Odin's Authority over Runes was exactly what I needed.
Even without activating it, the passive knowledge it gave me pushed my studies to new heights, and the biggest improvement was my wanded magic.
The basis for wand movements was a mix of Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, I didn't really understand how or why it worked the way it did until I looked at it with my new Authority.
It was fascinating. It looked like they took what were completely mortal and non-magical runic alphabets and applied some weird wizard math to them to try to approach the Divine Runic Alphabet Odin used.
It didn't even come close to it, of course, several orders of magnitude from it. But they did get something, and from my memories of the World Cup and the spells I learned there, while the runic base may differ, the wand movements all seem to move towards the same destination.
Which made sense considering what I learned from studying the Eddas. Odin didn't create nor was he taught the runes, he took them, not from another divinity but by a sacrifice, "himself to himself" his incantation said. The Runes needed the willing sacrifice of a God King, a pantheon leader, to present themselves, and even then they didn't just gift themselves to him.
The dread that knowledge gave me was beyond anything I had ever felt before. I knew there were things above the Gods, Campione existed after all, but to think that some things were so far above them that even the sacrifice of one of their most powerful didn't guarantee a reward gave me the frightening perspective of where I really stood in the cosmic hierarchy.
The fight with Odin was already a wake-up call for how weak I was, this just hammered it home.
But the Runes also presented an opportunity.
While I had the Runic Alphabet, I didn't get Odin's spells with it. That meant the Authority itself is just the knowledge of the Runes, and what one does with it is for them to decide.
A quick search in the Order's library got me some primers on runes to go with the textbooks I already had, and while most of the information didn't really align with my Authority, the concept of bind runes did.
Of course, the danger of messing with it without deep analysis was very much real, even normal mages avoided it thanks to the unpredictability of what they'd get by either stacking runes on top of each other or just making a stave out of them, although radial staves, runes written in a circle with a common start point, were nominally safer due to the lesser interaction between runes.
Wand movements were focused on stacked runes, which explained the danger of spell creation, especially considering how flawed their alphabet was. A researcher couldn't even realize that the bind rune created by stacking two or more runes together approached a Divine Rune they didn't intend to until it blew up in their faces, and even then their lack of knowledge of Divine Runes meant they couldn't figure out why it failed.
Unfortunately, knowing the Divine Runic Alphabet didn't grant me mastery of it, so I'd work my way up to stacked runes. In the meantime, the base Runes of the Alphabet could still be used without much trouble, so simple spells such as the Severing charm could probably be updated without much trouble.
I tried to come up with where to test it safely and ended up with the center of Australia, it not only was essentially deserted, but it was far away from any other Campione that could take offense at me playing in their 'backyard'.
With that thought in mind, I focused on my left eye to see if it would react in any way. And let out a heavy sigh when it didn't.
The second Authority I got from Odin sounded very interesting in the beginning, with a name like the Eye of Wisdom I had a lot of thoughts on what it could do, from just giving me knowledge directly to helping me reverse engineer Odin's runic spells. But no, even when activated the Authority did nothing that I could notice.
I relegated myself to focusing on it whenever. Sometimes activating it to see if what I was focusing on at the moment mattered. I still had no response, but the feeling that I was missing something about it only grew, especially when it was my only Authority with a visible passive effect.
With a shake of my head, I pulled away from the table I was working on, stopping a little to look at my stick that I got back from Carlos a while ago. I was still debating between just giving it to Ollivader so he could make my wand with it or trying to add runes to it so I could turn it into my official God Slaying Stick.
It had been a hard decision to make, as while I really wanted to have it as a weapon in case my magic couldn't win a battle, I also wanted it as my wand base thanks to my unique connection to it.
In the end, I could always go back to Yggdrasil to get another stick to use it was a weapon, but my connection to this one would hopefully net me a perfect match to a wand made with it.
With another shake of my head, I pulled Carlos' door and stepped away to see if I could try out my new spells in center Australia.
It didn't take long for me to be on an empty patch of desert in the middle of Australia.
According to Carlos, the Mage's Association of the country was so desperate for acknowledgment from anyone important that the moment they heard the request was from a Campione their members started fighting to see who would accompany me during my visit. Thankfully they stopped that once Carlos told them what I'd be doing there.
The Association made sure to get me a place as far away from any kind of civilization as possible, so I could cut loose without any worries.
The first spell I decided to try was the Windy spell, and after a few false starts trying to get the wand movements perfect, I finally got it.
I didn't know what I expected, but a massive torrent of air coming out of my wand with enough force to launch me away wasn't it.
Stopping the spell and seeing what looked like a sand/dirt storm moving away from me was slightly concerning, but I was sure it would dissipate before hitting anyone.
Casting the new spell gave me a lot of insight into the practical differences between the Divine Runes and the regular wanded ones when it came to spell casting.
Where the regular Windy spell would cause a small tornado, this one just spewed forth air until I stopped it.
This made sense after I gave it some thought, even when the regular wanded spell is based on simple runes, it has a framework to follow that grants it similar and replicable results, not so much for spells based on the Divine Runes.
The Divine Rune for air is a representative of air as a concept. I already knew about that in theory, but in practice, it just means that it creates air. And without active input from me on what that air should do, it just did nothing, the force of the storm created being a result of too much wind being created at the same time in the same direction, simple physics.
With that newfound knowledge, I focused on the result I wanted while I cast it, finishing the wand movement with my wand pointed at the sky.
The sharp and sudden *BANG* of the breaking of the sound barrier startled me into stopping the spell, but it also indicated my success. By focusing the air created to a needlepoint I created an effective and simple attack spell that was easy to use, with a bit more fiddling I could have an entire new repertoire of spells with just the basic elements, nevermind the other base Runes I had access to.
With a smile on my face, I turned back to my new testing ground and got to work.
I returned home in high spirits, the basic elemental Divine Runes were relatively simple to get working, although a heavy dose of creativity was needed to shape the magic the way I wanted to, and anything too complicated was a failure.
I could also see why stacking runes was so widely used in wanded magic. I could almost feel the missing links when attempting the complicated spells. Like magic was telling me that an intrinsic part of what I was trying to accomplish wasn't present.
I left that line of thought for another day. After I was at least familiar enough with the base Runes to understand the hows and whats of that feeling.
In the meantime, I had a shower to take and a nice, relaxed evening ahead of me.
During the next few weeks, I divided my time between my normal studies, helping the researchers in adapting new spells, and exploring the Runes. I also hung out with my friends a little bit, but having to wait until they were properly read in the situation to talk magic with them was a pain.
It wouldn't take long for it to happen anyway, I'd already set up with Carlos so the Order could do that as my Christmas gift for them while I stayed in Luna's world.
But after all that hectic work, I wanted a break, so after a chat with Carlos he set up for me to stay at a nice beachfront hotel in the tropical paradise that is the coastal Brazilian Northeast.
The place was a one-road town close to Maceió, the capital of the state of Alagoas, and it was part of the municipality of Marechal Deodoro, which was the birthplace and named after the first Brazilian president.
The Praia do Frances was ridiculously beautiful. The right/south half of it was essentially deserted, with some small Native-run businesses here and there, but quickly overtaken by coconut trees lining the edge of the beach for a few kilometers before ending in a lighthouse in the distance.
The left/north half of it had more modern businesses dotted around, most of them owned and run by European immigrants, but what really made it stand out was the coral reef that went as far as I could see, creating large natural pools of crystalline water.
The town itself had plenty of charm, the people were friendly, the food was good, and the surprising amount of European tourists were nice distractions from my obligations, they even had a daily Counter-Strike LAN party at the local lanhouse!
So I spent the next few days relaxing, sometimes doing the tourist thing and seeing the sights, other times just relaxing at the beach drinking a pina colada.
It was on one of my beach days that he showed up, a blond guy with an open Hawaiian shirt and a pair of sunglasses atop his head.
He took a seat beside me under the parasol and turned his eyes on me.
"So, how's it going, little brother?" Salvatore Doni said with a smile.
A/N: A wild Moron appears!
Jokes aside, in this chapter we got Alex's first step into runes, a hint for the future of his eye Authority, a little bit of Brazilian lore, and the first step for the next arc of the story.
And when I say this was Alex's first step into runes I am not kidding, he has barely scratched the surface of it, but by the time he goes visit Luna he should have the most basic concepts covered.
As an aside, I lived in Praia do Frances around the time this story takes place, and I decided to add it to the story not only because it's an incredibly interesting place, but also because this year will be the 10-year mark since I've been there, and it's somewhere I strongly recommend anyone planning on visiting Brazil to go to. Because who doesn't like an affordable tropical paradise?
Like my writing? Want to be able to read a full two chapters ahead? Then check me out on P a treon . com (slash) NickKane.