Gregory Payne was fuming. After his wife had informed him of the 'apprentice', he had done his investigation and discovered it was the very same Hal he had sold to the slave house and then he had since begun to formulate his plans for reaping his life in a quiet manner but he had not expected that his son would actually ruin everything, he had to keep reminding himself that without this worthless son, he would not have an heir.

"F-f-father.." Rad began but was interrupted

"Do you have any idea how much you have messed up" Gregory said barely able to keep his rage in check

"F-father, it's not that bad, it is just a little spat between two youths besides it happened so fast there were hardly any witnesses" Rad said finally drawing courage

BAM!!

Gregory slammed his palm so hard on the wooden table that it cracked in two, Rad leapt back in fear

"Who gives a damn about witnesses, in this city who would witness or report a member of the Payne family even if they murdered someone in public. Only someone with a death wish would, so of course most would rather not witness anything so as to avoid being caught in a cross fire. SO I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT THE FACT THAT THERE WERE HARDLY ANY WITNESSES" Gregory roared

Rad swallowed, he had never seen his father so upset, he was absolutely terrified, however Gregory was not done

"What I care about is the fact that you displayed obvious animosity, if peradventure something happened to Hal, we would be the first suspect and if Master Swanson decided to seek vengeance we would have to divert resources towards resisting him and in that case I might as well forgo my plans of becoming Mayor"

Rad was sweating bullets he knew Hal had bated him to anger but he just could not help it, the instant Rita's name was mentioned, he lost all reason. He also kept recalling the genuine fear he had felt as well as the vision that had instilled that fear, a vision he couldn't explain but had terrified him. The sound of his father taking a deep breath brought him back to the situation at hand

"Leave me and seclude yourself until I call for you"

Rad did not need to be told twice and left before his father's anger could return

As soon as Rad was gone Gregory sighed

'Since it has already happened, it is no use moping over it. I need to take some drastic measures, that boy has to die soon or else it would be too late'

...

Melinda's mansion

Hal was drawing a rune on a piece of rune paper (the rectangle shaped ones made with a special material that can hold astral energy) one out of the stack master swanson had given him for the sake of 'practice', although he never actually expected Hal to succeed with the abysmal amount of instructions he had received. Hal knew he probably could have requested for runes without paying but he could not see how he could ask without revealing what he needed them for.

So he locked himself in his room and after a few trials succeeded in creating a rank one rune. After his success he decided to try something bigger.

The moment he injected astral energy into the rune, the inky black rune turned a rich royal blue for a second before it imploded

"Grr. Failed again" Hal snarled, frustrated

'You should have known it was going to be a stretch. Just accept the fact that for now a rank one rune is your limit and besides, you were able to create one just by looking at it being done, do you even realize how rare that is. You have talent' Grimiore consoled

Hal agreed with him to a point, master Swanson had not officially taught him how to create runes, he had only really explained the importance of astral sense and showed him the runes he had to memorize as well as how to co join runes for the purpose of creating strong attacks or complex arrays which he claimed were still 'out of Hal's league'. Hal was sure that if he showed Swanson his ability to create rank one runes he would be called a genius but while that soothed his ego, he was far from satisfied.

Ever since he discovered and decided to go after Salmon, he had finally come to the conclusion that he could not base his talent on a place like this whose standards were far too low. If he had succeeded in creating a rank two rune he would have been a little appeased.

"I just don't understand what I am doing wrong, my astral sense should be strong enough" Hal said quietly but then he asked grimiore mentally 'why won't you tell me?'

'Because there are certain rules that need to be followed, I don't have access to such information unless you exchange them for currency' Grimiore told him

Hal sighed and withdrew another 3 inches wide, 6 inches long rune paper, drew the same rune and injected a subtle amount of astral energy so that it glowed rich royal blue before returning to previous inky black.

'Rank this' he said to grimiore

'Still rank one mid grade' grimiore told him instantly

'Damn it, I was expecting the experimentations with rank two runes to pay off'

Ranked runes were not officially graded, however it's grade still refers to it's potency so it is quite important. A rank one rune rune created by a mediocre rune- master with mediocre astral sense, would be low grade and if Hal had succeeded with the rank two rune it would have been low grade too. The rune of a rune master of an established rank within the limit of said rank would be mid grade just like Hal but if said rune-master had surpassed for example; rank one, his rank one rune would be referred to as high grade.

Hal added the rune to the others in his inventory and prepared to leave but just then someone knocked and he didn't need the use of astral sense to know who it was.