"You know, this forest seems like a good place to dispose of pesky students."
"Isn't it? Why, I can't even take a single step without stepping over the skull of one of my former disciples."
"Teacher, don't worry. I have a small-ish head, you won't end up tripping over it."
"Haha, I already know that."
"By the way, teacher."
The two of them were walking around yet another part of the forest.
"In the book of runes you gave me, what's with the last one?"
"What, you don't have a creative name for it?"
"...Well, I wasn't able to find out what it does."
Calex started gathering his mana in the air. It took the shape of the rune Jane failed to construct, and then—
"You mean this one, right?"
—scattered into nothingness.
"Huh. Really, what is with that rune?"
"It doesn't exist."
"What?"
His teacher tried manifesting the rune again, and failed just like before.
"All runes will recreate something that already exists in this world. However, the effect that this rune should have, no longer exists."
"What was it supposed to do?"
"Can you explain the concept of fire to a fish? The thoughts that we have are repurposed out of previous ideas. Then, how can we imagine something that we have never seen?"
"That doesn't make sense, though. That book of runes— When was it made? I don't think its author would have put something useless in there."
"I don't know. The one I have is a copy, one of thousands. How would I know the origins of the book it was copied from?"
Jane was a little indignant.
"You know, if those runes were named, we would still have an idea of what their effect is."
"That's meaningless. The rune explains itself. If it has no effect, it has no meaning, either. In that case, what good is a name? There is nothing to attach it to."
"Unless rocks stop existing, I think it'll be fine to have a rune named 'Rock'."
"You can't forget that you're learning a different language. Recklessly translating runes like that will naturally lose some of the meaning along the way."
"Well, uh... oh."
His teacher was right. He was right, but Jane would still name the runes in his head. He would just never speak those names out loud.
"Anyways, there's only a small number of runes which have lost their function. You were unlucky to encounter this one, but the rest work fine. Now, how's about another spar?"
---
Ever since he learned basic healing magic, Jane had began getting more and more injured in their spars. Truthfully, it should not have left any scars or deformations on his body. Proper use of 'Grow' could circumvent that completely. However, Jane did not care enough to use it properly. He simply ran it over the wounds until the pain went away.
Jane was not just being lazy. He preferred to spend his time actually getting better at magic, instead. Before he started refining his learnt runes again, he opened up the book of runes. He flipped to the fourth-to-last rune this time, and began memorizing its structure. This rune, and the one before it, were the last remaining in the book.
This rune looked a little abnormal compared to the ones he had seen before. It had a circle, but next to it, the auxiliary rune took up a massive amount of three-dimensional space. Additionally, the rune was not fixed in shape, sometimes making a cylinder, other times a sphere. Jane reasoned that any shape could be defined by that rune.
He recreated it in midair, using the shape of a box. Inside the circle, he placed a 'Heat' rune. Quickly enough, a severe heat assaulted his face. Jane toned down the rune a little. His focus was on the area defined by the auxiliary rune.
Jane reached out, and let his hand go into the rune's area. While there was no immediate difference, he thought it might be a little colder on the inside.
He dispelled the 'Heat', and replaced it with a 'Soil'. This time, the effects were much clearer. The range of the magic was similar to a 'Diffuse', except that the region inside of the auxiliary rune produced absolutely no dirt. Jane decided to name the auxiliary rune 'Exclude'.
Seeing no point in dirtying his room further, Jane dispelled the runes. He looked at the book again, and flipped to the last remaining symbol. This one had a circle, and an unclear auxiliary shape similar to 'Exclude'. Just from this, he already had an idea of its effects.
Jane formed the rune in midair, making it into a pyramidal shape. In the nearby circle, he placed a 'Water' rune. The effects were much more concentrated this time, only emanating from the pyramid of mana in midair. This one would be named 'Include'.
While these runes did not have any especially powerful effects, they would surely make certain spells much easier to apply. For instance, internal magic would become more efficient.
Jane began constructing another 'Include'. He worked much more slowly this time, aiming to wrap the effective area of the rune around his whole body. The outline was not perfect, but it was definitely enough to test his theory.
He placed a 'Reinforce Flesh' inside of the circle, then began feeling the effects. While the individual effects on parts of his body were weaker than if he had directly placed a rune there, it was evenly distributed. He started to add a 'Reinforce Material' to the circle, but stopped himself.
'What's the point of doing it across such a wide range?'
Jane manifested another 'Include' inside his body, and began shaping it according to his skeleton. He then added a 'Reinforce Material' to it. Similar to before, the effect was weaker, but to a lesser degree than for his flesh. He reasoned it was because the total area covered was less, and so the effects were more concentrated.
'Then, what if I combine the two?'
The parts of 'Reinforce Flesh' acting on his bones were more or less doing nothing. If he was to aim for maximum efficiency, he was going to do it all the way. In addition to the auxiliary 'Include' surrounding his body, he added an 'Exclude', and formed it around his skeleton. However, he made sure not to exclude too much, or else parts of his muscles close to the bone might end up tearing.
Jane ran, and jumped straight out of the window. Despite falling, he made no attempts to land on his feet, and instead landed straight on his head. His body crumpled against the grass, but he barely felt any pain at all. Feeling proud, he sat up and looked at the crater his head had made. He hastily formed a 'Strengthen' around his legs, and jumped back into his window. He repeated this process a few times, feeling giddy.
'Wait a second, won't this wake up my brother?'
From where he was laying in the grass, Jane stood and dispelled the magic covering his body. Unlike before, he walked up to the door like a normal person and took the stairs to his room. He began sitting on his bed, acting like his previous outburst had not happened.
'What if someone saw me?'
Jane did not think of himself as someone with any shame, but the sheer ridiculousness of his earlier actions made him a little embarrassed. Especially if 'that person' had seen...
"My disciple, what are you doing jumping around like a rabbit? Was I right after all?"