"Ah, Fluffy, you're finally here, great. I'm desperately in need of a pillow. Having my spinous process pressing against the floor feels itchy." Ran crawled up to the sleeping Fluffy and directly laid his entire body on her. Ah sweet bliss. Not Having all your bones scratching against the floor is simply divine. Ran thought. Fluffy was startled, however, at the cactus in front of her.
"Meor! Meor!" Get the hell off me you tramp! How dare you rest upon the goddess that is FLUFFY! Was what she said. Every part of Ran that was touching her was like a spike that threatened to pierce her. But she couldn't do anything! Haha and guess what?
"Ah, Fluffy, I'm so hungry. Look at me, I'm just an old bag of bones now! Please be a dear and bring me food, would you?" That's what! S**t, he had eyes filled with sincerity and hopelessness. And what else, she still did it, with him laying on her!
A tyrant! A tyrant, that's what he is now. Ah, what have I done!? Such a pure mc. But now, sigh…
She shuffled to the bag and somehow brought it to his face and dropped all the food on him. With his nose touching the jerky, a faint spiced meat smell penetrated his nose and a rumble as loud as thunder burst forth from his cob-webb filled stomach. 1 pound. 2 pounds. 5 pounds. 25 pounds! 50 pounds! After eating a whopping 100 pounds, or roughly 45 kilos, of snake meat, a clacking or chugging noise could be heard from his body. The engine, his stomach, has started and was quickly digesting and converting the food into energy for his body and soul. His extremely bloated stomach slowly deflated until it was back to normal, his body, however, still looked dead though and would need days if not weeks of recuperation.
"Burp. Ah, that was great. Nothing beats eating dehydrated meat until your stomach almost explodes, right Fluffy?" Fluffy then proceeded to belch and even blow it in Rans direction. Smelling the raunch stank that originated from her mouth, he laughed and laughed until he dozed off; lacking the energy to anything right now. Sigh, I swear, did I cut them from the same cloth or what? It feels like buying a shirt from an expensive brand, only to find out it was made in some factory in a foreign country.
This time, however, Ran had no weird or special dream. In fact, he didn't dream at all! His brain lacked the nutrients to function properly, aside from the occasional fart or boob joke. Just like that, he slept like a baby while Fluffy had to suffer from his bones poking at her. By the time he woke up and shuffled off of her, bruises and indents were visible where Ran had slept, leaving the impression that a skeleton had been on top of her. Waking up, he looked around curiously. He distinctly remembered that his name had reacted intensely toward the rune. Looking up to that rune, he noticed no reaction from his name. So, he focused on the rune next to it. Instantly, his sword hummed and seemed excited. Noticing the reaction, his body was drenched in cold sweat. Well, that's what would have happened if his body had any water in it. It's a miracle he's even alive people! Instead, his body just slightly shivered in fear.
"F**k! I've suffered enough don't you think." His name didn't listen and instead, it seemed even more excited than before. Once again, he looked around the room in fear and trepidation. Runes. Runes everywhere! Every single inch of the walls were filled with inscriptions of runes. Knowing the magnitude of the situation he was dealing with, he quickly tried to shuffle away; his body wouldn't listen! He had recovered enough to stand, but that was it. His name grew so agitated that the next moment, "S**t!" Feeling his left arm stretch, he knew at that moment-he f***ed up. Holding up his sword, terror could be seen in Rans eyes. The sword, the sword had summoned itself!
Boom! An invisible ripple appeared from his engraved name on the sword and spread throughout the whole room. In an instant, all the runes slowly awakened and sparkled like the first one. Different noises could be heard, almost like music, as if the runes were dancing and singing. The sword hummed as well like it was satisfied with the result and continued letting out ripples.
In Rans mind, the sword zoomed back and forth carving different runes, one into each branch. Starting from the top and all the way to the bottom. 100,000! That's how many runes there were in the room! My God! And that wasn't even enough to cover all the branches, but nonetheless, it made for a sight. Seeing mysterious runes carved into the wood and sparkling with much pidazzle just added to the marvelousness of the thing.
Back outside, over an hour had passed until finally, the ripples stopped. The runes stopped sparkling and resumed their old decrepit look. Looking around the room, Ran took on a whole new impression of these ancient runes. Focusing on one, he immediately recalled what that rune's properties are.
***
Runes, in a sense, are like words. A single rune can carry a meaning(s), or property, and that meaning can change when coupled with other runes. Likewise, when many different runes come together, they can carry a whole new meaning; like a sentence. And like punctuation, runes can have a different meaning depending on the intensity of power it has. Take for example, there is a rune that can carry the meaning or property of a signal. If the power behind the signal rune is very intense, then one would know that it is important or it is an emergency of some kind, like an sos signal. If the power was low, then it can be considered an alarm. If there are many signal runes coupled with other runes, whole conversations can be sent out. Of course, the difficulty comes from finding the right balance of power between different runes. And sigils… they can also be considered as a complex structure of different runes put together. Though they are on a whole different level of sophistication, so much so that people in this world cannot replicate them on the same level.
Now, of course, the question you all are thinking of is-what is Ran going to do with all of this rune knowledge? That, my friend, is a question for the next chapter.
***
After a week of recuperation, Ran now has the AWESOME ability to WALK! In fact, he was able to walk all the way back to the lair of the Cavern snake without his knees buckling and his ankles breaking. Fluffy, as well, was able to shuffle all the way to the lair when her tank was full, though she had a head start of a week and only beat Ran by a day or two. In the lair, Rans body had reached a level where his bones weren't protruding outwards, but his body was still that of a stick. This was mostly because his soul was the one to suck most of that energy to help stabilize his mind and allow his brain function to be like a normal human being. He was even able to train his concentration and bring out a few more strands of his soul juice.
"Hmm. I wonder what else I can do with this." Ran was always a curious guy, as seen before, and always fumbled with things to figure them out, no matter how many times he had failed. He brought out all the strands of juice he could bring out and instead of imbuing his sword, he crumpled them all together. Soon, a ball the size of a marble was shown from his hand.
Throwing it to the ground, he noticed that it had no bounce and it was very slowly dissipating. Thinking some more, inspiration hit him. "If the sigil converts my energy into its ability, can I reverse it? Hmm, interesting." Smirking, he activated his sigil, but this time he concentrated on the energy ball on the ground. Instantly, the ball shimmered and grew a reflective like surface; similar to a mirror. He had successfully imbued his energy with his sigil! Very quickly though, he noticed something. His depletion rate had doubled. Having to keep his ball from dissipating was already steadily consuming about a percent every minute was already somewhat surprising, I mean it's just a ball the size of a marble. But adding the parry effect had doubled the depletion rate! What's worse was that once he was surprised, the effect vanished. Evidently, it needed even more concentration to keep the effect active on the marble.
Feeling a bit depressed, he slouched down on the ground. Picking the slowly dissipating ball, he smelled something. Sniffin the ball, his mind jolted. He had never smelled himself from the source itself before [insert joke here]. The smell was intoxicating and he fell into a daze.
He didn't even notice that the ball had morphed itself. If one looked after the transformation, they would find two, small, identical petals.