I was three years old when I, for the very first time, made a dead chicken explode in a burst of flesh and blood. It was a gory sight of me trying to wipe my face off while choking on my own puke, mother freezing desperately in the middle of the living room, not quite sure whether she should help me or clean the whole mess.
I said first time, as the same thing happened later in the month on nearly all the animals mother brought home for my practice. I was making them explode by the dozens, and there was no stopping it.
What was annoying was that I couldn't find anything about it in the book, though I was pretty sure I shouldn't be able to make them pop like this. Hell, I shouldn't even be able to make them wiggle since it took way too much soul energy to work on a dead animal.
That was a problem.
Budding Runemasters started their training around the age of ten. Reaching the third step, aka training on the dead animals part, would take them two to three years on average. By that logic, I was well beyond average except for the fact that I couldn't complete the third step.
Either Master Gerard had written this step to use me as a proxy to get to my mother, or there was something seriously wrong with me.
The first one didn't make much sense. I didn't know how strong my mother exactly was, but it was enough to make the man's hands tremble when he wrote that little note on the first page.
Which meant that there was a good chance Master Gerard wouldn't dare to mess with the Butcher of the Dawn's only child. No. I didn't know what the problem was, but I suspected it had something to do with me.
After a month of making constant messes around the living room, I decided to take a breath and stop the practice. I began thinking thoroughly about my situation, to find the problem and solve the issue.
The first thing that stuck out to me was that I never ran out of soul energy anymore. I'd noticed that when I was working on ants. I could animate a dozen of them at the same time before I decided to work on bigger things. Trouble was, I'd never made them explode.
Then again, it would take me just a slight touch on their disgustingly crunchy shells to make them move. There was hardly a need to keep the skin touch longer than a second. With these chickens, though, I was taking a more direct approach. I was keeping one hand pressed upon them all the time.
Was that the reason? Was I pouring too much soul energy into their bodies?
But that shouldn't be possible. The book made it explicit that worrying about the amount of soul energy should be the last thing a budding Runemaster had to consider, especially ones as young as ten years old.
To see if that was the case, I asked for another chicken from my mother.
"Are you sure?" she asked me right away, probably remembering all the chaos I'd caused in a single month. "You don't have to rush—"
"Please, mom. I know I can do this." I was resolute in my answer, trying to make myself look as sure as possible.
Not that I needed to do that. My mother had an endless belief in me. The fact that I took the effort to ask her for something was enough for her to get it done.
…..
So there I was, standing before a wooden table, staring at the corpse of a chicken sitting on it. Since mom gently reminded me of our past experiences, she and I decided I'd do this in the backyard for safety reasons.
I took three deep breaths to establish my Central Balance, after which I felt the soul energy within my stomach stir into action. Stretching a hand out, I released the floodgates through the same exact pipe I imagined countless times.
This time, however, I didn't place my hand on the chicken. Instead, much like how I did with the ants, I gave it a little pat on the back the moment my soul energy reached the tip of the pipe.
The chicken shivered once, not quite back to life.
Okay. It didn't explode. That was good news.
I gave it another pat, thinking this time I would keep my hand a second longer on it when the poor creature jerked upward, trembling furiously as though it was about to pop. Sucking a desperate breath, I immediately pulled my hand back.
The chicken plopped back onto the table, motionless.
Whew.
So it was me. I was the problem!
It seemed somewhere along the way my soul energy had culminated through the roof. It was way stronger than it had any right to be, which, while looking like a blessing, gave me a month of bloody showers and the following effort of cleaning flesh parts out of my blond hair.
Was it because I started my training when I was literally a baby, and it somehow allowed me to progress like a true genius?
I couldn't think of any other possibilities, but before that, I had to learn how to manage my overly grown reserves.
A pat made the chicken jerk away. Two pats made it nearly explode. That meant I needed to find my way around the middle, a pat and a half or something like that.
But then, how could you half-pat something? Did you just brush a couple of fingers across the back? Or just two fingers? One?
"Mom!" I called out to my generously optimistic mom who was busy biting her nails beyond the kitchen windows. She flinched at my call, then blinked down at me. "We need more meat—I mean chicken!"
"More?" she mumbled, looking greatly disturbed but still trying to manage a smile.
I nodded my little head heavily, then turned my back to her and stared down at my hands. I clenched them hard as a storm of thoughts raged inside my brain.
Mom, I'm sorry, but please know that your son doesn't have a thing for making chickens explode! He's just trying to be better!
...
Okay. I figured out how to half-pat a chicken. I just let my hand scruff gently across its feathers, not quite pressing into the flesh, never actually feeling anything all the while.
Damn it. When did I become desensitized about playing with dead chickens? How sick was this practice? Who in their right mind would force a child of ten years to do such a thing?
Thankfully, I was a grown man, which made it somewhat palatable. On the other hand, I was sure this world was full of little psychos going about and killing things, so I couldn't fall back. I had to push on.
What was I saying?
Right. I figured out how to half-pat a chicken. One and a half pats, to be precise, which made the poor thing jerk back alive.
I watched as one of them opened its eyes in full panic. It wobbled a step back and plopped down, looking greatly confused as our eyes met. Then, after a second, it was dead again.
Yes!
I made the chicken come back to life!
Looking down at my balled-up fists, I slumped back into the ground, all hunched up and one hand rubbing furiously under my chin as I considered what it really meant for me to get pumped up by this. Mother surely looked proud, which helped, but still, I couldn't quite pull myself out of the absurdity of this situation.
Was my future going to look like this? Would I become a worse freak than I already was?
I guessed there was nothing I could do.
Yeah, I was never normal, anyway.
...
After the whole chicken thing, I was to get back to the real business of becoming a Runemaster, aka the inscription part. For that monumental step, I picked the easiest rune in the book.
A Grade 1 Strengthening Rune.
Supposedly, this rune boosted one's bodily strength by a whopping 20%. It was also quite tame on one's soul energy, meaning that it could go on for years without a recharge from a Runemaster.
Odd, that. To think there were Knights in this world—or worlds?—that fell in a line and waited to be recharged by some maniac like they were half-used, half-broken batteries. I was glad that I'd be the one who'd do the charging, though.
That was a big thing.
So I picked up one of the empty pages my mother gave me and dipped my pen into the ink. It was different this time since I would be using my soul energy through the runic alphabet. I had to make each letter purposeful and rich with my energy, and trap that energy into the page like a magical painting.
Normally, you would use quality monster hide for these sorts of inscriptions, as Master Gerard wrote that Runemasters couldn't be bothered to draw runes on dozens and hundreds of people. They rather used hides with magical properties for the job. Then, these hides would be heated and plastered across a Knight or Mage's skin like a fake tattoo.
This process, as expected, depleted the amount of soul energy trapped in that particular rune. So the number of uses depended on two things: the quality of material used in inscription, and the amount of energy a Runemaster supplied to that rune.
For me, it was too early to consider that part of the equation. I would be more than happy if I could paint a tiny little rune as a start.
The image for a Grade 1 Strengthening Rune consisted of a total of twenty-one characters. I didn't know what these letters meant, so I just copied Master Gerard's design and inscribed the lines with dutiful discipline.
I paused each time I had to pull the pen back from the paper, as that would cut the connection between my soul energy and the rune. During this time, I made sure my Central Balance was on point and my breaths were steady.
It was when I wrote the twentieth letter that I felt a pang of pain in my chest, the tell-tale sign of my depleting soul energy reserves. That was a little shock that brought a wave of nostalgia. I hadn't felt this pain for the longest time, and yet now it was here again, my old friend.
I pushed on and inscribed the last letter of the rune, feeling that searing pain across my arm. It was as though my blood was being pumped into the paper via the pen I was holding, except I couldn't see anything and could only feel the passing of that energy.
In the end, just before my reserves were gone, I managed to complete it. There it sat on the formerly blank page, a glistening rune. The lines were rather crooked and raw, but all in all it resembled Master Gerard's perfect rune almost in every way.
There was a certain strength to the page now, a feeling of weight. I could see the black outer membranes surrounding each letter, growing in and out of the paper like wisps of smoke. Since the material I used for the rune was simple paper, the soul energy had already begun leaking out.
At this rate, the letter would lose its soul properties in a few days.
My chest swelled with satisfaction. The Grade 1 Strengthening Rune was nothing much, but it represented my true potential as a Runemaster. I might be ignorant about the ways of the world, but I knew enough to suggest that not everyone could get a rune like this.
No. Only rich people or chosen Knights could get a rune, and they rarely got to pick.
This simple patch of strange letters, this magicless, formerly empty piece of paper, now held true value. At the rate of my soul energy's recovery, I could inscribe a single Grade 1 Rune every day if I wanted.
I could get rich as a three-year-old, just like that.
I had already achieved more than I had ever done in my old life.
Why did that make me sad and happy at the same time?
Shaking my head, I was about to take the paper into my hand when the whole living room suddenly went ablaze with streaks of light.
I was forced to blink my eyes. It was like the sun had decided to pay a visit to our little house. Everywhere I looked was a glimmer of pure lights so bright that I couldn't see a damn thing.
Then an outline broke through this show of colors. A figure's outline I knew so well. She walked with a spring in her step, and barely visible in her hands was a towel she used mostly in the kitchen.
I froze.
She was the source.
All the lights in this living room were coming from the visible parts of her skin. When I focused just enough I could see letters wavering on her arms. There were more on her neck, underneath her eyes, trailing across her cheeks and down to her feet. They were everywhere.
My mother had runes on nearly all parts of her body.
She crossed the living room and kneeled beside me. I felt her strong hand on my back as a sudden wave of vigor poured into me. Her mouth was barely visible through the lights, but there was no doubt about it. She was smiling.
Her hand reached down and took the page. Her other hand tapped gently on the side of her face where runes glowed underneath the lights. With a single sweep she cleaned them off, the soul energy powering the letters wafting off like smoke from a dying fire.
Then she pressed my paper into her cheek and waited. I watched as my little, crooked runes found their places on her now empty cheek.
I couldn't say anything. I couldn't even protest and say that my runes looked like a child's toy in comparison to those celestial, rigorous letters formerly drawn across her cheek. Mother didn't let me.
"Mm," I heard her mutter after a second. "This is your first rune. I will carry this until the day I die."