[The Life of Runes (Secrets)]
[Limited Access: Rune Breath must be awakened]
[Cost: 3,000,000 (F) Coins]
—
Sylas stood in the first door, gazing ahead with a calm expression. He seemed to have never been so focused before, and his comprehension of Runes was quickly getting fuller and sharper.
Without the influence of the System Cities, the Runes of Earth, at least in this region, were healing somewhat.
It seemed impossible for them to turn all the way back to what they had once been, but the small changes alone made Sylas feel what he should from Rune Soul with much more clarity.
This left him confused in part, though.
If there was such a drastic change between a partially healed and unhealed Earth, then why didn’t he feel this difference so clearly while he was in the Sylph Dungeon? Wasn’t it located off Earth?
It was either that that location was influenced by the connection it formed with Earth… or Earth wasn’t the only world targeted by this figure in the background.
Sylas didn’t find this to be too surprising. Considering the odd occurrences that took place after he left the Sylph Dungeon, and his run-in with the Sylph prince he had replaced for the event, it was clear that the Sylphs very clearly weren’t a single cohesive power.
Someone had tried to target him and suffered for it, and there were likely others that didn’t take too kindly to their interference.
The question was… just which of those factions had the upper hand, and how could he take advantage of it?
These questions, though, were too far from him for now. He instead just basked in the clarity of the Runes. They communicated with him with much greater strength now.
As he moved through the doors one by one, he took his time. He didn’t want to accidentally miss the core purpose of his Secret Realm like he almost had in the World of Runes.
This Rune Breath Secret Realm was truly no different; it too held a profound truth, and the challenges were much more taxing on Sylas. It took him an entire hour just to pass through the first door.
If Rune Enlightenment was gaining the instinct for what a Rune could do just by seeing it, Rune Breath was a step further, building up on the first three stages to create a holistic feel for Runes.
It was said that the “Breath” of the title Rune Breath referred to the life of the Rune, and some often mistook that for a Rune Master breathing life into a Rune. However, this wasn’t quite accurate because the entire hidden truth of this Secret Realm was that…
Runes already had a life of their own.
Sylas entered the second door, finding himself in an even more complex landscape.
In the first door, he was presented with a three by three grid of Runes for a total of nine. This time, it was a four by four grid for a total of sixteen.
In order to pass the first door, he had to arrange the nine Runes in such a way that they would spontaneously combine into one. If the Runes had tangible purposes, it would have been easier, and maybe he would have succeeded in a few minutes.
But the trouble was that the Runes were… well, nonsense, for lack of a better descriptor.
They completely skirted the geometry rules Sylas learned in the Rune Visualization Secret Realm, and they made use of Strokes and Foundations that wouldn’t even get off the ground if not for the fact the Secret Realm was forcefully stabilizing them.
If one did the math, a three by three grid of an arrangement of nine different objects could be put into almost 400,000 different configurations.
Still, this number was something you could brute force if you really pushed it.
However, a four by four grid with sixteen different items could be arranged in the order of 20 trillion different ways. If you didn’t know what you were doing, you could spend your entire life here and still make it nowhere.
Sylas stood in silence for an entire three hours. He hardly blinked, his arms crossed over his chest as the 16 Runes before him became his entire world.
He didn’t seem to bore or tire as he allowed this world of Runes to swallow him whole.
Then, his hand suddenly moved.
He swiped down, pulling the top right Rune down to the square just above the bottom left corner.
The moment he made a decision, he didn’t slow. In a blink, he made several movements.
This even row x column grid was harder than the first, not just because of the number difference, but because it didn’t have a core Rune. Because there were an even number, there was no “middle” square.
As such, Sylas had to find a way to balance the repulsion of the four middle squares.
But the problem was that he had found 136 different configurations that worked to balance the core, but most of them didn’t have a balance that would allow the outer core to fuse everything together.
Then there were the particularly tricky ones that seemed to allow some fusion, but it would be incomplete or imperfect.
However, the configuration that Sylas settled on…
WHOOOSH!
The Runes trembled as the last one snapped into place.
The four core Runes, as though they had been infused with magnets, snapped together, forming a Frankenstein Rune that spun once and then sucked the surrounding Runes into it.
SHHOOO.
A blinding light echoed out, and when Sylas’ vision cleared, he was standing on the white, cloudy path outside.
Still, his gaze was unfocused. He absentmindedly walked to the next door to find a five by five grid waiting for him.
He stared at it for a long while, but this time, he wasn’t calculating anything.
Sylas knew that he was missing something. If he continued to calculate like this, he would eventually succeed, but it would take months to make it to the end.
What would he do when he reached a ten by ten grid?
This five by five grid was easier, and it would only take him half an hour because it had a core Rune he could make use of. But the even grids would take him months by the time he got to ten by ten.
He didn’t have that kind of time.
But that didn’t make sense. Why did a core make a difference?
Unless…
“I see…”
Sylas’ green irises blazed with a furious light.
