Jude worked all night with little success with soul binding. was the closest thing he had to understanding the subject. But was tied closer to matters of the spirit rather than the soul. Jude wasn’t exactly sure what the difference between the two was in regards to the , but he did know that the difference was significant. There was no way to Spirit Bind a weapon that he knew of, one could only Soul Bind it.

Jude discussed his problem with Ellie the next morning, and she said, “I don’t think you can create a soul bind on an item. It should be something only crafters can do.”

Jude was surprised that a Wizard couldn’t do it, “I thought it could be done with a type of , how do crafters do such a thing?”

“I’m not a high enough level to tell you that as I don’t know myself. But I think it has something to do with the properties of the soul versus the properties of the spirit.” She said.

“I don’t understand, what do you mean?” He asked.

“Wizards are more fluid and not as restricted even when enchanting an item, however, a crafter must always work with the material and are limited to what the material can do. The same could be said about the spirit and soul. The spirit is the embodiment of your consciousness, will power, and emotions. It is constantly changing due to your emotions, will to live, or logic of your thoughts. The soul is the imprint of all your knowledge and experience. It is not something that can be changed, only something that can be added too.”

Understanding hit Jude as he said, “So soul binding must be tied to the soul. Otherwise, it could change. This is also why soul binding can’t be removed because the soul can’t change its memory.”

“That isn’t to say that spirit binding can’t be done,” Ellie continued, “it’s just not as powerful or permanent as soul binding. Why are you so interested in this anyway? You already have a soul bound item, and most people would prefer their items not to be bound this way.”

“I have one?” He asked thinking back.

Ellie rolled her eyes, “Yeah, your staff. Remember it came from Grimwar Caves. All dungeon weapons are soul bound.”

Jude felt a little stupid, “Thanks, Ellie, you did save me a bit of time.”

Now that Jude had a soul bound weapon, he didn’t have to worry about any item skills he created being learned by other people. It was bad enough if a person stole an item with skills, but those things could be retaken. However, if someone took an item that could train those skills, it would be much worse, especially if Jude developed a truly devastating or remarkable magic. Things like that should remain soul bound and not given casually to others.

***

After a few more days, they finally arrived at the dark valley that preceded the hill they were after. This area was more like night than the rest of the aquifer, and it was partially due to the lack of any that hung above. The other reason for it was the dense energies of dark mana that radiated the place.

Under the view of , all the relays were intertwined with dark magic relays. This had a visible effect in the real world.

No life existed here at all and what little light that extended into this area was further dimmed by darkness. Stones rose up in the place of trees, like gangly pillars of unhewn stone. The distance one could see without the aid of magic was no more than 20 meters and some places much less. This also meant that you couldn’t even see the ceiling up above.

Stillness pervaded the area so heavily that it seeped into their very bones. Even while walking as quickly as they could, they felt like monsters rampaging a peaceful graveyard.

“This place feels off, perhaps we should find another way,” Krinn whispered, and Nellie eagerly nodded her head in agreement.

“This place was probably designed for the purpose of hiding those glyphs,” Jude said resolutely. “It is almost like the node site protection from Allur Forest.”

“Oh good, then stuff at least won’t attack us,” Krinn sighed in relief.

Wen glared at her brother, “You the cosh’ing worst tank ever with that attitude.”

Before they could start arguing Jude butted in, “I didn’t say this place was free of monsters. The node sites at Allur Forest didn’t have any monsters simply because it didn’t have a controlling boss. Now that Anthea is in control, they most certainly do have monsters in them.”

Krinn’s face turned grim, but Jude thought it for the best. It was better to be on guard here than to be lax. Cairfray could see clearly through this place, but there were too many stone pillars blocking line of site. This was the best place for a to attack, but so far there had been no sign of anything living here.

“I wonder how Anthea is doing,” Ellie commented. “I hope she isn’t worried; we were supposed to be back quite a while ago.”

“She should be fine,” Jude said. “She can tell if I’m alive or dead through our connection and if she really needed something she could just message me.”

“She can do that?” Ellie asked. “I thought you had to initiate the communication for it to work.”

Jude gulped, “I’m pretty sure she can message me.”

“You should contact her just in case. I would hate for her to be worried for nothing.” Ellie added.

“I would rather not be distracted right now. I’ll summon her when we get to the glyphs on the hill side.” Jude felt a little guilty, he hadn’t talked with Anthea in a while and was worried that her old anger problem would come rushing back.

***

Jude decided to let the others focus on using their eyes to detect dangers while he focused on using . He felt that the true danger might not be an enemy hiding within the stone pillars, but perhaps the environment itself. Jude knew first hand that the environment could become a dangerous weapon like how he used . A single slice with could cause the earth to burst forth with explosive power. But the more he looked the more confusing he became.

What he saw was the infusion of dark elements with natural elements. The earth was filled with earth mana, but also had tendrils of dark mana intertwined in it through the routing of the relays. The two elements were not compatible, nor was the combination even reasonable if they were. It was rather upsetting to Jude to keep finding things he thought were supposed to be impossible, only to clearly be presented before him.

It was hard to deny something as impossible if it existed right in front of you. This realization made him ponder what truly could and could not be combined when it came to magic and skills. This made him think back to the letter opener Ellie made for him more as a joke than anything else. The glyphs on it were abstruse, and if he could successfully write skills into it, then it would prove that he was ready for something bigger. Something like his staff.

But first, he would have to understand how these two elements in this environment worked together. Clues were not evident on the surface, but instead of delving deeper into the rocky surroundings he pulled his vision back. This allowed him to see the mana in the air itself.

The air had very little wind mana and was primarily dark mana. This explained why their vision was so severely limited. But it also explained how the ground could be infested with the dark element so easily and seemly randomly without destabilizing the entire environment. The dark mana in the air, weighed down and actually pushed itself into the ground and stones below.

Perhaps this was the best way to combine glyphs when writing out skills and magic into items. If he could supercharge one glyph, it would create a similar pressure allowing the crossing of spell circuitry to be much easier. The more Jude thought about it the more excited he became. If he could use this bleeding effect successfully, not only would be combining glyphs be easier, but the access mana from the first glyph could be used to empower the next glyph and supercharge that one creating a chain effect. This would make it easier to handle the excess mana issues that would heat up the items using skills. Less heat would mean quicker cast times and overall more durability of the item.

Jude was lost in thought when the darkness all around quickly disappeared.

Krinn was the first to happily speak, “We are finally out of that damned place!”

Wen was a little unhappy, “I can’t believe we didn’t get attacked even once.”

“Look up there,” Ellie said with a pleasant sigh, “We have finally made it.”

Up above you could see the faint traces of the glyphs they had seen from a distance, but from the bottom of the hill they weren’t very clear. On the hill, the grass started to grow again, yet it was barren of any trees. This grass also looked much healthier than anything else in the aquifer they had come across so far, yet nowhere near as healthy as something on the surface would be. This hill was also surprisingly smooth, unlike all the other hills they crossed. The other hills had been filled with juts, crags and crevasse that were more natural. But this hill was perfectly smooth in shape and completely unnatural to what one would expect.

The unusual evenness of the hill made it hard to tell the distance, so it took much longer than expected to reach the top. But when they did, they found a strange site to behold.

All around them existed the dark valley, but from this point the valley could be seen through. It was like a one-way mirror, they could see out, but seeing in was hard. From here, the darkness looked almost alive as it swirled and twisted. Slowly it flowed up in streams connecting itself to the next strange sight.

The flows of darkness connected to the giant glyphs that were written on the sides of the hill. Looking down from the angle of the hill top was the only way to actually view the glyphs correctly. From any other direction they would be stretched and distorted. Jude had seen this kind of perspective art before, but had no idea that it could be applied to glyphs. But he guessed that the effect of doing this would make the glyphs only work from the direction of the hill top.

The hilltop was the strangest place of all, but only Jude would recognize it for what it was. It was not a node like Allur Forest, nor was it a created dungeon core stamped into the ground like Grimwar Caves. If Jude had to say what the closest thing it resembled, he would have to say Cairfray’s ring. He gave her a sidelong look, but she wouldn’t have understood why, even if she had meet his eyes.

The area was bare of growth and smoothed out flat. Numerous groves were gouged out with incredibly fine detail as they were nearly as fine as hairs. These small groves were filled in with a gold like metal. The same was done for multiple glyphs and runes that ran through the whole network. And it looked beautiful, the gold contrasted the dark granite like stone and polished to a remarkable shine. With the untrained eye, it looked to be a gorgeous work of art.

Out of all of them, Ellie seemed to be the most excited. She had never seen glyphs used in such ways and quickly understanding their purpose. This overturned the traditional way of thinking, the application of glyphs was to put as many of them as possible on the surface of the item as possible. This would constitute a stronger item. But if a single glyph could be inscribed with the correct perspective then it could amplify a single strike to a resounding level. A weapon might be limited to only one powerful move, but it could have the possibility to completely overwhelm an entire line of glyphs.

Ellie wouldn’t truly know of this was correct until she could test it. But still her heart pounded with the possibility of what this could mean. Especially the large scale of this hill. There were a full dozen glyphs empowering this one point. If she was right about the power of a perspective glyph, then how much more so would twelve be when they were the size of a hill side? She couldn’t even guess.

“Jude, what is this place?” She couldn’t help but ask.

Jude was already deep into the study of the hill top. He had never seen anything quite like this, the Allure Forest node was similar in a sense that the roots formed a circuit like structure, but it was actually more complicated than that. This false node was attempting to be the same, but it seemed as if the creator had never seen the real thing. Instead he or she tried to create it based on what they guessed it to be. Jude began to wonder if he would have found the Allur Forest node without Theodwin, without Theodwin, Jude would probably not even have searched for the node no less find it.

Theodwin… Where did he go?

Ellie shook his shoulder, “Jude?”

Finally she had his attention, “Sorry Ellie. This place really is the failed attempt to create a node.”

“Failed,” Ellie and several others repeated at the same time.

“Before I explain, Ellie please tell me about the glyphs. I would rather not guess without the full understanding of this place.” Jude said.

Ellie pointed out each glyph and explained its meaning and potential purpose. She also explained the power increase in the perspective glyphs and how they would be much stronger than normal ones. Each explanation only seemed to confirm Jude’s first assessment.

After Ellie finished Jude explained the failure, “The creator of this place had an amazing amount of knowledge and skill, but they lacked a certain understanding about nodes. If my guess is correct, they needed this place to work to keep all of Arkess from not only turning into a desert but for this underground place to work in full.”

“What is it lacking?” Elle asked.

“Life,” Jude said, “Or to better explain it, nature.”

“You mean that area of darkness is killing off its ability to be a node?” Krinn asked.

“Good question, but no.” Jude answered, “There are many places that are based on dark or death elements, yet still can condense nodes. Take Grimwar Caves as an example, it was a fully operation dungeon with a created node. But it’s primary element was that of death.”

“Then what exactly is the nature that this node is missing?” Ellie asked.

“Nature is just the expected results of the natural laws of the universe. It’s not natural because it is not connected to these laws. It’s attempting to use these giant glyphs to power it up, but what it really needs is to be connected to the system.” Jude said.

“It’s that simple?” Wen asked.

“I wouldn’t call connecting a node to the system simple,” Cairfray stated solemnly.

“Actually, we do have a somewhat simple solution,” Jude said. “Let me show you.”