“I—perhaps if you could give me some idea of your current understanding?” Melon said, “You said you were aware of some runes already?”

August turned his mind to the task of recalling each of the runes he’d unlocked so far.

“I know [Energy Storage I], [Energy Connector I], [Split I], [Contact Absorption I], [Ambient Mana], and [Continuous],” August said, “I think I have a really vague idea of how they’re structured—like the connectors funnelling the energy from rune to rune.”

“You’re correct,” Melon said with some interest. “How were you able to determine that?”

“The Efkini have a core inside of them, and it’s covered in hundreds of tiny lines of rune; I could only identify the ones I just told you, but the patterns all had the same kind of flow,” August said, “The exact order was [Ambient Mana], [Continuous], [Contact Absorbtion I], [Energy Connector I], and then [Energy Storage I]—I can’t remember the rest after that, another connector maybe.”

“Then it seems you already know how to create what you are looking for; because what you just described is a rather simple chain that continuously absorbs ambient mana and transfers it into storage,” Melon said, nodding. “If you have something which we can carve a system onto—the more durable, the better.”

“We have wood, bone, and clay tablets that haven’t been fired yet,” August admitted, “I was going to start experimenting, so Haiko made me some of the latter to use, but I haven’t gotten around to using them.”

“Clay isn’t exactly a good material for this because it will quickly develop tiny deficiencies over time,” Melon said, “Wood will degrade over time as well, but it would last longer—I’ve never seen anything carved into bone before.”

“We have the Efkini chain, but I don’t think it’s really the right shape to carve anything into,” August said, “How long will wood last for—even if it’s only a few days, it would help.”

“Oh,” Melon said, “It will probably last a lot longer than that—I’d say a few months without any loss of efficiency, provided it’s kept in relatively dry conditions.”

“Wood it is then,” August said, “Are you going to do the carving, or do you want me to do it?”

August directed her over towards the [Workbench], opening up the [Inventory] as he went. He removed one of the plank offcuts that had been stashed away, dropping it down onto the bench and turning sideways to look at her.

“I’m afraid I’ve never carved anything,” Melon admitted, dropping her gaze. “The most I was allowed to do was oversee the automated engraving process to make sure no faults occurred.”

“It was done with machines? I suppose I should have guessed that,” August said, “I’ll try outlining it with a chisel first, so I don’t mess it up—can you coach me on what to do?”

“I can try,” Melon said, stepping forward a bit until she was hovering beside him. “If you’d—you could mark out a little area to work within, to try and keep all of the runes roughly the same size.”

He marked out a rough rectangle, adding some little notches on the outside, almost like a ruler, to use as a measuring tool for the inside area.

“We’re doing this vertical, right?” August asked, shifting the plank around. “Is this big enough?”

“Yes,” Melon murrmured. “The five runes you mentioned earlier are the main components, but there are two more you didn’t include, so seven spaces should be the correct amount.”

August divided the rectangle up into seven sections, again using the outside to avoid messing up the working space within—then he held the chisel out for her to take.

“Can you draw them for me, next to the box, so I can see what they look like?” August asked. “Just an outline is fine.”

“I’m really not supposed to do that,” Melon said, staring down at the [Flint Chisel]. “It’s forbidden.”

“You heard Haiko—we’re all troublemakers now,” August said, raising an eyebrow. “Help me?”

Melon carefully reached out and took the piece of flint from him—he shifted sideways, sliding the plank closer toward her. There was a clear hesitation on her face as she leaned down, two of her hands reaching out to capture the plank before locking it into place. Melon pressed the flint against the wood for a moment, and a piece of the edge cracked, causing her to wince. The second attempt was better, and soon an odd shape sat directly next to the first of the empty spaces he’d made.

“I don’t know that one yet,” August admitted, studying it. “I can’t be sure, but I don’t remember seeing that rune on the core at all.”

“It won’t have been,” Melon said, pulling back for a moment. “This is the activation rune, which every system needs to begin functioning, but it doesn’t technically need to be part of the system itself; it just needs to be present, or rather, in contact with the system for long enough to trigger it.”

“That sounds—useful?” August said, “I can’t analyse broken or damage runes; do you think that one counts as a working one?”

“I have no real idea how your—thing—works; you should probably engrave it first,” Melon tried. “You asked for an outline, and runes are traditionally the empty space within?”

“I’ll wait then,” August said. “You said I was missing another one; where does that go?”

“At the end, the break rune closes off a line of runes and is usually the final rune in a system—it also prevents interference from nearby systems,” Melon said, moving down to the last empty rectangle. “It looks like this—”

August watched as she left a lasting outline of the symbol on the surface of the wood—there had been so many runes on the [Efkini Core] that he couldn’t remember if it had even been present. Melon moved on, outlining each of the runes he was already familiar with. August brought a second piece of wood out to use as a rough draft and then placed his finger against it—[Etch]. With half an eye on her outlined activation rune, he ran his glowing finger across the wood.