A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

It took him half a day to read through the entire technique and absorb all its intricacies. When he was done, he put the book down and sighed.

"Having this technique will not only greatly ease the difficulty of what I want to do, but also increase the quality of the end result," he mumbled while scratching the stubble on his chin. "It's far better than the technique I had before."

"Sorry, old man," he chuckled fondly as he remembered the teacher he got this technique from.

"Anyway," he said while standing up from the chair he'd been sitting in. "That means I'll need to fuse my ice an lightning before I get started on the forging."
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Suddenly, something flashed before him, and Eira appeared. She pouted a little and poked her fingers together. "D— Does that mean its going to take longer?"

"I'm afraid so," Erik chuckled, not surprised that Eira had been listening. It was amusing to see Eira be so eager now, when she was despairing about giving up control over this place not too long ago.

"But its good news!" he continued with a small grin. "The better technique I can use, the stronger your new medium will become."

Eira immediately cheered up, now sported a bright smile, and happily exclaimed, "That's true!" Than she began to shoo him towards the door, "Well what are you waiting for then?! Get started!"

Erik shook his head with a small smile and made his way towards the training room.

At the same time, Elora's voice sounded in his head. "I figured you'd want to use that technique, so I've already started switching my research from sigil constructs to ice-lightning fusion. I'll join you after you've broken through to second rank in your ice affinity, alright?"

Erik nodded inwardly. "That's great, Elora. Thank you."

No response came, as Elora had already dived back into her research with enthusiasm.

When he reached the training room, he noticed four black domes existing close to each other, and he quickly realized what was going on.

Advancement in the Runebound and Arcanist systems was somewhat similar in that both needed a degree of meditation in order to explore their runes and glyphs, respectively.

Where they diverted was that Arcanists needed more meditation to absorb aetherium and expand their reservoirs, while Runebound needed to physically train in order to increase the aetherium intake and subsequent improvement of their bodies.

This was why the Arcanist and Runebound sections in the training room had an overlapping section specifically designated for exploring runes and glyphs. This section was filled with seating areas that were in the middle of a collection of sigils, all intended to increase focus and understanding of one's affinity.

These sigils included one that formed a sound and vision blocking dome around the Runebound or Arcanist, much like the one Elora had formed around Emily, back during Erik and Emma's first night together.

Clearly, Emily, Astrid, Emma, and Alice were all currently working on improving their runes or glyphs. He could understand, somewhat, as this was, in the end, what brought about breakthroughs in rank.

Still, he hoped they didn't ignore the other aspect of their advancement. In order to lay a good foundation, it was usually best for Arcanists and Runebound to keep their reservoir or body slightly ahead of their runes or glyphs.

Although with Emma, of course, he fully approved, as her aetherium storage had already been expanded far enough, thanks to Elora's efforts in combination with the enchantments in her maid outfit.

'I might have to mention this to them later, since I decided to talk with them all anyway,' he thought to himself. 'But later. I don't intend to disturb their training.'

So he took a seat on one of the designated spots, and activated the sigils surrounding him.

Immediately, a dome formed around him, while a cooling sensation enveloped his mind, causing an increase to his focus.

He closed his eyes and sighed. He'd barely had any time to focus on his own improvement in the past month, and he was glad to finally have a moment to do so.

He emptied himself of useless thoughts, trusting Elora to warn him if Eira decided to pull anything. They both had a high confidence that she wouldn't, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

With his mind in the right state, he pulled the ice rune and ice glyph in front of his mind's eye and started tracing their lines simultaneously.

Exploring one's runes or glyphs involved searching for yet undrawn lines by tracing the existing lines and trying to find connections or entirely new forms. This process was aided by an increased understanding of the associated affinity itself.

Most people believed this was because the symbols were merely the core principles of an affinity expressed in the primordial language of the universe.

But whatever the case, a breakthrough to the next rank was gained when one found a line that connected to a whole new glyph or rune, which is what Erik was trying to do now.

Unfortunately, he had to do both his rune and glyph at the same time, as he didn't relish the thought of getting his two systems out of balance again.

He could still vividly remember the pain he suffered last time that happened.

Luckily, Erik had gained the ability to do two things at once back on Söl with a little help of his beloved helper, who had provided him a technique to achieve this.

Thus, he could explore both his rune's and glyphs at the same time, even if at a slightly slower pace than if he would focus on just one.

At this time, he had already made quite a lot of progress towards the second rank, despite having had this affinity for merely a month, due to the fact that he was already second rank through his lightning affinity.

Even if two affinities had nothing to do with each other, merely being of a higher rank already boosted his basic understanding of all other affinities, allowing for quicker progress of secondary affinities.

As he traced the lines, he realized it wouldn't take more than a few days for him to find the second rune and glyph for his ice affinity, and progress to the second rank.

It was not unusual for a meditation session to last several days in a row for second rankers, and for higher rankers these sessions would last even longer.

Erik knew that, eventually, even years, or centuries of continuous mediation was not a strange thing.

Although, at this point, Erik could scarcely imagine such a thing.

So time passed in this separate dimension as most of them trained, Elora researched, and Eira busied herself thinking of ideas for the design of her new medium.

Finally, after two days, Erik's eyes jumped open and an icy blue light flashed in them.