Chapter 166: A Quiet Place
With a long and tired sigh, he stopped all these thoughts of his and entered the primary aspect chamber in his sanctum, he looked around all over, and there were pretty much countless number of swords lying around everywhere, one of these days he needed to tidy this damn place.
In a long table donned in various golden patterns and glyphs, there were exactly 23 swords lined up neatly, each with different pseudo runes coming from one of the 24 basic runes each.
Meaning each and every one of them had abilities of different physical elements of reality. He sighed and picked a sword engraved with the 24th pseudo rune, which was on another table, the remaining one; only this one pseudo rune was left to be optimized.
He sighed to himself as he thought back to the whole procedure in general. For every pseudo rune, one needed to engrave it non-stop until they could perfectly draw it from then forward; it was called ‘mastering’ the pseudo rune. For everyone else, just mastering the pseudo runes itself would be the roadblock placed upon them by the world’s Will. But for Axel, who had the runic eyes as well as the absolute runecaster title, it wasn’t worth being called a challenge. As such, the world Will threw in another roadblock for him.
Which is to fight a phantom reflection of his using every single pseudo rune engraved weapon of his one by one, the phantom would also hold that very weapon, but it would be engraved in a way that is close to perfection. As he fights the phantom figure, the more knowledge flows into him about that particular pseudo-runes engraving procedure, and once he defeats the phantom figure, he gains full knowledge about it.
Which lets him engrave it from the next time, with almost nigh perfect precision, in fact, it is this very knowledge that allowed Axel to have the idea about aligning his pseudo runes with one of the three absolute runes. Of course, the meditation technique of his grandfathers Will left in the trial world also helped on this topic. He was still researching how to actually apply the meditation technique of his grandfather, but from what he found through tests and research was that, he wouldn’t get a chance to in any way use it until he reached the 5th phase in power.
Now that was something which would take a pretty long time, assuming he would be able to survive the incoming harrowing dangers of this world. Picking up the last runic sword, he entered the arena through the small door at one corner of his primary aspect chamber.
The familiar magic arena of the runic tower in the trial world appeared right in front of him, a little bit far away was the phantom of him, completely identical. Axel couldn’t help but exclaim looking at himself, in his rune encrypted clothes of blue and white mixed with thin golden patterns on it, his blue hair waving in the wind and blue ocean like eyes and pale skin, ‘Goddamn, I’m as handsome as hell, man. No wonder all the chicks go crazy for me.’
‘I’m almost as handsome as the golden-haired bastard, almost 90% handsome as that guy, I would say. But my appearance is still more unique than his, though. Or maybe the chicks just like my blue color more,’ he surmised arrogantly to himself.
But Axel noticed that the most captivating thing in him was his runic eyes, those ethereal golden mystical pattern that forms a divine-like symbol are just too eye-catching. He couldn’t imagine how every single girl in the academy would lose their minds if he were to ever reveal those runic eyes of his.
Axel’s eyes moved towards the same pseudo runic sword the phantom was holding as him. But he could so easily spot the difference, but surprisingly, the difference between them wasn’t too big. After all, Axel had clashed with this last one the most number of times, out of all of his previous attempts, meaning he had failed the most times for this particular rune optimization. But he won’t be failing this time, he was sure. And how would he be sure of it? Nothing much, simply instinct, nothing more and nothing less.
Activating his runic eyes, magic circuit, and injecting mana into the sword, the air around him vibrated from the sheer force emanating from him, his hair violently waved from the disarray of the wind particles, generating a strong breeze, a smile plastered on his face.
His phantom opposite to him jumped towards him in inhumane grace with no change of expression, only ruthless efficiency etched into every fiber of its being. The difference between the two could not be more obvious. Axel initially, when fighting for his rune optimization, was imitating the phantoms, but that was the wrong approach. The easy way to understand this was, a robot could be more efficient than a human if it is programmed properly.
But does that mean that a human should imitate the movements of a robot, no, no no, a human needs to use his or her own unique advantage, a human needs to embrace their humanity, not adapt to the robotic movements of something else which is fundamentally different than your own. Well, both of the situations weren’t exactly the same, and Axel would indeed learn from his phantom, copy its certain movements and techniques since it was himself, a replica of his.
The lesson to be learned here is not to entirely copy it, but rather to learn all those, then adapt them into their own, understand the mechanics behind it, it was almost like martial arts to a certain extent, but for a runecaster, that is all.
Both of them swung their swords horizontally, and the moment both of their swords met…
A terrifying explosion spanning almost 50-70 meters of area was filled with the shockwave of pure devastation as the ground beneath their clash caved in, as it formed a crater. Dust flew everywhere, and the result of their clash remained simply unclear.
Meanwhile, back when Axel and Sophia had just finished their conversation in the rune engravement room. Axel stormed off, displeased by the outrageous claims of the Valkyrie. After he left, so did Sophia. Her face was as stoic as ever, but there was confusion and anger hidden deep in her eyes.
With a gentle step of her foot, her body pushed forward as it was breaking through air itself, even a normal late 1st phase seeker would only see a blur, if they tried to look at what that was moving at such a high speed. Only a mid-2nd phase seeker might be able to identify the Valkyrie who was moving at a monstrous speed using a movement technique.
She in just 5 minutes reached an isolated corner of the academy’s island area. It was an area near the sea, and it was a place that people rarely came to, considering how far away it is from the main campus or the dormitory areas. A perfect place for someone like her. She remained there, standing, it was nighttime, she gazed at the beautiful moons high above.
Thank you to all my readers for your benevolent support.