"It’s done!"
At the Moon Lakefront, after setting down a glass bottle containing "some unknown Magic Powder," Brand admired his "masterpiece" with a satisfied expression.
It was covered in strange, child-like scribbles, dense and strangely colored lines resembling a circuit board, and seven blank circles arranged in a ring in the center.
This was already the absolute limit of what Brand could achieve.
He thought to himself, "Although my Array Base Plate has a few aesthetic flaws, from the perspective of Rune Array Science, my ’work’ is undoubtedly qualified." He meticulously cross-checked his "work" against the requirements on the test paper. After confirming that every pattern and line fell within the acceptable margin of error, Brand nodded in satisfaction.
Meanwhile, on the opposite shore of Moon Lake, Celine’s mouth twitched slightly as she saw Brand’s answer sheet.
She wondered, "What in the world is he drawing? Isn’t there a sample diagram right there on the exam paper?"
Even though this might be Brand’s first time drawing something so complex, Celine still felt deep suspicion regarding his drawing Talent. As a veteran Rune Array Master, Celine had seen many people’s first attempts at drawing an Array Base Plate. If Brand’s work were compared to them, it would be the ugly duckling of the flock. Celine simply couldn’t imagine it ever growing into an elegant swan.
Her doubts were not unfounded. According to past experience, the more genius a Rune Array Master was, the more extraordinary their drawing Talent proved to be. They could control the direction of their strokes with ease, making Rune Drawing much simpler for themselves.
From Celine’s observations, Brand seemed to lack this Talent completely.
She thought, "Can a person like this really learn Rune Drawing in just a single semester?"
Despite the heart full of doubts she harbored regarding Brand’s Rune Drawing skills, since things had already progressed this far, Celine decided to watch until the very end. She thought, "Next comes the true difficulty of drawing a Rune Array. Let me see if your title as a Rune genius is real or fake!" Visit novelping(.)com for the full chapter.
Back with Brand, because the Array Base Plate was already complete, he felt a bit more relaxed. According to the prompt on the exam paper, the next step was simply to follow the sample diagram and draw the corresponding Runes into the seven blank circles of the Array Base Plate.
Recently, to prepare for his elective course’s final exam, Brand had practiced drawing Runes One through Three countless times in the Simulation World. Furthermore, he had actually drawn them many times on Rune Paper in his dorm room, and his failure rate was extremely low. As long as he concentrated and devoted his full attention to the task, the chances of him failing to draw Runes One through Three were practically negligible.
Therefore, for Brand, compared to the tedious process and complex lines of the Array Base Plate, drawing these seven Runes was not very difficult. The only bothersome issue was that his Spiritual Power was insufficient, which meant he would need to drink more than one bottle of Awakening Potion.
Glancing at the ten neatly arranged bottles of Awakening Potion beside him, Brand felt that this wouldn’t be a problem either.
He picked up the Rune Pen from the pen stand, filled it with Rune Ink, and tested the feel of it on a blank edge of the exam paper. Then, Brand focused his attention on the leftmost blank circle on his answer sheet.
According to the sample diagram, Rune Two needed to be drawn inside this circle. After a brief recollection of the drawing method for Rune Two, Brand concentrated and put pen to paper.
The tip of the Rune Pen slowly glided across the answer sheet. Brand’s Spiritual Power flowed into the Rune Pen like a gentle stream, imprinting itself onto the paper alongside the ink. Without any pauses, Brand skillfully connected one stroke to the next. In just dozens of breaths, the first Rune was completed.
Sensing his remaining Spiritual Power, Brand reached out, picked up a bottle of Awakening Potion, popped the cork, and downed it in one gulp. He waited for a moment, and upon feeling his Spiritual Power rapidly recovering, he shifted his focus to the second blank circle in front of him.
As Brand successfully drew the Runes one by one, the light in Celine’s eyes across Moon Lake grew brighter and brighter.
At this moment, every ounce of doubt in Celine’s heart had completely vanished. Seeing Brand’s incredibly proficient technique—and his handsome face (scratch that)—while drawing the three types of Runes, she knew his title as a genius was entirely well-deserved.
As the final stroke of the seventh Rune was steadily completed, Brand set down the Rune Pen and let out a long sigh of relief. Looking at his "masterpiece" laid out before him, Brand nodded in satisfaction.
At this point, Brand had completed all the steps required by the exam paper, and he should have been very happy. Yet, he suddenly felt a bit confused because he didn’t see any "signs" of a successful drawing.
Even though Brand was an underachiever, a little common sense told him that something as advanced and sophisticated as a Rune Array would definitely have some unusual "reaction" or "sign" upon completion. Even if it wasn’t earth-shattering or weather-changing, it should at least glow or something!
But right now, there was absolutely nothing. Did it naturally lack a reaction, or did the Rune Array fail? You are reading on g.com, the official source.
After turning his answer sheet over and over again to inspect it many times, Brand’s face was full of confusion.
Then, as if to answer the questions in his heart, a sweet female voice that made his ears tingle rang out beside him:
"After a Rune Array is completed, you need to inject enough Magic Power into it to activate it."
Accompanying the voice was a purple-haired woman who slowly stepped out from the moonlight. Although a white veil covered her facial features, her ethereal temperament—which vastly contrasted with the folk customs of the Kaya Empire—caused even Brand, who was constantly surrounded by beautiful women, to freeze in a momentary daze.
However, he had seen plenty of beauties in his time, so the purple-haired woman only sparked a fleeting sense of novelty in him. As for being stunned or anything of the sort, not at all.
Very quickly, Brand turned his gaze back to the answer sheet in his hands.
It was, after all, the first Rune Array he had ever drawn, and he was highly anticipating what kind of "phenomenon" would occur upon its completion. Hearing the purple-haired woman say that he needed to inject Magic Power to activate it, Brand couldn’t wait to mobilize the Magic Power in his body and channel it into the paper.
Over on Celine’s end, she noticed that despite her meticulously styled banquet attire and a temperament foreign to the Kaya Empire, Brand had merely cast her a passing, surprised glance as if she were a random stranger. Her mood fluctuated slightly at the realization.
However, Celine wasn’t an unreasonable little girl, nor had she come to see Brand in an attempt to rob the cradle. Thinking carefully, Celine remembered that the first time she successfully drew a Rune Array, she had been just as impatient as Brand was right now.
Therefore, as she watched his handsome face while he worked so earnestly, her mood quickly grew Calm once again.