Chương 116: Non-Elemental Runes Selection

"What other non-elemental runes would you recommend then?" I asked him, hoping to see some options that would complement my existing abilities instead of just duplicating them.

"Are there any other options besides the Hawk Eye Rune?" Elder Molric started stroking his chin with this thoughtful look on his face.

"Hmm, so you really want some sensory enhancement..." He started flipping through the pages of his giant book again.

"There is the Echo Rune, it enhances your hearing so you can pick up heartbeats across a room and some even say they can hear when people are lying."

"What is the catch with that one?" I wanted to know.

"Ah, well..." The elder did this little cough into his hand.

"Using it for a long time usually gives you auditory hallucinations, which isn't too bad at the start since it's just whispers right at the edge of your hearing but if you end up pushing it too much..." He made this swirling motion right next to his head.

"Master," Azure spoke up, "I can already detect heartbeats and micro-fluctuations in people's vocal patterns. I don't think we need to take the risk." I gave a nod that was meant for both Azure and the elder.

"What else do you have?"

"We have the Presence Rune." Elder Molric flipped over to another page.

"It forms a bubble around you, letting you sense changes in the air pressure and movement within it, it even lets you feel the emotional states of others if they get in range." His face got serious for a second.

"The emotional feedback part can cause a lot of problems, mostly during a fight when everybody has their feelings running high."

"Let me take a guess here, it gives you sensory overload?"

"It is more like becoming emotionally contaminated." He made a grimace.

"I had an initiate try using it in a sparring match once and he got caught up in his opponent's battle fury, so he couldn't figure out whose rage belonged to who anymore."

"You can already do that stuff too, right?" I mentally asked Azure.

"Yes, I can, and I can do it without having to risk any of that emotional bleed-over." The elder kept talking, oblivious to our secret conversation.

"There is also the Insight Rune which the scholarly types love because it boosts your pattern recognition and makes your memory better while helping you do complex math..." He took a quick pause.

"It makes people get obsessive though, since they start seeing patterns everywhere they look, even if there isn't anything actually there."

"So, they act like conspiracy theorists?" The elder blinked at me.

"I don't know what that term means but if you are talking about people who waste days making diagrams that connect unrelated stuff together while they constantly mutter about hidden meanings, then yes it is like that." I nodded while chastising myself. I need to be more careful using words from my original world.

"I am sure I can handle doing any of the necessary math or pattern analysis you need Master," Azure pointed out in a dry voice.

"And I can do that without worrying about getting paranoid tendencies either." I agreed with him because almost all these sensory runes were weak imitations of things Azure already did for me anyway. If there were others out there strong enough to hide from Azure's senses, then these low-level runes wouldn't be able to spot them either. I probably shouldn't have expected that much power from basic rank 1 and rank 2 runes to begin with. The elder kept rambling on since he was getting into it now.

"We also have the Whisper Rune which is pretty interesting because it lets you project your voice straight into another person's head from a distance, so it is great for secret communication. It sadly has this unfortunate habit of giving you splitting headaches if you use it too much..." That sounded like using your spiritual sense to talk to people... It was a standard technique back in the cultivation world and practically every single disciple who reached the 4th stage of Qi Condensation could do it easily.

I figured I could probably learn how to do it in a couple of hours once I got back home, so wasting a precious rune slot on something like that didn't make any sense. While the elder went on and on describing a bunch of other sensory enhancements I kept finding myself thinking about the Hawk's Eye Rune. Having enhanced perception and being able to read those micro-expressions would probably be helpful for me especially when the tournament started.

All the drawbacks definitely worried me, but getting thirty seconds of high awareness right in the middle of a bad situation could mean the difference between winning and losing.

"I think I'm going to go with the Hawk's Eye," I finally told him, interrupting this long description he was giving me about something called the Thousand Tongues Rune which supposedly lets you taste stuff from far away, I had no idea why anybody would ever want to do that, and I didn't dare to ask. The elder raised his eyebrow up at me.

"Are you sure about that? Will you be able to deal with the mental stress?"

"I'll make sure I practice it properly," I assured him.

"I'm only going to use it when I need to get an extra edge during a fight."

"Very well then." He gave a nod and then he suddenly snapped his fingers together.

"Oh right! Since we're talking about combat, there is another rune you need to look at, and that is the Soul Ward Rune. It is standard issue for any Skybound practitioner who takes things seriously." That immediately caught my attention.

"Why is it standard issue?"

"It's because of those annoying priests," he let out a growl and his normal good mood got replaced by this much darker look.

"They love using their soul-based techniques on people. They could be fighting normally one second and then before you know it they try ripping your consciousness straight out of your ears!" He did this violent hand gesture that I wished I didn't have to visualize.

"The Soul Ward gives you some basic protection against soul attacks and any mental interference, it won't stop a determined high-rank priest, but at least it gives you a decent fighting chance when you go up against the lower ranked ones."

"Do you have any other soul protection runes?" I asked him because I was thinking about my unique situation since taking soul damage was the only real thing I had to worry about in a time loop. The elder shook his head at me.

"We do have others, but their drawbacks make them impractical for someone at your level. Take the Soul Fortress Rune for example, it gives you complete immunity from spiritual attacks but then it dampens your connection with the red sun. Then there is the Mind Lock Rune, which stops all mental interference, but it also makes your cognition slower. And then the Spirit Shell..." He gave a full body shudder.

"Let's just say that there is a very good reason why we keep those specific failures locked away in a separate part of the Failure Garden." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"I think I'll take the Soul Ward then," I decided. Making sure my soul stayed protected was the most important thing. Everything else was a temporary problem that was going to reset itself when the loop ended anyway.

"That is an excellent choice!" The elder gave me a beaming smile.

"Now then, have you thought about transformation runes? I don't like them very much personally since they are too flashy and they cause too many psychological side effects, but they can be useful in the right situations." He started flipping through the pages of his giant tome again.

"We have the Wolf Rune that gives you better speed and tracking skills along with these intimidating claws... although having heightened aggression all the time can cause problems. There is the Bear Rune for pure raw strength and durability, but the mobility decrease you experience is an unfortunate drawback. Then the Owl Rune gives you night vision and lets you move silently, but it makes you sensitive to bright lights..." My attention got caught by one pattern that looked intricate.

"What does that one do?"

"Ah yes, that is the Scorpion Rune!" His eyes lit up when I pointed at it.

"It's one of the more interesting options we have. It gives you this prehensile tail-like appendage that is amazing for offense and defense both. The tip of it makes a neurotoxin that causes temporary paralysis for most people, although it depends on what rank they are. The best part though is that the transformation increases your own poison resistance!" I couldn't stop myself from smiling when I thought about the tournament.

Bringing in an otherworldly poison that none of the cultivators over there had any resistance to probably wouldn't end up being lethal but it would let me turn the tide during a hard fight.

"I think that could be useful..."

"You need to remember something," the elder cautioned me as his face became unusually serious again, "you shouldn't try mixing up different transformation runes together. All the physical changes will interfere with each other and the mental effects are..." He tapped right on his temple with a meaningful look.

"Let's just say there is a big reason why most of the eccentric members we have around here started off being transformation specialists." I gave a nod and made a mental note about that. Having one beastly appendage was going to be more than enough for me anyway.

"So, based on how you fight," the elder kept going, "you might want to think about getting the Shockwave Rune." He pointed at this pattern that looked like ripples spreading out from a center point.

"It shoots out concussive pulses of energy that pushes opponents back. It's great for making space or disrupting enemy attacks, and it's useful for someone who likes keeping their distance like you do." He had a good point there. My whole fighting style relied heavily on using my vines and plant constructs to control the battlefield, so having a way to forcibly push opponents away and make some space whenever they got too close could be invaluable for me.

"What do you have for tracking?" I asked. I was trying to think ahead to how the tournament would go. I didn't know what the group stages were going to be like but back in the novels I read, those events almost always involved people finding specific items or hunting down the other participants.

"Oh, you mean for treasure hunting? We don't have any luck with that I'm afraid, but we do have a few options if you want to track people." He flipped his book over to a new section.

"The Blood Hound Rune improves your sense of smell so you can track your targets, but it becomes unpleasant if you're standing in crowded places. The Spirit Trace Rune lets you follow energy signatures, but it gets confused if there are too many targets around. Now this Tracker Rune..." He tapped on this pattern that looked simple but elegant.

"This one is quite practical since it marks your target with a tiny piece of red sun energy, so you can sense where they are until it runs out." That sounded useful to have, and not only for tracking my enemies down but also so I could keep close tabs on my teammates in case we ever got separated. I was about to tell him that I wanted it when the elder suddenly paused and started frowning.

"I think we might have gotten a tiny bit carried away," he said, closing the tome.

"You only have enough space to hold two non-elemental runes at your current rank, and we talked about more than that." That was a shame. I felt like we were just getting started.

"Azure," I called out mentally.

"is there any chance you could scan the whole book, so we have it for future reference?"

"I'm sorry, Master," Azure replied.

"It seems like the tome is protected by some kind of spiritual barrier which isn't surprising given how valuable it is." I looked back up at the elder and gave him a smile.

"I'll take the Soul Ward and maybe one other rune for right now, but it's good knowing what my options are going to be for the future. Do you think we could keep reading?" The elder didn't look entirely convinced about it but he gave me a slow nod anyway.

"Well, I guess we might as well go ahead and look at a few more options before we finally move onto the elemental runes..."

"Do you have any storage runes?" If I could manage to inscribe a storage rune inside my inner world, then I might actually be able to store items there even though I was only at the Qi Condensation stage. It would end up being incredibly useful for me, especially whenever I went worldwalking...

"Storage runes?" Elder Molric let out this huge bark of laughter.

"Trying to manipulate space is beyond what a rank 2 Skybound is capable of doing. Even our rank 4 practitioners struggle with doing the most basic spatial techniques." He shook his head like he found the idea funny.

"I do admire your ambition though!" I gave a nod and tried hard to hide my disappointment about it. It was still worth asking him though at least.

"Master," Azure spoke up again, "did you consider picking some kind of trump card? Like something that could give you an extra edge whenever you get into a desperate situation?" I let out a frown. I usually tried avoiding any techniques that had severe drawbacks like that and especially anything that messed with my life force. Azure had a good point though. It was definitely better to burn up a couple years of my life instead of dying because I was too cautious to use a real trump card.

"Are there any specific runes designed to give you emergency power-ups?" I asked the elder carefully. Elder Molric's face darkened.

"You better not tell me you're interested in those..." He shook his head.

"All these foolish initiates always try reaching for more power without ever considering the costs. They use these runes for every single little challenge and then they sit around wondering why they can't ever advance to the next rank!"

"I wouldn't use it carelessly like that," I assured him.

"I would only ever use it if my life was truly in real danger." He spent a long moment studying me and then he let out a sigh.

"At least you're being honest about it." He opened his tome again and flipped over to this section that was marked with what looked suspiciously like old bloodstains.

"Let us see here... We have the Berserker's Rage which triples up your physical strength, but it leaves you virtually mindless. Then the Phoenix Heart lets you ignore fatal wounds for five whole minutes but right after that..." He dragged his finger straight across his throat.

"The Dragon's Breath gives you overwhelming power but it burns right through your life force like it's paper. Then the Spirit Burst releases every drop of your spiritual energy at once which is very impressive right up until your entire core dissipates..." While he described the other options, I found myself feeling increasingly uncomfortable with all of it. These weren't just dangerous techniques; they were literal suicide moves that were disguised as power-ups.

This whole theme kept continuing until the elder finally stopped on one that looked a lot more simple in its actual design.

"Ah, the Overclock Rune..." The elder let out a murmur.

"It's less spectacular than all the other ones, but it's also less likely to kill you outright. It pushes your energy output beyond your normal limits on a temporary basis. The backlash you get from it isn't very pleasant. Only extreme exhaustion and potential damage to your physical body, but at least it won't burn your life force away or leave you crippled." That sounded a whole lot more reasonable than those other alternatives did. The elder closed his tome with a decisive snap.

"Well, I think that's enough of that! Should we move onto the elemental runes now? I have some incredibly fascinating options that I think would complement your current abilities quite nicely..."