Return of the Runebound Professor

Alexandra stared at Noah for several long seconds. The corner of her mouth kept twitching like it was trying to decide if she wanted to smile or not. Eventually, incredulity got the best of her and she let out a snort, shaking her head as a cold wind curled past the mountain peak of her soul.

“That might be the strangest joke anyone’s ever tried to tell me. I can’t tell if you’re trying to pretend to be a skinwalker, a god, or something else entirely. Really, Professor, I’m not a child. You know what I’ve been through. I don’t need to be coddled. I just want—”

Noah called on Sunder. Power slammed within him as his runes all strained, pushing back against the immense Master Rune. His veins turned jet black and particles of dark energy gathered around his palm.

Waves of pressure drove out from his palm and slammed into Alexandra, driving the breath from her soul-lungs like a punch. She took a staggering step back, the words dying on her lips as her eyes went as wide as saucers.

“What is this?” Alexandra breathed. “I thought you were Rank 4!”

“I am,” Noah said. Energy burned within his fingers as he clenched them into a fist. Twisting strands of black magic coiled around his fingertips like eels. That was new — but it certainly helped his demonstration. “But there’s a vast difference in power between a shoddily made Rank 4 and a truly flawless one. And there’s a lot more to power than merely having a few good runes.”

“You can’t mean you were being serious,” Alexandra stammered. “Professor, you’re claiming the impossible. Thousands of years old? That’s older than every single Rank 6 in the empire — no. Older than the empire itself! Even the Long Night doesn’t date that far back.”

“I’m not from this planet,” Noah said with a shrug. “But does that really matter? You’ve focused on the background shit.”

“You’re claiming to be immortal!” Alexandra yelled.

She stared at him. “What?”

“One thing at a time, please. Seriously. You can’t study by spreading your attention in every direction. You’ll have to work on that. Learn to lock in on one subject while you’re working on it.”

“Did… everything go okay in the Damned Plains? You didn’t get hit too hard or something while you were there, did you?” Alexandra asked carefully.

Noah blew out a sigh. It would have been easy to just slap Sunder against one of the runes sealed within the rocks beside him and shatter it, cleaving the Body Rune from Alexandra’s soul entirely. Easy enough that it was tempting — and Noah would never let himself do that.

This was Alexandra’s soul. It wasn’t about how easy things were for him. He was asking her to believe the impossible. Anyone sane would have been at least a little baffled, especially since he’d just popped out of Hell with an entourage of demons in his wake.

Taking his annoyance out by forcing her under Sunder’s blade was not the way he would ever let himself handle his students.

After all, he had a far more effective way to demonstrate the truth. The human mind was remarkably good at understanding things once it got a chance to see them laid out before it.

Empty Proliferation did not perfectly insert Noah directly into someone’s soul. Instead, it bridged their souls, overlaying them and making a balance that allowed both him and his target to exist in a single soul location.

When he went into someone’s mind, he had to find an equal balance between their soul and his in order to make the connection easier and lengthen the amount of time they could remain merged.

For almost everyone, that meant shrinking the amount of Noah’s own soul to a nearly minuscule amount. His soul was just so much larger than the average soul that bringing half of it to bear would probably end crushing the average mage.

With Alexandra, he’d been using just about five percent of his full soul’s might. It was hidden in the distance, specks of distant black that lurked at the edges of their vision.

And if he wanted to show Alexandra the truth, all he had to do was one little tweak.

A.

Tiny.

Little.

Tweak.

Noah drew on his soul.

The sky shattered. It fell apart like planes of broken glass as the night swept in. Darkness swallowed the mountain and crushed the clouds in a black waterfall. Pressure slammed down on Alexandra’s shoulders and her lips parted in mute disbelief, unable to muster words. �

And in the darkness, a golden line bloomed. It wasn’t so much a part of Noah’s natural soul as much as an extension of his powers. Empty Proliferation made it considerably easier to tweak the mindspace around himself and his target to appear how he wanted it to.

That golden line stretched out across the horizon and raced toward where they floated in the infinite black. Pressure rolled off it, growing stronger with every new step that took form. The line coiled around them like a constricting snake, then exploded outward until it was nothing but a distant thread spiraling through the universe.

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“What is this?” Alexandra breathed. She’d fallen to her knees at some point during what Noah liked to think of as a slightly advanced PowerPoint presentation of what awaited mortals when they reached afterlife.

Might need to tone down the amount of pressure I use. Don’t want to hurt anyone.

“Death,” Noah replied, pulling Alexandra to her feet. “The Line.”

“What is…” She trailed off, unable to complete her thought as her eyes followed the gold through the dark.

“The afterlife,” Noah said, the corner of his lips pulling up. “Endless suffering. Mind-numbing agony. More than you could ever come to comprehend — but you will, should you die. Everyone does. I certainly did.”

“Thousands of years old…” Alexandra muttered, her eyes following the line into the distance. Then they snapped back to Naoh. “That’s what you meant? You were dead. They just let dead people leave the afterlife?”

“No. I had a bit of a breakout. There are a few gods pissed off at me about that — but this really isn’t the point, Alexandra. I’m not showing you this to scare you. I’m showing it to prove that I’m telling the whole truth.”

“Yeah. I believe you. This is terrifying. It feels like my soul is getting ground to a paste.” Alexandra swallowed. “I’ve never felt so vulnerable. My Body Runes aren’t protecting me at all. Wait. Did you say gods—”

“Focus!”

“Right.” Alexandra shook her head. She clenched her jaw and let out a short, sharp breath. “Everything you said is true. I believe you. Everything… wait. Everything?”

Noah smiled. She’d finally gotten the picture.

“Everything.”

“You can repair my Body Runes so I can reach Rank 4?”

“Repair?” Noah let out a chuckle and snapped his fingers. The darkness vanished like it had been sucked from the sky, and the mountain peak of her soul snapped back into existence as if it had never left. “I can do so much more than that.”

Alexandra staggered, eyes darting around in surprise. It took her a moment to re-adjust before she turned back to him. “What are you talking about? How could you do more? They’re part of my soul. Even if I had the most powerful healing potions, it would still take me years to recover.”

Noah clenched his fist, and his blackened veins pulsed with even more power. Sunder roared, releasing waves of pressure that made the stones at Noah’s feet tremble and dance in terror.

“Alexandra. I’ve seen eons pass by like seconds. You’d think that it would have made me a remarkably patient person, but unfortunately, it’s the contrary. I really don’t like waiting. It’s a pet peeve of mine. I’ve given you even more information than I gave Isabel and Todd. So… make a choice. You came to me to be taught. Let me do that or remain as you are. It’s your choice. But, if you really need a little longer, that’s fine. I won’t rush you into a decision. Take a few—”

“No.” Alexandra swallowed, then shook her head. Her features set and she clenched her fists at her sides. “No, you’re right. You saved me from Gentil and Wizen, and the others have definitely been acting weird. I didn’t think they would pity me, so it was kind of odd. This would explain it. I was just being stubborn. If you’ve got anything that can fix me, I’ll take it.”

“Even if you lose your Body Runes in the process?”

“Screw the Body Runes,” Alexandra snapped. “I made them from desperation, not desire. I don’t want to be the strongest Rank 3. I want to be the strongest me.”

“This won’t be fun. Probably quite painful, actually — but it’ll definitely be cathartic. Choose a rune for me to remove.”

“How?”

“Alexandra? Just choose one.”

“Right.” Alexandra pointed at the rune closest to Noah. “That one. What are you going to—”

Noah set his hand on the stone.

Sunder burst forth, and a flash of purplish-black energy split the stone from top to bottom. Alexandra grabbed her chest and let out a pained hiss.

Then the stone shattered, and the rune went with it. Fragments of rock tumbled down the side of the mountain and vanished into the sky that stretched on beneath. White cracks drove into Alexandra’s soul like someone had driven a pick into it. They weren’t huge, but they were far from small.

Power poured out of the remaining rubble, rising up into twisting energy. No runes emerged. That was new — it must have been because the Body Rune had been so closely integrated with her soul that there was practically no separation between the two for anything to escape the bond.

Meh. It was just a Rank 3 Rune. Easily enough replaced.

Alexandra stared at the spot where the Body Rune had been in mute shock.

“Don’t worry. I can fix the damage,” Noah said.

“Can… you do it again?”

“Yes, but it’ll hurt. Each removal will hurt more than the last. We can pause for a day and I can heal you—”

“The next rune.” Alexandra’s tone bore more than a request. It was desperation and desire mixed into one. It held hope. “Please. Get the next one. I can handle it. I don’t care if you’re a god or not. If you can give me a chance to be more than… this, then I’ll follow you forever.”

“I’m not asking for anything like that.”

“Then what? Nobody does a service like this for free.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t say it’s free.”

“What do you want, then? It’s yours.”

“Let’s see.” Noah tapped his chin in thought as he walked up to the next stone. “Follow a good sleep schedule and make sure you have a varied diet. Practice your patterns at least an hour every day, but don’t forget to relax and give your brain some time off. Also, hang out with the other students more. They want to get to know you more. Help Yulin integrate with them as well.”

Alexandra stared at him. “That’s just a bunch of stuff to make me a better student.”

“Ding.”

“That’s all you want?”

“From you? Yes. Now, brace.”

Alexandra opened her mouth, then let out a snarl of pain as Noah unleashed Sunder and another stone shattered. She drove her foot into the ground to keep herself from falling over and swayed in place. Cracks crawled across the surface of the mountain peak.

Before Noah could ask if Alexandra was doing okay, she forced her hands open.

“The next one. Get the next rune.”

“Are you sure? Waiting a day won’t—”

“I survived Gentil for years,” Alexandra ground out. “I can push through a little pain. Pain is a reminder that you’re still alive. Do you really think you can dangle a future in front of me and expect me to wait to grab it? Rip the damn thing out.”

“Hard to say no to enthusiasm like that. Just remember, you can stop whenever you want. There’s nothing forcing you to push through everything today.”

“Professor Vermil?”

“That’s not my name. Not in private.”

Alexandra gave him a thin smile. “Professor Vines, then.”

“Better.”

“Rip the damn rune out. Please.”

Noah unleashed Sunder. If Alexandra wanted to do everything now, then he would oblige her. She’d waited long enough — and he was confident that she could handle it.

“As you wish. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’re capable of once you’ve got the training weights off.”