B2 | Chapter 35 - What is that?

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B2 | Chapter 35 - What is that?

Theodore had expected Jack to be impressed by the rune inscription revelation, but what he witnessed wasn't just impressed—it was the complete mental breakdown of a man who'd just discovered that everything he thought he knew about magic was fundamentally wrong.

Well, mental breakdown was a strong word.

But Jack was definitely shook.

Jack's mouth had literally fallen open, which Theodore found both amusing and slightly concerning since the man was usually composed enough to maintain basic facial control even when discussing revolutionary magical concepts. Though he did get excited usually.

Jack's face had gone through what Theodore could only describe as the five stages of grief, but condensed into about thirty seconds and with significantly more staring involved. First came denial, which manifested as Jack blinking rapidly and asking Theodore to repeat himself three times. Then anger, though that was more of a quiet fury directed at the universe rather than at Theodore specifically. Bargaining followed quickly—Jack had actually tried to negotiate with reality by suggesting that maybe Theodore was mistaken about what his skill actually did.

Depression had been brief but intense, with Jack sitting down heavily and staring at his hands like they'd personally betrayed him. And finally, resignation. The man had simply accepted that Theodore could do something that made every enchanter in the kingdom look like a child playing with toys.

Theodore understood the reaction, honestly.

The fact that enchantment existed at all in this world was honestly impressive, Theodore had to admit, even if it was a pale shadow of what real runic inscription could accomplish. Humans had essentially reverse-engineered fragments of runic language through trial and error.

Enchantment was humanity's attempt at understanding runic language, and while enchanters had made remarkable progress over the centuries, they were still working with maybe one percent of the actual knowledge. That was with him being generous. And it wasn't like Theodore knew all the knowledge, but he certainly was better than them, he probably needed some training with this stuff though.

In any case, enchanting was like trying to build a cathedral with nothing but a hammer and good intentions—impressive that they'd gotten as far as they had, but ultimately limited by their fundamental misunderstanding of what they were working with.

Direct runic inscription was the real thing. No wonder Jack looked like someone had just told him that his entire profession was based on a misunderstanding.

Theodore watched Jack silently.

Then came the waving. Wild, flailing hand gestures that made Jack look like he was trying to chase off invisible bees, or maybe summon a demon with interpretive dance. It appeared as though Jack wanted to say something but lacked the words to do so, so he settled on something simple:

"Don't tell anyone. Not until you have sufficient power and backing to survive the consequences. But god fucking damnit, Theodore! You—you can… inscribe runes! You can ACTUALLY inscribe them! Not enchant. Not simulate. Not mimic with ink and chalk. But real. Actual. Fucking. Runes!"

Yes. That was what he'd said. And now it was becoming a whole ordeal.

Theodore folded his arms and leaned against the table, because there was no way Jack was going to calm down on his own. The man looked like someone had just handed him the bones of a dead god and told him, good luck, now build a church.

Jack paced. Back and forth. Then paused. Then paced again. Then clutched his head with both hands like it would keep his brain from leaking out his ears.

"Do you understand what this MEANS?"

Of course he did. Theodore had been dealing with the consequences of it since the very moment the skill clicked into place.

"Enchantment," Jack said, almost spitting the word out like it offended him now, "is PRETEND. It's a child's drawing of a language. It's like trying to write poetry with kitchen utensils. We always knew it was derivative. And now—now there's PROOF of how inferior it is. Because you can WRITE them. Have you tried it on stone? What about living tissue? Do they stick to magical constructs or is it only physical mediums? What if you tried combinations? What if—"

Jack just dropped into the nearest chair like he'd aged twenty years in ten seconds, eyes blank, staring into the middle distance.

Theodore waited.

Jack sighed. "Okay. Okay. Right. Don't tell anyone. Not yet. Not until you have some real power. People will kill for this."

Yes. Obviously.

Theodore gave him a slow nod.

Jack took another breath and instantly lit back up, as if the warning had only been a speed bump on the road to ecstatic theorizing. And now, here came the deluge.

"Do you have any idea what we can DO with this? Agriculture! Infrastructure! We could create heating systems for the entire town that would eliminate fuel costs, develop water purification methods that would prevent disease, establish communication networks that could connect us to other cities instantaneously, design transportation systems that would make travel faster and safer than anyone has ever imagined!

"Storage systems that could preserve food indefinitely, construction materials that would make buildings stronger and more durable than anything currently available, security measures that could detect threats from miles away, manufacturing processes that could produce goods with precision and speed that would revolutionize every industry!

"God, can you imagine teleportation? That's possible now! And what about heat transfer? You could inscribe containment fields into furnaces. Or—wait, no, better: forge heat retention directly into brickwork! You could transform building integrity! Sewage filtration! Waste-to-mana conversions! And the security applications—"

There it was. Jack, fully activated. The man was a theorist first, always had been, and now his brain had been set on fire with possibilities.

There was no stopping him now.

Theodore could only watch him rattle off idea after idea, the speed of his thoughts almost manic. That manic edge of genius that was honestly kind of terrifying when you really thought about what someone like Jack might cook up if you just left him alone in a room with materials and no supervision.

After the initial shock had worn off, Jack had done exactly what Theodore had expected him to do. The man was a mage at heart, and his love for understanding and exploration had quickly overwhelmed his sense of caution.

The ramble was impressive, even by Jack's standards. Theodore had let him continue, partly because it was useful to hear someone else's perspective on the potential applications, but mostly because he'd rarely seen Jack so excited about anything. The man had been practically glowing with enthusiasm, his earlier distress completely forgotten in the face of pure intellectual curiosity.

Jack ended his rant with a weirdly sincere, breathless, "I have much to think about, Lord Theodore," like he was already halfway through planning a thesis and hadn't yet written the title.

Theodore gave him a lazy little wave toward the door. "Then go think."

Jack took that invitation and Theodore stood alone for a moment, breathing into the sudden silence.

And then he turned back to his desk and the nightmare that was the paperwork pile. Gods, it had multiplied like bacteria in his absence. He sorted through the missives, marking new plans onto existing blueprints, trying not to think about how badly everything always fell apart the moment he left for more than three days.

Theodore spent the rest of the day catching up on the work that had accumulated during his absence. The kiln operations needed updating, the bathhouse plans required revision, and there were several new projects that had moved up in priority. All on track. Good. That gave him room to draft the next wave of improvements. New sewage was overdue—if he had to hear one more complaint about the smell near the west quarter he was going to set something on fire. New housing? A necessity now with the influx of workers. But more than anything, it was the land that needed attention.

The land was still sick.

Half a year since the incursion, and there were still patches that wouldn't grow. The incursion had left lasting damage to significant portions of the surrounding farmland. Parts of it were still affected by whatever magical contamination had occurred during that event, and Theodore was becoming increasingly concerned about the long-term agricultural implications. He'd been hoping to optimize farming operations anyway, but the contamination issue made it a more pressing concern.

His new [Rune Inscription] skill opened up possibilities he hadn't considered before. If he could understand the nature of the contamination, maybe he could create runes specifically designed to counteract it. It was worth investigating, at least.

The next morning, Theodore was in the middle of reviewing housing plans when Roland appeared at his door with the kind of expression that suggested something interesting was happening.

"Lord Theodore, there's a commotion in the town square. People are discussing something that appeared overnight in Farmer Jed's field. Thought you might want to investigate."

Theodore set down his papers immediately. Things didn't just appear overnight in people's field.

The walk to the town square confirmed Roland's assessment. There were more people gathered than Theodore had seen in months, all talking excitedly and pointing toward the outskirts of town. The buzz of conversation was the kind that came from people who'd witnessed something genuinely unprecedented.

They had been told to remain in the town, it seemed, because it didn't matter what world world it was, didn't matter the era. People were always stupid about danger. Back on Earth they'd whip out their phones and sprint toward disasters just to catch it on camera, and here? They want to see it to understand it, ward it off, or gossip about it properly later.

Once near Farmer Jed's field, Theodore could see the object of everyone's attention long before they reached it. There was a structure where no structure had been the day before.

It was a dome-shaped thing that seemed to shimmer in the morning light.

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