Return of the Runebound Professor

Chapter 87: Combo

“Vermil?” Lee asked, taking a cautious step back. “You look… red.”

Noah looked down at his hands. His entire body felt warm. In the back of his mind, he could feel a steady flow of energy traveling throughout his body and through his veins. It was most concentrated in his lungs, just like he’d been aiming for.

Less to his taste was the color of his skin, which had turned several shades pinker from the newfound heat running through him. He looked like a cooking shrimp.

Pressing his lips together, Noah pushed back on the power, trying to stem the flow a little more. It took conscious effort, but the stream stemmed and Noah felt himself cool. He let out a slow breath. It wasn’t quite as hot as the first one had been.

“It worked,” Noah said, a huge grin breaking out across his face. “I knew it. You can Imbue your soul.”

And, upon the occasion I ever really need the Rune gone, I can probably just cut it out of my soul with Sunder. It might not be fun, but I’ve recovered from soul damage before. I also don’t think the Body Imbuement is perfect. It feels a bit separate from my lungs, and even though I feel the Runic magic in them, they feel… not great, I guess. Probably because of how quickly I did the Imbuement. I’ll have to fix that soon.

“Not something anyone would do with a Rune that they can grow out of,” Lee mused. “But a Master Rune… well, there’s not much information on them. You might have stumbled onto something?”

“Might have?” Noah asked, gaping at Lee. “Look at this!”

He raised his fingers to his lips, pressing them together and resonating them. It didn’t take much to make them burn, forming a tiny wisp of smoke. Noah shook his hand off and inhaled quickly, swallowing the smoke. Then he allowed the flow of energy in his breath to increase and blew as hard as he could.

There was a woosh as the smoke ignited. A tongue of fire burst from his mouth, searing into the ground.

“So you can breathe fire now, but you have to set yourself on fire in the first place to do it,” Lee said. She didn’t sound too impressed.

“It’s not just that. I’ve got Combustion and Pyroclastic Resonance working perfectly together.”

Lee stared at him. Then she waggled a hand back and forth in the air, giving him another shrug.

“You don’t understand, but I’ll just show you,” Noah said, grinning. He opened his mouth, then paused. “Actually, I don’t know how loud this will be. Do you think you could get my flying sword?”

Lee grimaced. “I don’t want to wait that long, I’m impatient. Just hold on.”

“Hold on to wh–”

Lee grabbed Noah, slinging him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Then they were gone, the ground blurring beneath her feet. Noah clutched onto Lee’s back, desperate to keep from falling and turning into a skid mark on the ground.

And that’s only a slight exaggeration.

Lee didn’t seem to tire, running at the exact same speed for nearly ten minutes. By the time she finally slid to a stop, Noah’s stomach was in his throat. He flopped down to the grass and let out an explosive breath.

“You’re insane.”

“I’m impatient, and it’s getting worse by the second,” Lee said. She gestured impatiently. “Come on. We’re far from the camp. Show. I wanna see.”

Noah clambered back to his feet, shaking his head and getting his wits back about him. “Fine. Watch.”

He drew in a deep breath, and he felt the Combustion Rune shift in accordance to his will. Instead of igniting, the flow of the air around them froze. Lee’s eyes widened as she tried to breath in and found that the air no longer worked in her lungs.

Noah released his breath, letting the air back to normal.

“I figured out how the Hellreaver did everything,” Noah said. “The flow of its breath is what matters. That’s what made it able to control things so easily and without pause. I think it was using Fire runes in addition to Combustion, which is why it always had fire around. It must have been pulling in embers from the ring of fire it always had and using those as fuel to breath fire. But I don’t need a permanent flame ring. My Pyroclastic Resonance rune can vibrate things until they burn, and then I can combust that smoke.”

“Interesting,” Lee said slowly. “But… how do you avoid burning yourself? You aren’t fireproof. Even if you reinforced your lungs for the initial formation, what about everything else?”

Noah’s grin grew wider. “That’s the secret. The passive effect of the Combustion Rune is the most important part. I’m rendering the air next to my skin inert, so it can’t burn. It’s still hot, but by using Pyroclastic Resonance, I can condense the flame into a thin stream, keeping the heat trapped within it until it leaves my body. The Rune I Imbued in my lungs makes it so that I can use the vibration from my breath to control the ash when it’s in my lungs without having to focus specifically on it, and it also keep my lungs from getting toasted by the hot ash or fire.”

“Show me again,” Lee demanded.

“I’ll do you one better.”

A vibration tore through the grass at his feet, causing it to start smoking from the intensity of the tremors. Noah drew in a deep breath, sucking the streamers of smoke into his mouth, then exhaled.

A cloud of superheated ash ignited in his lungs, washing out from between his lips. It blanketed the air before him, swirling out into patterns before forming into the shape of a snake and swirling around Noah.

“It doesn’t just burn out, so I can keep it around,” Noah said. “And I can make so much more smoke and ash through this than having to rely on just my pipe.”

But, more importantly, I’ve got an emergency move. If I’m ever at risk of dying… well, my body burns just as well as grass does. I doubt anybody will expect that.

Noah was tempted to test just how effective that would be, but he crushed the urge. He had more than enough to try out now, and killing himself just to see how much damage it would do would mean his students would be at risk the next day when they trained.

I’ll get my chance, but it isn’t now. I’m not the only one I need to take care of.

“Okay. That’s pretty damn cool,” Lee admitted, staring at the cloud of smoldering smoke around Noah. “You’re like the Hellreaver, but slightly less fat.”

“Slightly?” Noah demanded.

Lee snickered. “You going to test it out more? I wouldn’t mind you cooking my meals for me.”

“Oh, absolutely. I’m just getting started at scratching the surface here. If I can condense this energy and use it inside my body rather than just in my breath, I might be about to get a whole lot stronger.”

“What are you waiting for, then?” Lee asked. “I wanna see.”

“Not yet,” Noah replied. “That’s going to need some fine testing, or I’ll end up blowing a limb off. I can’t afford to die right now, so it’ll have to wait until I’ve got a moment where the death won’t matter.”

Lee scrunched her nose in annoyance. “But why would dying matter?”

Shit. I never actually told Lee I can’t use magic for a while after I die.

“Recovering from dying isn’t that easy,” Noah finally said. “I need my full attention when I’m training Isabel and Todd. I don’t want to risk them getting hurt because I’m distracted.”

“Oh,” Lee said. “That’s a good point. Fine. Can we go cook some monsters, then?”

“Yeah,” Noah replied with a grin. “I hope you’re hungry.”

***

Noah stared the Snuffler down, not budging a limb as he inhaled, drawing the smoke rising up from the grass around him into his lungs. It had only been a few minutes since he’d bound the Combustion Rune to his soul, but he already had a new idea he wanted to test – one that would be even safer than what he was already doing.

He exhaled, blowing a thin stream of ash into the air toward the Snuffler. The amount of smoke he could gather with his new method was far more than what the pipe could produce in a short amount of time, and he planned to take advantage of it.

On top of that, his strategy against the Root Fiend had been devastatingly effective. There was no reason not to give it another shot.

The smoke pooled around the Snuffler, darting into its mouth. The monster choked and coughed in surprise, lashing out blindly as it tried to figure out where Noah was. Noah exhaled until his lungs were empty, then let Combustion free as the last wisp left his lips. He snapped his fingers, and all the smoke condensed into thin tendrils that struggled to break back apart.

A flash sparked, racing down the thin stream and up to the Snuffler. There was a flash, followed by a roar of flame as the monster exploded in hundreds of little detonations. Chunks of its furry flesh splattered across the ground, catching flame as the rune continued to drain power. Noah had to make a conscious effort to restrain it before the flame could spread any further. He could feel the energy in his Pyroclastic Resonance Rune drain at an alarming rate. Even though he’d only used on the Body Imbuement, it had taken nearly half the power in the entire Rune just to do that.

Lee and Noah stared at the smoldering corpse.

“I almost feel bad for it,” Lee said. “That was brutal. And cool. You gonna put that fire out so I can eat?”

Noah inhaled and the fire sputtered out, vanishing. Lee grinned and grabbed the monster, shoving it into her mouth with a slew of incredibly unsettling crunching sounds. Noah glanced away until she was finished.

“That’s pretty effective,” Lee said. “More like an explosion than just fire.”

“I condensed the smoke and shoved it into small spaces. I also tried using a lot more energy from Combustion than I normally do,” Noah said, swallowing heavily. “Apparently, it can do more than just ignite a fire. It can make the actual combustion a lot more aggressive.”

“That’s a lot of words for saying you’ve got an explosion rune.”

Noah couldn’t argue with that. Combustion was devastatingly effective, especially when combined with ash or, presumably, anything that could expand rapidly. The ability came at a hefty cost, as keeping it safely contained and making sure he didn’t blow himself up drew a huge amount of energy from his Runes, but it was clearly worth the effort.

“So… again?” Lee asked.

“Yeah,” Noah said, flexing his fingers. “Again. I’ve got a lot more to practice before the sun comes up. I just need to let the energy in my Runes recover first.”

That night was not a good one for the Snufflers. Noah’s new method of applying Combustion was far more effective than he’d dared to hope. He did genuinely start to feel pretty bad for the poor Snufflers, as few of them even realized what was happening before they were turned into meat fountains. Several of the dark-feathered bird monsters tried their luck as well, but Lee pointed them out far before they could strike and each one met a fiery, explosive end.

It was great practice, though. The energy from killing the monsters was steadily filling his Runes, and he presumed the local bushes likely appreciated his efforts in clearing out their predators.

At least, I think they’re feeding on the bushes. As long as they are, I can fancy myself a protecter of the bushes. If they’re not, I’m just committing genocide against a bunch of innocent furry monsters that are just trying to hang out underground and protect their favorite bushes.

When Noah voiced his thoughts to Lee, she stared at him in befuddlement.

“If they didn’t want to die, they should have been stronger,” Lee said with a shrug.

Not exactly the attitude I want to foster with my students there, Lee.

Noah decided to ask Brayden about the Snufflers the following day. Perhaps he’d know a little more about the monsters and if Noah was doing too much damage to the local environment during his practice.

He and Lee returned to the camp shortly afterward, and that involved another uncomfortable ride over Lee's shoulder. They slipped past Moxie’s watch with the power of Lee’s Runes when they got back. The rest of the night passed easily, and the following morning’s training went just as smoothly.

All the students continued to improve, wasting less energy with their movements and defeating the Snufflers in increasingly fast times. A competition had sparked between Isabel, Todd, and Emily, and Noah encouraged it.

But, between the three of them, Isabel had grabbed the lead by its reigns and held tightly onto it. No matter how hard Todd and Emily tried, it just felt like Isabel had fought a dozen times more enemies than they had.

That seemed to cause Emily no end of frustration while simultaneously filling Todd with smug pride. Even though he wasn’t the one winning, he took it as such. That sentiment was echoed in their Imbuement practice with Lee that morning, as he’d pulled so far ahead of both Isabel and Emily that he might as well have been teaching the class.

As they all returned to the camp to prepare to set off for the day, Todd drew up alongside Noah.

“You’re doing great.” Noah clapped Todd on the shoulder. “Keep it up, Todd. You’re blowing it out of the park with your work on Body Imbuements. I actually had a quick question about how you do your Body Imbuements.”

“That’s good timing,” Todd said. “I’ve got a question as well.”

“Ha. You can go first then,” Noah said, waving for Todd to continue. “I’ll go second.”

Todd glanced from side to side, then lowered his voice. “Okay. Why do you have so much heat coming off you? It feels like you should be on fire.”