The System prompts piled before my eyes. Surprisingly enough, writing down rune strings was enough to trigger Class progress. It had been a while since I had sat down for a proper lesson, and I felt like I was cruising through it. Byrne was right. [Foresight] made it a hundred times easier to grasp the quirks of the runes used in specific contexts. Even Runes and circuits I wasn't familiar with instantly burned in my mind like I had been practicing them for a year. There was a reason the people of Ebros trusted the System so much. It worked exceptionally well, although it wasn't a replacement for creativity and originality, and Runeweaving required a lot of those.

"Runes aren't that different from human languages. Think of the meaning of all things as a continuous spectrum. Each language has an arbitrary way of cutting this spectrum into concepts. Think about colors. Ancient Greek and some Sub-Saharan African languages don't distinguish between green and blue. Although human perception of color is universal, these languages put the concepts of green and blue into the same patch of the semantic continuum, while we put them apart. Runes are similar. Some encompass huge semantic fields, while in other cases, there seem to be several runes with the same meaning. Think of Link, Couple, and Bind—don't let their 'names' confuse you. Those three are the same in appearance, but for the Fountain, the difference is important enough to have three different runes."

I listened silently, but my mind wandered through thousands of different ideas and scenarios. Byrne's lack of hostility and his eagerness to share delicate information put me off. If he wanted to harm me, he wouldn't be sharing the secrets of his greatest weapon with me.

"There is one element that sets runes and human languages apart. Human languages convey meaning, but runic language conveys action, or rather, forces an action into the real world. In that sense, runes are more like a programming language than a natural language," he continued. He blinked as he noticed how distracted I was. "Is something wrong, Robert?"

I cleared my throat.

"I was thinking about the girl."

"Vanira?"

"The one who can write runes."

Byrne nodded. I thought he would change the subject for a moment, but he didn't seem to care about the pause in the lesson. The sun had disappeared behind the horizon hours ago, but [Invigoration] halved our sleep needs.

"Yes, Vanira. Even if her powers are a glitch in the System, we still have time before the System collapses. The creator of the System was a smart man. He programmed self-cleaning subroutines to keep things clean even after centuries of wear and tear," he said. "Don't worry about that, we have enough time."

"I'm not worried about the System collapse. I was wondering why she isn't your assistant? If she can write runes, she's more useful than I."

Byrne looked out the window, as if he was sorting his thoughts.

When he spoke, he didn't sound guilty at all.

"Vanira has nothing to offer this project. She has a rudimentary [Rune Identification] skill, but that's all. She can barely put two runes together and is decades away from channeling enough mana to use the runes that matter for teleportation. I tested her powers before. I think it's better to leave her out of this project and not give her false hopes. For her own good."

I nodded in silence. There was no hint that he was responsible for the girl's powers.

For the next hour, I probed Byrne in different ways. He was happy to answer all my questions and didn't seem to suspect I had second intentions. I was a Scholar, after all, so asking questions was only natural for someone like me.

Byrne told me the same story as the System Avatar. There were minor runes, like those Enchanters used to create enchanted equipment, and big runes used to make the System work—runes that required so much mana to be written that Byrne's body had only gotten accustomed to them after decades of practice.

Runic language wasn't made for humans. Byrne told me our bodies were too small and gathered Corruption too quickly to use them to their full potential. He had theories about the origin of the Fountain, but no concrete information. He believed that the Runic language given to the System's creator by the Fountain was only the tip of the iceberg, only a few words humans could comprehend. Still, most of his theories were pure speculation based on his experience.

"If languages are capable of conveying the totality of the semantic continuum even with a finite amount of words, then the runic language should be capable of triggering the totality of possible actions in the world," Byrne said. "Can you imagine? A rune for life, consciousness, and death? My mana pool has matured to modulate greater and greater runes, just like a toddler's brain matures to understand more complex meanings. Human life is finite, though, so I will probably die before understanding the entirety of runes' potential. Those beings who natively employed the rune language might have been long-lived. Maybe they still live in a higher plane or existence or something."

Was Byrne talking about aliens?

The Fountain looked very alien to me.

"I'd be happy with a rune to keep my students silent during lessons," I replied, just to keep the conversation going. Most of my brain power was put on the task of reading Byrne's facial expressions.

He grinned at my joke.

"Be realistic. Kids are the same everywhere. You can't just put them into a room and expect them to sit quietly for eight hours a day."

"Yeah."

"Shall we continue? The Light rune has interesting quirks," Byrne said, sliding a new piece of paper across the desk. "You can tune the power to produce lights with different wavelengths, but pretty lights aren't the limit of what they can be used for. You can use them as signals and logical gates with the proper Detect string and have longer enchantments without needing longer single-line rune strings."

For a moment, I forgot about everything and focused on learning. If Byrne was going to help with my Runeweaving, I was going to take it as long as I could. Although I wasn't entirely on board with Byrne's plan—it would be the greatest logistical nightmare in human history, for starters—I couldn't just brush it away.

"The Scholar's Hour is about to finish. You should return to the Academy. I will send you more study material tomorrow," Byrne said, stretching his back with a painful expression. "Good work."

I sighed.

My observations had been fruitless, but at least I knew a couple more Runeweaving tricks I was itching to test in the [Rune Debugger].

"Don't stand up, I know the way out."

Suddenly, a loud explosion made the ground tremble. Byrne jumped to his feet and summoned a shiny green barrier between us and the staircase. His reflexes were still on point despite his age. The burst was followed by thrashing sounds and screams.

"That's not normal," Byrne said, startled. "This isn't the Artificers Circle."

The lower floors were full of novices.

I shot past Byrne's barrier, jumped down the spiral staircase, and exited the circular room under the observatory. I felt Byrne's mana signature behind me, but didn't turn around to make sure he was following. My eyes darted across the corridor, trying to detect the origin of the uproar. Novices and Adepts dressed in pajamas and silk nightgowns ran towards the elevator. Others, cut off from the main group, retreated towards the observatory.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Everyone behind me!" I shouted just as an entire section of the wall collapsed.

I didn't need my eyes to see. Behind the dust, a powerful mana signature caught my attention. I covered the corridor with my mana barrier just as a flare emerged from the dust. The impact felt like a punch to my chest. Whoever was on the other side had the power at least as strong as a Lv.40.

Byrne used a wind spell, and the cloud of dust dissipated.

At the threshold, Vanira glared at us, her crazed eyes shot with the black tendrils of Corruption. Her expression was a mask of anger I have seen only once before, on the faces of the Corrupted Greyfangs from Umolo. Her robe hung torn apart from her left shoulder, exposing her skin. Tentacles of Corruption encroached on her body, rising from her chest into her neck and through her limbs, leaving only a few points of untainted skin.

Vanira Lv.17 [Identify] Corrupted Human?

A Lv.17 wasn't anything I couldn't deal with, but the question mark made me uneasy. There was only a faint trail of System mana in her organism; the rest was pure Corruption. [Foresight] told me she was about to turn into a Corrupted Monster, even though she had been healthy just a few hours before.

Vanira's body gleamed like a hot coal. I fortified my barrier just as a plasma arc blinded me. The blow sent a shiver down my spine as my mana pool was drained to maintain the barrier. Blocking the whole corridor was just as mana-intensive as I expected. Out of nowhere, a mana spike flew over my shoulder and hit Vanira in the center of her chest. The Corruption hardened her body like iron, but the spike tore through her flesh, exposing her ribs. Thin threads of black blood poured from the wound as if it were a mere scratch.

Vanira roared, her voice several octaves lower than before.

Byrne channeled another mana spike. My mind raced. Why was she Corrupted? Had Byrne been editing her mana pool? Was he trying to cover his tracks?

"Stop!" I shouted, and the mana spike fizzled.

"The students are in danger!" Byrne replied.

"She's your student!"

Byrne gathered the novices of the Arcane Circle and sealed the corridor with his verdant shield. I noted it wasn't a mana barrier like mine. He must've edited his own mana pool to get access to more skills.

"Let me deal with this!" I shouted.

To my surprise, Byrne nodded and retreated behind the shield. Channeling his mana, he looked less like a harmless grandpa and more like a proper smuggler. I made a mental note not to underestimate him.

I fed [Foresight] more mana, and the world slowed to a crawl. Vanira's Corruption was strange. Gleaming red stripes ran across her body, intertwined with the Corruption tendrils. She slowly raised an arm towards me. A Fire Rune burned in the palm of her hand, turning the corrupted mana into fire.

I pulled the Mage-Killer Gloves out of the inner pocket of my cloak just as Vanira shot another firebolt. I dodged and darted forward. There might be a chance of saving the girl without killing her. I just needed to drain all the mana from her body.

The next firebolt barely grazed my shoulder. [Foresight] made it extremely easy to anticipate her attacks, as her attacks lacked finesse. I was so used to fighting already that I didn't need [Swordsmanship] to control my body to the last muscle. I closed the distance before Vanira could shoot the third firebolt. Then, with a fluid movement, I seized her wrist and pushed her against the wall, firmly pressing her neck with my forearm. She was stronger than any Scribe I had met before, but my Prestige Class made me even stronger.

I activated the Mage-Killer Gloves and drained Vanira's mana. Red and black sparks crackled between us, but this time, I didn't feel the burning pain through my chest. The gloves heated around my hands, but the release sub-enchantment seemed to hold up to the mana flow, sending sparks and scorching arcs of lightning all around me.

Vanira growled, but her strength was crumbling. She tried to channel her fire powers, but I kept her marked hand pointed at the stone ceiling, away from me. The flame hit the ceiling, leaving a dark, charred mark. I continued pinning her in place and draining her mana.

Suddenly, when I thought the Vampiric Rune was going to overload, Vanira's eyes turned blank, and she fell to the ground. The red markings on her body disappeared, leaving only the long tendrils of Corruption coiling under her skin.

I examined her. She was breathing, although the wound Byrne had inflicted on her started to bleed more and more. Her hands were burned, and her wrist—where I had drained her powers—was blackened like a piece of coal.

"We need a Healer! Now!" I shouted.

The next few minutes passed in a heartbeat. The halls of the Arcane Circle were soon filled with royal guards, healers, and Preceptors from the other Circles. A woman from the Nature Circle tended to Vanira. Her wounds closed, but she didn't regain consciousness.

"How much Corruption do we have to deal with today?" Grand Archivist Evelise said.

The old woman was the first to appear in the scene, dressed in an elegant nightgown that looked more like a party dress than actual pajamas. She was followed by a small army of Alchemists and Healers in similar attire. Her people tended to the wounded novices and adepts. Luckily, the Arcane Circle was the least populated of the Library, and nobody had wounds that the most skilled healers in the kingdom couldn't heal.

"Corruption is supposed to make you a cripple, not this," Byrne said, rubbing his temples.

Although he was technically correct, the Greyfangs had figured out how to use Corruption to improve their magical skills. None of them knew it, and it didn't seem the moment to reveal that with so many ears plaguing the corridor. The Greyfangs had a huge System Shrine. I wondered if Vanira had something similar.

"Where is Vanira's bedroom?" I asked.

"Don't you mean her study?" Byrne replied.

I shook my head.

"If she has something to hide, it will be in her room."

The good part was that none of the royal guards had enough rank—or the levels—to prevent us from investigating. Byrne asked one of the novices, but Vanira seemed to have few friends. Finally, a boy, one of the herbalists who had been growing the shiny mushrooms, guided us to Vanira's bedroom. The trail of destruction started inside. The bookshelf had been reduced to ashes. Furthermore, it had been completely incinerated before anything else had caught fire. That was a fire spell, not regular fire.

Evelisse gasped from the doorway.

"System turn me into a Mender!"

On top of Vanira's nightstand, there was an unopened violet Energy-Boost potion. The same potions that had allegedly corrupted the monsters during the selection exam. It couldn't be a coincidence.

"Don't touch anything," I said, examining the room.

Several empty vials were scattered across the room, one with leftover potion still inside, likely the last one she had drunk, others completely dry. On her desk were a few tomes on Runeweaver Baram and his enchanted relics. Scorched scribblings covered the floor and the bookshelves. She had been studying hard. Too hard, maybe.

The pieces clicked into place. Vanira was unhappy with her powers. Byrne had tested her and found her unfit. Someone offered her a boosting potion to improve her performance. She fell for the temptation, but the potion didn't help her. Runeweaving was different from the other skills—it required special permissions. Permissions that she probably lacked. Vanira then fell into despair and drank more than her body could endure. The toxicity of the potions surpassed the safe limits, and Corruption got hold of her body. As a result, she almost turned into a monster.

On top of that, I had a nagging feeling that I had unintentionally pushed Vanira towards the brink. I could imagine her storming off to her room after escorting me to Byrne, and drinking the potion that finally caused her transformation.

There was still a missing piece, though.

Vanira's Corruption differed from the others I have seen and experienced. The red markings on her body weren't runes. Corruption, maybe? The only problem was that Corruption was pitch black, like ink.

"Two years have passed, and you have nothing on the Energy Boost potion suppliers?" I asked, incredulous.

Evelisse shook her head.

"It hasn't been too big of a problem so far," Byrne added.

I cursed, angry with myself. Killing Red might have been a mistake. I remember seeing this kind of potion in his lair. Without knowing it, I had severed the only lead I had. Death couldn't be undone.

"Cadets and novices might know something, but if the potions are illegal, I doubt they would gladly admit anything," I said, rubbing my temples.

"I-I might know something," the mushroom kid stuttered.

I had forgotten he was still there.

Evelisse channeled her mana, and vines emerged from the carpet, catching the kid's ankles.

"Speak!"

The kid, as expected, froze.

"Evelisse. We don't use spells against our students. Let him go, or I swear I will free him myself," I said coldly. I didn't care that she was part of the high nobility. "I mean it."

Evelisse raised her hands, and the vines withered.

"Am I in trouble?" the kid stuttered.

"No. If you help me, I will vouch for you," I replied.

The kid nodded, trembling like a leaf.

"W-we went into a rally in this shady place. I swear I didn't want to go. They told us we could be as strong as nobles. Improve our classes. Get levels easily. T-they gave us those potions, but I swear, I told Vanira not to drink them."

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