B3 Chapter 330: Next Steps, pt. 4

Looking at his system guide’s guilty and sad smile twisted Kaius’s stomach in knots. It made the familiar office fade away, shelves of leatherbound volumes falling into the background as he gave his guide his full focus.

Having the knowledge of his previous glyphs shoved into his head hadn’t exactly been pleasant, but the guide had never once made a note of it, and definitely had never apologised. Could it really be so bad?

He knew little, far too little.

Kaius forcibly unclenched his hands — he had to steel himself. Regardless of what was coming, he had faith that the system had his best interest in mind. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d endured pain or discomfort for the sake of growth, and it wouldn’t be the last.

“What’s the issue? Any warning you can give me?”

He didn’t see the harm in asking. Afterall, it was his guide after all — it was there to inform him.

The system guide smiled, the scars on his face scrunching, “I always liked that about you, Kaius. Very solution oriented.”

Straightening from where he leaned on the wall, the guide walked over and sat on the edge of the desk. He drummed his fingers on its top in silence, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“The glyph and the spellhymn are no more problematic than the others you have learned here. However, VOS—”

The world quaked as the word slipped from the guide’s lips. Kaius’s heart raced, adrenaline surging through his veins as every sense he had tuned in, became more alive. VOS sunk its grip into his heart and mind, forcibly wrenching his focus towards it. Meaning flowed into his mind, an impression that he struggled to grasp and comprehend. Opening, awakening, growth, and power. Fragile, small words incapable of coming close to even brushing up on a small section of one corner of whatever power his guide had let slip.

It hurt. Like staring at the sun, but with every sense he had.

The system guide winced.

“Sorry about that. Vos —”

This time it was just a word. Kaius still jumped in his seat a little.

“— is another story. That…excitation you just experienced was a small taste. Strictly speaking, conceptual magic such as this should be well out of your reach for quite some time. For good reason — you’re not built for it. Not yet, at least — even taking into account the mild tempering the skill provides.”

Kaius frowned — it was something he was not supposed to have? He didn’t know that was even possible. The system was the ultimate arbitrator of all, how could something break the rules like that?

His guide grinned.

“It’s not quite like that. It’s not restricted, it’s just that if it were not for some very specific circumstances, it would be out of your reach. Vesryn, the man himself, was a genius — and the path he paved for others to follow was as demanding as it was potent. There’s a reason the Order’s standards are so strict, and that their classes are of the rarity they are. In his strength, he found something miraculous, and in his mercilessness, he found a way to gift it to those who were not ready.”

Oh, great — it wasn’t something banned, just something far enough beyond him that the very system itself pitied him for what was coming next. It seemed nothing good ever came easy. The skill better be damned worth it.

At the very least, whatever ‘conceptual magic’ was, it sounded powerful. It had to be powerful, if even an utterance had affected him so deeply. An intentional slip, he had no doubt. He was not so much of a fool as to believe that the system could do something so mundane as make a mistake. It was, he reasoned, likely an easy and direct way for him to grapple with the gravity of Vos.

His guide gave him a knowing smile. Kaius returned it with a nod — certain that it had also known he would catch on to the ploy. He didn’t bother to question its motive — it was his guide. Whatever it did was in his best interest.

Still, he did have questions. Many, many questions.

“Is it beneficial? You’ve been quite heavily focused on the negatives so far.”

The guide gave Kaius a nod, certainty plain on his face.

“It is. Receiving Vos—” This time the word did not painfully resonate. “—at this stage will be hard, demanding, even cruel — but it will mean you are learning a deeper power long, long before most ever do. You won’t be able to fully appreciate or utilise its complexity if and until you develop to a more appropriate point, but that experience will give you a rather notable advantage. Hells, the tempering you will receive from your glyph and hymn alone would be significant. That said, whether you have the ability or Will to reach that point will be up to you.”

Kaius gave his guide a resolute nod. He’d long set himself on a hard path — if Vos could help him climb further, then he would weather whatever he had to in order to master it.

He just wanted to know what it was though. His guide sat calmly, waiting through his silence as he tried to think of how to phrase his question.

“What even is it though? The skill made it sound like it might have been one of the runes that you use, but you called it conceptual magic? And if it is a system rune, how is it also a word?”

His guide laughed. “Ah, the young and curious, it is always a pleasure to see. At the highest levels, existence gets…wonky, in a way that would be impossible to explain. Vos is a word, a rune, a form, a meaning and a concept all at once. In its totality, it is a behemoth, and as a rule such…runecraft is usually only understood by those who can comfortably grasp such large things. If you were to see Vos in its totality, I would have to mop your brains off the floor — you will be brushing up against the barest edge of it. The parts where it is ‘empowerment’, ‘magnification’, ‘open’, ‘potential’ and many other things.”

Kaius grappled with his rising frustration, feeling like his shoulders were a bow drawn taut. What did the guide mean? Okay, it was a rune with some basic applications, likely insane complexity and power behind it, but how was he supposed to use it? Even for his glyphs, a single rune was not much help on its own. Nor could they be spoken out loud!

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The guide sighed, pushing a few loose strands of hair out of its face.

“This is what I meant when I said it’s not really meant for someone of your level of development. Kaius, I didn’t say it was like those things, or that it represented those things. It is those things — on a conceptual level. There’s no way you’re going to understand until you experience it for yourself, at least in a carefully limited sense — even then, it will only be in the broadest of senses.”

“But how will I use it? It sounds like I am getting an incomplete fraction of a single rune, with no direction on what to do with it!” Kaius replied, setting his elbows on the desk with a thud.

He wasn’t mad at his guide — not really — but it was still frustrating to feel in the dark. His guide hopped off the desk, rounding it to clap him on the shoulder.

“It’s a small consolation, but you will know more afterwards. To understand something, to truly know it, is to be able to wield and control it. While that is only slightly relevant now, where it will help you use one of your Skills, it will be very important later. Struggling through it this early really will give you an edge very few have.”