The rest of the day and night passed, surprisingly without incident. Noah remained seated in his tree, watching the moon trek through the sky. Monkeys hollered in the distance, their cries echoing through the barren forest and distorting with the wind.

None of them found him. Noah wasn’t sure if it was because they were intentionally avoiding his location after the slaughter, or if he’d just gotten lucky. Either way, the sun rose all the same the following morning.

The fog in his head had only just started to show signs of abating when an electric current danced across his skin, running down his spine and spreading throughout his body. Before Noah could even start to wonder what was causing the sensation, a sudden force jerked at the nape of his neck.

The world blurred and took on a vibrant shade of blue as he was shunted backward and sent hurtling through space. Noah instinctively tried to let out a startled gasp, but he couldn’t even do that. His entire body rebelled against him, and all he could do was sit and watch as the blue currents swirled past him.

With a violent thud, Noah slammed down inside a metal tube, sliding to the floor and landing with a grunt. He staggered as his feet hit cold ground and he braced himself against the wall, drawing in a deep breath. Tim raised a hand in greeting, but his smile fell away as he saw the state of Noah’s blood-covered clothing.

“By the gods, man,” Tim exclaimed. “Are you alright?”

Noah grimaced and pushed off the wall, shaking his head. The fog in his head still hadn’t completely left, and his mouth felt gummy as he spoke. “I’m uninjured.”

Tim’s expression relaxed, but his eyes remained incredulous. He shook his head in disbelief. “Looks like you went through quite a few healing potions with all the wounds you’re sporting.”

Noah grunted. “Yeah, something like that. Sorry. Forgot I was going to get yanked back this quickly.”

Tim waved his hand dismissively and gestured to the elevator in the center of the room. “Happens to all of us. It’s a bit sudden, and I don’t recall you coming by much before. Once you use the system a few more times, you should get used to it.”

“Good to know.” Noah stepped onto the small lift in the center of the room and Tim shut the grate behind him.

“You might want to rest for a little while,” Tim said. “You look like shit.”

Noah gave the man a small grin. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Tim stepped back and the lift rattled down, chains lowering it into the open air. The metal trapdoor shut above Noah with a crash and he winced as the sound pierced his ears. It probably wasn’t all that loud, but with his head throbbing after his death, it was like a gunshot set off right beside his head.

The lift lowered Noah down to the stairwell and he stepped off, keeping his eyes low as he strode past the small line waiting to use the travel system and headed for his room. By the time he reached it, his head was almost back to the point where he could think properly.

Noah tried calling on his Runes again to no avail. He sighed and stripped out of his ruined clothes, taking a shower and swapping into a new set of clothes before sitting down on his bed. Even though getting killed had technically cleaned off all the dirt he’d picked up fighting, his ruined clothes were filthy enough to warrant getting cleaned again.

Next time, I’m bringing a spare set. I wonder how much they cost, because I get the feeling I’m going to be running through the rest of my wardrobe pretty quickly.

Noah propped his pillow against the wall and leaned back on it, crossing his arms behind his head. His skull throbbed and he grimaced, massaging his temple. He’d yet to measure the exact amount of time it took him to recover from a death, but the pain was already starting to abate, so he suspected it wouldn’t be much longer. He closed his eyes and let himself relax, waiting until his magic returned.

***

Just a little over an hour later, the last of the fog lifted away. Noah felt the headache abate and opened his eyes again. He covered a yawn and sat upright, immediately sending for his Runes. This time, nothing stood in his way and he slipped into his mental space without issue.

Seven Runes shimmered to life in the darkness, floating patiently in a circle around him. Noah immediately looked to the new Vibration Rune. It sat where one of his old Wind Runes had been, shimmering with faint gray energy.

Noah took a step toward it and a faint resistance pushed back on him, as if he were striding into a soft wind. A grin stretched across his face. His efforts the previous day hadn’t been wasted. The other Runes had all grown slightly stronger as well. It wasn’t a massive difference, but it was noticeable.

His grin faded away as he considered the Vibration Rune. He didn’t know exactly how much power it would take to fill it to the point where it could be combined properly, but the light coming from the Rune was so dim compared to the others that he suspected it probably wasn’t even one percent of the way to its max capacity.

Noah risked a glance up. The Sunder Rune loomed above him, filling the sky and humming with energy. It wasn’t as difficult to look at as it had been the first time, but the pressure washing off what he could only assume to be a Master Rune still made his legs tremble with effort to keep himself standing.

It would probably be pretty stupid to try and do anything with this. I don’t know what it does or how it works. All I know is that it’s probably the reason I come back to life when I die, and even that isn’t certain.

Noah swallowed. There was something tantalizing about the power stored within the massive Rune. As if responding to his attention, it started to lower. Noah couldn’t bring himself to pull his eyes away as the Rune floated down until it was just above his head.

It was beckoning him. Asking him to reach out.

Noah obliged it. He extended a hand and brushed a fingertip against the thrumming lines of energy.

There was a burst of static in Noah’s ears and his entire body buzzed with static electricity. The world went white.

Then there was nothing.

Noah floated in the emptiness, unable to move or even see his own body. All he could do was observe.

In the white, a dark form materialized. A spear formed first, followed by a muscled body made of pure void. The man that had attacked Renewal when Noah had been waiting at the Waters of Life.

Noah couldn’t even flinch back. Luckily, the man didn’t seem to be aware of his presence. He extended his jagged black spear, and more color bloomed around him. Grass sprouted up beneath the man’s feet, and a hulking monster with jutting teeth and brilliant red skin molded out of the ground before the man.

Its skin was protected by interlocking chitinous plates, and it stood twice as tall as the man. With every breath it took, a rattling hiss slipped out from its armored body. Its mouth opened in a clicking screech and it leapt to bite at the man.

He didn’t budge. He barely even seemed to notice the monster was attacking him. With the smallest of motions, he shifted his spear and pointed the tip at the monster, which charged chest-first into it.

A faint clink rang out through the nothingness. The monster froze in place. A black line carved through it from head to toe and, denied even the chance for a final screech of defiance, it split in two.

The two halves of the monster collapsed on themselves. Its armor plates clanged to the ground around it, along with a pile of teeth and claws. A curl of smoke rose up from where it had stood, materializing into seven glistening runes.

Noah desperately tried to lean forward to get a better look at them, but he couldn’t budge. The man examined the runes, then paused as something caught his attention. He raised a hand and one of the runes floated closer to him, giving Noah a glance at it.

Insectoid Armor.

Before Noah could even try to memorize it, the man flicked his hand. His spear carved through the rune, shattering it. Noah’s disappointment died in his chest. His eyes widened as, from the fragments, seven new Runes formed, each pulling away from the wreckage of the original Rune – and every single one of them brimmed with energy.

That must have been a combined rune. Did he just split it apart without damaging any of the individual components?

The man reached out and plucked one of the runes from the air. He flicked his hand, and the other six shattered, blowing away in strands of dark smoke. Noah could have sworn at the man. He hadn’t gotten a chance to memorize any of the runes.

Darkness crept into the edges of the white void. The man turned and walked toward it. With every step he took, control returned to Noah’s limbs. Shadows swallowed the white and the endless white around him popped like a balloon and vanished, leaving him standing in his mental space.

Noah stared up at the Sunder in awe.

It showed me what it does. Sunder. To split. It split the monster apart into its components, but I guess only the parts that the user wanted? But… more importantly, it can split runes apart.

Doesn’t that mean I can combine runes with any combination I want to test, then split them if the combination doesn’t work? I don’t have to worry about finding an existing combination or risking failure. I can test them infinitely.

Noah suppressed a maniacal laugh. If Moxie knew about this, she’d rip her hair out. What need did he have for his stuffy fake family’s rune combinations when he could research them indefinitely on his own?

He had to test this. Noah extended a tendril of thought toward the Sunder rune. A brilliant blast of energy slammed into him, throwing him from his mental space and knocking him to the ground.

Every single part of his body trembled like he’d taken a dip into an electrical current. He tried to move, but it felt like every single one of his nerves had fried. For the second time, all Noah could do was lay there and stare. The ceiling swirled above him as his eyes unfocused. Time ticked by. If Noah hadn’t been so used to sitting around and doing nothing from his stay in the afterlife, it would have been infuriating.

It was nearly an hour before any sensation returned to him. Noah’s toes wiggled, followed by his fingers and the rest of his body. He slowly sat up, rubbing the back of his head with a grimace. At least he didn’t have a headache this time.

Okay, got it. No fiddling with the Master Rune yet. There’s way too much power in it. I need to be way stronger to even try to handle it. Still, when it comes time to combine my runes – this is incredible. If I understood Moxie right, I need to keep this power completely secret. Combinations are the key to forming a unique form of magic, and I can test them as many times as I want.

But, for now, even if I can’t mess with Sunder…

Noah summoned the Vibration Rune to his palm and studied it. The Wind Rune had been easy enough to use, but the Ash Rune still stubbornly refused to do just about anything.

He chewed his lower lip in thought, then touched a finger to his pillow. A faint tremble ran through it. Noah raised an eyebrow and drew on more of the Rune’s power. The pillow flopped around as if someone were throttling it.

A few seconds later, the energy stored within the Rune dried up. It vanished and the pillow ceased its motion, falling back to his bed and lying still.

“Not the most intimidating thing I’ve ever done, but at least it works,” Noah mused. “And I think I’ve had enough excitement for today anyway. So if the Wind and Vibration Runes both work perfectly, then I’ve got to be using the Ash Rune wrong somehow.”

Noah called on the Ash energy and felt it rise up in response. He tried picturing a small cloud of ash rising up from his hand, but it once again stubbornly refused to respond. Noah pursed his lips and glanced around the room.

His eyes landed on a half-melted candle at the edge of his desk. He strode over to it, grabbing a firestarter beside it and lighting the candle. Noah took a paper from the pile of trash that Vermil had left behind and, after reading it to make sure it wasn’t important, set the paper over the flame.

The fire quickly took hold, burning a small hole and blackening the paper around it. The flame continued to spread and the hole expanded, its edges glowing cherry red as more of the paper was consumed. Noah let a little over a quarter of it burn away before he smothered the smoldering paper out with his palm.

The flame stung for a moment and gave in, fading away and leaving him with the brittle results of his experiment. Noah shook his hand off and crushed the edge of the paper, letting the soot crumble into a small pile on his desk.

Straightening his back, Noah pushed the candle out of the way and called on his Ash Rune. He turned his attention to the pile on his desk. The ash shifted, swirling up into the air and forming into a swirling sphere.

A grin stretched across Noah’s face and he splayed his fingers out. The ash twisted between them like a snake, slithering down his palm and forming into a small bird. It fluttered around Noah’s head, then nosedived into the desk and exploded into a small puff of smokey ash.

“Aha,” Noah said, unable to hide his pleasure as he rubbed his hands together. He directed the ash back into a small pile, then organized it into several lines. It responded to his thoughts without delay, forming the exact image he pictured in his head. “So that’s how it works. I can’t create Ash, but I can control it.”

Noah flicked his fingers and the ash leapt from his desk, forming into a crescent moon and shooting into the candle. It pattered against the wax, failing to cut through it. Noah pulled the ash back into a pile and pursed his lips.

“So it’s still just ash, even when I’m controlling it,” Noah mused. “Why doesn’t it cut like the wind did?”

He put the ash through a few more tests, but as far as he could tell, it was just ash. Noah sat in thought for a few moments, trying to figure out why his Wind Rune was able to cut and do real damage while what should have been a more powerful Ash Rune almost felt lackluster. The answer struck him a few moments later and he grimaced at the realization.

It’s the amount of energy stored in them. That’s why Vermil kept a bunch of weak Wind Runes around instead of using all the more powerful ones he had in his book. It was easier to just use the weak Wind Runes than building up to really using the powerful ones.

Noah rubbed his forehead, mentally thanking himself for not making the impulsive decision to get rid of all his Wind Runes at once. If he had, there wouldn’t have been any way for him to reliably kill the monsters in the Scorched Acres.

“Well, at least I found out sooner rather than later,” Noah said to himself. He released his hold on his magic and snuffed the candle out. The sun was already well into the sky, and if he recalled correctly, he still had a class to teach today, and he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be too long until it started.

It would be nice to actually show up before it started this time around.