The trainer points at the figure on the 3d screen whose heart is still glowing from when she commented on Jason’s heart core. “Everyone, well, almost everyone has a core rune. Various shenanigans involving cloning magic and various methods of reincarnation will mess with that plus magic in general but for you it is true enough. Also of course you need to form your core before you can learn the skill. A core is actually a hidden requirement to learn my true skill.”
“Oh yeah, in case you didn’t realize this yet, I am actually teaching you right now. While this is a projection I am personally forming it instead of you just being provided a System created teacher. If you hadn’t formed a core, you would have gotten the skill everyone else has access to.”
“Now where was I? Right, the core rune. It is a personal identifier. You don’t need to be cautious about others learning the rune. This isn’t some devils truename. At most what others can do with one if they learn it is send messages through magic. They can’t even point out where you are. In fact, most beings at my level of power tend to use our core runes like a business card.”
“You can find it, guess where, your core! Woo!” and she does jazz hands. “Though for some that find is a big stumbling block. The rune is in there somewhere but will move around and change size. Once you do find yours, you can never lose it again. I can’t say much more than that without the System breathing down my neck so yeah. With your perception it shouldn’t be a problem to find.”
“While they are one of the most complex runes you can experience in this realm it is also easy for you to use. Others might have trouble with your rune but it is a natural part of you. Literally the core representation of who you are. Just tack it on at the end of the spiral so the arrow points towards the center and your good. You form the runes with whatever your powering the skill with and the power source changes as it passes through them. First rune to draw upon the power and regulate it into a stream. Second to get the power moving correctly and lastl your core rune to personalize it so the power forms into the attack rune.”
“These three are the minimum number of runes to cause the greatest effect. Over the years of study I have had anywhere from hundreds of runes down to trying it without runes at all. You get to benefit from my studies, though I will caution you. Just because this is perfect for me does not mean you can’t improve it for yourself. However this is a stable foundation to build on.”
“Now I want you to use your main power source which you formed your core with to draw the second rune in the air. I know I just went on about how you should do it inside of yourself. Problem is I can’t see inside of you to enough detail that I would be much help. You can come up here and trace it with your finger first to get a feel for the shape.”
She steps to the side as Jason approaches the display. Compared to the first rune the spiral is easy enough to understand and with his control skill the first trace comes out nearly perfect. Just to be sure he traces it a couple more times and tries it without the display. Drawing a perfect circle, or as in this case a spiral, isn’t easy but Jason has great control of his body. The free drawn attempts tend to be a bit lopsided but not to far off.
He turns to the trainer, “You specified that the spiral had to be three deep but said nothing about size. Obviously it can be made smaller as this spiral would barely fit in my chest by itself. Is there anything that I have to look out for?”
She waves his worries off, “The spirals depth and there being an arrow at the end is all that matters. Smaller or bigger does not change the power though technically if you made it big enough the activation would be slower. Most mages aim for the extremes because of practical reasons. Smaller runes let you fit more of them and bigger runes let you put more mana into them. With my skill and the self organizing nature of the final rune if you use to little power it doesn’t work. Too much and it will let the rest escape and fade away.”
“Anyway, now that you have the spiral down, work on the first rune for the rest of the night. I can’t help you with the core rune so you will need to find that on your own. In fact, until you do find your rune there will be no more lessons. Even the System agrees with me on this. Though I suspect the System just doesn’t want me to tell you anymore stuff you shouldn’t know. With your perception this shouldn’t take more than a week. Though my money is on it being closer to three days.”
With that she disappears from the room, leaving Jason with his thoughts and the rune diagrams. He stands still for a moment grumbling, “Of course it had to be runes. I wasn’t bad at them but I wasn’t good either. Plus what is up with her actually being here? That isn’t how I understood this as working. You only get someone like this if you find an inheritance site or some such. Even then it tends to be soul shard with barely enough to teach the inheritance.” Not much else he can do though, so he settles down to work on drawing the first symbol. He was tempted to take a snapshot of it but being 3d, pictures wouldn’t do much good. It was almost enough to have him spend some gold on the 3d snapshot feature.
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