No sooner than Noah stepped through the door of Moxie’s room did he dart for her bed, practically jumping into it. Moxie just let out a defeated sigh as he pulled his grimoire open, flipping it to a blank page in preparation to start reworking his Runes.

“Let me know if something important happens,” Noah said. “I’m probably going to be distracted for a little while.”

“Will do,” Lee promised, already ruffling through his travel bag in search of either food or her Runes – and Noah suspected it was the former.

The book evidently sensed Noah’s intentions, because the Runes he’d bought in the auction appeared on the pages before him. Energy pulsed off the paper as Noah brushed his hands along it, tingling against his skin. He took care to avoid directly touching the Rank 4 Runes yet – they would give him a nasty sting, and he wanted to handle them with Sunder immediately when the time came.

The Runes were complex, but he’d gotten used to memorizing them. Within a minute, he’d committed the patterns to memory.

Moxie sat down beside Noah as he closed his eyes and leaned back, leaving one of his hands on top of the grimoire. Darkness bloomed as he slipped into his mindspace, and the familiar pressure of his Runes greeted him.

“Time to give you lot a makeover,” Noah said, mostly to himself. It wasn’t like his Runes could hear him. At least, he strongly hoped they couldn’t.

It would have some deeply concerning results if they could.

Noah forced himself to pay attention to the actual task at hand. He’d purchased three Runes for himself in the auction – the one from the Stormprince Elemental, a Towering Frozen Glacier at Rank 4, and a Scorching Flame at Rank 3.

At the moment, he needed three new Disaster Runes. He already knew what they’d be – Thunderstorm, Blizzard, and something related to fire. Pyroclastic Resonance had proved to be invaluable, but with the extra experience he had under his belt, it also felt limited.

I’m pretty sure the majority of the Runes I need for Thunderstorm will come from the Stormprince Elemental’s Rune, and same for Blizzard. Those are both Rank 4 Runes so they’ll be more of a pain to do. That leaves me with the fire based one to start with.

Well, nothing screams a fire disaster like a Volcano. That or lava, but I think lava is more of hot rock than an actual disaster. It’s the volcano that causes it, so that’s what I’ll go with.

Noah sent a mental request to the grimoire, then raised a finger and started to draw. Energy poured down his arm, turning to a glowing orange light at his fingertip. Stroke by stroke, Noah brought Scorching Flame into being within his mindspace.

Before long, a new Rune was crackling beside his others. Whoever had sold it hadn’t been skimping – the Rune was over three quarters of the way full. Something told Noah it had probably been even more full before his grimoire had gotten its grubby mouth on it, but he didn’t mind a little energy loss in exchange for how useful the artifact was.

He gazed upon his new Rank 3 Rune, which had several glorious seconds of existence, standing proud beside its brethren, before Sunder carved through it like an executioner’s axe.

Power poured out of the shattered Rune, and seven Fire Runes swirled away from its center in a wave of orange energy.

The Rank 2 Runes were all pure Fire Runes, and it only took a moment to confirm that five of the seven were perfect.

Well, there’s definitely a big benefit to going almost entirely with a single element. If you ignore the side effect of destabilizing your soul and eventually becoming completely crippled and unable to advance further, not bad at all.

Noah worked quickly, grabbing two left-over Earth Runes they’d gotten while hunting and the last of his Vibration Runes, swapping out three of the Fire Runes for them.

They weren’t all full, but cannibalizing some of the energy left over from Scorching Flame energy was more than enough to top everything else off. Without much hesitation, Noah’s intent slammed down on the seven Runes, forcing them together.

He squeezed his eyes shut a moment before a flash filled his mindspace. When they opened once more, a huge grin stretched across Noah’s face. Before him floated a Volcano Rune at Rank 3, a perfect ten percent full.

Noah gathered all the excess energy left over from Scorching Flame, pushing it into Volcano and taking it up to just under halfway full. He’d lost a fair amount of energy by filling up his Earth and Vibration Runes, but overall, it had been a pretty effective combination.

After putting the new Rune through several tests to make sure that it was truly perfect, Noah finally released Volcano and let it float over to join his other Runes.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

One more down, two to go.

The last two Runes he had to modify were both already Rank 4, which meant there would be a whole lot more energy to work with. Noah was confident his soul would have room to hold the excess power once he Sundered them, but he’d have to be fast if he wanted to avoid losing too much of it.

I could always wait and try to reach Rank 4 a little slower, but fuck that. I’ve been waiting for too long. I’m reaching Rank 4 today, and screw how much energy ends up getting wasted in the process.

Towering Frozen Glacier is up first. Once I sunder it, I need to grab the Ice Rune with the least complexity to it as fast as possible and then split that one up, fixing it with the Ice Runes that I’ve got left over from my previous attempt at a Blizzard Rune. Hopefully I have enough. If I do, then I can reform the new Blizzard Rune and Imbue all the extra stuff back into the Grimoire. If I don’t, I split another Rune and use the constituents from that to patch up anything I’m missing.

Noah rubbed his hands together, steadying himself. He prepared to open his eyes to look at the grimoire, then immediately realized there was a slight problem. The Rune he needed to Sunder was currently on his artifact, and he didn’t want to start chopping the artifact up.

Lee was able to briefly handle a Rank 4 in her soul. I guess I’ll have to do the same. As long as I’m fast, it should be fine.

That wasn’t the most reassuring strategy, but Noah wasn’t too concerned about soul damage when he had the Fragment of Renewal to call on. He extended his senses and called on the grimoire, drawing the Towering Frozen Glacier Rune from within it.

Moving as fast as he dared, Noah drew the Rank 4 Rune in his mindspace. Almost immediately, pressure slammed into him like a stormfront. He gritted his teeth, calling on his other Runes to repress the power driving into him like a violent gale.

Sunder and the Fragment of Renewal were the tipping point, and to Noah’s surprise, he actually felt Towering Frozen Glacier give before their might. The Rune snapped into Being in Noah’s mind with a brilliant crash.

Cracks spiderwebbed out across the floor of his soul, spilling glowing white light out. Noah wasted no time in grabbing Sunder and carving the Rank 4 Rune apart. A sigh of relief slipped from his lips as it shattered.

Energy slammed into him like a tidal wave, but Noah was ready for it. Even as the Rank 3 components of the Rune appeared, his eyes landed on an Encroaching Ice Rune that looked like it would fit his purposes perfectly.

He Sundered it, then scanned over the Runes that bloomed from within it. It had three Rank 2 True Ice Runes with perfect pressure, but the other components weren’t as good. Noah Sundered a second Encroaching Ice Rune, ripping two more True Ice Runes from it and adding them together with the three from the first Rank 3 Rune he’d split. Noah then pulled two Wind Runes from the Grimoire and tossed them into the mix.

His soul was starting to feel the pressure of all the Runes he had floating around in it, but it wasn’t full quite yet – and Noah didn’t plan to spend even a second wasting time looking at anything other than his task at hand.

Noah reformed the Runes into Blizzard, but the result that emerged was only fifteen percent full. He’d been slightly distracted by the rush and his intent or combination hadn’t been perfect. Repressing a curse, Noah Sundered it once more. He swapped another one of the Ice Runes out for one of the extra Wind Runes he had, then reformed Blizzard.

This time, he was rewarded with a Rune that was ten percent full. He didn’t even have time to grin. There was too much power that was just fading away with every second that he let slip by.

Noah shoved the Blizzard Rune full of energy, shooting it all the way up to completely full before pouring the excess power into Volcano.

The conversion rate between the fire-based Rune and the ice-based Rune was so horrible that he barely managed to fill it before the last of the power faded away. For some reason, it seemed considerably harder to fill the higher ranked Runes.

Are the Runes actively resisting getting filled in the way I’m doing it? That’s interesting. I don’t think it’s a problem for right now, but it’s definitely something I should mention to Moxie. The more I understand about Runes, the more I realize just how little everyone really knows about them – myself included.

Difficulties or not, Noah now had one more Rank 3 Rune in his Soul, bringing him up to a total of six of the seven full Rank 3s that he needed for Natural Disaster. The original, imperfect Natural Disaster took up the final active slot in his mind. He also had five Rank 3 Runes left over from Towering Freezing Glacier filling up his mindspace – not to mention the remains of the Encroaching Ice Runes he’d just ripped up. All of it went straight into his Grimoire. He didn’t have space to keep them sitting around when he still had one more Rank 4 Rune to draw in and chop apart.

He then spent some time testing Blizzard, making sure that it had been perfectly formed and didn’t have any flaws that he’d somehow missed. Excitement built like water behind a dam as he realized that he’d made yet another truly perfect Rune.

I can’t keep calling them truly perfect. That’s too much of a mouthful. Flawless works better. I’ve got six Flawless Runes. Just one more until I can make my Rank 4.

His heart slammed in his chest, beating faster with every second that passed. The rate he was advancing at was nothing short of terrifying. It was exactly what the noble families did for their prized members, but he didn’t have any of the errors that riddled the higher-ranked Runes.

And, beyond that, I actually understand how all of these Runes work. Even though I haven’t used the Rank 3s myself, I’ve had versions of all of them and have fought with all the powers I’m working with. That means my intent should be much stronger than most random nobles who are just fed Runes.

That didn’t stop Noah from suspecting that he’d definitely need some time to acclimate to the Rank 4 Natural Disaster when he formed it, but that was a problem for his future self to worry about.

Right now, he was only one more Rune away from reaching the major milestone that many mages never surpassed. Biting back a grin, Noah sent his senses back out to his grimoire.

No matter what happened, he was determined to make sure his eyes didn’t open again until he’d formed Natural Disaster as a Rank 4 Rune. For almost every other mage, Rank 4 was a bottleneck.

It was a challenge to strive for most of their lives to reach, and even when they made it, their foundations were weakened by sub-par Runes.

To Noah, it wasn’t a challenge.

It was an inevitability.