Chương 74: The Magic of Runes

Almost every crystal carried at least two runes. The first was ' [Absorb]'. That one pulled mana from any mana source that came into contact with it. Kelly tapped a crystal with her finger and felt the faint tug. She watched the scanner feed. It drank from her, just a sip. She wondered why it did not pull from the very air like she did. Maybe it was picky. Or stupid. The second rune other crystals had was the one that dictated specific, singular effects. That was the action. That was the command.

The end result was a magic bullet. She etched two runes into a crystal shard. [Absorb]. [Explode]. Invader flesh imbued it with mana. It blew up. It was nothing tech could not already do. A grenade was simpler. A block of C4 was more reliable. But that was not the point. The point was the language. And, finally, her sixth vacation had to end. Buster had to be left behind, safe from danger in Rook's apartment. She would bring him eventually, once she was certain she could keep him alive against gods and monsters.

She needed to throw herself back into the grinder of combat if she wanted to move forward and figure out what else she could do. She had to find crystals that could actually work like mana batteries, not just these little enchanting amplifiers she was stuck with. The whole rune thing had been under her nose the entire time. She'd been sitting on the answer and using it as a coaster. She needed to get out, to explore, and to look for anything she'd missed. It was a little embarrassing, really.

Her weapon could slice the bonds between atoms, but show it a decent spell and it just sighed and gave up. A lot of the tougher beasts had made that point for her. The undead knights had treated her best blade like it was a piece of limp string. Even that messed-up creature in the mist-market had swatted her chainsaw away like a bad smell, and that should have been flatly impossible. So, she got to work. She made two distinct changes to her monomolecular switchblade's stored forms.

The first was a tweak to its chainblade. She used the basic runes for [electricity] and for tossing out bits of [metal]. The blade could now spit thin, wire-like streams of liquid metal and shove a frankly rude amount of electricity through them. It had evolved into something between a taser and a lightning whip. Close-quarters work suddenly became electrifying in the most uncomfortable way. The second change was a whole new form—a long-range projectile weapon.

It resembled a strange kind of magic shotgun, and it was a little… strange. She crammed in almost every basic element rune available: [metal], [ice], [air], [earth], and [lightning], along with the one associated with [fire], which simply produced heat and flames just as fire normally would. The weapon released these components at a steady, slightly alarming rate. On contact, the mixture did not pierce like a conventional bullet.

It draped itself over the target, filling gaps and crevices, and then hardened in a way that screamed, "You're not moving ever again." The metals and particulates rapidly solidified, either through sudden cooling or chemical reaction, effectively locking moving parts together. Any energy-dependent components shorted or drained due to the electrical charge.

The result was not destruction in the traditional sense; it was permanent immobilization, as if the target had been glued and short-circuited simultaneously, with a side of "please don't wiggle." A truly advanced suit of armor could probably stop it. That armor would need an outside layer that repelled everything. It would need internal layers that could shift and flow to seal up breaches the moment they happened. It would need tiny, built-in cleaners to scuttle around and neutralize any gunk that got inside.

That sort of equipment wasn't for ordinary soldiers. It was for someone who was very, very important, or very, very paranoid, and it would cost more than a functioning city block. The next day, Kelly finished within the hour. Rowena handed over a personal contact chip.

"Access is unrestricted. Really, Kelly. Come by any time. Any hour."

"Appreciated." Kelly pocketed it. Open invitations were her favorite kind. She appreciated it. Really, she did. A quick trip to Times Square yielded interesting results. Her weapon worked well. Against mana creatures, of course. Simon and his men were really complete weaklings in the grand scheme of things. The lesser troll was too, not even reaching the EQ threshold, with no magic to speak of outside of its rapid regeneration and dense bones. Kelly suspected it didn't even have any skills. Maybe it was a kid?

A giant troll toddler? Now that was a thought. But the bullets exploded, had various effects once they pierced its skin and absorbed its mana. So, success. Basic runes, though. Super basic.' [Fire],' ' [Air expansion],' ' [Metal].' Just superheated plasma; decently powered, nothing revolutionary. The shadow marbles were overpowered as all hell, though. The shadow stones? Shattered from the speed like short-range super shotguns. The stones she could use.

She didn't want to use the marbles or the statue gun on anything she couldn't take out with a few regular guns and a knife. Overkill would ruin her Title gain.

The Hyperloop corridor was a graveyard of bodies and something that had been hunting them. Kelly stepped over fractured silicate, her boots crunching on debris. Her weapon—a shifting length of metal alloys mixed with strengthened crystal so seamlessly it appeared as one solid construct—hummed in her hand, its faint glow pulsing against her senses. She was looking for a specific density of rubble to test the force projection. Ten Obsidian Mercs emerged from the shadows, moving with coordinated caution.

At their front, a massive half-AI brute detached itself, cybernetic eye scanning the corridor, heat-seeking missile implants and weapon augments humming along his arms. The other mercs fanned out behind him, rifles ready, adjusting positions behind debris.

"Turn around. This tunnel's claimed," the brute said, his deep synthetic-edged voice cutting through the corridor. Kelly didn't stop walking.

"By who? The ghosts of your shareholders?"

"By me. The guy with the gun. Drop the fancy stick and your pack."

"It's not a stick." She flicked her wrist. The weapon reconfigured, segments sliding and locking with a series of solid clacks into a long, heavy blade form. The runes along its spine brightened, drinking from the well of mana stored in her palms. A jagged blue light fractured across the walls. The brute's cybernetic eye glinted as he raised his arm, firing a superheated bolt. Kelly moved, not away, but closer. The bolt seared past her shoulder.

Her shadow, stretched long by her weapon's light, rippled across the floor beside the brute's cover. From it, shards of fractured stone, sharper than spears, shot out at the speed of sound. There was a boom. It didn't hit him. It hit the pillar he was using for cover, exploding it into a cloud of dust and shrapnel. He stumbled back, coughing, weapon swinging wildly.

The other mercs scattered, ducking and rolling to the sides as their cover crumbled—one slid behind a pile of rubble while another tried to fire from a safer angle.

"What the hell was that?" the brute shouted. Kelly didn't answer. She stepped lightly over debris, weapon humming, shadows stretching along the floor, every shard and stone and sonic boom calibrated perfectly to keep the Obsidian Mercs scrambling. She raised her hand, forming a finger gun, dramatic and slow. A tiny jet of harmless orange fire puffed out of her fingertip like a malfunctioning birthday candle. She frowned.

"Sorry. Wrong crystal." The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. She shook her hand twice like trying to restart a lighter, then muttered, deadpan,"Well… I guess today's not about killing anyone. It's about party planning." The brute blinked, then fired everything he had. Now in the Hyperloop, Kelly looked at the overclocked team, still catching their breath from Rook's anti-terrorist defenses.

"You guys are pretty weak. You know that, right? Was this a delegation?

'Here, go do the grunt work.' Or is this an enhancer initiation ritual?

'Prove your worth by babysitting freaky beasts.'" She shook her head.

"Staying behind to catch these things is a terrible idea. For you guys, I mean. I'm having a blast."

"SINGLE HOSTILE! PINCER THREE!" A merc yelled as the rest surrounded her in a half-circle. Before anyone could reorient, rifle fire erupted from ten angles. She didn't duck—she simply sighed, brushing hair from her face as bullets tore past her, fell into her floating shadow shield's dimension, and pinged off her mimic skin.

She immediately sat cross-legged on the floor, pulled yarn from her pack, and began knitting in the middle of the firefight, humming a gentle little tune that absolutely did not match the hail of gunfire around her. Then, casually, conversationally, she said:"Yes, I'm single. And hostile. I love being single. Haven't had this much sex since I ran the church bake sale." A merc peeked over debris, confused, as a second gunman rushed her from behind with a long, complex-looking weapon raised.

Without looking, she swung her crystal hand backward and punched him. The man went flying. Kelly yelled at the Obsidian brute as his micro-missiles streaked toward her.

"You brought fireworks to a gunfight!" She blocked the volley with Fortress of Flame, letting the Title eat the kinetic energy and convert it to a harmless thermal wash. She didn't even bother with a shield. In hindsight, it was obvious. They were the organization's bottom tier. A throwaway team for throwaway, dangerous jobs. Local thugs with delusions of military grandeur. They could dominate unenhanced civilians and dumb beasts.

Their equipment was garbage by actual military operational standards—barely Threshold-grade, mass-produced junk. The average civilian cowered before their spray-and-pray firepower. If not for her warning to Rook, they wouldn't ever have needed to fight anything but monsters. They were one of many low-level Obsidian teams clogging the city, a lesser-equipped one. Definitely not capable of handling anything above the 6. 0EQ enhancement Threshold. They were target practice with bad attitudes.

Kelly had fought Thresholders, actual tanks, and witnessed Elites of all kinds. She decided to come back here and attempt to test and experiment on her weapon configurations and crystal enchanting against the weakest enemies she knew. She battled mimics, fought lesser enhanced-level teams and creatures in and around the Hyperloop while searching for different types of crystals, staffs, and enchanted weapons, studying the complex rune crafting, and tinkering with the few runes she had mastered.

Her shadow stretched and twisted, opening portals that hurled fractured stone at the speed of sound into anything moving. Limbs snapped, armor shattered, and sparks flew with every strike. She occasionally shouted at an unleashed mimic thrashing in her path.

"Yeah, yeah, I see you trying. Don't quit your day job, genius." Her sixth loop yielded an unexpected result. [New Trait: Mana Conduit (Grade-I)] That was not a title but a trait. Always active, always on. It came from a skeletal knight that could overload her weapons and mana crystals, causing her weapon to backfire and kill her. She had to break into GenCorp while being chased by an angry horde of monsters to alter it, take it apart, and make it useful.

She escaped while every creature in many blocks turned their HQ into a literal house party. Mana was still compressed in her, still drawn every second, but the trait allowed her to successfully channel a portion of the mana her body constantly absorbed into crystal implants embedded in her palms. Yes, Kelly was part plant now. It didn't give her any new traits—it fit perfectly into her chimera trait. Her palms now grew amplifier crystals that [Stored] mana with single runes.

It freed her mimic skin, meaning she didn't have to use it to turn her hands into mana crystals. This mana was then absorbed into the [Absorb] and [Store] runes embedded into her transforming weapon, filling it with raw, unfiltered mana. It didn't do much right now, but it was the first step. She had gotten the idea from her mimic skin trait, Angel Killer, and Mythril Fist titles, which showed her that mana could be infused into specific parts of her body. A scurrying sound drew her attention.

A large, mutated mouse erupted from a crate and darted across the floor, clambering on her leg. Her eyes widened slightly.

"Oh no. Absolutely not." Her weapon transformed and blasted in a wide spray, erasing the mutated creature, half of the space, and any merc who was in its path. The rest ran. Kelly sighed and sat back down, examining her gains. For now, the stored mana lit up her weapon to her scanners. That was enough. It was proof. It was the first step. She would figure out what it could do by smashing everything in sight until the answer emerged.

"Oh, come on! Come back! Don't run! Hit me! I need the practice!" she yelled at a group of escaping mercs and the abandoned mimics closing in, a burst from her shadow sending one flying into a wall. The laughter, the chaos, the hum of energy—it all meant one thing: She was on the right path.

Kelly split her time between the botanical lab, antagonizing Rowena's murderous foliage, and the field, stress-testing her mana-charged blade on operatives who could barely tie their own boots. Against all reasonable expectation, it was working. She was actually making progress.

It turned out her new trait, Mana Conduit, didn't just let her pump mana into her rune-crafted transforming weapon—it also let her feel the weapon, like it was a very shiny, very stabby extra limb she would have to avoid pointing at elderly bystanders. A conduit was a living pathway for mana, and Kelly was now a bona fide conduit—her weapon's favorite new roommate.

Being able to feel the weapon's mana—being able to feel mana at all—was incredibly useful for studying the effects of runes, how mana behaved, and what rune crafting actually did. It was like finally being able to hear someone who'd been shouting instructions at her this whole time, only now the "someone" was mana itself, and it had a lot of opinions.

Rowena Hoffman and the crew hovered at the edge of the lab with the exact expression people get when they walk in on something that should've been behind a locked door. Kelly kept her wrist raised, talking to the transforming weapon currently posing as a rather large bracelet on her wrist as if it were an old friend, trying to become one with her weapon like some ancient samurai.

"Yeah, you like that, don't you?" Kelly murmured, stroking the bracelet with her thumb.

"Just a little charge. Feel that? That's all for you." She shifted her weight, her tone dropping to something low and private.

"Everyone else just sits there. But you… you respond. You get turned on at the worst possible moments. Spread and strain exactly when I tell you to. I appreciate that." She gave it a gentle shake, her voice lilting.

"Don't play coy. I felt you thrumming when we were surrounded. You were practically begging for it. To just… slide out and meet someone." From her workstation, Rowena slowly put down her datapad. A member of her crew coughed, staring fixedly at the ceiling.

"That's my girl," Kelly whispered, tapping the activation rune with a final, possessive flick.

"Always ready. Always eager. What would I do without you?" Rowena cleared her throat. The sound was dry, deliberate, and carried across the lab.

"Voss. Is there a problem with the equipment?" Kelly didn't look up from her wrist.

"Just bonding. Building trust. It's important for a healthy partnership."

"It's jewelry," Rowena stated, her voice flat.

"It doesn't have feelings."

"Spoken like someone who's never been truly understood. Your clinical detachment is showing." Kelly finally glanced over, her expression one of sincere correction. She turned back to the bracelet, her voice softening again.

"Don't listen to her, baby. She doesn't understand our connection." One of the lab techs made a small, strangled sound. The bracelet, of course, did not reply. She was meditating on the new sensation. Her mana extended into the weapon through the Mana Conduit trait. She felt the runes— [Absorb], [Store] —and how they affected the energy's flow. She started closing her eyes in the field, focusing only on seeing through mana. Her scanners helped, filling the gaps. This led to some early restarts.

Humans, having no mana signature, became invisible to this sense. Before she learned to look for the absence, they successfully ambushed her. A guy with a rebar club got a promotion in her mental file of embarrassing deaths. But Kelly's sense for her runes, her mana, and her weapon grew. She wanted to understand everything. What was a rune? Why did it influence mana? The key was in the word conduit. Runes were conduits. They were channels. They guided raw mana and transmuted it into a specific, repeatable effect.

It was a form of channeling—guiding energy and transmuting it into something new. Kelly studied every strange weapon she could snatch from roaming goblins and the bone swords of skeleton knights beneath the east grid. She poured mana into them to spark fire, lightning, and other basics, hoping the pieces would someday form something greater. She tested each one in battle, always trying to craft a weapon that wouldn't immediately blow up on her.

She was beginning to realize that runes were almost like a language of magic—and that the undead skeletons beneath the city functioned in much the same way. Each one had enough densely inscribed runes inside it to line the entire United States with text. And all of that text existed to serve a single purpose: to contain something. But what? A soul? Maybe. Kelly copied and stored the dense script, unsure what to do with it. All attempts to recreate the effect failed; something essential was missing.

But that failure led to success in other areas. Bit by bit, she began to understand the nature of runes and mana itself and felt as though she had briefly touched upon its place in the larger scheme of life. This form of practical, hands-on experimentation soothed her greatly and fascinated her. And eventually, in the next loop, she achieved a breakthrough. Something she hadn't even known was possible: [New Epic Trait → Mana Attuned (Grade-I)]