Composite Runes

Although Mark had agreed to tutor Thor, he wasn't going to spend his entire beautiful morning on this Level 1 newcomer. A Level 2 Apprentice had plenty of studying to do, especially with their test just a month away.

Rather than Mark teaching Thor, it was more that Thor studied on his own first, then asked Mark whenever he ran into something he couldn't figure out.

Unfortunately, even with Mark's explanations, Thor only had a vague understanding of many things. He couldn't make sense of the logic behind them at all.

Before leaving at noon, Thor made another request of Mark.

"You want to borrow that Puppet Doll for testing Mental Power?" Mark didn't hesitate. He went straight to the cabinet in the Laboratory, opened it, and casually pulled out a Puppet Doll.

The moment Mark opened the cabinet, Thor couldn't help taking two steps back.

Seeing how wary Thor looked, Mark found it amusing. "You're scared, but you still want to borrow it?"

"That's exactly why I need to borrow it." Thor carefully avoided looking the Puppet Doll in the eyes.

Thor reached out to take it, and Mark casually placed the doll in his palm.

"Friend price: five Magic Crystals for ten days."

"Then I'll borrow it for two days."

Mark's face darkened. "I won't lend it for two days!"

Thor simply said, "I only have three Magic Crystals on me."

He'd gotten those Magic Crystals by trading his credits with Keli.

He could give a friend a discount, but he couldn't exactly give one to an enemy.

In the end, Mark still took all three of Thor's Magic Crystals. He warned Thor that he could study the doll, but if he damaged it, he'd have to pay two credits in compensation.

Thor wrapped the Puppet Doll in layer upon layer of cloth, then carefully tucked it into the pocket of his Apprentice's robe.

"Take me with you, take me with you..."

Thor froze. "Senior, did you hear that?"

"Hm?" Mark had already returned to his desk and was bent over his studies.

"No, it's nothing..."

Thor clutched the pocket of his robe with one hand, as if afraid something might crawl out of it.

He picked up his books and turned to leave the Laboratory.

On his way back to the West Tower, someone stopped Thor.

The girl looked familiar. He knew she was a Level 1 newcomer from his cohort, but he'd forgotten her name.

"Thor," the girl said, looking a little shy. "There's something I want to tell you."

She fiddled with her clothes, twirling a little tuft of fabric around her index finger.

"Can you say it in five sentences or less?" The girl had appeared so suddenly that Thor had nearly run into her.

She froze, looking a little hurt.

"Sorry, I'm in a hurry."

"But I..." The girl's eyes suddenly turned red.

Thor simply went around her, loudly muttering, "I'm done for, I'm done for! I won't make it, I won't make it!"

The girl stood there in a daze and didn't chase after him.

It probably wasn't anything important.

But Thor still couldn't make it out of the corridor.

At the far end of the corridor, someone else jumped out.

"Hey, Thor!"

Thor knew him. It was Duoze.

The newcomer who had once chased after Keli and later started hanging out with Duke.

This time, he wasn't followed by Luoji, the newcomer who never seemed to have a mind of his own.

Ever since Duoze discovered that Thor had a poor talent for Magic Power, he hadn't gone out of his way to approach him in a long time.

"Sorry, I'm really in a hurry." Thor turned to go around Duoze again.

But Duoze raised a hand and blocked the corridor.

"I'll say it in five sentences."

Thor had no choice but to stop.

"Senior Luokai has gathered a group of new students to form a Mutual Aid Society. We can study and discuss things together there. The second meeting is at two this afternoon. Do you want to come?"

"Does it cost money?"

"Uh, ordinary students have to pay..."

"I'm out of money." Thor said this, gave him a polite nod, then pushed Duoze's hand aside and walked on.

Duoze hurriedly turned and called after him, "Keli already said she'd come today."

Thor stopped and looked back at Duoze's smug expression. He said earnestly, "I really am out of money."

He hurried off, and at last no one else stopped him.

After a hurried lunch, Thor went to the Corpse Room on the second floor of the East Tower.

It had become his study room. His dormitory was now just for evening study and sleeping.

Thor had tidied up the outermost Corpse Room. Besides the Teleportation Platform and two long tables, he'd added a cabinet stocked with some essential supplies for his experiments.

Those tools and materials had used up all the credits he had left.

If the Wizard Tower hadn't provided room and board, Thor would have had to live on nothing.

Besides the things Thor had bought, the cabinet also held some Alienation materials he'd taken from corpses.

Thor had discovered by accident that if he didn't put the materials he'd removed into the empty boxes on the long tables, they wouldn't be taken away the next day. Instead, they'd remain where they were.

After studying Green's Wizardry Transformation Cognition and Corpse Transmutation Guide, Thor already knew how to use some basic materials.

So whenever he worked, if he managed to obtain more than two materials, he kept one.

Would he be accused of stealing?

Thor didn't think so.

The book on studying corpses that Mentor Kazi had given him wasn't just for examining the residual properties on corpses.

The second half of the book was entirely about preserving materials, some simple applications, and a little discussion of souls.

Since his mentor had told him to study the book, he must have wanted Thor to learn the material in the second half as well.

However, even though Thor had specifically bought a Vessel for storing perishable materials, he still couldn't stop the corpses from naturally decaying.

Fortunately, the book Corpse also mentioned a Tier 0 Wizardry—Preserve Organs.

To learn this Wizardry, Thor first had to master that complex Composite Rune of the Dark Attribute.

That was why he'd been studying so hard, day and night.

But the difficulty of this Composite Rune of the Dark Attribute had exceeded Thor's expectations. Even with his high Mental Power talent, he still couldn't quickly understand how it worked.

That was why he'd spent Magic Crystals to ask Senior Mark for guidance. Unfortunately, although Senior Mark had given him a few ideas for solving the problem, Thor still hadn't found the right answer.

Thor carefully used his dip pen to draw the basic shape of the Composite Rune on a sheet of paper.

"By using the coordinate axes, I can basically confirm that the shape I've drawn matches the original Rune. But why can't I activate it when I trace it with Mental Power?"

This Composite Rune was already one of the simplest of its kind.

It looked like a new pattern formed by two Basic Runes overlapping.

Only one of the Runes had been scaled down.

"Senior Mark said Composite Runes aren't just two Basic Runes overlapped. I also have to pay attention to their proportions. But I've distributed the Magic Power according to the proportions, and something still seems wrong."

"Senior Mark also said to pay attention to the angle. What does he mean by angle? The angle I'm looking from?"

Thor held the paper in front of him, level with his eyes.

Suddenly, inspiration struck.

"Could he mean the perspective?"

Thor immediately lowered the paper, took a ruler, marked the center point, and drew a perspective diagram. He tried to work out the distance between the two figures by calculating their proportions.

"No!"

After all that work, he still couldn't activate the Rune.

"I've recalculated it more than ten times. I shouldn't have gotten it wrong, so it can't be a perspective drawing."

Thor irritably crumpled the Composite Rune he'd scribbled all over and tossed it into the trash.

He stared blankly at the crumpled paper in the bin.

"Where exactly did I get it wrong?"

The Rune in the trash had been crumpled into a wrinkled mess, with dents and bumps, creases and flat spots.

It was as if countless tiny Runes were dancing and leaping before Thor's eyes.

"Wait!" Thor's eyes suddenly lit up. He raised a hand and smacked his forehead. "I'd already figured that the two Runes might not overlap, but instead have some distance between them in space. Why didn't I consider that the planes they're on might not be parallel?"

Thor took out a fresh sheet of paper and began by drawing a three-dimensional coordinate axis.