Chapter 79

Even though Keith knew runes formed an array, he was clueless on how to position them. Was it side-by-side? Top-down? Finding the answer would require weeks or even months of experimentation. Thankfully, he had Frisk to show the way.

“Centuries ago, there were several styles the tribes used,” Frisk explained as he sipped some coffee. Just when he was about to go into the details, he paused. “Ah, you can learn history somewhere else. Nowadays, we use the circular style. You start with a center and expand outward in a spiral shape.” Frisk handed Keith a thin piece of runic paper. “Try deducing what runes you’d use in a Water Gathering Array. The one farmers use to water their crops.”

Keith thought aloud. “Definitely ‘water’ and ‘gather.’ Um, ‘condense.’ ‘Liquid,’ too. Probably ‘spread’ and ‘area’?”

Frisk nodded with a smile. “Good. Try it out. Think about the order.”

Holding a hand over the runic paper, Keith used his divided mind to deduce the positioning. A problem instantly arose. The ‘water’ rune needed to connect to three other runes: ‘gather,’ ‘condense,’ and ‘liquid.’ However, following the circular style, a single rune could only connect to two other runes. Did he need to use the ‘water’ rune multiple times? No. That felt messy and didn’t fit with the conciseness Frisk spoke of.

Frisk provided an answer when he saw Keith’s troubled expression. “In this case, you need the ‘connect’ rune, one of the few special runes that can ignore positioning and even overlap other runes. It’s a straight line and can link to other ‘connect’ runes. To denote what it's connecting, use a standard double-sided notch on the runes you want to connect.”

Keith’s eyes lit up. “That makes it easy!”

In less than a minute, Keith successfully drew a Water Gathering Array, providing him with significantly more experience, a few skill levels, and a new title.

[Array Novice]

Description: Reduces the mental strain and mana cost of imprinting runes by 5%.

When water vapor began to condense over Keith’s desk, Frisk erased the recently drawn array with a wave of his hand. Keith exclaimed in realization, “Oh, it needs an on-and-off switch.”

“Or a timer following a schedule,” Frisk remarked.

Keith was stunned. Rubbing his forehead, he said, “Okay, I’m getting overwhelmed.”

Frisk shrugged. “You now have a basic understanding of arrays. From this point on, I will show you the runes you need to become familiar with. Eventually, it’ll be extremely complex arrays.”

“Wait,” Keith looked at Frisk in surprise, “you aren’t teaching me anymore?”

Frisk shook his head. “Sorry, grandson, I don’t have the time nor the desire to be a teacher. I’m busy enough as it is. If it weren’t because you needed some knowledge of arrays to form a Mana Body, I wouldn’t have taught you what I did.”

Keith’s shoulders dropped in disappointment. He had gotten so wrapped up in learning runes that he’d forgotten that was the plan at the beginning. However, he couldn’t give up now. Keith felt like he’d just gotten started.

“Hey,” Frisk patted Keith’s shoulder. “Why the sad face? It’s not like I’m the only one who knows arrays. Go to Adventurer Academy. They have an array department.”

Keith’s mood turned for the better.

After that, Frisk handed Keith a bundle of rune models. According to Frisk, Keith needed to learn over ten thousand runes for the Mana Body Frisk envisioned. Such a task could well take Keith over a year. Thankfully, Frisk allowed Keith to use the time-accelerated Pocket Dimension for his studies.

Although Adventurer Academy’s school year had already started, a word from Yara allowed Keith to transfer into the array department without hassle. Since then, Keith studied under several renowned array masters during the day. At night, he returned to the time-accelerated Pocket Dimension to learn the runes Frisk wanted to use.

During this period, Keith gained a newfound respect for alchemists, array masters, and other professions. He never knew how much time and effort went into learning a craft. As a layperson, he only ever saw the result – not the years it took to get there.

Perhaps because of this new understanding, Keith's motivation to learn arrays changed from one of curiosity to that of a sincere scholar wanting to master his craft.

Over the following months, Keith progressed rapidly, leaving his peers and teachers dumbfounded, thinking him a genius. They didn’t know that Keith had nearly ten times more time to study than they did.

The praise from Keith’s teachers embarrassed him, knowing that the true genius was one of his classmates, an elf named Frey. She progressed just as fast as Keith, even without the time-accelerated Pocket Dimension. On many occasions, Keith sought her out for guidance.

After a year in time-accelerated space, Frisk finally completed the framework of a theoretical Mana Body. Frisk called it MBv1. To see whether it was functional, he’d use his Innate Gift. Aptly named ‘Simulation,’ Frisk could input variables and test the result in an imaginary space at the cost of mana.

It was safe, efficient, and fast.

Thus, using his knowledge of biology, anatomy, physics, etc., Frisk made his Innate Gift simulate a human body, within which was MBv1. The core of MBv1 was the size of a large palm, yet it consisted of over 1,000 arrays of varying complexity, making it a monstrous engine that could erupt with unimaginable power. Frisk had pushed his knowledge of arrays to the limit to create this giga-array of epic proportions.

“Haha!” Rubbing his hands in sheer delight, Frisk cackled as his innate skill consumed most of his mana pool. “At last, my greatest creation. MBv1, show me your power!”

RUUUMMBBLLEEEE!

In the imaginary space, MBv1 thrummed to life as it sucked all the mana in the theoretical human’s body as if taking a deep breath.

CRUNCH!

Frisk’s laughter froze when the human warped into a ball of flesh.

“Huh, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Frisk muttered. Being the master of this theoretical space, he could rewind time, zoom in, or watch in slow motion, so he realized his mistake after repeated observations. Apparently, the runes responsible for sucking affected everything, not just mana. That oversight on Frisk’s part would’ve cost someone their life if they didn’t have his innate gift to experiment safely.

“Oh, well, that’s an easy fix,” Frisk shrugged and returned to work.

The next day, MBv2 came into being. This time, the theoretical human exploded due to the mana pathways rupturing. After that, MBv3 and MBv4 came and went. Both resulted in death.

Frisk endured failure after failure, never giving up. His focus was laser-sharp. With every test, he made revisions, and with every revision, he made progress. Day after day, week after week, Frisk poured his body and mind – his entire being – into this project.

One day, Frisk observed the simulation results of test MBv2348 and realized five years had passed. He sighed, “I’ve exhausted my means. I’ll stop here.”

In this period, Frisk had long since created a safe and stable Mana Body, even as early as three years ago. However, during his research, Frisk realized the terrifying potential of Mana Bodies and just how much freedom there was. It was a field with immeasurable depth, and even after exploring it for so long, he considered himself a dabbler at most.

But it was time to stop.

Over the past three years, Frisk focused on optimizing every aspect of his theoretical Mana Body, from compression and transmission to suction and ejection. The result was MBv2348, the best he could create, given his current skills. Frisk understood that, so he promptly chose to call it quits.

With a deep breath, Frisk collapsed onto a chair and fell silent.

At this moment, only he knew how powerful his creation was.

And he was terrified.