If composite runes were simply the overlapping projections of two different runes, there would be countless possible solutions. Fortunately, when Thor looked through Introduction to Rune Construction again, he noticed some basic conditions he'd overlooked before.
With those conditions in place, he was finally able to determine the three-dimensional structure of the composite rune diagram.
The planes containing the two runes intersected in three-dimensional space. Since they were the same size, the Magic Power assigned to them should be evenly distributed.
If he really divided the Magic Power according to the proportions he saw with the naked eye, he was bound to fail.
Thor held up the three-dimensional diagram he'd just drawn with both hands, closed his eyes, and began visualizing it in his mental space.
About an hour later, his eyes flew open, his face alight with excitement.
"Holy crap! I did it!"
Then a wave of exhaustion hit him, and he nearly collapsed.
Building a single Composite Rune had used up all his Magic Power?
How was he supposed to cast Tier 0 Wizardry now?
A wave of panic seized Thor. Could his Magic Power aptitude really be too weak to sustain even the simplest spell?
"Calm down, calm down. This is my first time constructing a Composite Rune, so I probably wasted a lot of Magic Power by using it incorrectly."
Unfortunately, with his Magic Power depleted, he couldn't immediately try constructing it again. He could only take out the Crystal Ball and begin meditating.
"Click!"
The candlelight flared, rousing Thor from his meditation.
He turned his head. "Work's come in."
Having his studies interrupted was painful, but this job was also the cornerstone of his efforts to change his fate.
The conveyor belt hummed. A new corpse emerged from behind the tassel and appeared before Thor.
To ease his fear and stress, Thor chose to call the corpses "guests," like how you couldn't help humming to yourself when walking home alone late at night.
"Hmm, this guest met a pretty gruesome end."
It was less a corpse than a heap of minced flesh, so thoroughly mangled that bone fragments were mixed in with the meat and bits of organs.
A large piece of leather, its edges curled upward, lay underneath to catch it all. Otherwise, the remains would have spilled out.
Thor picked a pair of tweezers from the tools behind him.
As he looked over the mangled flesh, he saw tiny glimmers everywhere. They were faint, though, so they were clearly not worth much. It wouldn't matter if he threw them away.
Thor fought off his revulsion and bent down, carefully sifting through the remains.
But to his surprise, the glimmering flecks weren't fragments of the corpse. They were tiny specks of powder.
Thor switched to a smaller pair of tweezers and picked out a few slightly larger white grains.
Even amid the blood and flesh, they had retained their original color and hadn't turned red.
He took the time to gather a small handful, until his back began to ache.
Thor set a little aside, wrapped the rest in parchment, and put it in a small box on the long table behind him.
He gathered the leather beneath the remaining corpse and tipped everything into the large box below, then shut the lid.
The box seemed to block odors. The stench of blood in the room immediately eased.
The candle above the teleportation entrance was still bright.
There was more work.
Thor pulled down the lever and watched the conveyor belt bring him another guest.
This guest was a little girl, no more than five or six years old.
Thor turned his head, feeling reluctant to look.
Why was there such a young girl in the Wizard Tower?
He'd never heard of any Wizard getting married and having children here.
But death treated everyone equally. It spared no one just because people couldn't bear to see them die.
Thor took a deep breath, set his head straight, and continued examining the corpse with his semi-immersive Meditation Method.
"Wait, she isn't a little girl."
On closer inspection, Thor noticed something else.
"Her teeth and bones don't look like a child's."
Thankfully, what he'd learned from the book Corpse had given him some ability to tell.
"She's probably an Apprentice. Some kind of Witchcraft made her look like a child, but her internal organs and bones are still those of an adult."
He knew it was unfair to the woman before him, but his tightly clenched heart still relaxed a little.
He quickly finished processing her and sent the remains into the large box below.
The light above the teleportation entrance was still bright.
"Ugh, there's still more work..."
The third guest must have been through a battle. His body was covered in cuts from blades and axes, and his head had been pierced through, revealing the black conveyor belt beneath.
When Thor finished, he looked up.
The light was still on.
How could there be more?
He abruptly checked the time. It was already six thirty.
Half an hour wasn't enough to examine an entire corpse properly.
But he'd already gathered enough materials to turn in today, so he could just rush through this last guest.
The final guest arrived with the conveyor belt's rumbling.
It was a voluptuous woman.
She might have died from some kind of Curse-Spell. Her body was covered in countless tiny cracks.
Not a drop of blood came from them.
When Thor looked with his Meditation Method, he saw countless translucent tongues sticking out of the cracks.
Like baby birds waiting to be fed by their mother, all the tongues turned toward him and wiggled their soft, slender bodies.
When Thor moved the tweezers closer, the tongues turned toward them too, as if waiting to be fed.
Thor got goosebumps.
Whatever those tongues were, he didn't want to touch them.
Besides, the corpse before him was intact. It seemed the Apprentices responsible for the first two stages hadn't done much to her.
Thor turned to get a longer pair of tongs, but his eyes fell on the little bit of white crystal he'd set aside.
He picked one up with the tweezers and held it over a crack in the woman's body again.
This time, the translucent little tongue nearest the tweezers withdrew into the crack, as if afraid of the crystals.
And once it had pulled back, a glimmer appeared inside the crack.
"Could these crystals... have the power to drive away the uncanny?"
Thor drew back the tweezers, and the tongue darted out again.
Thor simply tossed the tiny crystal, still smaller than a grain of rice, into the crack.
"Sizzle!"
A faint burning sound accompanied a puff of green smoke from the crack.
Thor quickly retreated two steps and held his breath.
Fortunately, the smoke dissipated quickly, and the Hardcover Book didn't react.
He waited a while, then returned to the corpse, cut open the crack where the tongue had been, and rummaged around.
The little crystal had been reduced entirely to powder. It seemed to have served its purpose.
Thor used the tweezers to pull a small lump of flesh from the glimmering spot.
"If a crystal can destroy one tongue and give me one lump of flesh, then of course I choose... the crystal!"
Thor turned and opened the box where he'd stored the crystals. When he closed it again, the little packet of crystals inside had been replaced by a lone lump of flesh.
At last, the candle above the Teleportation Platform dimmed.
Thor tidied up and looked up. It was already seven thirty.
He wasn't supposed to linger in the East Tower after eight.
He hurriedly snatched the book and paper from the table and rushed out of the Corpse Room, head down.
"Hm?"
A figure blocked Thor's path, and they nearly collided.
But the person in front of him had stepped back in time, leaving Thor to stumble past.
"Sorry!" Thor apologized. He immediately started to leave, but after two steps, he stopped and turned around.
"Are you the Senior in charge of the First Corpse Room?"
The person Thor had nearly crashed into had come from the far end of the corridor.
His hair was gray, but his skin wasn't especially wrinkled.
His eyelids drooped, and he looked half asleep.
"Mm." The other man seemed mild-tempered—or perhaps he simply had no desire to talk to anyone. He gave a low grunt and started to walk past Thor.
"Hm?"
As the listless Level 2 Apprentice passed Thor, the corner of his eye caught sight of the drawing in Thor's hand.
"Hmm..."
He pointed at Thor's right hand.
Thor looked down and saw what he was gripping in his palm—the 3D Coordinate Composite Rune Diagram.
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