Chapter 9: True Travesty!
The man looked over his shoulder at the worn leather case, that had been lying next to his bed from the previous week.
Picking the case from beside his bed, Alabaster took out the other two books that came within the wizard's premium bundle of horrendous books of horrors.
After completing the treacherous trio of books, the man looked at the covers of the other two, reading them to find...
More bizarre titles.
[ RECREATIONAL RUNES FOR A RETARD.
written by the world's strongest wizard. ]
and
[LAWS FOR LONELY LOSERS
made by the most majestic magician.]
"This pervert had made a mistake, I think he meant lackluster lessons from a lustrous pervert.
All jokes aside, how does this cretin keep coming up with these outlandish names?"
The man greatly condemned these two books, but despite his constant aggression towards them, they were, in fact, quite informative.
Indeed, these books were handcrafted for him and solely for him.
Only that obsessed wizard who watched him with perversely orientated intentions all these years could ever make such books, so specially tailored to fit Alabaster, all too perfectly.
Every fact, magic, and rune was full of instructions made to fit him, and though Alabaster hated to admit it, the wizard's books had aided him greatly.
The man quickly refuted the thought. Nothing that pervert had said was worthy of any praise.
He placed the three books on his stained onyx rug as he sat with the sunny boy on his lap, opening the creatively named book on magic runes.
"Let's get this over with," sighed Alabaster as he opened the book to the first page to be greeted with well... you know full well by now.
[YO_YOU_YOU'RE READING RUNES NOW!!! It truly is the end!
No, but seriously, what is happening? Maybe I'm finally getting to you.
Hey, have you considered using Alabaster as your alias?
Come on, admit it. You lov]
If Alabaster had learnt from the previous book, that reading on was not worth it.
The man had a bitter taste in his mouth as he suffered from not second but third-hand impressment. This was a true new pinnacle of crazy.
This shameless guy had once again filled the book's first ten pages with obscene and indecent questions and statements.
Alabaster immediately skipped the first ten pages to the sincere first page of the book.
[RUDIMENTARY RUNES FOR A RUDE SH*T.
Runes are complex, yet as an incoherent idiot swordsman, you probably take them for granted.
But as a wizard, one must believe in rune supremacy.
Only a few GENIUS people LIKE THE MAJESTIC I. Have ever truly mastered rune forging or used them, making any rune-related product extremely valuable.
LIKE THIS BOOK! A LITTERAL FORTUNE.
BUT! since you're a clueless swordsman. With no background knowledge and an insignificant small brain full of slash, cut, hit bang, pew pew.
I guess I'll teach you from scratch.
Runes are a versatile way of carving magic and permanently imputing magic within...
ANY ONE OF THESE THINGS: weaponry, formations, or items.
BuT, Oh GReaT aNd POwErful AURUM I'm An IDiot sWoRdsMaN that KnOws NOthIng Of THis woRLds magic!
I hear your plea, dear demented companion of mine.
I'll explain for your unfortunate lack of common sense.
So let's go from the top and break it down.
Firstly, runes are carvings made with mana circuits.
They can be layered to be stronger and are powered by a source of mana like cores, to make...
Guess what. Formations.
UNLESS! You're a perfect being such as myself and can make self-sustaining runes without a core for a power source.
Like the ones, I've used in these state-of-the-art enchanted books.
.
Secondly, runes are commonly used to enhance the properties of materials used in forging weaponry.
EVEN a BRAINDEAD swordsman must know that.
Even your precious swords were forged with runes. To help them withstand your barbaric, uncontrollably explosive mana. Which I hope you have tamed by now.
These runes can increase the value of the materials as well as add valuable buffs to armour and weaponry.
To name a few we've got: elemental resistance, defence enhancement, durability enhancement, colour changing, shape changing, and blah blah blah.
.
Thirdly, items.
These types of runes are rare and very experimental. They have only been around for the last few centuries, not so long.
BUT they are the most important of the lot.
They allow for something unheard of within the long history of this reality.
They allow for the manaless people to use wait for it…
mana!!!
WHO WOULD THINK THE BAKER'S WIFE COULD KILL THEM FOR OGLING AT HER ASSETS. NO ONE UNTIL ITEMS CAME ALONG!
Honestly, it's no fair.
Allowing even a magicless race like dwarvs to now weaponise and use unsignatured mana like any other expert.
They have seen major growth in cities, used in all forms of new technologies like airships, lights, item rings, and so on...
The capital is almost unrecognizable since you last ventured into it. IT FEELS SO ABNORMAL.
You have no idea how terrible it is. All these items have infested cities like the plague. Appearing to be in the possession of every fair maiden.
A true travesty.
A man can no longer stare, admiring the beautiful women in front of him without risking his life.]
The man temporarily paused his reading.
Good riddance! thought the man as he continued to read with a slight smirk.
Which the sunny boy joyfully copied.
The man turned to the book with a pleased expression, a rare experience from reading these devilish books.
[ BUT, the issue was solved by staring at the many wonderful paintings of your gorgeous sleeping face, thinking of you always making me ]
The man's smirk dropped.
.
The sunny boy was greatly confused by this and continued smiling in an attempt to lighten the heavy mood.
The man gave the boy a meagre smile back.
The wizard clearly wished to traumatise him with these comments. There was no other reason to add them!
Alabaster skipped a few graphic paragraphs and once again cautiously continued.
[ Well, now you know the uses. Let's find out about the types.
We've got enhanced runes and circuit runes.
Circuit runes are like a program used for items and formations.
Enhancement runes are used for buffs and stuff.
UDERSTAND?...
GOOD.
Runes are activated when they are saturated with mana. Otherwise, they would just be random carvings.
To start practising runes Mr nameless will need to start with elemental runes. The literal baby basics.
TO START WITH MISTER YOU NEED TO DO FIRE.
You have the highest affinity with it, so you should start with fire. You got it. FIRE!
DONT START WITH WIND OR WATER OR SOMETHING STUPID.
START WITH FIRE!!! FIRE!!!!! THEN DARKNESS, THEN EARTH, AND THEN AND ONLY THEN WATER, WIND, LIGHT OR WHATEVER!]
Alabaster now wished to start with water. But having learnt his lesson the hard way when he first cast a barrier, he decided on the wise choice of starting with fire.
Alabaster then looked to the next page to see a large image of a symbolic flame.
[Here is the rune. I suggest you practice carving it carefully. A mistake in its shape can cause many issues.
Once you have carved it accordingly, you must pour a medium of mana into it to form a circuit, like refined mana cores.
What? Item rings and airships are expensive for a good reason, and here is why.
These precious, irreplaceable books are priceless because of this.]
After this brief explanation, there were more detailed instructions on how to prep and level a rune.
The more the man learned, the less he knew. As the instructions slowly became riddles.
But clueless as he was he grabbed the necessary tools from the item rings, sacrificing his old armour and common monster cores he attained in the monster plains.
He also acquired a small kitchen knife he laced with mana carving out the symbolic rune of fire.
After at least an hour of carefully carving the rune into his old shoulder guard, the man finally finished carving.
Etched into the black leather was what appeared to be a phallic-looking cat.
The man was irked by his lacklustre ability to draw simplified flames.
At this point, the sunny boy is in a state of utter hysteria that one couldn't tell if he was laughing or dying at this point he was wheezing too loudly.
The man made a serious face as he melted a common core with his crimson flames filling his phallic cat with the refined core.
"Here goes nothing."
The man levitated his hand over his painstaking efforts. Slowly seeping his mana into the refined core that filled the crevices of the carved rune.
The rune began to glow a bright neon orange. It was working!
BOOM!!!
…
The wizard had left out a minute small detail. If one was to fail carving a fire rune...
It would explode.
The man's face was blackened, and covered in ash, and so was his onyx rug.
The boy also laughed himself to exhaustion and had now fallen asleep.
His house was now dusted by black soot that had already looked like a chore to clean.
"Damn, this is harder than I thought."
chapter 9 fin.