Switchblade was back! What a relief. I’d tried not to think about not having my hover bike available, but seeing it totally repaired and ready to rock removed a weight that only bikers could truly understand. So, of course, Nigel and I jumped on for a ride as soon as we left Midmount Vale, then enjoyed a wild ride through the forest and along the winding paths leading toward the grasslands to the west.
Again we saw no werewolves, and we ignored other monster red dots that appeared on the bike’s mini map. We had bigger targets to hunt. It really did look like the werewolves didn’t like to come out during the day. That simplified a few things until it got dark, giving me a bit of time to prepare.
I finally slowed Switchblade about a mile from town in a small clearing not far from the boundary of the forest and the open grasses to the west. As I did, Nigel slipped forward, little paws scrabbling at the smooth surface of the hover bike’s console.
“I don’t think this is going to work out, not unless we figure out a way for you to hang on.”
Nigel jumped and did a backflip in the air to land on my shoulder. “I like moving fast on air. Ride more.”
“Later, I promise. I’ve got some stuff I need to figure out.”
Nigel had regarded Switchblade with open distrust until we started moving, then he’d fallen in love with it, insisting on riding in front of me, leaning against the console to peer over the handlebars.
I banished Switchblade to muted grumbling from Nigel and checked my messages. Ruby had sent me an update on Brianna, the invisible girl. She would meet the rest of Catelyn’s team tomorrow, but had been too shy to go immediately.
Ruby: “I hope you don’t mind, but I offered her one of the suites in your castle for the night.”
Lucas: “Good idea. I’ll be out hunting anyway.”
Ruby: “Lucas, I’ve been thinking about that. Why don’t you let me and Steve come with you? We’re a team, after all, and we need experience too.”
I hesitated a moment before replying.
Lucas: “Thanks. We’ll hunt again soon, but tonight I have to move fast, and you two don’t have Switchblade.”
Ruby: “You can’t take on the whole pack alone.”
Lucas: “We can’t take on the whole pack together, either. Tonight’s plan is more hide and seek. I’ll be careful.”
Ruby: “Keep us posted.”
I did want to hunt with them again. We were a team, and as they got stronger, we could evolve into a very powerful force together. Unfortunately, the dungeon had proved they weren’t ready for the high-risk engagements I expected to be dodging all night.
I also needed to explore the mountains more. I could best do that on Switchblade. Besides, Nigel was a local. He knew the area and could point out monsters to avoid or those to hunt. I’d keep an eye out for good hunting grounds appropriate for them and return as a group another day.
Nigel and I seemed to be alone at the moment. The tall trees of the forest creaked softly in a gentle breeze, the afternoon air was warm and fresh, and little sounds of insects and birds all around suggested no scary monsters were prowling close.
Just about as perfect a moment one could get on this death battle world. A great chance to clear up a few questions I’d had nagging me since the dungeon.
So I looked up and asked, “Cyrus, will you explain what runes mean?”
“I was waiting for you to ask,” Cyrus answered.
“Why all the secrecy about it?”
“Runesmithing is far too advanced for any baby humans using basic mana to study, other than the rare ones that got rune spells right out of the mountain.”
“Out of the gate.”
“There were no gates. Trust me, I designed this world.”
“Okay, so runesmithing is advanced magic. Got it.”
“Better you keep this under your cat for now.”
I sighed. “Are you testing me? That one was weak.”
Cyrus didn’t answer.
“Fine, I’ll keep it under my hat for now. Please tell me about runes.”
“I’m glad you asked,” Cyrus said, his bubbling good humor somehow bubblier than usual. “Using mana is the foundation of all spells and many abilities. All sentient beings use mana one way or another, but most never progress past the basics. Using or manipulating mana is flexible and quick, but to reach the highest levels of mastery takes years, if not decades.”
“Makes sense. Every level takes longer.”
“Exactly, but on a game world such as this, you lack time to truly master the higher forms of power. That’s why we’ve had to take some shortcuts and where runes come in.”
“So are runes like words of power or written spells?” That’s what most books and movies back on Earth suggested.
“In essence, yes, but they can be so much more. With the correct runes arranged in the correct matrix, you can harness many magnitudes more power than you ever could with your own strength or mana pool. Additionally, with the right rune scripts, an experienced runesmith unlocks the greatest secrets of the multiverse.”
“Sounds great. How do I start?”
“By meeting with Noctarus.”
“That’s it?”
“He is a rune expert and can teach you much. Why sound so disappointed at having such a vital resource so close at hand and willing to teach?”
“It’s not that. He taught me tons about mana, and I’m sure he’ll be very helpful. I was just hoping to at least get a glimpse.”
“You know what curiosity did to the elephant?”
“The curiosity killed the cat is the phrase.”
“You’d better hope not. I have plans for Nigel.”
That wiped away my smile as a chill crept down my spine. I didn’t complain yet, though. I didn’t want to draw attention to the comment in case it was just a throwaway joke.
So I asked, “How about a taste? Maybe a glimpse of a few runes?”
Cyrus laughed, his good humor back. “Runes are everywhere, even within your own spells and abilities. You just can’t see them most of the time, but runes are the language of power.”
Why hadn’t I thought of that? “So magic has codes and programming?”
“Great insight!” Cyrus laughed. “Have a Kitkat.”
An Earth king-sized Kitkat dropped out of thin air, just like that Snickers bar once had. I caught it, and regarded it dubiously.
“How do you get Earth chocolate bars?”
“You get the chocolate, not the secrets of the multiverse,” Cyrus chided.
“Fair enough.” It was worth a shot, and I’d never complain about a good chocolate bar. So I decided to believe it was real, yanked off the wrapper, and pulled off one of the little sticks of chocolate heaven. As soon as I bit down, the world around me lit up in a flood of tiny, glowing symbols.
Runes flowed across the ground, clinging to individual blades of grass. More spiraled around trees, while even more danced in the air in front of me. They flashed and spun, moving so fast I barely caught a glimpse, but my runesmith ability still gave me a sense that many of them were related to the things I was seeing.
The storm of runes disappeared as fast as they’d arrived, leaving the little glade darker and far less interesting. I tossed the chocolate bar into my inventory and walked farther into the glade, spreading my hands, focusing on my mana sense, feeling the mana flowing around me.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Were all those runes real? Are they all around all the time?”
“From one angle of perception, yes. Mana infuses everything, so runes can too.”
“How do I see that again?”
“You wanted a glimpse. You got it, but try to forget it. Even if you could elevate your perception to see every rune, it would just drive you mad. Human brains can’t handle that level of input.”
“Like the Matrix. After a while, you just see blond, brunette, red-head?”
Cyrus chortled. “Exactly!”
Still, even that Matrix-like glimpse had opened my eyes to truths I’d never imagined. If runes potentially existed as part of magic and mana everywhere, then at some level, were runes programming our spells and abilities? Was that how the system shoved knowledge of how to use our spells into our minds?
Were they just dumping in the binary rune code? Like instead of having to teach us every new thing, what if the initial alterations of our minds had been basically downloading a rune decoder?
I doubted it was that simple, but the idea might have merit. If I could learn the rune code, could I directly alter or enhance my magic? The possibilities seemed vast.
“In the meantime, don’t forget your mana manipulation practice. I went through a lot of trouble and risk to help you unlock convergence mana. Learn to use it.”
“How?”
Cyrus sighed like a teen-ager. “Use that Intelligence stat, Lucas. Mana manipulation is vital for power progression.”
“Sorry. You’re right. I need to keep practicing.”
I’d started working on mana strings with Noctarus. It had seemed remarkable because I was so new to it, but alone strings of mana would be pretty useless. Still, it was a place to start.
So I activated Spellseer’s Gaze and the world around me grew deeper, more vibrant, and somehow more real. The greens of the grass and the trees seemed so full of life, they nearly burst free, while the air thrummed with several shades of mana. Air mana seemed to have a swirly blue and white color, but I sensed other types too. Green life mana, brown earth mana, and a pale mana that felt like . . . Life mana?
“Nigel, keep watch. I get distracted working on this stuff.”
“I will remain alert,” Nigel promised, sitting up to rigid attention. He sniffed deeply and added, “I can smell ogre poop more than a mile away.”
“Do you smell ogres?” That could be bad. I thought back to the twenty-foot-tall Rockslide Ogre I’d killed on day one. No doubt ogres on stage 2 would be bigger and a lot tougher. The town walls weren’t nearly high enough if we had ogres to worry about.
“No.”
So just another random statement. I could live with that.
“Well, let me know if you do.”
He flopped onto his belly in the grass and rolled over, pawing at the air. “Keeping watch is so tiring.”
I tossed him an elephant steak. He pounced on it with a cute growling sound before ripping off a huge chunk. He might be tiny, but those teeth were sharp and he’d grown way stronger through our bond.
Focusing on my meditation techniques, I slowed my breathing, tried to center my mind, and concentrated on the mana flowing all around me. The difference in convergence mana floored me. It was like during my original practice with Noctarus, I’d been wearing eskimo winter mittens. I’d barely been able to feel mana.
Now the nearby motes of mana eagerly rushed to my skin and rolled along my hands with little tingling flashes of insight. Basic, colorless mana felt thin and weak, like 2-day-old toast, but thankfully not much of the mana in the clearing remained basic. Almost all of it had attuned to various aspects of nature, gaining vibrant colors and responding with a lot more energy.
I caught glimpses of personality too, which I had not expected. Blue-and-white air mana felt flighty and fickle and mischievous, while brown earth mana gave a sense of being steady and implacable, intent on maintaining its current state. It seemed annoyed when prodded to change.
I created some fire and water mana by using a couple of potions. Fire mana was like a moody teenager, wanting to snuggle one moment, but ready to explode into unrestrained violence the next, and always hungry. Water felt more smooth and flexible, ready to try new things and quietly confident, as if it sensed water could not be compressed.
Other flavors of mana mingled in among them, less common, but still very real. Life mana felt energized, while light mana made my skin glow. Strange that I found more light mana in the darkest shadows. Did that mean light mana controlled the absence of light too?
I caught bare flickers of time mana, but just for a second, along with a few others so faint I couldn’t pin them down. All the various types flowed in when I willed them closer, and using my Mana Fusion ability, I easily converted them all into denser, stronger convergence mana.
Convergence mana felt like an extension of my hand and was clearly entire magnitudes stronger. It was like a single mote of convergence mana could overwhelm a dozen specs of attuned mana. And when I tried manipulating it, the convergence mana flowed to my will without hesitation. I practiced forming strings of mana again, far longer and denser than I’d ever managed before, and willed them out to try grabbing things.
That didn’t go so well. The mana strings could wrap around things, but I still lacked the control and instincts to lift or pull with those strings. They inevitably frayed or shredded. Still, the potential was unmistakable.
I then tried forming a platform to stand on. I could weave a few dozen strings of mana together into the shape I wanted, but the more strings I manipulated, the greater the strain. Trying to move them all together proved mind bending. I finally managed to fashion a square platform about a foot in diameter, but it gained no tangible properties. The strands split apart as soon as I touched it.
Sweeping convergence mana around me proved a lot more fun and a lot easier. It was like spinning with a heavy blanket in my hands that billowed behind me. With it, I could feel the types of mana around me and convert it all to convergence mana.
Could I use that in battle somehow? Could I make it harder for other people or monsters to use their powers around me if I converted all the mana they would otherwise instinctively use? It wouldn’t be useful with my team close, but could be invaluable when alone.
When I finally paused and broke my focus, I was surprised to see deeper twilight had settled upon the forest glade.
“Finally,” Nigel whined as he jumped up onto my shoulder. “I never knew humans could be so boring for so long.”
“How long was I at it?”
“Too long! I’m famished.”
“How can such a tiny lion eat so much?”
“Easy, as long as the steaks are good,” he said, licking his chops with a tongue suddenly way too long for such a tiny body.
I reached for another steak, but paused. “Nigel, how much have you practiced with your size-changing ability?”
“Steak,” he moaned, flopping onto his belly across my shoulders, as if about to die of hunger.
I poked his fluffy side “In a minute. First, answer the question.”
Nigel rolled right off my shoulder. As he dropped to the ground, he transformed into a fully grown lion. His shoulders reached my chest and his massive head loomed over me. His deep growl shook my body with vibrations.
“Full transformation. Satisfied?” He popped back to tiny form and added in his adorable kitten voice, “But transforming requires food.”
“I’ll feed you, but you can change just parts of your body, right?”
He flopped onto his side, panting weakly. “When I need to, when I’m not about to die.”
“You’re officially the drama king of the beasts.”
“Good, as your king, I am ordering you to feed me steak.”
“Fine. First, show me how high you can jump.”
“How about I eat first?”
“Impress me and I’ll give you a taste.”
Nigel launched a full 30 feet into the air. For a kitten-sized lion, that was awesome. He’d gotten a big boost to Agility along with the other stat percentages when he bonded to me. He’d jumped way farther in that moment when the stats rushed in. Was that a one-off, or could he hit those levels again?
I pulled out another elephant steak, tore off a small corner, and tossed it to him.
“That’s rude,” he whined, but still gobbled it up.
“I promised a taste. Now for the real test.”
He perked up. I ran across the clearing and jumped into one of the taller trees. It only took a moment to fashion a little window, ringed with branches, about 8 inches across and 40 feet off the ground.
I then pulled the elephant steak back out of my inventory and held it up behind the makeshift window. “You eat this steak when you jump through this opening and get it.”
He rushed the tree, but I added, “No climbing. You have to jump straight from the ground and through this hole.”
“You’re being difficult.”
“Consider it a fun challenge. Prove you can do it and I’ll tell Ruby you’ve earned an extra 10 minutes of scratching.
“Done.”
Nigel licked his chops, his long sabre-tooth fangs glinting, then jumped. This time he made it over 35 feet, but fell short. When he landed, he growled at the opening, little tail swishing. Then he transformed into full-grown mammoth lion size and leaped.
Full grown, he could easily jump that high. He crashed into the opening, mighty jaws snapping for the steak, but he could not fit through the tiny hole and once again dropped back to the ground.
“It’s cheating if there’s no way to get the steak,” Nigel pointed out.
“Challenge, remember? Think creatively.”
Nigel jumped again, shooting at the opening. In midair, he shifted back to kitten form and sailed through the opening, crashing into the big steak feet first. In seconds, he devoured the entire thing.
I sighed. Not what I had in mind, but he’d definitely proven he was clever. I couldn’t fault that.
While he ate, I scanned my menus and was surprised to see a couple notifications. My Meditation and Mana Manipulation abilities had each gained 2 levels, while Mana Sense gained 1. Nice.
“Fun challenge,” Nigel said as he sat in my lap, licking his paws.
“Want another steak?”
He raised one fluffy eyebrow and sniffed at my hand where the steak would appear.
“First, another challenge. Jump through that hole again, but this time you have to stay the same size as when you jumped off the ground.”
Nigel considered that for a moment, looking from the ground to the hole. “I‘m too small to jump that high, but when I transform, I’m too big to fit through.”
“Can you only change to one size?”
“I’ve only ever needed one other size.”
“But can you use other sizes?”
He considered that, cocking his head in thought. I couldn’t help scratching behind his ears. That was just too cute.
“I do not know,” He said finally.
“How do you know the size you’ve been changing to is your full size?”
He flicked his ears in a cat equivalent to a shrug. “It’s the size of the biggest adult lion I’ve seen.”
“Can lions not get bigger?”
“Maybe, but that wouldn’t help me today.”
“What if you imagined yourself transforming into a juvenile lion?”
Nigel snorted. “That would be useless. Juveniles are weak.”
“Okay. Are there any cat species you know who don’t grow as big as lions, but who are worthy of copying?”
Again a pause. “Maybe the flying lynx.”
“I haven’t seen any flying cats.”
“They are smaller, but clever. Very fast and agile. They live in the higher mountains and can cross chasms or descend quickly using flaps of skin that help them glide instead of fall.”
“That sounds super cool.” Like predatory versions of flying squirrels.
“Yes, it is cooler on the peaks.”
“So, what if you imagined yourself growing to the size of a flying lynx?”
“Why? They are not as good as mammoth lions.”
“Just try. For a steak.”
Nigel sighed, jumped down to the ground, and stared up at the opening again, little tail swishing. For a long moment, nothing happened, then abruptly he popped into a larger form. Not a full-sized mammoth lion, but a mid-sized cat. It still looked like Nigel, but with sleeker fur, shorter fangs, and black-tipped ears. In fact, he looked exactly like a big lynx.
Nigel regarded himself, sniffed, then jumped. He easily soared up and through the opening, landing back in my lap.
“You did it!” Laughing, I gave him another steak.
“This size does seem useful,” he said, popping back down to kitten size to eat.
“I want you to practice transforming into this lynx size until it’s as natural as going full-sized. Then you can add other sizes in between.”
“Why?”
“Because neither of us will survive if we don’t learn to master our abilities.”
A quick update on where I'm at, and what I've been working on.
Right now I'm working on wrapping up the first draft of the next book. It's going to be another wild ride, and I'm LOVING it!
Once that's done, I'll be returning to book 1 to make the edits to how Cyrus presented the game, as we've discussed a few weeks back, along with applying other edits many of you have suggested. Thanks again for your great feedback!
I am also starting to speak with audio narrators in preparatin for beginning to launch Nexus Runner books this year. More to come on that front in the coming weeks.
Finally, as I mentioned in a comment last week, I do want to start adding Interlude chapters from the POV of some of the other characters. I'd love your feedback in the poll on which characters you'd most like interludes from.
Which character do you most want to see an interlude for? (Pick up to 3 for now)
