Chương 32: Rune Weaving

"Are you going to say something?" Auram uttered, staring at the dumbfounded human.

"What?" Liesel was unsure whether to curse the Custodian for even suggesting this outrageous chore or thank him for informing her before the Crest became a necessity. Just the idea of weaving three hundred thousand runes, and then knitting them together into the Crest itself, was enough for her to feel she should focus on it after the expedition, when she'd have a lot of money and time to rest.

"What else am I doing anyway?" Liesel uttered. She apologized to Auram and explained everything. It was an effort to keep Auram more knowledgeable about her current goals, even though a part of Liesel argued it was a waste of time. She could tell Auram when it became a necessary part of the conversation, and perhaps that was the reason why she was making this effort. It shouldn't be when it was necessary because Auram didn't owe her any help, and for everything she did, Liesel wanted to show her appreciation.

I need to be mindful of my efforts, keep my energy preserved, and try to weave a few runes whenever I am free. Rushing is unnecessary. The Weaving Skill will not require the Crest to perform its primary function, and I need neither to finish the expedition. As long as I keep everyone alive, it shall be enough to draw a path to the tomb. The Soulheart... I will have to visit Isa once. She would probably have something to help me.

Liesel didn't want to be in a situation where she'd have to deal with Kurvam to take the Soulheart. Ideally, she would be alone in the Necropolis and steal it without anyone being aware of it. I can worry about that while working during the day. Nodding to herself, she focused on the first Preservation Rune. It was simple, so if she practiced a little, she should be able to weave a couple dozen of them in an hour.

It might strain her Soul Veins, but it seemed like a great method to practice Materializing ability as well. Slowly, she shifted her eyes and paused at the Bond Rune. It was sixty-seven thousand. She considered starting with it. Once she developed a subconscious memory, it would be physically tiring, but her mind wouldn't need to spare effort. At the same time, it might have the most complex structure out of any rune, which was not a good place to start. So instead, she picked the Binding Rune I.

It had a high quantity requirement and a very simple structure. A single thread that started with an 'I' shape, then looped over the head once, and serpent back to the bottom. If there were one thing she'd need to worry about, it was the size of the runes. The entire Crest, woven from three hundred thousand runes, should be about one fourth of a foot in diameter, or the size of her palm. So each rune would need to be tiny, and instead of giving her a manual, the book had directly drawn the rune at the exact size.

She just had to match one of them, and then she could measure the rest from her Soul Form. The first step, of course, was materializing the Materiality string into reality. She wanted to get out of the habit of using tricks to manifest it, so she tried to do it like mages. They could create a spell circle in the air in an instant. She had heard they had a skill for it, but there was a technique to achieve it through practice. It worked by dividing the process into two parts.

In the initial part, the mage channelled the Materiality into the air, the same way Liesel channelled it into the sword. Channeling into a solid object, receptive of the Materiality was completely different from doing it to a neutral or resistant space that was the atmosphere around her. Then, using their Dominion and Control, they'd shape the Materiality and Materialize it into this Shade as a form of spell circle.

Dominion's second function was extending a sphere of influence, much like how Perception worked, but this time it would be the ability to exert Control over Materiality channelled into the air. For every three Dominion attributes, it was a foot from the Ascendant's heart. So Liesel should be able to control the Materiality outside her body, even if it were barely any distance. Mages had a trait that doubled the effective range of Dominion, so they had it easy.

Liesel's initial attempt to channel into the air failed. And so did every subsequent attempt. After trying and failing a few dozen times, Liesel gave up on it. She really wanted to weave at least one rune before ending her morning session, so she used the same trick of pulling out a Materiality strand from the pinched fingers, which worked like a charm and equally drew a feeling of embarrassment now that the initial wonder of success from yesterday had worn off.

There was no way she could do this in front of anyone. Should I ask Fiya for guidance? Liesel was conflicted about the prospect, but she had to learn the advanced method. Channeling Materiality into the air and creating a rune from it as she materialized it would save her hundreds of hours of effort.

The reason that the Crest runes were supposed to be woven with Materialized Materiality was that the Crest itself was supposed to manifest into the real world, and even inside, it was supposed to act like an outside object and not a part of the Nebulous Core. If she did this inside her body, she'd never recover that Materiality, so in a way, she'd have to reserve a significant amount, if not all, of the Materiality she possessed just for the Crest.

Liesel had experience using Control outside her body, but that was only with a sword she had been familiar with. Using it directly on the strand of Materiality proved to be much more complicated. Initially, she failed because she had used her eyes as the primary method of observation, and that couldn't quite reach the precision rune weaving required. Then, she switched to her Materiality sense and focused it solely on her hand. Of course, the dome had to stretch out from her body.

She could immediately establish her dominion over the Materiality string. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! She exhaled, closing her eyes, using only the Materiality sense. She applied pressure to the strand from all sides, as she wanted to remove her hands and float in the air with just her invisible control. Instead, as soon as she applied the pressure, the strand shattered into glittering dust and vanished into the air. Yeah. It's a fragile thing.

I can't handle it the same way as the Materiality within my body. That Materiality was elastic, strong, and when it burned, she was filled with strength and speed. It was quite the stark difference from the brittle and powerless object in her hand. Of course, that was only her shortcoming. In the hands of a capable mage, it would pierce through wood and carve a hole in metal.

The next time, she tried to handle it more gently, but again, it was too much, and after the twelfth time, when her veins were unhappy with her stubborn attitude, Liesel had to reconsider her approach. Maybe it's the structure of the string that's making it brittle. For the next hour, she tried a few different things, and in the end, the problem seemed to be that the woven strands were not tempered with enough force, which meant they unravelled from the tiniest outside coercion.

She spent a moment within her Soul Veins, twisting the two strands into one, and tightened the twine until it seemed like the two had melted into one. And then she pulled it out into the real world. It seemed different at a glance. And when she applied force to it, the strand remained resilient. Taking a breath, she calmed her nerves, and then she loosened the fingers pinching its tip and tail. The string remained steady in the air, untouched, except for the invisible force of her mind.

"Did you get it?" Auram asked.

"I would imagine so," Liesel said. She tried to twist the strand into the rune structure, and that proved to be somewhat difficult. It was a lot of trial and error to wield the string with just her mental command. She wanted to physically reach over and knot it into the rune. Of course, it was too small for her fat fingers to handle, but that didn't stop her mind from claiming it could just do it. Slowly, her control outside the body started to match that of her Soul Form.

And just when she had succeeded, it was a moment too late. The string came undone as it reached the limit of Materializing ability. Sighing in frustration, she drew another string, but not before glancing at her total capacity. [89/127] She had not wasted much Materiality, but because of the stress on her Soul Veins, Liesel decided to stop there. She desperately wanted to continue. She was so close after all. It would only take a minute, a voice inside her promised.

I will try again at night if I have the time and energy to spare. She wanted to make sure the Crest remained her secondary focus. It was a good way to meditate on her patience, which was in a state of decay, Liesel felt. The sun was up, and she could hear the ruckus outside. Fixing her disheveled state, Liesel peered into the hall. Sarkot and Garvin were bickering again. They seemed to have made a habit of fighting. Though they both stopped, Sarkot grinned.

"You are up early. Breakfast's not done yet."

"I am always up early. I am making an effort to preserve some strength for the Necropolis in case we encounter a dangerous creature," Liesel said.

Liesel was frowning as she stared at the webs that were blocking the path forward. The discussion was whether they should take yesterday's route and continue that way forward, or just burn the cobwebs. Liesel had a different idea, though far from a noble one.

"We should explore the right side today," she said.

"Why?" Farki Jan asked, though he seemed to have realized already.

"We will hunt down the rest of the spiders' kin, and then we should have the straight path cleared." Unfortunately, no one was on board with her proposal. She, too, was not confident that they could hunt every single one of them. And it could waste weeks of their time without any fruit. She conceded easily, as arguing about it with others would only have given their leader, the baby Vera, a lot of pleasure. So they took yesterday's path and crossed the cobweb wall where they had slain the giant spider.

None of its offspring bothered them this time, but corpse-possessing ghouls were many. They were weak too, and few in number. So all they did was become venting objects for Kurvam Vera, who was upset for one reason or another. They would spend about half a day there when the Observer declared with certainty they were trapped inside the maze, and the shelves seemed to be shifting to keep them contained in a certain area. Kurvam's initial idea was to break the Shelf, and he did, quite successfully.

Only for it to be repaired before their eyes.

"Guess you were right," Garvin uttered, making no effort to hide his displeasure about the fact. Of course, Liesel hadn't reasoned that they would not be able to go forward through this area. She was worried about the logistics of such a long, winding passage forward. They could camp, and at one point, that might be necessary, but even that would at best be a two-day endeavor, because they didn't have the carrier to bring their food, water, and other things to hold out for longer than that.

So for such a vast layer of the Necropolis, the shortest route was critical to reach the Tomb with the Scholars. Most of the team was somewhat exhausted, not so much by the effort—they had made none as of yet—but wasting half a day when they had little over two weeks left was heavy.

"Should've followed your lead. We could've saved half a day of walking," Yehia uttered as they returned to the main passage.

"Making progress is not just about physically scaling the land, but it can, sometimes, be as simple as understanding the nature of the problem. At least, we know now that the Coffin Shelves can move, and also that we are being led forward, either by the Will of the Necropolis itself or the influence of the Tomb."

"Still, it would've felt good to be on the right side." They destroyed one of the web walls and took the passage to the right. It would be another hour of clearing out hordes of spiders, who were just walking treasures at this point, and the most frustrating part was gathering Materiality Cores from their bodies. They were far weaker than even the Shadow Stalker Liesel had encountered. Their bodies were different, though, less sturdy, and yet deeper in shade than the ones they had encountered initially.

Liesel was expecting to find another giant spider before the end of the day, but unfortunately, they couldn't find it even late into the evening. It was time to withdraw. Despite barely facing any challenges, everyone seemed beyond exhausted. And Liesel felt she ought to lift their spirits as the functioning leader. She left that task to Healer Borran and Yehia. They were much better suited for those kinds of things. And it was easier for the expedition to trust them than her.

Liesel had no doubt that everyone was suspicious of her, but because she was competent enough to keep them moving, they didn't make it known. Garvin would have... or did he already? Liesel couldn't tell. I should probably pay a little more attention to their attitude towards me. After claiming one of the showers first, Liesel withdrew to her room. She told them she wanted to rest, so they should leave her dinner on the table.

It would be thrown out in the morning, but Liesel felt that was better than arguing with Yehia or Fiya about why she was skipping dinner. At least, she had been wise in the morning. Instead of the minute she had expected to weave the rune, it took her two hours. She had succeeded in weaving the first rune. It floated in the air. She guided it directly into her chest, where the blob of her Soul Form rested. It lingered in the corner, beside the Rune Cage sealing the Ashdust.

[Control +1 Control: 25-->26] [Binding Rune +1 Binding Rune: 0-->1/35000] It's the first step...