In my first year in the Imperial Army, I was merely a Bronze Knight who had served in the chaotic mess of the frontlines. You couldn't see more than a few feet across in the fog of those battles, but you could smell the death. Try as you might, you could only avoid it for so long until you were forced to confront it.
I was good at it.
That was how I'd earned my way into the heart of the army.
In my second year, I had claimed a collection of medals as a reward for my prowess. In my third year, I was appointed Captain of the Imperial Army, with a thousand Silver Knights under my command. Wherever the battle raged, I pushed my men into its flames and spearheaded the assaults as their Captain.
As a young woman, and later a feared Celestial Knight, I had carried my accomplishments with pride, never realizing that one day I would become a mother who would be forced to hide her only child from hungry crows.
"I made it!" Leo yelled from the couch as I was busy staring at the cold walls. Blinking wearily, I glanced down to see the coming of a Grade 1 Strength Rune on the paper.
"Good job!" I patted his head blankly while I studied the lines of the rune. They lacked the touch of a Runemaster, as my son had yet to master wielding his soul energy, but the lines were relatively smooth and polished, looking hardly like the drawings of a two-year-old child.
Before they could spiral into another raging storm, I calmed my thoughts with inner strength. It had become a habit for me to run different scenarios in my head each time Leo did something I thought impossible, but I was trying to get better.
He was a strange creature, my only son was, and the gift he bore in his little chest was capable of breaking the worlds.
I couldn't treat him as a normal child. If that fool Gestard was right, and I tried to ensure he was only speaking truth with the tip of my blade pressed upon the sinews around his neck, he would only get stranger still with time.
"I'll draw another one," he said, holding the pen with such balance that I still found it hard to believe it'd been only a day since I gave that thing to him. "This one will be perfect."
Obsession was one of the signs of a genius. Leo was that, obsessed with anything but what a child would find fascinating. He had never played with the toys I'd carved for him. He had never shown his childish side to me. There was a certain coldness to him as though hidden beyond the layers of his flesh was a soul focused only on greatness.
Perhaps this was the reason why the Runemasters were so feared, and why the only ones ever slain by another's hand had died in their cribs.
My Leo was two years old.
It was time for me to make him a good bed.
....
Drawing runes was only the first part of the process. You had to make sure the lines were smooth and right. Doing that with an ink pen was tricky, especially with these chubby hands of mine, but back in high school, I was fascinated with cars and had spent months trying to get them right in a sketchbook. I was mediocre at best, but now that experience was proving handy.
The other part of the rune magic was soul energy.
According to the Basic Principles of Rune Magic, soul energy came from within. Similar to the innate mana reserve a gifted child would have, it was just a small puddle of senseless power. The only way – and the best way – to grow one's soul energy reserves was through practice during one's youth.
I was two years old, which meant I had enough time to work on it, but I could only do that if I could get the hang of it first.
Trying to use soul energy was like taking each breath consciously. This was known as Mediatiative Orientation across Runemaster circles. With each focused breath, the soul and the body would align until they established what was called a Central Balance.
I didn't know if I had ever managed to center my balance, or what it truly meant, but after each session with the notebook, I would take time to stop and practice my breathing.
The third and most challenging part of the Rune Magic was, of course, to combine the first two. Using soul energy on its own wasn't quite useful. This particular energy type was innate to each Runemaster, and it resided somewhere deep in one's soul – duh! – meaning that it couldn't leave the body on its own.
That was why Runemasters used the runic alphabet, which consisted of countless different characters that didn't make sense at first glance, as an intermediary to utilize their energies. If there were other ways to use soul energy, the book didn't mention it.
Anyway, according to the book, the most proficient Runemasters could use their soul energy as early as nine years old. By that logic, there was no need for me to panic. I had plenty of time before me.
But my mind didn't work like that. I had to do it, which by itself was a massive shock to me.
Back on Earth, I was what you would call a professional procrastinator. Even in my pizza-delivery job, I would wait until the last moment to deliver orders, and I'd never call someone back before I received a dozen calls, indicating it was something I couldn't escape.
That had never been a problem in the games I played, though. In those virtual worlds, I was everything that I wasn't in everyday life. A constant grinder of mindless mobs, a strict follower of the quests I was given, and a menace who hardly rested to get that last 5% needed to level up.
It was then that it occured to my I was treating this life as one of those games, which incidentally forced me to become a better version of myself.
Perhaps I should've done the same back on Earth, but it was too late now. Yes. It was better to focus on my new life than to dwell on regrets about things beyond my control.
...
Weeks passed, and I focused all my mind on learning how to wield soul energy.
There was a leaf before me. An old, yellowed thing that I'd picked from the pile in our backyard. It wasn't alive, meaning it didn't have a "soul" that could interfere with my practice, which was apparently a crucial thing that could cause serious damage to my brain according to Runemaster Gerard's notes.
I was to bring it back to life, and by doing that, I would have taken the first true step on my journey of becoming a Runemaster.
It sounded complicated, but Master Gerard – I decided the poor man exploited by my mother at least deserved some validation – wrote that it was nothing more than a momentary influence.
So, I wouldn't have to actually bring this leaf back to life. Making it somewhat green again would suffice.
Taking three deep breaths and holding the last one in my lungs, I reached down and placed a finger on the leaf. Unlike Mages, who relied on palpable spell diagrams and mana to do such things, I had to make use of my imagination in most parts.
Master Gerard didn't mention the exact steps of this process, as in, he didn't write what sort of image I should form in my mind, probably because my dear mother rushed him with a blade pressed on his neck, but I decided to go with a pipe.
I imagined a pipe stretching from deep in my stomach. It was an old, fairly straightforward thing, like the kind you'd see in any shop. I waited for the image to settle in my mind and took another breath when it was done.
Not lingering any longer, I imagined the tip of the pipe reaching for the leaf before me through the finger I still kept on the leaf. Again, soul energy was nothing like mana. I needed something, either skin touch or an object, to make use of it.
Over the past few weeks, I've tried this approach thousands of times with little success. There was one time when I managed to make the leaf wiggle a bit, but it could very well have been the wind.
Anyway, it wasn't important. I wasn't interested in half-assed results.
With pure dedication, I focused on the tip of the pipe, which aligned perfectly with the tip of my finger. Then, tapping into that mysterious space underneath my stomach, I released the floodgates of my soul.
I couldn't see anything from the outside, nor could my inner eye display the intricacies of my innards to my brain like a movie. Still, after a beat, I felt a sudden cold creep silently around my right arm, the unmistakable sensation of my soul energy being present. It trickled slowly, surely through the pipe, then poured into the leaf.
That done, I now had to work on the leaf. Even as a two-year-old, dealing with the soul energy within my body was a piece of cake. The second it left my body, though, I always lost connection.
This time, I remained fixated on that cold sensation, keeping it present, taking rhythmic breaths all the time.
The leaf didn't move.
I pushed harder.
Back at my first try, this simple effort would leave me breathless and empty of soul energy. Now, though, I could tell all that hard work had boosted my inner reserves. I could keep the supply longer than I had ever done, which I celebrated with a puff through my nose.
I kept at it. I would make this leaf move. I would make it so green that my mother would think it'd just fallen even though we were done with spring. She tried not to make it obvious, but I could feel her gaze from beyond the wooden shutters of our kitchen. She was watching me. She was expecting me to succeed.
Then, I shivered as the leaf picked itself gently from the ground, floating weakly a few inches away from the grass, my finger still pressed on its surface. Green dots appeared across the withered yellow.
It wasn't much, but for me, this was the first supernatural feet of my lifetime, and it was glorious.
My chest swelled, and tears welled behind my eyes. The satisfaction was so deep that even the constant supply of dopamine I got from the games back in my first life couldn't compare. It was ecstasy in its purest form, and I couldn't get enough of it.
It was then that I realized why I felt this way. It had been years since I last experienced a feeling remotely like this. It was when I graduated high school, holding my little sisters in my arms, smiling across the crowd that was filled with unknown faces.
I'd thought I was done with my miserable school life. I'd thought I was taking a new step toward a real future.
In the end, it didn't take long for me to realize how naive I'd been.
The leaf dropped. I stared at it, my mind too occupied with the images of a life I'd left behind. I tried to swat them off, but soon I found myself wondering if this time would be any different.
Perhaps that was my curse. Maybe it wasn't about the effort or choices. Perhaps I was just that, a useless piece of shit who couldn't do anything to save his life—
"You did it, Leo! You did it! My son did it!"
The door banged loudly against the wooden walls as my mother came dashing from the kitchen. I stood frozen as I blinked at her, but before I could say anything, I was on her arms and we were flying in dizzying circles across the backyard.
"You did it!"
She kept saying it, and the joy in her voice, full of unquestioning belief, slowly crushed my doubts. Her smile was infectious, and for a moment, I thought maybe there was more to me than I'd ever allowed myself to believe.
Then again, it was just a leaf, and I had barely moved it.
This wouldn't do.
Next time, that damn thing was going to fly.
.....
In another week, I was toying with that leaf, the same one with which I practiced for over a month. The green spots across its surface grew larger each time I poured my soul energy into it, indicating that the first step was complete.
Uh... It felt weird.
Typically, I would be disheartened the moment I came across some difficulty. That was true for many things I'd tried before. Each new hobby I'd ever picked, I gave up when it proved too challenging for me.
This time, though, there was an annoying woman who kept looking at me like I was some genius.
It made me uncomfortable. At first, I couldn't quite put a name on this feeling, and yet it'd pushed me to strive on. I knew part of it was me trying to make my new mother happy, but it wasn't until later that I got the other part.
It was pride.
I was proud of myself.
God, was this how it felt to be appreciated? To be supported by someone else? I couldn't believe I lived my whole life without ever tasting it.
I shook my head and focused on the leaf. Being present was crucial for Runemasters. Any distraction could be fatal in the future. I needed to learn how to keep a clear mind, and I needed to do that now. This would only get harder in the future since there would be more things for me to deal with.
Right now, however, I was just a child with no real responsibilities. My mother took care of me, and she did it too well. I could focus solely on my studies.
I toyed with the leaf for another hour before I picked up the notebook from the living room. Now that I could bring a wethered leaf back to "life", I could move to the second step, which was a complete change from playing with vegetation. I had to find bugs. Dead bugs, to be precise.
This was strange on many levels, but there was solid reasoning behind it. Master Gerard wrote that the ultimate object of a Runemaster was the human body. It was what quality stone or marble meant to a sculptor. To work on such quality stuff, one had to have accumulated serious experience with other, lesser lifeforms.
I was still far from drawing runes on live beings, but if I could reanimate a dead ant or another bug with my soul energy for a few seconds, that would mean I could move onto the third step.
To make sure I got it right, I did a complete read through the notebook and found that it wasn't remotely close to necromancy, although technically a Runemaster could reanimate a human corpse. This was, however, painfully inefficient and demanded an ungodly amount of soul energy, so you couldn't actually control an army of undead or anything.
Interesting stuff, really.
Moving on, I was faced with the difficult mission of finding bugs. Since I hated every bug that had ever existed in this world or the last, it was excruciating for me to search our backyard for dead material. So I picked up a broken branch and jabbed it here and there to find myself something useful.
It didn't take long for me to spot an ant nest by the corner, right under the wooden fences. Dozens of them scuttled as they carried out their jobs. I couldn't spot a single dead one amongst them.
That gave me a pause. I didn't have it in me to actually kill a few of them because the way they squirmed over one another made my stomach drop. I was disgusted by nature on such a deep level that I found it hard to push myself to action.
Still, I'd decided to change for the better in this life. I couldn't have something as small as this stop me from achieving the actual genius status.
So, I took a deep breath and picked a stone from the side. I was just about to drop it when I froze.
A fight broke out between the ants. A new group was emerging from a different nest, attacking those who got too close to their side with complete dedication. They swarmed the first nest's unfortunate members in mere seconds, leaving dead bodies in their wake as they made their grand statement.
Rival colonies, huh?
It seemed even ants didn't have it easy in our backyard, so there couldn't be any excuses for me to stop. Biting my lips, I reached down and picked a few dead ones from the soil, trying not to wince at the sticky sensation around my fingers.
My stomach sent alarming jolts up my throat, but I gulped them down and made my way back to the door with enough ants to last me for the week.
Then again, I was still in the early phases. Right now, it was about ants. Later, I would need to obtain larger specimens for my studies.
I looked over my shoulder at the couch. My mother sat reading a book all by herself.
Right. I wasn't alone. Maybe I would ask my mother for help. Finding dead animals shouldn't be too hard for a woman who probably killed thousands of people back in the day.
....