The surgery, as Noah put it, went smoothly. He’d gotten used to carving his Runes apart with Sunder, and he knew Natural Disaster pretty well at this point. The entire replacement process only ended up taking a minute.

He split the Rank 3 Rune, plucked the extra Howling Cyclone from within the swirling energy and shoved Churning Sandstorm into the mix. Then, before the energy that had poured out in the process of cutting Natural Disaster could even start to dissipate, Noah pushed everything back together.

There were a few minor intent adjustments he had to make in the repair-process, but they were small enough that Noah only spent a second or two on the modifications. When he was finished, he found a newly formed Natural Disaster Rune floating before him, having only lost a small portion of the energy that had been initially in it.

Damn. I’m getting pretty good at this.

Noah walked in a circle around the Rune, confirming that the pressure coming off it was even at all points – at least, it was while it was in its resting mode.

It was. That lent even more credence to his theory. Just like Moxie, he’d replaced a Rune in something that should have been perfect, but the result was still perfect. Noah rubbed his chin, studying the Rune.

Interesting. There aren’t actually any changes in Natural Disaster’s composition. It looks just about the same, even though I’ve modified one of the Runes inside it. Does that mean that the constituent Runes making it up don’t actually matter as much as we initially thought, or is this just the way that Natural Disaster is written in the Runic language, regardless of what goes into it?

Noah drew some energy from the Rune as he thought, starting by forming a ball of wind in his hands back in the real world. The pressure in his mind shifted subtly and Noah let the magic fade, swapping to water.

Now that I’ve got Seven Runes, surely that would mean it’s more balanced, right? So this should –

The pressure changed. Noah’s brow furrowed. It definitely wasn’t the same amount of power that had been drawn when he’d used wind. He released the magic and swapped to earth, only to find the pressure shift once again.

“Damn. I’m missing something.” Noah released the Rune and chewed his lower lip, crossing his arms and taking a few steps back and examining Natural Disaster from a different angle. “I guess it could be the specific Runes I put together? But that wouldn’t make any sense. Why would Rank 3 Runes act differently than Rank 2 ones? Logically, they should follow the same set of rules. So what am I missing?”

The answer wasn’t coming. Not yet, at least. Noah remained there for a few more seconds, then shook his head with a sigh. Smashing his head against the wall until the bricks broke was an effective tactic when he was fighting monsters, but it wasn’t so great for solving problems.

He pulled himself out of his mindspace and opened his eyes, blinking at the sudden light. Moxie and Lee both stood beside a campfire in the making, piling wood onto it. Lee glanced over at Noah and brushed her hands off on her shirt.

“Did you figure it out? You’ve been sitting there forever.”

“Unfortunately not,” Noah said, uncrossing his legs and standing up with a groan. He’d been sitting for far too long. “I modified Natural Disaster, thinking that the duplicate Rune was the problem, but there are still pressure mismatches.”

Moxie looked up at the sky, which was just starting to darken with nightfall. Then she shrugged. “Well, no point forcing it. We’ve made it this far without figuring out the answer.”

“Yeah, but–”

“We’ll figure it out eventually,” Moxie said, cutting Noah off. “Maybe relax for a bit. I’ve always found that the solutions tend to come when I stop looking for them. Why don’t you cross some of the stuff off your paper? I’d like to think we’ve solved at least a few of those issues.”

Noah scrunched his nose. Moxie had a point, even if it was annoying. Stopping felt like giving up, but shifting gears would probably be beneficial.

“Fine. You’re right.”

“I know.”

Noah rolled his eyes and rifled through his bag, pulling out the crumpled to-do list. A small grin flickered across his face as his eyes ran along it. Moxie was right – they really had ended up solving a fair number of the tasks on it.

He took great pleasure in going through the list, drawing a line through everything that he no longer had to worry about.

Hellreaver

Todd’s Injury – Silvertide is hopefully taking care of this one, but we should still keep our eyes out.

Isabel’s Runes & the Herron Family.

Isabel & Todd’s vendetta against the nobles, including Dayton – who is still out there somewhere, as far as I’m aware. He’s probably waiting for me to pop up at some point.

Contessa – mostly handled and no longer an opponent, but need to ensure she doesn’t swap sides or try betraying us.

Karina – Not sure what to do here. Need to somehow get Father to break off the engagement or I will have to handle her in some other manner.

Fix Lee’s Runes

Improve my own Runes to make sure Natural Disaster is completely perfect. Adding something snow-based should help balance it a little better.

Find the new issue with Natural Disaster and fix it.

Torrin family – just about the whole family is a problem, really.

Formations – learn from Revin’s book. Figure out how to use the violin for Formations.

Repair my Imbuements

Fruit basket for Renewal – need to avoid getting squished when she next finds me. Ideally, she never does. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Fragment of Renewal & Sunder – still don’t know exactly how the Fragment works. It needs testing.

Father – Make sure the old bastard isn’t planning anything else.

Tim – It’s been a while, but I promised myself that I’d find a way to help him. His Runes are bad, and I should figure out how to repair them without him figuring out it was me that did it.

Azel – Really need to get the damn demon out of my head. Maybe I can chug demon poison until he dies.

Fake Evergreen - someone was screwing with the survival exam. I don't know what they wanted, but I should keep an eye out for anything that might be related to that.

Cat - Figure out what the weird cat thing was and determine a way to get rid of it.

Gift for Moxie - I need to find a way to pay Moxie back for the violin.

Violin - Learn music and play Moxie a song.

It struck Noah that some of his problems had changed rather than just being completely solved. The cat was still a mystery, although he knew it was tied to the Fragment of Renewal, but it was a friend. That didn’t feel like something he had to be stressed about.

Of course, there were a few more problems that had risen up in the meantime. Those, Noah added to the bottom of the list.

Wizen – figure out who he is. He was somehow related to Gentil and wanted to find Moxie. The person that screwed with the exam was after Emily. I wouldn’t be surprised if those events were related.

Runes – determine exactly what makes a Rune truly perfect and fix Natural Disaster

After all Noah’s modifications, he’d run out of space and ended up just rewriting the whole thing on a new piece of paper, leaving off the solved tasks. This time, it was considerably shorter. Noah couldn’t lie to himself – it felt good to watch the tasks steadily shrinking.

After all the growing it’s been doing, I was starting to think we’d never solve anything. Looks like we’re on the right track after all.

“See?” Moxie asked. “You feel better.”

“Nope. I don’t.”

“What are you, a child?” Moxie rolled her eyes. “Get over it already.”

Noah stuffed the paper back into his bag and chuckled. “Fine. I’m over it. What have the two of you been up to while I was sitting around?”

“Squirrels,” Lee replied.

“This.” Moxie nodded to the campfire. “The squirrels was just Lee.”

“So I gathered. Nothing too interesting, then?”

“Not unless you were a squirrel.”

They all laughed, and Noah was pretty sure he saw Lee wipe a little fur from her lips with the back of a hand. He wisely chose not to mention anything. There were some things he could do without extra clarification for.

Noah combusted the wood, starting up the campfire. The temperature was already starting to drop, and heavy gray clouds moved to block out the night sky. It was, by all means, a dreary night. To most, it wouldn’t have been one of any consequence or worth.

But, to the three of them, it was one to be remembered. The first night under a sky without the Torrin’s influence anywhere in sight. As they traded off watches, they passed the time lying on their backs around the campfire and looking for shapes in the clouds as they went by.

The night passed silently, and the following morning came as the sun broke through the bed of clouds, banishing them and illuminating the grasslands in warm, orange light. After a quick break for breakfast, the three got onto Noah’s flying sword and were off once more.

Noah’s let Moxie direct him, more than grateful she actually knew the lay of the land and how to get to Whiterock, where Karina was waiting for them. His mind wasn’t on the flight. It was on his Runes.

Unfortunately, no revelations revealed themselves to him during the day. When they touched down that night, he was no farther along in his thoughts than he had been the previous day.

He barely even noticed Lee pulling her clothes out of his bag as he stood beside the flying sword, his nose scrunched in thought.

“You look like you bit a lemon,” Moxie said, combing her hair out of her face. “I was thinking about the Runes myself, actually.”

“Figure anything out?”

“Not really,” Moxie admitted. “I can’t chop my Runes apart and test things like you can, so all I can do is guess. But I noticed something when I was fiddling with the Runes I do have. Some of them seem closer to perfect than others.”

“Oh?” Noah gave her his full attention, shaking off the last of his absentmindedness. “Which ones? And do you know why?”

“I’ve got five Runes left – one Bleeding Forest, two Uprooted Forest, and two Blooming Earth. All of them are Rank 3, but for some reason, Uprooted Forest feels the closest to perfect out of all of them. I don’t know why. Bleeding Forest was right behind Uprooted Forest, and Blooming Earth was at the bottom.”

“Isn’t your lynchpin Rune one of the Blooming Earth ones? That’s what you stuck that initial cracked flowering seed one into, isn’t it?”

Moxie nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know why there’s any discrepancy between them. It’s also worth noting that both Blooming Earth and both Uprooted Forest Runes feel identical.”

Noah ran a hand through his hair. There were so many pieces of information lying around. There had to be something he could work with. “That’s definitely useful. We just have to figure out how.”

“Maybe it’s because of the Rune itself?” Lee offered. “I tested some of my own Runes as well. The ones that felt the best were actually my True Shift Runes. The Runes that Azel gave me had the same issue that you guys have, by the way.”

Huh. So you’ve got the same problem we have, don’t you, Azel?

Azel didn’t reply. He’d been awful quiet since the fight with the Evergreens, and Noah had absolutely no problem with that. Unfortunately, he could still feel the wrinkle in his soul that marked Azel’s presence.

The demon hadn’t left – he just wasn’t talking.

“Interesting,” Noah said, shaking himself from his thoughts. “True Shift Runes barely have any variance in them, though, so that kind of makes sense. The problem with that is they’ll fall apart if you try to combine too many of them in the future.”

“What if it’s something to do with intent as well?” Moxie asked. “Sure, True Shift Runes are a bunch of Shift Runes, but the Intent is pretty direct for them as well. Less things going into the mix.”

“That’s true. They’re also pretty straightforward. Shift. There’s not a whole lot of ways you can interpret that, so it’s easier to accomplish exactly what you want. It’s focused and not trying to branch out too far.”

Moxie started to nod, then froze. “Wait. Noah.”

“What?”

“Don’t you think that could be it?”

Noah gave her a baffled look. “What could be it? What did I say?”

“Shift Runes are focused,” Moxie repeated. “They don’t try to do too much. What if they’re good – not just because all the parts of the True Shift Rune are the same – but because it’s not trying to do too much?”

Noah blinked. A second passed as he thought through his own words. A prickle ran down his spine.

They made sense.

How did I not realize this before? Isn’t this basically a really similar issue to what Master Runes face? The amount of control I have over Sunder goes up with every Rank I gain. That means that Runes – obviously – get more control the stronger they are.

But what happens if you try to form an overcomplicated Rune early on? It’s not like there’s a rule against it, but how could someone’s Rank 3 True Fire Rune ever match up to a Natural Disaster Rune of the same Rank?

One is simple in scope, and the other is massive. And yet, you can get both at Rank 3. That wouldn’t make any sense – unless Natural Disaster is reaching too far and it can’t control the energy I’m trying to bring in.

It would appear perfect – right up until I actually use energy and it can’t actually handle it.

“Holy shit,” Noah murmured. “Moxie, you’re a genius.”

“You figured it out, not me. I just repeated what you said. You think that’s it, then?”

Noah was already nodding, and he started speaking before Moxie had even finished her own sentence. He grabbed her shoulders in excitement. “It makes perfect sense. It’s just like Sunder. We can’t control all the energy in the Runes because we went too far with what we wanted. We need to balance power with realistic levels of control to build up a solid foundation.”

“Yes!” Lee exclaimed, jumping up and pulling them both into a hug. “I have no idea what you just said, but it sounds exciting!”

They all burst into laughter. Noah ruffled Moxie’s hair.

“I need to test this,” Noah said after they all stepped back. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“I don’t have any Mind Meld potion left over, or I’d ask you to do it on me,” Moxie said. “Do you have enough Runes to test it on yourself?”

Noah scrunched his nose. “Tehcnically, yes. It would involve completely butchering the Runes we still have, though. As much as it pains me, I think we should gather them normally. We’ve still got a few days until we make it to Whiterock.”

“Does this mean we get to fight more things?” Lee asked. “Because the squirrels really didn’t put up too much opposition.

“Yeah.” Noah cracked his fingers and grinned. “It means we get to hunt.”