The third step could actually be split into two phases. One being this stage, the burning of the soul juice sphere. The second phase is actually the product of the first phase.
While the sphere kept burning, Ran closed his eyes. This could take awhile. In his mind, the images of the runes grew clearer and clearer until… looking at the sphere once again, it was charred. The sphere had pretty much turned charcoal black with some white ashy parts sprinkling outwards. Interestingly enough, it was actually still a liquid. Well, that's only half of the story. Its consistency is actually quite like silicone; it's extremely malleable but is able to hold its shape.
This was the fourth step. Once the sphere was finished burning, one had to work the sphere into whatever shape the runes consist of.
Ran first separated the sphere into 3 pieces. The first one was huge, taking up half of the entire sphere. The next piece was also big as it took up over two-thirds of the other half of the sphere. The last piece was only one-third, which was only about a tenth of the original shape.
If we're going by numbers, Ran, at this time, was originally able to have twenty rune slots; but with these runes, he only got three! That means each one of these "special" runes is the equivalent of more than 6 normal runes! S**t, no wonder they thought so highly of themselves to throw away those normies earlier. It wasn't until after he finished that he realized the ridiculousness of it all.
After splitting them, he started off in the order from smallest to biggest. Grabbing hold of the smallest piece, it felt… hot. Not only that, it had extreme stretchiness and was especially squishy. It was stained with black and white ash, essentially covering its outer surface.
Molding. That was the best word to describe the fourth step. Molding the piece, it became smaller in size as it was molded to become a sphere. This small sphere was then sliced on the surface in various parts of itself; resembling inscriptions, and even runes themselves. After inscribing the sphere, he moved onto the second piece.
The second piece was stretched and molded until it became a ring. The ring was then further stretched out until it was able to fit the sphere inside its diameter; with a fair bit of space left to spare. Then he inscribed it as well, though the inscriptions themselves were very different-and seemingly more complex-than the first rune. With the second rune done was actually arguably the most important part.
The last, and biggest piece. Though this piece was actually optional (meaning it is not necessary), for Rans purpose, it is vital.
The last piece was actually divided once again into another part. Now there were two. These two pieces were turned to long rings that held the other two runes in the center. Not only that, the rings were too big. But on purpose of course. The amount of extra space basically made it look like a ball in a cage (which it was) that had way to wide of holes.
The two rings were in a cross form and were fused on the top and bottom to become one piece again. A part of the bottom was then carved out, leaving a small hole as an exit. The carved out piece was redistributed, causing the rings to widen slightly. But that wasn't the end.
Some mass was then taken out of the cage evenly. The small mass that was taken out was molded into four, small (like pretty small) phalanges, one for each side of the rings. Basically, they were sticks with bulges at the ends; sort like a match, but more elegantly made. Damn, just look at those curves! The gradation from phalanges to rings is just, mmnf.
Cough, sorry about that. I just get giddy at the sight of a nicely rounded off design.
After finishing the phalanges, he inscribed the cage entirely and wrapped everything up. Looking at the three dimensional runes, some pride welled up inside him.
In the center of the hollow cage, a ring was wrapped around a small sphere. The cages had phalanges that extended outwards, seemingly trying to serve a purpose other than decoration. This was it. It was his child! Well, not a real child, but he made it with his own will which made him feel extremely excited and fatherly.
Now comes the last step. WAITING! That's right, readers, waiting. That was the worst and most detestable step mankind has ever known! How could you make something only to have you wait after you've completed everything!?
Ran was excited and waited a bit before he got a little annoyed. But he quickly realized he had to be patient. Who knows, he might just mess something up if he began to act rashly.
After waiting a couple minutes, the scene in front of him began changing. "Oh is it finally happening!?" Finally, Ran thought the time had come. Yes, indeed, it did.
The scene turned dark before his eyes saw something. Looking around he found himself back in the room. It was filled with blue smoke that was already dissipating due to the sticks being burned all the way through.
Except something was wrong. And then he realized. He couldn't breathe! Grabbing his neck, he vaguely saw that his hands had already turned a purplish blue. Gasping for air, he gasped in an exaggerated manner as a sign for help. He couldn't talk with his throat closed, much less breathe anyway. He rolled and writhed on the floor like a worm while his eyes had already rolled to the back of his head; froth somehow flowing out of his mouth and nose.
After gasping for about twenty seconds, Ann had finally noticed his plea. She just went to the restroom a couple minutes ago and before she left, she saw him perfectly fine. She had been watching him the entire time and it only happened after she left!?
Quickly giving him a surge of energy, the soul heart that was on the verge of collapse and no longer functioning was stabilized. After calming down a bit, the both of them looked at each other. "How long was I out for?" Ran asked tiredly. He was panting and grasping his chest with a limp arm. This was such a close call, if she had been a minute late, he probably would have suffocated to death. "Uh, about an hour. Why?" Hearing an hour had passed by, cold sweat dripped from his entire person.
Holy s**t! If she didn't have extremely strong bowels, I would have died! Like actually died! Some indigestion and I- would-have-died! Poof, gone, just like that! Looking back, maybe he might have been better off eating his own heart.
After waiting about half an hour, a cracking sound could be heard from Ran. Even Ann had heard it and looked at Ran. "Is that what I think it is-" before she could finish her sentence, Ran bloomed a most radiant smile. Nodding his head, he focused his senses.
When a rune formation is finished, and is successful, it forms an intrinsic connection to its creator, exactly like a sigil.
In Rans soul, some black and white ash spread outwards. The three runes' surface began a shedding process and started peeling back the outermost layer. The flakes shook off to reveal the jet black runes with an extremely beautiful crystalline structure. The inscriptions glowed in a faint white-pink light, a sign of its connection to Ran.
As he was admiring this display, something else happened, a black flash suddenly shot itself through his soul before stopping itself in front of the formation. It stood there, revolving around the cages exit.
Oh gosh, it's a U.F.O!!! Someone help, please!
But upon further investigation, Ran found it… familiar. "Oh it's just you, Parry-San, you scared me for a second there." Looking at his sigil, he finally got an extremely detailed examination of its three dimensional appearance.
It was actually a cube. On every face of the cube are smaller circular slabs floating just (barely) above it. The slabs spinned at incredible speeds and because of this, the cube seemed to be experiencing strange motion effects. It floated there, rotating and spinning, slowly, in random directions. The inscriptions on the slabs were a bit difficult to read out, but they looked majestic nonetheless.
Except, they were… different. Well, compared to the cube at least because those were true weird ones. The inscriptions on the cube were ever-changing and would sometimes glow in random places rather than the slabs which glowed all at once. It was kind of hypnotizing to be honest. But it doesn't end there.
Chains. Some chains! Lots of chains! Chains... everywhere.
Chains wrapped around the cube (and slabs) in a mysterious manner, almost as if they were… confining something. While there were many chains, the cube and slabs were still easily seen from outside. The inscriptions on the chains glowed much more intensely than the rest of the runes; to the point of creating faint white-pink light beams whenever they glowed.
Dang, that s**t must've switched to the Nvidia RTX series!
But the mysteriousness didn't end there. Upon feeling it with his hands, Ran felt something. It was definitely his sigil, but something was off. At a glance, it seemed perfectly normal, but somewhere… something deep inside him thumped. "Its… it's not the same…" Ran said. It was strange. It looked and felt exactly how it's supposed to be and yet, he couldn't shake off that feeling of dread. Something was missing.
He stared at it and touched it and stared at it again. He even licked it. He prodded and poked, and even tugged on the chains a bit. He stopped the spinning of the slabs which stopped the cubes floating motion. Yet, nothing happened. He scratched his head and was at a loss. The more he thought about it and experimented, the more the dread in his heart continued to grow. Eventually it grew to a point where he started sweating and his face became flush.
He teared up a little for the dread jabbed his brain with sorrow and confusion. He wiped his eyes and decidedly gave up. There was no use looking for something that doesn't want to show itself, or rather, couldn't show itself.
Before exiting the meditative state, he looked at his soul once again. Now that he thought about it, his soul seemed to be in the same state as his sigil. The more he gazed upon his soul, the more confused and sad he became.
While the shimmering lights very likely came from the cave (whether from the pond or his bloodline), he could tell this much because his eyes had the same kind of lights. But looking elsewhere, he only found white-pink and red-pink. The white-pink was extremely milky and soft, but was still a little transparent (just barely). But the red-pink was extraordinarily opaque, to the point of dazzling his eyes with radiant color. Except he felt the same way for the both of them. Yet why were they different in the first place? The red-pink didnt take nearly as much space as the white-pink, but it was equally important. Yet, even with all of these details that Ran picked up on, he still felt that same dread pick on him again, even stronger this time.
Am I white-pink or the red-pink? Did that even matter? Why are there two colors in the first place? Why is one different from the other and why do I feel this way? Is there even a point to all this?
Even though he knew he wouldn't get the answers to these questions, he felt as if he didn't want to know the answers in the first place. Gazing one more time, he also felt this place (his soul) extremely familiar. This is him. This is Ran. He took some solace in that.
However, when he left he didn't notice two things that technically are completely irrelevant to his dilemma. The sigil continued to revolve around the exit that was carved out of the bottom. But that wasn't the worst part. The newly formed formation seemed to shake slightly when in the presence of the sigil. Maybe it was shaking in excitement? Or was it that it was annoyed by the sigil's presence? Maybe it was just shaking for an entirely different reason, like having finally been born and was gearing up to start its directive…
Yet that wasn't all. Out of nowhere, a woosh could be heard in Rans soul. With that woosh, a flash of light zoomed around his soul like it was a race track. It eventually stopped around the formation and began revolving around it. By now, it stopped being a flash of light and revealed it's TRUE nature.
It was Rans sword! Ah, Sword-Chan, what are you doing here?
Buzz, buzz.
Rans sword buzzed and shook as it revolved around the formation as if it was… excited.
***
After getting out of his trance, Ann helped him recover for another half an hour until it finally happened. The new rune formation glowed white-pink as it was finally able to start its directive.
At this point, under Ann's help, Ran was actually able to recover about half of his energy; being a peak rank-6 meant that the amount of soul juice flowing through her soul, if going by normal standards, is actually four times that of Ran! But wait a minute… if she has four times his energy, then that means that Rans capacity has actually reached rank-8, right? Yes, under the constant threat of the soul heart, his soul is now able to hold twice as much as it did before he lost his original heart!
Not only that, but even now, Ran has already reached the peak of a rank-8s capacity and is expanding and nearing those of a rank-7! This, in part, allowed Ran to be able to withstand the consumption of Queenie's flames. After all, she was a mid rank-7 and he can't just go reflecting everyone's and everything's attacks.
However, even with that much more juice, Ran stayed at the peak of rank-9. Why? Of course, in Rans case, there's only one reason. Its quality! Purity! Whatever you want to call it. But the point is that strictly speaking, his soul is full of impurities, some of which can be undetectable.
The amount of soul juice doesn't really matter because it's the quality that allows the energy to nourish the soul and body. You can have the amount of energy a rank-10 has and still be rank-1. Now this is really exaggerated, but it shows the importance of the quality of one's own soul juice.
Now, if there's one question to ask, it's how did those impurities get there in the first place.
Once he put a sliver of soul juice into the cage and it absorbed it, it shuttered before a click could be heard. Then, the cage slowly started spinning on its own without a consciousness to control it. Soon it picked up speed until it found a stable speed; not too slow nor too fast. But the neat thing was the phalanges. As it spun clockwise, some soul juice got caught and pulled into the cage.
Once it entered the cage, the sphere in the center shuttered before a click could be heard. Then it too started spinning, though it spun counter clockwise. But it didn't end there.
It started picking up speed like usual, only it didn't stop. It sped up and up and up until it was spinning so fast it was creating soft screeching sounds. At that point, the inscriptions could barely be seen as it looked just like a flash of light here and there. Once the strand of soul juice entered the cage, it was caught by the sphere's influence that it made with its extreme speed.
It too started spinning counter clockwise under the sphere and formed a tiny (almost imperceptible) vortex. But as more strands were captured by the phalanges, the vortex grew bigger and bigger until it became a proper vortex. Yet, it did not have any downdraft.
After the creation of the vortex, another click was heard. The ring wrapped around the sphere began spinning as well, though it seemed a bit different than the other runes. As it spun, it brought with it an insurmountable amount of pressure. As it spun, one could see it spin slowly, yet just looking at it would add weight to one's shoulders.
As the pressure increased, it began forcibly pushing down the soul juice, artificially creating a downdraft.
Due to the speed of the sphere, the top of the vortex began stretching until it eventually hit the inside of the cage. A screeching and scraping sound could be heard as the opposing rotations caused the surface of the vortex to scrape away, shrinking the vortex in the process.
The downdraft was pushed until it began pressing against the small hole at the bottom of the cage. Then it began slowly squeezing itself through like a juice maker. At the exit of the cage, a small amount of soul juice was released and it was noticeably different from the rest. While the color of his soul juice is the same as the color of his soul, white-pink, it was slightly more dense as well as being stretchier. Its slimy and sticky nature also intensified slightly.
This is it. This was what Ran wanted. A way to increase his capacity as well as purify and condense his energy! Automation! It did everything itself without Rans help. Basically he was constantly becoming stronger at all times of the day.
The cage would catch the energy and the sphere makes a vortex. The vortex would scrape itself against the cage which not only scrapes away the impurities, it also wastes energy; causing his soul to constantly make more to compensate. The ring condenses the soul juice, making it stronger while also taking up less space.
Outside, witnessing this, Ran suddenly leapt into the air with a fist of joy.
Landing, he grabbed Ann's shoulders and shook them vigorously. While shaking them, and by proxy Ann, he looked into her eyes and shouted:
"IT'S ALIVE!!! HAHAHAHA, ALIVE!"
Ann was dazed by the sudden screaming and just silently stood there, being shaken repeatedly by Ran. She looked at him, smiled, and silently enjoyed this scene.
After celebrating for a couple minutes by screaming and shaking Ann, Ran calmed down. But before he could calm down fully, a crack was heard.
"Ah?"
Then his aura surged, pervading into the outside world in droves like a wave of energy.
He had leveled up to rank-8.