After rejecting Morgan’s request to be sliced into samples, Byakuya spent over two hours researching.
He had successfully advanced from reinforcing objects to reinforcing specific parts of his own body.
By a magus’s standards, he should have been considered an entry-level practitioner of reinforcement magecraft, yet the system still refused to acknowledge it as a triggered entry.
Byakuya decided to change his approach.
He went upstairs to his room and rummaged through the luggage he had brought from his previous hotel after dealing with Zouken Matou yesterday, eventually pulling out a notebook.
The original owner of the notes was a magus named Touko Aozaki.
Four years ago.
At that time, Byakuya was still active in City D, the first map he had encountered after transmigrating.
In late November of that year, an outsider magus infiltrated City D and challenged the managers of the city’s spiritual veins—Aoko Aozaki and Alice Kuonji—in a bid to seize the territory.
By that point, Byakuya had been Alice Kuonji’s “neighbor” for over three years and maintained a decent relationship with Aoko Aozaki, who had been Alice’s semi-apprentice for over a year.
Naturally, he didn’t stand idly by once he learned of the situation.
After some investigation, the three of them determined that the intruder was Touko Aozaki, the former heir of the Aozaki family who had been raised as such since birth but had suddenly been stripped of her status several years prior.
She was also Aoko Aozaki’s elder sister.
Following the clues Touko had intentionally left behind, they eventually engaged in a decisive battle at the old school building of Private City D High School.
In the end, the assistant Touko had brought along—a golden wolf she called “Beowulf”—displayed an overwhelming level of power.
Beyond possessing a Mystery that could crush modern magi, Beowulf had a materialized soul-body with endless Magic Power and immortality, as well as several distinct transformations.
Despite having a 128x multiplier from 7 points of additional strength layered onto [Hundred Arts] (Lv.7), the ability to draw upon the momentum of heaven and earth via [Unity of Heaven and Man], and comprehensive buffs granted by Alice Kuonji, Byakuya was still no match for the golden wolf after its transformations.
Left with no choice, Aoko Aozaki had to activate the Fifth Magic—which she had kept shelved for various reasons—to secure victory in that battle.
Afterward, Byakuya learned of the feats Touko Aozaki and her golden wolf had achieved before arriving in City D.
By gauging his own strength against Beowulf, he figured out where he stood within the world of Mystery.
He then left City D and began traveling, hoping to find an opportunity that would allow him to truly master the supernatural.
A year and a few months after his departure, Aoko Aozaki also began her world tour after graduating from high school.
Unlike Byakuya, who had made a bit of money using his “foreknowledge” as a transmigrator so he wouldn’t have to worry about travel funds, Aoko harbored quite a grudge against Touko Aozaki due to the City D incident.
Whenever Aoko ran low on money or resources, she would simply track down Touko and “rob from the rich to give to the poor.”
The notebook in Byakuya’s hand was a trophy from one of Aoko’s visits to Touko.
The notes contained Touko Aozaki’s insights and experiences recorded while she was reconstructing the Rune alphabet.
Because she had reconstructed the runes—most of which had been lost to history—essentially reviving the foundation of Rune Magecraft, Touko Aozaki had been granted the highest rank of magus by the Mage’s Association: Grand.
The value of her primary research materials on runes was obvious.
However, Aoko Aozaki was far too specialized as a magus.
When she discovered this notebook among the things she had “packed” from Touko’s Mage’s Workshop, she simply mailed it back to Alice Kuonji, whose family owned a private library.
Alice, after completing a transcription of the notes, handed the original notebook back to Byakuya during one of his visits.
Digressing too much—back to the matter at hand.
Returning to the study with Touko Aozaki’s research notes, Byakuya went through them three times: a skim, a detailed read, and a deep study.
With the contents of the notes burned into his mind, Byakuya raised his hand in the air.
Using his finger as a pen and Magic Power as ink, he wrote characters that possessed innate mystical power—characters whose meaning changed based on time and context.
Reinforce!
A long string of Rune characters suspended in mid-air finally manifested the effect Byakuya expected.
As the runes merged into his body, Byakuya could clearly feel a boost in his strength, speed, endurance, and recovery.
He paused in thought.
It had to be said that a complete system was indeed far more effective than something he had tried to cobble together on his own from a basic textbook.
However, after using this Rune-based reinforcement, the system still remained silent…
Thinking of a possibility, Byakuya used his finger as a pen once more.
But this time, he wrote out the entire reconstructed Rune system from start to finish.
[You have acquired a new ability—[Rune Magecraft (Lv.0)]]
Just as he thought!
With his hypothesis verified, Byakuya used the newly acquired [Rune Magecraft (Lv.0)] to replace [Unity of Heaven and Man (Purple)] in his AFK slot.
While gaining growth value for Talent Entries wasn’t as simple as increasing proficiency for Ability Entries through training, theoretically, the most rational use of the limited AFK slots was to assign them to Talents while training Abilities manually.
However, since the proficiency required for the first few levels wasn’t high—meaning they could be maxed out in a short amount of time—Byakuya felt that the cost-performance of using the AFK slot for an Ability for the first few levels was quite high.
After all, doing so allowed him to build a solid foundation for the ability by simply collecting AFK proficiency, making future improvements easier.
Furthermore, the few points of additional strength gained in the early levels could provide a several-fold, or even dozens-fold, increase in the ability’s power.
“Runes?” Morgan asked, as Byakuya emerged from his state of deep focus.
“Yes, Runes,” Byakuya nodded.
“They are somewhat different from the Runes I know.”
Morgan raised a hand and drew a string of characters in the air; the effect was also “Reinforcement.”
Without even testing it, Byakuya knew that the reinforcement effect of Morgan’s runes was far superior to the ones he had just drawn.
He didn’t find this strange.
Although Touko Aozaki had completed the reconstruction of the Rune Magecraft foundation, the notes mentioned that her subsequent research had shifted toward analyzing the Original Runes that had vanished during the Age of Gods.
Modern Rune Magecraft, while called a “revival,” had essentially only returned from a state of “decay” to a state of “usability.”
It would be utterly absurd if the research results of a modern magus like Touko Aozaki, achieved in just a few short years, could surpass Morgan—who possessed the insight and foundation of the Age of Gods—simply because they were in the hands of a novice like himself who had only just scratched the surface.
Rather than these trivial details, Byakuya was currently more concerned with another matter…
“Runes weren’t my primary area of research, but since the system is so widespread, I spent some of my leisure time familiarizing myself with them.”
Facing Byakuya’s gaze—which said nothing, yet seemed to say everything—Morgan spoke up.
“If you have a need for it, I wouldn’t mind explaining the portions I know to you.”
“That will be enough.”
Byakuya stood up and thanked Morgan.