"There has been a change in rules." Jumana came up on stage to reveal another piece of news. "Because of the tie, we decided to hold the last round in a different manner."
The crowd booed but a single frown from Jumana made them shut up. With a pleased nod and the grin of a kid, she nodded.
"In the last round, we'll have the partners come on stage to use the participants' cards. They would use the cards against this giant pillar," Jumana waved her hand and a black pillar appeared. "To test how much damage the card could inflict."
The crowd was displeased about this. This change sounded a bit unfair to Carlos, who relied on the reflected damage to win.
"A participant can create a single offensive card to use against this pillar. The pillar would then rank them according to how much damage they were able to produce." As if sensing the crowds' displeasure, Jumana continued. "The participants would then get to challenge anyone of a higher rank than them. Each participant gets three opportunities to challenge someone. They can't challenge the same person more than once."
After it was clarified, the crowd's tension eased. This way, no unfairness would be involved. With this, the seven that were left would each inscribe a card and use it.
As he sat in his room, Arthur sighed at his low arsenal of offensive runes. He had been saving legacy points to buy a powerful one, but he was a few points short. After two days of killing the undead, he now had 22 legacy points. There were some runes he could buy now, but he didn't really need to.
Fire rune it is.
He inscribed a genuine rune using the liquified mana. It gave a low red hue and hugged the runic card. Unlike others, Arthur didn't need more time to inscribe more powerful runes. That's why he feigned inscribing for ten minutes before finishing the rune.
"Fascinating," Yurirl said from the side. "Every time I feel like the rune is going to fail, you find a way to bring it to life. It's even more sophisticated than others."
"Well, it's a technique I developed." Arthur summoned the art of bluffing again. "I allow the runic lines to rest before connecting them. This way, it appears chaotic but the key is in the timing."
"Oh, that's remarkable." Yurirl who was a layman in the runes path simply nodded and didn't doubt Arthur.
If Yurirl used his Divine Sense, Arthur knew he would be exposed. However, Yurirl didn't. The simple fact of him sitting next to Arthur as he inscribed runes was a gift from the association and a test. Runes master usually work in seclusion, so Yurirl wouldn't pry on Arthur's work.
"So, you're done?" Yurirl asked with confusion. "Shouldn't you take your time more?"
'And keep pretending to inscribe the rune for an hour? No thanks.' Arthur simply smiled and shook his head.
For artificial runes, runic lines were the deciding factor for the rune's limits. For a given rune, an 80% resemblance to the rune and a 90% had a gap as wide as the Great Blood Ocean between them. That wasn't to say that no one had achieved a 100% resemblance, many did and it wasn't uncommon.
For Arthur, his runes were always perfectly done. Anyone that sees them would think Arthur was either gifted or had simply spent a few years training to get the perfect rune.
The rest of the time, Arthur spent it chatting idly with Yurirl. The more he got to know the guy, the less he felt like he knew him.
Yurirl didn't do anything but train all of the time, he said. When Arthur asked him about friends, Yurirl mentioned his guild's members.
"You said you never lie. Why?"
"Well, a heart full of lies and trickery can never hold a proper sword. Hesitation is birthed from uncertainty, and I can't have that as a swordsman."
Arthur didn't know what to say to that. He remembered Miko and how she tried to warn him that people would use his kindness. Since the trial, he grew more cynical and less naïve.
'Or I hope I did.' Arthur thought as he looked at Yurirl. There was always the chance that Yurirl was acting, but Arthur didn't feel that to be the case. 'But he told me about the diary and the card he used. He doesn't have a reason to tell me these if they were lies.'
Arthur hated this feeling of paranoia. He started questioning everything his eyes comes across. However, there was also a feeling of certainty that was birthed from his breakthrough. It wasn't the certainty of 'no lies' that Yurirl talked about, but a different one. His certainty came from going beyond right and wrong and he chose to define his own. It wasn't wrong to lie for one's own benefit or safety.
"I should have studied philosophy."
"Well, there's such class in Jerano. I attended it once, it was confusing. They discussed essences, souls, selves, gods, and perfection trying to make sense of the obvious."
"The obvious is subjective." Arthur shrugged. "You're on your last year in Jerano, right?"
"Yeah, but I'm with my guild most of the time. In your third year, college becomes only a place to learn things for your guilds. For example, I'm learning about new monsters there before heading beyond the gates."
"You've been beyond the gates?" Arthur leaned forward in shock. It should have been obvious, but he never met someone that went beyond the gate. Well, except for his father.
"Yes, I've been."
"How is it, the other world?" Arthur asked with his eyes sparkling. Little was known about the other world except for its dangers.
"Well, everyone calls it Alka." Yurirl smiled. Then, his smile disappeared. "It's a truly scary place. Every monster over there is above the high-rank. That's why the rank beyond that is called True Monsters. However," Yurirl paused and Arthur saw the smile return. It was a different one of excitement. "It's a place of heroes, demons, and gods."
"Time is up!" The host announced on the screen. Yurirl nodded and picked up the card from the table. Arthur sat there blankly as he felt his heart thumping.
"Ah," Arthur sighed. "It's hard to wait." He even had the thought of going beyond the gate illegally, but he knew he had to get stronger first.
The first person to use the runic card was Carlos's partner. A spear of ice manifested and attacked the pillar, showing a number that left the crowd amazed. Carlos was judged to be not of the offensive type, so the results came shocking.
396.
Using all of his mana, Carlos's partner was able to break through the damage normal rei-rankers could output. The strongest rei-ranker could punch a number of 300 hundred. Using mana and the rune, this person was able to almost double that.
The one who came after Carlos was Tin Rasan, the beautiful woman from Janea. She used the summoning rune again and the eagle attacked the pillar.
411.
The crowd was thrilled. The eagle was a more flexible rune to use than ice or fire. Even though it consumed the user's mana to fight, it was better to defend, attack, or simply distract.
After Tin, the grandmaster's son's turn came. His name was Abraham. Wind gathered in his partner's hand and a giant azure-colored blade struck the pillar.
399.
It was slightly stronger than Carlos's but weaker than Emma's eagle. Seeing the numbers made the crowd recognize this young rune apprentice too.
The hooded person that Arthur had seen used a rune that was inscribed by the member from the Sun Emperor's workshop. Light gathered and focused on one point and the rune actually produced a laser that attacked the pillar.
453.
The crowd stood up from their seat in shock at this sight. Lasers were a feat of technology, but the Ilios empire was always known for their innovations regarding light and fire runes. Arthur frowned as the sense of familiarity intensified.
The commoner from Orlan came next. Arthur had seen her before; it was a short girl with freckles. Her partner used lighting that made her achieve a result similar to the Iliosian.
455.
The person after that was the girl from Janea that had lucked out in the previous round. However, it seems she also had some abilities as she used a rare rune called spirit's attack. Her score was 320, to the disappointment of the crowd.
At last, Arthur saw Yurirl take the stage. He looked at the screen and Yurirl was already using the fire rune. The black pillar took the flames head-on as Yurirl used all of his mana. The flames gathered in a giant spear under his command and he threw it at the pillar.
With a giant explosion, the pillar started showing numbers on it. The numbers flashed across the pillar in golden characters before stopping at a number that left the crowd speechless.
555.
Using all of his mana, Yurirl was able to break through the damage normal rei-rankers could output. The strongest rei-ranker could punch a number of 300 hundred. Using mana and the rune, Yurirl was able to almost double that.
Many in the crowd cheered as greed filled their eyes. If they could get their hands on such a card, they could survive many battles. Everyone wrote down the name of the runes apprentice that has inscribed such a card.
Basic runes were called as such, not because of their weakness, but their simplicity. If a Vetus ranker used all of his mana to use the fire rune, the destructiveness of it wouldn't change by much. These were the limits of the rune itself.
As for Arthur's rune, everyone in the crowd had a single word in their heads.
Too overpowered.