LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 9 (Part 1)
“You can’t be serious, Vermil. The Linwick family has fallen farther than I thought if this is what you’re resorting to. Do you really think Arbitage is just going to give out rune combinations for free to a Rank One?”
Noah’s eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms, registering distaste in the woman’s voice instantly. Whoever Moxie was, she didn’t like him.
“Using Linwick resources for something as unimportant as this would be a waste,” Noah said, throwing on his best poker face. “Why would I need their time when I have all the references I need here?”
Moxie blinked, caught off guard for a moment. She recovered quickly, leaning against the counter and raising an eyebrow and smirking.
“That’s a new take from you. Still stupid, but I guess even you’re not stupid enough to keep banging your head against wall for too long. I don’t think you’re going to have any luck finding useful combinations in the library when you’re at your Rank, but who knows. Maybe you’ll find a new way to blow girl’s skirts up.”
Good god, I hate this dude. Would it have been that difficult to be semi-decent? No wonder everyone hates me. What am I even supposed to say to that?
“An old hobby in poor taste,” Noah said. “I am seeking better pastimes.”
For the second time, Moxie. She squinted at Noah, then glanced at some of the other teachers in the area almost as if checking to make sure they’d heard the same thing. She rolled her eyes and pushed away from the counter.
“Nobody’s stupid enough to buy that, baby Linwick. You’re a disgrace to your family.”
She strode away. Noah cleared his throat and shot a glance at the librarian. “So… about those books?”
“Right here, sir,” the librarian said, extending his hand. Energy sparked between his fingertips and gathered into a small point before his palm. It expanded, forming into a spinning disk of green and yellow light. He reached into it, then pulled out two thin volumes and placed them on the desk before Noah. “I’m afraid this is all you have access to at your current Rank.”
“Thank you,” Noah said, picking the books up with an appreciative nod. He tucked them under his arm. “How long do I have to return them?”
“You may keep them until someone requests for their return,” the librarian replied. “Those particular copies are not in high demand. I suspect you will be quite all right.”
Noah thanked him again and headed out of the library, doing his best to ignore the gazes piercing into his back from the other teachers.
Was that the person that tried to kill me? Why do I have so many blasted enemies? And I seriously need to find some information about the Linwicks.
***
The trip back to his room went smoothly, and Noah spent the next day hunched over the books. To his mild annoyance, Moxie had been right. The information they had in them really was sparce.
If he’d been literally anyone else, Noah suspected they would have been entirely useless. However, to him, the miniscule amounts of information within their pages was like water in a desert.
Even though the books were quite short, Noah went through them several times each, just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything important. By the time he finally peeled his eyes away and looked out the window, evening had fallen.
Soft, bluish purple light washed over the buildings outside and illuminated the plants in a ghostly glow. Noah blinked several times, then rubbed his eyes and rocked back in his chair. He grabbed the paper he’d been taking notes on and pulled it closer.
His quill scratched against the paper as he modified them with what he’d learned.
- Runes both store and let you cast magic.
- People can have seven runes. Once they’re all filled with energy, you can try to combine them. The resulting combined rune has the strength of all the other ones, so combining crappy runes gets a crappy evolved one. Failing to combine runes is bad. Don’t fail.
- Ways to fail: Impossible combination, insufficient strength, rodents (?), lack of willpower.
- Once you combine your runes, you go to the next Rank and can form runes of that Rank without having to start over from the previous one. Unknown as to how many total Ranks there are.
- There are definitely variations in the runes. Runes are ranked low, mid, and high quality. There are significant differences between ranks in basically every aspect.
- The actual combinations for runes that work are closely guarded. People will probably get angry at me if I go around asking them about them.
- You can voluntarily release runes, but you don’t get all the energy you spent on them back.
Soft, Noah set his quill down and studied the fruits of his labor. It wasn’t really that much of an improvement on what he’d known already, but it was still vital. At least he knew he could get rid of the low level wind runes and replace them with something stronger.
Okay. The to-do list grows ever longer. In the short term, I need to focus on just getting strong enough to keep myself alive and figuring out who the hell the Linwicks are. I don’t think I’m going to have as much trouble with the class as I feared, but the other professors are an entirely different issue.
Noah stood up and started pacing around the room. For some reason, walking in circles seemed to help the mental juices flow better. Part of Noah wished that Vermil had at least a few friends that he could have plied with questions, but the other part was thankful that nobody seemed to care about him in the slightest.
A yawn slipped out of his mouth.
Time for step one of my master plan: sleep.