Return of the Runebound Professor

Goosebumps raced across Noah’s skin as he stared at the rune in the center of Alexandra’s mountainous Mindspace. Even though his brain had processed what his eyes were seeing, it took him a moment to confirm he wasn’t hallucinating.

“You did it,” Noah breathed, spinning back to stare at Alexandra. “You managed to make a Fragment of Self?”

“Yeah,” Alexandra said. And that was it. There was still pain evident in her voice, remnants from the still-closing wounds that littered the ground and sky around them.

It would be at least a few minutes before that pain abated. Noah knew from experience. The extent of the damage that Alexandra had taken, even with help from the Fragment of Renewal, wasn’t something that would let itself leave peacefully and without discomfort. Even a single word probably took quite a bit of effort for her to muster.

“How?” Noah asked. It probably would have been better for him to wait until the Fragment had done more to heal Alexandra, but his question spilled from his lips before he could stop it.

He could barely believe what he was looking at. Making a Fragment of Self had been one of the biggest issues that he’d ever had to deal with. The benefits it gave were beyond massive, but he just had no idea how to teach anyone about it.

Noah didn’t have the slightest idea as to how it could have been made without cheating the process with something like Sunder’s passive. And so long as that had been the case, he couldn’t help anyone make one themselves.

“It was by accident, if you’d believe that,” Alexandra said through a weak laugh. She flopped back as stone rose up from the ground, rising to form a chair beneath her. “I was just practicing my pattern.”

“Practicing your…” Noah trailed off. His eyes went wide. “You can’t be serious. That was the inciting event? Your pattern?”

Noah was already nodding by the time Alexandra had finished speaking. Pieces were clicking into place with such speed that he felt like an idiot for not having managed to see any of it sooner — but that always tended to be how new discoveries worked. It was easy to draw the lines between the dots once someone had already done it for you.

“Of course!” Noah said, running a hand through his hair as he started to pace. “What could be more related to creating a rune that truly represents you than getting to know yourself? Then you did master your pattern. I was pretty sure you were well ahead of where I was, but you actually figured it out?”

Alexandra’s cheeks reddened. “Yeah. It’s a little embarrassing, but I figured it out.”

“How?” Noah asked. He was asking that question a lot today, but he couldn’t help himself. This was far too exciting to just pretend it was a normal occurrence. “You’re doing what I didn’t even think was possible until this morning. I don’t think I need to tell you what your own pattern was up to, but you were pulling energy from the environment rather than yourself.”

“It’s part of my pattern.” Alexandra hesitated for a moment before coughing into her fist. “It’s freedom, I guess. Not being restrained.”

It was clear she was embarrassed by her pattern, but Noah barely even noticed. The magnitude of the information he was getting was just too significant. Alexandra’s pattern was freedom — or, in another way of looking at it, it was literally to break the conventions of what should have worked.

“You’re drawing power from the rest of the world rather than your own runes because your pattern is that you don’t want to be constrained by rules?” Noah asked, his pacing grinding to a halt. “How far can you push that? That might be the most powerful pattern I’ve ever heard of.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“How many patterns have you heard of?”

Noah coughed into his fist. “Fully completed ones? Yours. That’s it. I suppose you may have gotten that title purely by default, but that isn’t to demean it. Surely you see the ridiculous amount of importance this holds. There are always rules, of course, but the rules we thought were rules aren’t actually rules at all. It’s like magic is a grassy field outside a cabin. Everyone’s been looking at it through a dirty window while you just pulled the door open and stepped outside.”

“Wait. You… don’t have a pattern yourself? Like mine?”

“I hate to admit it, but a lot of teaching is figuring shit out as you go,” Noah said sheepishly. He scratched the back of his head. “I kind of skipped a few steps in my learning process. After watching your new pattern this morning, I’ve started developing one of my own. Killed a few Inquisitors with it. Good stuff — but nowhere near what you’ve managed. I want to hear all of it. This is groundbreaking.”

“I — wait. You killed Inquisitors?”

“They tried to kill me first,” Noah said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He couldn’t be bothered talking about idiots when there was a discovery of this magnitude sitting on the table before him like a plump Christmas turkey. “Forget them. So you made your pattern… then what? What caused this soul damage?”

Alexandra stared at Noah for a second before blowing out a small breath and shaking her head. “I don’t know. Well, I’ve got a bit of an idea, but I don’ t know for sure. I was practicing my pattern when I suddenly felt like something was really wrong in my soul. I hopped in here to find that everything had gotten smashed and cracked to shit, there was a bite taken out of my Fire Rune, and I had a Fragment of Self.”

“So you literally pattern-ed your Fragment into existence,” Noah mused, rubbing his chin. “That’s fascinating… but now that I think about it, it makes sense. A lot of it. The Fragment of Self should come when you completely understand who you are. It’s the runic manifestation of you. A pattern is the same thing.”

“So how do you have one?” Alexandra asked, carefully rising from her chair. The damage to her soul was still pretty significant, but the worst of the cracks were thinning out and many of the smaller ones were already gone. “I thought you didn’t have a completed pattern.”

“I don’t. The pattern, that is. I had a discussion with myself.”

“What? What does that even mean?”

“You remember what I did to your original Body Runes, yes?”

“Yeah. You cut them out with that creepy black magic you’ve got.”

“Right. I did the same thing to myself. Cut a fragment of my soul out, pulled the soul-goop free, then had a discussion with an identical clone of myself while making sure it couldn’t take over my body. Pretty sure it wasn’t going to do that, but you never know. That’s what I would have done were I in its position. Then I got the Fragment of Self, sans the pattern. As I said… I’ve got a bit of a habit of doing the right thing in the wrong way.”

Alexandra stared at him. “That… somehow didn’t explain anything. I suppose I should have expected that.”

“Probably,” Noah agreed absentmindedly. His mind was only half in the present. Alexandra’s pattern sounded even stronger than what he’d thought it to be. Drawing power from the world rather than her runes wasn’t the end-all. There was a good chance it was just the start of what she’d be able to do with it. “I’ve got a lot of questions as to how your pattern works, but I’d imagine you haven’t had much chance to practice with it much yet.”

“Not really. Not in its final form, at least,” Alexandra said. “As soon as I figured it out I took a bite out of my own soul by accident. I came over here as fast as I could. I’ve barely been able to even think straight up until just now.”

“Makes sense. Soul damage that severe is not to be screwed around with. You should be pretty patched up soon enough,” Noah said, sending a glance around the slowly healing Mindspace around them. “Er… I’d suggest being careful once we get back.”

“Being careful?” Alexandra’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“The Fragment of Self drastically increases your reaction speed as well as your control over your body. You’d think that would mean you can suddenly move like a god, but it really means you’re going to jerk around like a crazed puppet and smack into everything next to you if you aren’t careful.”

“That’s… good to know,” Alexandra said slowly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good. Then we can head back, I think. I don’t want to pry you with too many questions while you’re recovering. I’ve got enough to sate my curiosity for a little longer. You need to get some rest… but I’m looking forward to seeing what you can teach everyone. It’ll be a good way to stir things up for the class.”

“Wait. The class?” Alexandra’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve officially figured out more about patterns than I have,” Noah replied with a grin. “It’s going to take me some time and testing to push myself up to where you are, so why would I hold everyone back until I do? We already have someone that can impart their wisdom right now.”

“Me? You want me to teach a class?” Alexandra exclaimed. “But I barely even know what I’ve done! It’s mostly just instinct and practice!”

“Then I’ve got good news for you.” Noah chuckled. “The best way to learn is to teach. You have been promoted to temporary teacher’s assistant. And don’t look so terrified. This is going to be fun.”