Chapter 4528: Not Toys nor Tools (Part 2)
Chapter 4528: Not Toys nor Tools (Part 2)
A halo of Balefire surrounded the fire blade, while the ice scimitar had Raging Severance swirling in a whirlpool that encompassed its blade.
"You truly are a genius, Lith, but this time you’ve greatly underestimated your creations. Look." She dispelled the weapons and activated her arms’ ability to absorb the world energy.
A red vortex and a blue one, visible to the naked eye, appeared around the Rune Stores, replenishing the Arke’s elemental reserves much faster than usual.
"They are not toys nor tools. They are mediums for an evolved human to master their elemental affinities."
"Wait, what?" Lith, Solus, and everyone else were flabbergasted. "How could I have never noticed that? Ryla, Garrik, how could you have never noticed that either?"
"I never touched them." Ryla tilted her head in embarrassment. "Dripha never leaves her set lying around, and Ophia and Vyla are in charge of putting the toys away."
"Same." Garrik shrugged. "I thought they were children’s toys, and besides, the only ones allowed to touch the Stores are Dripha and Surin."
"Okay, but I did touch them, and more than once." Lith pondered. "How could I not notice?"
"How many times were you in your Indech form while handling them?" Zoreth asked.
"None." Lith slapped his forehead as the realization dawned on him.
"There you have your answer." The Arke said. "I too would have missed their effects in my Dragon form. To be honest, I might have missed them anyway if not for the peculiar nature of my arms.
"I had mistaken the Stores for toys until they touched my fingers." They were for an Arke what the feathers of their wings were for an evolved human. "Can you make me a full set, Lil Bro? The Rune Stores might help me master the elements I still miss.
"Maybe they could help the other members of my family as well with our... issues." The Master’s hybrids carried the same innate flaw as normal Eldritches that severed their connection with the world energy.
It limited their perception and ability to interact with the elements. The Rune Stores bridged that gap, allowing Zoreth to feel the elemental forces with much greater clarity.
"I’m not going to lie, Big Sis, I’d have to think about that even if I were their maker, but I’m not." Lith raised his hands in apology. "Dhiral came up with them, and I’d be grateful if you didn’t study them without his permission, Bytra.
"He claims they are potentially dangerous, and he’s been proven right on more than one occasion."
"Dhiral? You mean Marth’s son?" Zoreth was flabbergasted. "But he’s just a baby! Also, no one but an evolved human could create something like this. Are you sure he’s still a human-Dryad hybrid?"
"No, I’m not." Lith groaned. "It would make sense if he weren’t, though. His rank 1 Dryad side naturally uplifts his rank 0 human side, and with his genius, maybe Dhiral devised the Rune Stores to stimulate the evolution of his human half."
"That’s terrifying!" Zoreth said, but everyone shared her opinion, Jirni included.
"Please, Big Sis, give me those Rune Stores back." Lith said, and the hybrids complied.
"Don’t worry, Lith. I couldn’t replicate it even if I wanted to. The lack of magic makes the Rune Stores hard to study with my usual means. I would need time to dissect and examine every layer to understand how they work." Bytra said.
"I can confirm that." Menadion nodded. "The rune pattern is too complex. True, it’s always the Ekidu rune, but its size changes with no scheme I can observe, and one mistake would stop the elemental flow dead."
"I didn’t doubt your word, Bytra, but hearing that reassures me." Lith replied. "Ripha, you are a seven-eyed Demon. Do you feel something weird from the Rune Store?"
"Nothing." She shook her head. "Morok?"
The Tyrant caught the Darkness Store on the fly and examined it.
"Nothing as well. Maybe this only works for trolls. Unless..." He brought the squeaky toy to his black eye and experienced something he could only describe as resonance. "It needs to be really close, but it works!
"What if..." The Tyrant had his reverse-V wings come out of his back and put the Rune Store below one of them.
He was about to conjure his elemental wings when a searing pain almost tore him apart.
"Definitely not." He managed to hold the scream of pain in, but became pale and sweaty. "Only one option left."
The Tyrant placed the Darkness Store exactly between his bone wings before conjuring the power of the elements. His energy wings manifested as two jets of pure black, comprised solely of darkness element.
"Yep. Zoreth is right. This stuff is for evolved humans. Lith is also right, though. It’s dangerous."
Lith shapeshifted into his Indech form and used the Fire and Water Store to confirm Morok’s findings. He felt nothing at all, even in that form, unless he squeezed the toys or neared them to his wings or corresponding eyes.
"This is amazing!" Lith said. "I need to ask Dhiral for a lot more sets of Rune Stores!"
"Farm!" Solus said. "All this effort and I could have had it way easier."
"What about us, then?" Tista snorted. "We worked our wings off, and you get to cheat?"
"What do you mean, Solus?" Bytra asked. "Are you an evolved human as well?"
"Sort of." Solus inwardly cursed her slip of the tongue. "We’ll discuss this later."
"Exactly!" Tista rushed to collect all of Dripha’s rune stores. "There’s something I want to try first."
She put on Iksha’s Honor to avoid further embarrassment and shapeshifted into her Indech form. Then, she placed the Rune Stores in a single line along her spine, arranging them in the same order as Ragnarök’s elemental crystals.
"That’s my sequence!" Quylla said with pride. "Look, kids. That’s the result of your mom’s hard work."
Tista’s feathered wings resonated with the Rune Stores at once, creating wild surges of elemental power as she drew the world energy in. Lightning bolts of different colors arched from the Stores to the wings and back, rapidly growing in frequency and intensity.
Tista’s eyes lit up one after the other, and once the Spirit Eye flared with the power of the elements, her wings crackled. They released six bursts of elemental energy, each one of a different color, that became more defined by the second.
The two feathered wings multiplied and overlapped with the bursts of elemental energy until they formed six new wings.
"Yes! I finally did it!" Tista cheered. "Now, before I run out of juice..."
She shapeshifted into her Hekate form, and the six wings were compressed into a single set of pristine feathered wings comprised of pure elemental energy.
"My Phoenix side really is dominant." Tista frowned. "My energy wings have nothing draconic about them. Grandpa will be furious."
"It’s not just that." Solus said. "Humans and Phoenixes both have feathered wings. Your Dragon blood is one against two. In Lith’s case, instead, he has his Eldritch side backing the Dragon with its membranous wings."
"That’s a very interesting theory, Solus, but what we really need are more Rune Stores, and a lot of them. We-"