Noah sat cross-legged in the grass, a piece of paper and his quill in his hands. He was surrounded by a miniature scene of carnage. Frost covered small sections of the ground, just beside large holes and still-smoldering ash.

A droplet of water swirled around Noah’s hand and shot into the dirt, digging a furrow through it. Noah paused for a moment, then opened his eyes and jotted another observation down on the paper.

“How’s it going?” Moxie asked, walking up to stand at the edge of his little circle. After their previous conversation, they’d set back off on the flying sword for a few more hours before settling in for the night.

Of course, Noah wasn’t planning to do very much sleeping.

“Depends on what your definition of going is,” Noah replied, tapping the quill against the side of his chin. “I’ve tested every single individual kind of energy that I put into Natural Disaster. About a dozen times, just to make sure my readings were accurate. I’d have liked to test them more, but I’ll run out of energy at that rate.”

“And?” Moxie squatted beside him. “Balance is off?”

“Oh yeah. It’s really off.” Noah’s nose scrunched in annoyance. “At first, I thought it wasn’t too bad. I figured swapping out the extra Howling Cyclone Rune I had would fix most things.”

“I take it that isn’t the case?”

Noah shook his head and tapped a finger on his observations. “Honestly, I’m not sure. At first, that did seem right. Any attempts to use the powers that were based off Howling Cyclone had about twice the pressure. But… when I intensified the power draw a little, the numbers changed and skewed even harder.”

“Couldn’t that just be because too much of it is leaning toward Howling Cyclone?”

“A big part of it could be, yeah.” Noah nodded, then flipped through the pages of data he’d collected. “That’ll be the first change I make. It’s unfortunate we had to give up Evergreen’s scroll, but between my own grimoire and the one I took from Dayton, there should be enough Runes for me to put together another Rune to replace Howling Cyclone. But before I do that –”

“You need to confirm your Rank 2 Runes are actually perfect, huh?”

Noah nodded. “Exactly. That’s what I’m going to be doing next. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself fiddling with the Rank 3 when I still need to fix the Rank 2.”

“Well, I’ll keep watch until Lee gets back. She wandered off a bit ago. Let me know if you figure out anything interesting, but don’t take too long. I want to fiddle around myself, now.”

“Will do.” Noah closed his eyes once more, plunging back into his mindspace. He still had a Pyroclastic Resonance Rune that he’d taken out of Natural Disaster that he could work with.

The Rune in question floated through his mindspace to hover before him. Noah studied it, a small smile playing across his lips. It felt like so long ago that he’d first formed Pyroclastic Resonance– and now he was right back to studying it once more.

As with Natural Disaster, Pyroclastic Resonance felt perfect upon Noah’s initial probe. It had the right amount of energy, but he wasn’t even sure if that right amount was actually the max.

Actually, now that I think about it, the ten percent rule for a perfect Rune might still be accurate. There were too many Runes that hit it for that to be wrong. It’s more likely that the ten percent full aspect is just one part of being perfect. In that case, I’d imagine the other part is how effectively the Rune uses its energy.

No sooner than he’d let that thought process did Noah slap himself in the forehead.

That’s why Natural Disaster was giving me trouble when I tried to use smaller amounts of energy. It’s not because it’s so strong as a Rank 3. It’s because my efficiency was all screwed up.

Noah pulled Pyroclastic Resonance closer, drawing power from the Rune. He walked in a circle around it, feeling the pressure that emanated out. To his relief – and mild confusion – there was no fluctuation.

He increased the amount he was pulling from the Rune steadily, but the pressure remained constant. Noah let go of it and pursed his lips.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“That’s odd,” Noah said, his words fading into the empty vastness of his mindspace. “Does that mean that Pyroclastic Resonance is genuinely perfect, then?”

The Rune floated, unresponsive. Frankly, if it had answered, Noah would have been quite concerned. Still, he wasn’t sure if he’d just answered or created more questions. Noah sat down before the Rune, resting his chin in the palm of his hand, and drummed his fingers against his cheek.

“Let’s see. The main difference between this and Natural Disaster is that the components going into it are simpler. Does that mean that the imperfection is small enough that I can’t sense it? Or is there still something I’m missing?”

Still, the Rune remained silent. Noah wasn’t sure how long he sat there, staring the floating energy down, but it must have been at least an hour or two. He rifled through theories, poking and prodding at his Rune to see if he could validate any of them, but nothing new surfaced.

The Rune seemed, for all intents and purposes, perfect. He quickly re-checked Natural Disaster, just to confirm that the pressure still changed when he used it – and it did. All signs genuinely pointed to Pyroclastic Resonance being a perfect Rune.

Odd. There’s always the possibility I got lucky – but I think that might be a stretch. I wonder if it’s because there are so many more different kinds of energy going into Natural Disaster? Pyroclastic Resonance only has plain Runes making it up, but Natural Disaster has a whole lot more competing things within it.

Noah slowly stood up, stretching his arms above his head and grimacing. Of all the theories he’d come up with, that seemed the most likely. But – it also implied that he’d stumbled across the perfect combination of Pyroclastic Resonance with almost no testing.

That is if there actually is such a thing as a perfect combination. Maybe I’m fixating on the word perfect too hard. It would be a little odd to say that there’s only a single way to achieve something in the entire universe. Logically, there should be multiple avenues.

If I stop focusing on the individual Runes and more how they mesh together, maybe I’ll have more luck. But, just to confirm, I should check on another Rank 2. Either way, I’m probably going to have to replace the extra Howling Cyclone in Natural Disaster. Now’s as good a time as any to do that.

Noah thought for a few more moments. If he was replacing Howling Cyclone, he needed a new disaster. He already had a pretty good spread, but at the moment, he wasn’t particularly concerned with which disaster he chose as long as it was unique.

He slipped out of his mindspace, pulling Dayton’s scroll out and scanning through it. He then looked through his own grimoire.

I could butcher one more of Dayton’s Runes that has similar energy to fill the Rank 2 Rune immediately. It’s a waste, but I really can’t be bothered waiting around to fill my Runes back up when there’s something this important waiting for me to figure it out.

Noah’s eyes landed on a Rune in his book.

Sand.

Sandstorm, perhaps? That’s as good a disaster as any. Let’s do it. Four Sand, three Wind.

He was about to waste a good bit of energy, but it would save an equal amount of time. And time, in Noah’s eyes, was still far more valuable than anything else at the moment.

It’s totally not because I’m impatient.

His search through the dwindling Runes on Dayton’s scroll revealed a Rank 3 Nightstorm Rune, which was probably some mixture of Dark and Wind, which worked just fine for Noah. The energy from that would be enough, even with the losses from conversion, to build himself a new Rank 2 Rune.

Noah put his hands on both scrolls, then closed his eyes and sank back into his mindspace to get to work. He pulled the Sand Rune and the Nightstorm Rune into his mindspace, wasting no time in Sundering Nightstorm. Excess energy swirled out from the Rune, along with three Dark Night Runes and four Violent Gale Runes. Noah took all the excess energy and directed it into the Sand Rune.

The amount of energy he had to spend filling the Sand Rune made him wince. The conversion rate from the Dark and Wind energy to Sand was atrocious, but it was still a Rank 1 Rune, which was nothing in comparison.

It quickly filled and Noah split apart three times, forming a total of four Sand Runes. He drew even more energy from the dwindling reserves of the Rank 3 Rune, depleting them and resorting to draining the Dark Night Runes entirely as well.

As soon as the Sand Runes were finished, Noah carved the Violent Gale Runes apart, taking three Wind Runes and using the rest of the energy remaining to pull the whole thing into one, singular, Churning Sandstorm Rune.

The entire process had once felt nearly impossible to do with such efficiency, but this time, Noah pulled it off in less than a minute. He stood before his new Rune, a droplet of sweat running down his forehead.

Ten percent full. Right on, baby. First try. And why the hell do I sweat in my own mind? That’s completely unfair.

His mind ignored him, and Noah was too preoccupied taking a look at his new Rune to complain any longer. He walked around it, testing the pressure it put off. To his delight – and partial confusion – the Rune did genuinely feel perfect.

Noah took a step back and crossed his arms. “That can’t just be a coincidence. There’s no way I mistakenly found the only existing way in the universe to form a Churning Sandstorm Rune on the first try, so there has to be multiple ways to get to it. So, logically, the mistake in Natural Disaster is how the Runes are interacting.”

He took a moment to catch his breath and energy. Electricity still pumped in his veins from all the power he’d just been working with, but Noah wasn’t anywhere near done. He refused to end the night until he’d made at least a little progress in figuring out where he’d gone wrong.

The secrets were so close that he could practically taste them – and Noah was hungry.

“Right,” Noah said, interlocking his fingers and stretching them out. He cracked his neck, then beckoned Natural Disaster over to him. It floated to hover beside the newly created Churning Sandstorm Rune. “Time to perform some surgery.”