It was quite ironic that Arthur, an uneducated person who had to drop out of school, would receive an ability containing the word 'wordsmith.' After his dinner with Emma, Arthur came back home and looked the word up.
Wordsmith, someone who skillfully uses words. If he combined that meaning with runes, that his ability would mean someone who skillfully uses runes. Another word that popped out was a 'writer.'
Arthur has always used his runes like skills, but past incidents proved otherwise. When he was in the trial, he was able to set conditions for the ring to alert him of incoming monsters. When he saved Hazel, he altered his detection rune's range of work by expending mana. With Dimon, he targeted a specific poison using his heal rune.
It has been obvious all along, but Arthur failed to see it. His runes weren't items to be used, they were his ability. To put it simply, his runes didn't have a separate gate each. His knowledge of runes, engraved deeply in his mind, would allow him to access the Reality Gate that was in his soul.
To put it more simply, his runes weren't skills. They were his ability, a unique gate to himself. The researching for the past three weeks wasn't for nothing, he had learned many things that could solve his questions. Abilities were gates unique to each person, some people would have a gate that generates fire, others control gravity.
Arthur's gate was unique in that it controlled runes, the ancient language of the world. The language of creation itself.
He spent a whole day to think these things through. He had a hypothesis in his mind that would serve as a way for him to lie his way through the world and hide his ability.
His ability was like an onion. The more he peeled, the more layers he would find. He had already discovered that he could set 'conditions of activation' or 'range of activation' or 'target of activation' for temporary runes.
What about permanent ones? Can he alter those too? His time was limited, and he spent days sitting in his room to find a method. He started by picking up the first core, looking at it like a surgeon would look at his tools right before surgery.
"Time to see what are the limits of my ability." Arthur breathed in. With a flick of his hand, a fire rune appeared. The rune floated gently, emitting a bright red color as if it was made of flames themselves. Arthur controlled the rune and it danced around him like a firefly.
Arthur then brought the rune in front of him, not to the core. With his two hands, he fused the two, and just like before, the core broke down and turned ethereal as the rune enveloped it. It looked like a ball of red lines for the observer. This was a permanent rune.
Instead of fusing the rune into a sword or someplace else, Arthur tried to expand the rune. At first, he only used his 'will' to look into the rune or change it. His attempts were a failure as the rune wouldn't budge, only moving as he willed it.
"Hmm…" He scratched his head in a dilemma, not knowing where to go from here. Remembering that mana was needed for temporary runes, Arthur used his mana and allowed it to seep into the rune.
Like an exploding star, bright colors dyed his vision as his consciousness shifted toward the inside of the rune. Like a holographic sphere surrounding him, Arthur saw the rune from the inside. He felt as if he was standing in jelly-like water, observing the surrounding.
This change needed a few moments for Arthur to take in. He studied his surrounding, feeling like being surrounded by snakes as the runic lines twisted and turned. He felt them be so familiar like he would feel toward his kin. In the middle of this world, surrounded by the rune, existed a single gate. It raged with fire like it would burn anything that passed through it.
'It would even burn mana…' Arthur realized this was the Reality Gate that would turn mana into the fire. However, he still couldn't move his body as he wished. Furthermore, he had no idea how to alter the permanent rune.
His goal was simple. Staring at the gate, Arthur knew exactly what to do. He needed to destroy this gate. This was the method he would use to create artificial runes when he needed to. However, looking at it…
He realized it wouldn't be that easy. To alter even temporary runes, he needed to expend a large amount of mana. As for eliminating the gate itself? Arthur looked at the ancient-looking gate, created from pillars of fire and twisting flames in absolute amazement.
"Fascinating…"
He wouldn't be able to witness such a sight in the real world. This was the source of runes and held the power to alter the reality behind it. However, this masterpiece of nature needed to be destroyed. Arthur gathered his mana and sent it into the rune. His blue-hued mana enveloped the surrounding gently and then crashed like a fierce, angry, wave at the gate of fire. The gate distorted and the whole space started shaking.
His mana was draining as Arthur tried to brutally destroy the gate. Almost empty of mana, the gate finally showed signs of cracks making Arthur's heart leap with joy. The gate crumbled the next second, to Arthur's great relief.
However, the relief proved to be too early as the whole space started shaking. Like a house without pillars, the runic lines cracked and crumbled as Arthur was sent outside the space. In his hand, the rune crumbled to nothingness and only the remains of the core proved that it ever existed.
"… What just happened?" Arthur asked himself incredulously. Everything was going well until he destroyed the gate. Did the foundation of the rune rely on the gate itself? Is that why it took Runes Masters so much time and mana to construct the rune by itself without the gate?
"Uh, how do I go from here then? Should I just practice using artificial runes?"
Arthur had his hand on his temples as he pondered the possible paths. The Runes Apprentices Cup was only next week and he sucked at mana control. Master Ronin was even 'amazed' at how much he was brought with his mana, using it in an on and off manner. As for runes inscription? It required even more control.
He sat there for a while before deciding to give it another go. He replenished his mana and did the same thing again, but also failed. He replenished his mana again and decided to use mana to support the runic lines themselves while simultaneously destroying the gate. He saw some success at this as the space was held longer before crumbling when his mana was no longer supporting it.
"UGH!" Arthur threw himself on the bed and shouted with his pillow covering his face. He then started rolling back and forth on the bed as he tried to think of what to do.
"This is more difficult than I imagined…"
But there was no other way.
For the next few days, Arthur kept trying to construct the lines while destroying the gate. His efforts proved futile as it was Monday morning, a day before his travel, and he saw no luck.
He listlessly sat on the bed while thinking of what to do. How could he destroy the gate if the gate's existence was essential for the rune to exist?
While lying on the bed, Arthur closed his eyes to rest. It has been some stressful few days that Arthur couldn't sleep peacefully. Luckily, his mana increased a bit with all of the usage and replenishment. That was the only good thing about it.
Arthur opened his phone and wanted to do something to relax. He started browsing through articles on the latest news that were 'trendy' like new awakeners and how much potential they had. He skimmed through most of the glorifying of the awakeners, the guilds they belonged to, or the government and looked up some names he was familiar with.
Miko was one such name. He missed her, even though they didn't spend 'years' together as friends, she was still a good friend of his. She used to teach him the things he lacked and go through life and death battles for his sake. He sighed when the results were mostly of people he didn't know and closed his phone.
He regretted fighting her when he agreed to help Hazel. He wondered why he thought he had to help her, it only resulted in him being stabbed in the back.
'Did I want others to help me in return, being alone there? Or was it simply the loneliness that made me try to win others?'
He didn't know. He shook his head as thinking about these wouldn't help. His thoughts drifted further into the past as memories kept rolling like a movie tape, unceasing.
Arthur opened his eyes. He checked the time and an hour has already passed by. He decided to try a new approach to the issue of the gate since this one didn't work. Unlike before, he doesn't need to overcome problems. Sometimes it was okay to go around.
Arthur decided that instead of destroying the gate, he would try to close it.
