At last, Faust managed to push his stepmother away and have some breathing room. His cheeks flushed. Helena was near forty, but she looked like an actress at her prime. He always felt awkward whenever she showed that kind of affection.
It wasn’t bad. Just nothing he had felt before. Too close for his comfort.
"I.." He cleared his throat, "didn’t come here just to brag. There is something I need your help with."
"Is something wrong?" Helena asked.
Zisel’s fit of laughter had just ended as well. She eyed him, mirroring her mother’s expressions.
Faust brought his hands forward and shaped the black flames into a dark sphere.
"I was thinking maybe I can use this in its liquid form to make a small runic formation for my runes. I have read about runic arrays; they need essence to work. Which I don’t have. The blood of emanations or soul beasts is used for it, right? And that black substance, rot ash?"
Helena and Zisel stared at the soft, rubber-like dark sphere with awe. Neither tried to touch it because they knew it would steal their essence. He had discovered it while training with Hartwin.
If Faust touched someone with his body, it completely blocked their essence core. But if he let the subject go afterward, the subject’s essence core remained unchanged. But if he used the constructs made of his black flame and used that to touch the subject, they would lose their essence continuously.
That was as long as his body was in physical contact with the structure. When he let it go, it was just a strange dark matter that did nothing.
"For your runes?" Zisel asked.
"Yes," He said, looking at her, then back at Helena. "I have not mastered it yet, but I think in time I can mimic the properties of that substance which is used to make rune-revealing formations."
Helena’s eyes widened. Zisel also narrowed her eyes, the implication of his words settling in her mind.
"You can really... change this thing into anything?" Helena asked.
"No. Just one unique property at a time. Like if it’s iron, then just iron; if it’s water, then water; you can’t mix things like steel or lemon juice. And it’s unstable and reverts to flame over time. With practice, I have managed to change it into condensed iron that stays stable for an hour."
"How would that help you make formations?" Zisel asked, her curiosity piqued.
"It’s a long-term idea. For now, blood is easy to get. I was thinking of turning it into liquid, mixing it with blood and that rot ash thing to make a floating formation. Would that work?"
"Why not just the mixture like usual?" Zisel suggested.
"This way, the mixture needed can be decreased by a large amount; the liquid can keep the thing floating and protected so the impurities never get mixed up, increasing efficiency," Helena concluded.
"If this succeeds, then I only need to keep a little rot ash on me till I manage to mimic its properties. Even my own blood can be used to check my runes. The only issue that makes me unable to do it myself is,"
"Channeling essence," Zisen finished his sentence.
"You will need a channeler nearby, always," Helena murmured. Then flashed an encouraging smile at him, "At least you managed to bring the cost of doing the formation down. The rot ash is not an easy-to-find substance."
"People just don’t sell it anymore." Zisel added, "It has no use other than checking runes, so it’s understandable. Everyone uses the tool now."
"It’s just a theory. Let’s try it, if you can spare some more essence safely. Or some other time." Faust said.
"The required essence is barely anything now that you can shrink your absence range. The materials were the issue. We are not that delicate, you know?" Helena ruffled his hair and stood up.
Faust also jumped to his feet and prepared himself. He already had rot ash on him; a guard got it for him from the market. Helena pulled out flasks of soul beast blood from her bracelet.
The bracelet was a third-tier relic. Helena said she got it from killing a powerful Tyrant. It worked like a spatial storage.
Relics were rare gifts earned by killing powerful monsters. They were quite rare. Once in a hundred, the soul beast leaves behind a relic instead of an essence core.
Helena prepared a mixture of blood and rot ash. Faust shaped the dark flame into liquid, mixed it in, and let it float around him. He kept the layer of dark liquid around the thin, connected mixture protected within. Like a dark coating on a wire.
Recreating the same formation from memory, Faust kept the circle and its triangular features stable. Then opened just a little from above to let Helena connect her essence strings to the circle.
Since the liquid was floating around him and not making direct contact with his flesh, it was just a weird liquid that he could control freely within a limited range. It couldn’t deplete or block others’ essence. If he walked away from it by around 6-7 meters, it would fall on the ground like any inanimate object in the world.
Helena took her stance. Right hand forward. The finger touching the open hole in the floating formation. Left arm high up to have better contact with the natural essence.
It was believed that the higher one went, the purer the essence became. Glowing blue veins spread from the tip of her left arm to the right arm’s finger. A channeler’s core played a major role in purifying, transforming, and controlling the essence.
Just a fraction of a second, and his runes appeared right before his eyes. Faust signaled for Helena to stop immediately. It was super fast. The efficiency was nearly ten times greater than before.
"So fast!" Zisel exclaimed. "This method can save so much material and needs barely any essence! The possibilities are endless!"
"Zisel," Helena eyed her daughter, "Your brother already has enough to deal with."
Faust barely heard their words. His eyes blinked several times, making sure he was not seeing things.
...
Negative Essence: 9716
...