Isaac looked away for a moment to the window in front of him before returning his gaze to the huge crater in the center of the nearby forest. He sighed lightly.
"Maybe I should do my experiments outside of the Gardens ... or at least at altitude," he thought as he studied his aura again, trying to see if he could hold his levitation for much longer.
With a quick realization, he could see that his levitation didn't seem to eat into his mana or energy reserves. Either way, if such a powerful blast couldn't even halve its mana reserves, a small levitating spell probably wouldn't do anything. Especially taking into account the fact that he could not move very fast, barely 5km / h.
The flotation effect was quite special, like he was in water but not really, the air felt slightly mushy at his fingertips and his clothes were floating all around. He felt like he was in a bath. "Too good ..." he thought.
After a few seconds, he then decided to turn to the golem in front of him, more specifically the blue rune lying in the center of his chest.
The rune was relatively simple and composed of lines creating rudimentary geometric formations, rectangles, squares and triangles distributed asymmetrically within a circle. Isaac then began to analyze them and observe the behavior of each line, curious to know their possible function.
"Decoration or functional?" was the question asked at each line of the rune, seeking if it had an aesthetic or technical purpose. As his observations progressed, he was able to answer this question. "The rune does have a function. It is a controller!"
Using the control panel to issue orders to the golem, the rune seemed to react to very weak waves of energy coming from the ground and seeping over the surface of the rune. Once the energy seeped in, the streams of mana forming the rune reacted differently and the energy flow changed direction or focused. The changes of the rune then created reactions in the golem's mana circuit, causing the affected body parts to move according to the movement of the mana.
Although the circuit created was rudimentary and quite simplified compared to those present in living things, even plants, there was still a circuit capable of collecting surrounding mana.
The rune seemed to have two functions: The first was to create and maintain a mana circuit. As Isaac had suspected, golems weren't really living things, but rather a heap of rock and metal, most notably gold as a substitute for mana currents.
From this observation, Isaac was then able to conclude that on the one hand, it was possible to create mana circuits and possibly create what could resemble life. And on the other hand, it was probably possible to manipulate the circuits present inside living things and perhaps control them?
The rune's second function was to act as a wireless relay between the golem and another source, possibly the control panel. Isaac wasn't sure yet how the control panel interpreted his commands and relayed them, but he still had some time to study it.
The assembly of the lines seemed to follow very simple rules. Each intersection between several lines was what could be considered knots. Each node appears to be like a neuron with tiny inscriptions inside. The flow of mana was redirected according to its intensity and frequency in one channel or another, was evacuated or else absorbed.
Suddenly Isaac arched an eyebrow. He ordered the golem to cease all movement and then began to approach slowly floating. "Wait ... wait!"
He then began to look at the next knot, then another knot. "But no," he said aloud.
After several minutes of going through each of the knots and lines running through the rune, a huge smile then appeared on his face. With his aura, he then grabbed a large boulder about 5 meters in diameter and dug it out of the ground. After which, he then came to rest on it and placed his hand, palm down, and then concentrated his mana lightly on the surface of the rock, mentally drawing the outline of the lines.
Gradually, traces of burns began to appear on the surface as the mana around began to fluctuate. The energy moving around began to focus and began to whirl around, creating a new vortex, but this time much calmer and more serene, creating a simple formation of energy spinning around the boulder.
Slowly, a rune then appeared on the rock, measuring about three times that traced on the golem's torso, but whose lines seemed extremely charged with energy. The mana inside began to circulate, then accelerated slowly before completely managing to create an infinite circuit. The mana being absorbed from the air, traversing the lines before being released with a high frequency and a low intensity.
The result was quick: The absorbed mana was refined into active mana, creating a powerful wind swirling around the rock. The whole area then began to be blown by a light wind, not very powerful but one could still feel, sweeping the surroundings, the grass and the trees.
Isaac had discovered how the runes worked. These are circuits! With a little time, he understood the meaning of the different lines and knots. Each node was like an individual logic processing unit and contained logic processing elements with the counterpart of a computer transistor but in terms of mana.
Each transistor was then assembled in order to create logic gates "AND", "OR", "NOT", etc… allowing to determine which lines should be fed, from which place the energy should be absorbed, re-fed or redistributed.
The set of nodes and lines then gave an electronic circuit like those of the motherboards of computers. But here the power was mana.
[System] You have created your first magic rune!
[System] Achievement unlocked: Copy, edit, paste
[System] You have unlocked the title [Rune Burner]
[System] You have unlocked the title [Runic Seeker]
"Yes !" he said, hopping lightly in place.
In front of him was his first runic creation: A Fan. Sure, a very big and heavy fan, but a fan all the same. But this function was only an application of this rune, he had another project in mind. As he was about to test his idea, a notification suddenly appeared.
[System] Conditions met.
[System] You have found 1 [Admin Message]
Isaac sighed in advance, preparing to listen to the message.
[System] Reading message ...
"My congratulations, dear Padawan! You have discovered the secrets of the runes."
[System] End of message
Isaac was silent for a while, as if waiting for something to happen.
"That's all ?" he thought, staring into space. "Not even any news or a mocking message? Just congratulations?" Maybe the Admin had no more ideas to tease Isaac, who knows. In any case, Isaac did not complain and then turned to the rock.
For now, the rune was traced on the top of the rock, creating a vortex of wind directed upwards and blowing around in a moderate way. However, Isaac had other ideas.
He then activated his levitation spell and came to position himself next to the rune before deactivating it by absorbing all the mana present inside, completely cutting off the power cycle.
After that, he made some modifications, increasing the size of the nodes and the number of lines, adding new instructions. The rune, still the same size, was now much more heavily traced, making it difficult to read.
After a while Isaac felt satisfied with his work and proceeded to flip the boulder with his aura so that the rune was placed underneath. Once done, he walked over to the boulder and began to infuse just enough mana for the power cycle to restart before quickly running off, ordering the golem to follow him.
Once about thirty meters away, Isaac finally decided to turn around, followed by the golem, and then came to smile up to his ears when he saw his experimentation.
A little further, the rune rock hovered above the ground, emitting powerful gusts stabilizing it in the air with the rune appearing to gain power second by second, slowly increasing the rock's altitude.
Below, the plants and grass were violently shaken by the squalls, digging up the few shrubs and bushes directly under the boulder and turning the earth slightly.
With enough power, Isaac had managed to create a permanent flight platform that rose higher and higher in the air before finally stabilizing once at about fifteen meters in altitude. A smile on his lips, he then began to float and came directly over the boulder before slowly descending.
Arriving a few yards from the boulder, Isaac then released his flotation spell and fell onto the flat boulder, stabilizing himself with his arms and looking around.
The boulder seemed stable with Isaac on it and remained in the air without any movement, with the sole activity of the rune creating powerful gusts below and Isaac attempting to look around and inspect the rune with his mana vision through the rock. rock.
"Magic Experiment # 2. Flying Rock. Final Decision: Success!" he said aloud to himself, a smile decorating his face.