Renard was the first to break the silence in the command hall. His grin returned, ever the joker, as he leaned back with a crooked smile. "Well, with this ink trick of yours, boy, maybe half of us will live long enough to drink after the next wave."
Scarlett shot him a withering glare, her ice-blue eyes flashing with irritation. "This isn't the ti for your shitty jokes, Renard."
"The A-rank beast will reach the shore in a few hours," she continued, "When it does, the next wave will co with it. We don't have the luxury to waste ti."
Her gaze fixed on Adrian. "If you insist on staying, Adrian, then use that ink. Start doing inscriptions."
"We need advanced runes, ones even the weakest Defender can use." The weight of command pressed into every word.
Adrian and Dorian exchanged a glance, understanding passing between them without speech. They hurried back to the Rune Division's head hall.
The old man wasted no ti, dragging a heavy chest onto the central desk. tal scraped against stone as he hauled it into position.
When the lock snapped open with a sharp click, a massive ink container was revealed. Dark fluid rippled within.
"This," Dorian rasped, gesturing at the container, "will anchor thousands of inscriptions." His weathered hands traced the container's edge with reverence.
"But the inscribers we have are exhausted, and most can only etch the basics." His sharp eyes cut toward Adrian. "For advanced runes that can turn the tide? It's just us."
Adrian pressed his hand over the container's cold tal lid. The white-grey mist of his pseudo-manifestation seeped through the gaps, coiling into the dark fluid below.
The ink stirred, responding to his touch like a living thing. Its color shifted to luminous white-grey, the surface shimring faintly with inner light.
The drain on his mana was sharp, heavier than before. But compared to his vast reserves, it was nothing more than a sting.
Dorian's instructions followed fast, his voice urgent with battlefield necessity. "No offense, boy, but forget attack runes. We don't need more fireballs or thunder."
"We need runes that keep people alive." His gnarled finger tapped the desk emphatically. "Survival first."
He sat down at his station, already scrawling the first sequences of a healing rune. His quill moved with practiced precision across the parchnt.
Adrian took a nearby desk, staring at the blank parchnt before him. The weight of responsibility settled on his shoulders like a mantle.
What could he inscribe that would guarantee life? Healing runes could nd wounds, but only when defenders escaped actual danger.
Firepower wouldn't matter if soldiers were already bleeding out on the ground. His mind raced through possibilities, each more complex than the last.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Spatial blink! That was sothing he used himself to save others. If the defenders had it, they could escape lethal dangers at critical monts.
But space-based runes were legendary ones, requiring extensive ti to inscribe. Even Dorian was simply creating healing runes, knowing legendary inscriptions would take too long.
They were limited by ti here, with death approaching on every wave. He need sothing that he could do faster.
"No, rather, what could increase my speed of inscribing?"
He had studied two volus of the Language of Mana, devoured knowledge from battlefields, and even from A-rank themselves. Each ti his understanding grew, his inscription speed increased alongside his power.
"Master Dorian," Adrian said abruptly, "Do you have access to the third volu?"
The Rune Master's quill halted mid-stroke. His eyes narrowed, weighing the boy in loaded silence.
Normally, even the whisper of such a request would be denied outright. But after what Adrian had already accomplished, what point was there in refusing?
Dorian flicked his smart device, sending the file. "Don't make
regret this, boy."
Adrian didn't answer. He opened the text imdiately, the holographic script rising across his device.
The Source stirred the mont he saw it. Symbols, once cryptic, unfolded like familiar words. His mind devoured them whole.
Unlike the first two volus, this one was different. It didn't speak of fundantals or simple elents. It was filled with secrets. Concepts that touched the edges of myth, space, gravity, death, life… even ti.
Adrian read. His Source translated, illuminated, consud. In thirty minutes, he had absorbed what would take a lifeti for others.
To Dorian, who occasionally glanced over, the boy looked like a fool squandering precious ti. But Adrian's world had already changed.
"Boy, we don't have all day," Dorian muttered without looking up. "That Leviathan won't wait for your reading session."
The concepts of gravity deepened, space sharpened, life and death whispered truths into his bones. And ti…
He no longer saw runes as tools. He saw the architecture of reality. Compared to the boy who sat down half an hour ago, he felt like a god gazing upon a child's scribbles.
He didn't understand everything, the volu and language of mana itself was incomplete, but fragnts were enough. Enough to reshape him.
The power surged through him, an understanding not just of glyphs but of what they represented. He reached instinctively for ti itself, which he needed the most now.
If others studied it, they might soday carve a rune to mimic the concept, if they had the affinity. But Adrian's Source broke that wall. And with it, he started to shape a spell, not just a rune.
He began with the impossible, reversing ti. His reserves scread in protest, the spell collapsing before it ford. He scaled down, adjusting, molding.
Slowing ti? No, too wasteful. He flipped the perspective. He wouldn't slow the world. Rather, he would accelerate himself.
Tests followed, each burning mana faster than a battlefield siege. Tenfold acceleration shattered even his reserves in seconds.
Fourfold bled him dry. But threefold… threefold was perfect. The balance struck, the flow sustained.
His mana drained but replenished in equal asure, a perfect cycle. He could hold it indefinitely.
Adrian whispered the spell na as he created it, sealing the spell into existence.
[Temporal Veil].
Golden threads shimred across his skin, weaving into an aura that pulsed like a heartbeat. Then, with a surge, the world slowed around him.
No, he beca faster.
Dorian's movents beca sluggish, his every gesture dragged by invisible resistance. The distant flicker of torches bent into long ribbons.
Even the drip of ink from a scribe's pen seed to freeze in midair.
Only Adrian remained untouched. No, not untouched. Exalted. The world had slowed threefold, but for him, life rushed forward.
Adrian moved freely within it, each motion smooth, thought sharp, body light.
His breath hitched. This wasn't illusion. This was ti itself, bent and twisted to his pace.
He clenched his fist, the golden aura flaring. For the first ti, he felt it, ti not as an enemy, but as a tool.
He had stepped beyond runes, beyond scrolls, beyond the limits of human affinity. He had carved a path into the forbidden domain of ti.
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