 5s would be and create it.

Then he’d be ready to make his Rank 6.

Noah sank right back into his soul as soon as he was done. Grim’s voice was waiting for him before he’d even finished opening his eyes to take in his runes.

Well? What do you need for the last one?

Noah’s lips pursed.

“I’ve got quite a bit gathered already at the Rank 5 level. Chaos. Space. Gravity. Earth. Fire. Silence. Wind and vibration are within enough of my runes that I don’t think I need another rune specifically to represent it. So what does that leave me missing?”

A Rank 6 made of disasters that actually make sense.

“Oh, get over it,” Noah said, rolling his eyes. “Silence is a Disaster. You’ll see soon enough. It’s also integral to music. You can’t make music without at least a little silence in there.”

Then don’t ask me what your last Rune should be. Make a Music disaster. It could be the sound of someone flinging their instrument down a flight of stairs.

Noah let out a snort of laughter. “I’m sure that would be a disaster to some. Especially whoever’s unlucky enough to be standing at the bottom of said stairs. But a music disaster rune, huh? I think that’s more what I’m working toward than what I’m trying to make now. But a tool for it…”

He trailed off.

Thoughts bubbled in his head. Perhaps Grim actually had a better point than he’d initially thought. Music was the way in which his runes could combine into Formations. He wasn’t looking to put music itself into the identity of any of his current runes. That would come later.

But they mediums for music. Everything was when approached from the right direction. And when he thought about it that way, there was actually one rather glaring hole in his current range of Runes.

Water.

His current arrangement of runes gave him ways to pass his power through a vast array of elements, but the elements of water he had were distant and buried within Unraveling Disruption — which was now more Chaos than anything else.

Noah nodded slowly to himself. That felt right. And sound traveled very differently through water than it did through air or earth. It would shore up a pretty big opening that could come into a lot of use when he combined the Rank 5s into a Rank 6 and help ensure that he didn’t have a weakness toward one element.

“Okay,” Noah said, a grin stretching across his lips. “I’ve got it.”

Is that so? What did you decide on?

“Get me water runes. Deep ones, if you’ve got them,” Noah said. “A tiny bit of Wind as well. Won’t need much of that. A tiny bit of earth. Might need that. And… hmm. What else? Do you have something like a life rune? I’d take a bit of that if you do.”

You ask for runes as if they were candies.

“Only because you’re a candy store,” Noah said. “Do you have them?”

Grim let out an echoing sigh.

Yes. I have them.

Noah grinned.

“Then hand ‘em over. This won’t take long at all. I’ve already figured out exactly what I want.”

***

Noah’s words proved true.

It took him another hour minutes or so before he’d finished testing out components and how they combined, but he didn’t have to struggle much to create his final Rank 5. That was the benefit of having a grimoire that his girlfriend had evidently stuffed to the absolute brim with runes. When he had all the options he needed to choose from, then putting the final component together was just a matter of banging his head against the problem until he found the solution.

And he found the solution.

Floating before Noah was a new, deep blue rune. It was so dark that it was almost black, the lines making it up flowing like waves in circular patterns.

It was Flawless.

He’d ended up working a little bit of vibration into the rune in place of the wind to try and bind it more to his current runes’ direction. There were also a few small components of life, but the vast majority of it was made up of the deepest, heaviest water runes that he’d been able to create.

And the result spoke for itself. Noah could practically feel the weight emanating from the final Rank 5 from where he stood. Noah spent a few moments filling the rune up to the brim with excess magical energy, then returned all the remaining unneeded runes to Grim’s pages.

Noah then returned to his soul.

And there he stood, surrounded by 7 Rank 5 Runes. Each one Flawless. Each one immensely powerful in its own right. His lips curled into a smile. He wasn’t going to have to rush ahead with a sub-par combination this time around.

Noah could finally advance to Rank 6 — for good.