Noah woke the following morning to Moxie lying on top of him, her face on his chest. And, stacked on top of her like the head of a snowman, was Mascot. He yawned, trying not to move too much and wake one of the two up on accident.

That didn’t stop him from sending a glare up at Mascot, though.

Little shit. I still can’t tell if you’re actually on my side or if you just enjoy causing trouble in my general vicinity.

Moxie shifted and blinked, her eyes fluttering open. She started to move, but Noah caught her before she could.

“You’ve got a cat on top of you,” Noah said in a low whisper. “No moving allowed.”

Blinking as her consciousness streamed back, Moxie tried to twist to get a better look at Mascot without waking him up. She gave up on the idea and just laid her head back down with a huff. “Why’d he decide to stack on us?”

“Why does Mascot do literally anything?” Noah countered.

“Fair point,” Moxie said. “What time is it?”

Noah glanced out the window. “Somewhere around the morning. Maybe an hour or two past sunrise?”

“We need to get ready for class soon.”

“Probably,” Noah agreed. They were both silent for a few seconds. “So… are you going to move?”

“No. There’s a cat on me. Are you going to teach about Formations today?”

They laid there for another ten minutes. Noah was far from bothered by that development, but Mascot was showing absolutely no signs of planning to wake up in the near future. And, as tempting as it was to keep lying right where they were, Noah and Moxie did have responsibilities to get to.

Fortunately for them – and unfortunately for Mascot – they weren’t alone in the room. Out of the corner of his eye, Noah just barely saw a flash of Lee as she stood up, reaching for Mascot.

She plucked the cat from Moxie’s back, eliciting a surprised yowl as she clutched it to her chest. Mascot hissed and batted at her nose before vanishing in a puff of smoke. Lee stared at her hands in shock.

“I thought that was the plushie.”

Moxie pushed herself up and sat back on Noah’s legs, brushing the hair out of her face. “That was either very lucky or very unlucky. It depends how much Mascot takes offense to it.”

I’m still not sure if there’s anything that should be done about Mascot. Actually, I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done about that cat. It basically just does whatever it wants. It’s the oddest passive for a Rune I’ve ever heard of.

“I’ll have some snacks for him,” Lee said sheepishly. “I wanted to check if you were still busy. We have to go to class soon.”

“So we were just thinking.” Moxie slipped out of bed and changed into a new set of clothes. “We aren’t late, are we?”

“Not yet.”

Noah got up at well, joining Moxie in readying for the day. He brushed his hair back as best as he could, but quickly gave up on taming it. Vermil’s hair had always been fairly long, and despite what he’d told Father during their first ever meeting, he hadn’t exactly had a haircut since arriving at Arbitage.

After the hasty preparations were done, the three of them set off for the transport cannon. They arrived a short while later to find that the students had all arrived well before they had.

All five of them sat in a small circle at the base of the transport cannon, eating breakfast. It looked like they’d been walking around for at least a little while since none of them had the telltale signs of a recent awakening.

“You’re cutting it close today,” Todd said through a mouthful of biscuit as the professors approached.

“There was a cat on me,” Moxie said. “A particularly irate one.”

“What will we be training today?” Alexandra asked. “Another hunt trying to catch Lee?”

“Possibly. We’ll be opening with something a little different,” Noah said. The students all stood up, finishing off the last bits of their breakfast. He couldn’t quite tell if they’d all become friends overnight, but a lot of the awkward air from their previous class had evaporated.

“Different? The last time we had a different class you baited a monster to chase after us,” Todd said with a suspicious glare.

“That sounds like something Revin would do.” James grimaced. “The trick is to run the monster back toward him so he has to kill it.”

“He and Moxie hid,” Isabel said. “We couldn’t.”

“Ah. Smarter than Revin, then.”

“I don’t think that’s a very high bar,” Emily said with a snort. “Is the thing we’re going to be doing secret or something?”

“No. It’ll just be a lecture,” Noah replied, starting toward the stairs at the base of the transport cannon. “I doubt it’ll get to anything practical today. We’ll just see how it goes and if there’s interest in continuing it. I imagine we’ll have quite a bit of time to do more physical training in the coming days. I want to test something different out.”

Everyone followed him up to the top of the tower, where Tim wasted no time in bidding them good luck and sending them off to the Windcorned Plateau. After confirming that there weren’t any monsters in the area around them, everyone sat down in front of Noah.

“Is there a reason we aren’t just doing this in a classroom?” Emily asked.

“There’s nothing wrong with a little sunlight,” Noah said with a shrug. “Also, I hate the classroom they gave me. The thing is completely run down. I’d use it if I needed a chalkboard, but I doubt I will today.”

“You could have used Moxie’s,” Emily pointed out.

Noah opened his mouth, then closed it again. He probably could have used Moxie’s. Somehow, the thought of teaching in her room instead of his own hadn’t struck him. He cleared his throat.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“You’ll live. Besides, this’ll let us transition to the second half of our lessons easier. But, today, we’re having a normal lecture to start with.”

“About what?” Todd asked.

“I’m getting there!” Noah exclaimed, giving them a mock glare. “Good god. When did you all become so impatient? We’ll be talking about Formations and the basics of what goes into them.”

That caught Todd’s attention instantly, while simultaneously losing the interest of just about every other student.

“Formations aren’t really something we can use, though,” Isabel said. “It would take so long to get good at using them that by the time we could actually use a Formation we’ll have outgrown the Runes we learned the formation for.”

“That’s because you’re looking at them wrong. There are several reasons to learn about Formations. To be frank, I think they’re being completely misused. Formations are, at their core, a way to give your Runes more guidance and power to achieve something you can’t normally get.”

“You need to be an Imbuement master to use Formations, though,” Todd said. “Are you saying you can do that? You barely knew how to do Body Imbuements a month ago, much less the more difficult ones.”

“You definitely don’t need to master Imbuements to use Formations,” Noah said with a shake of his head. “But we’ll start from the beginning. Does everyone know what a Formation actually is?”

He waited for a few moments, watching his students’ expressions. Isabel and Todd both exchanged a knowing look the moment he finished speaking. They clearly remembered the first class he’d taught them, which filled Noah with pride. Evidently, some lessons had stuck.

Unfortunately for the other three students, they hadn’t been subjected to Noah’s unique method of learning about Runes.

“They’re just really complicated Imbuements that are optimized for a set of Runes to make them way stronger,” Alexandra said, her brow furrowed. “Everyone knows what Formations are. The problem is actually using them.”

“That’s all?” Noah asked, arching an eyebrow. “They’re just Rune circles?”

Alexandra paused for a moment, digging through her memory to see if she’d missed something, then nodded. “Yeah. As far as I’m aware, it is.”

“What about you, Emily?” Noah asked. “What do you think?”

“Pretty much what Alexandra said.”

“Isabel? Todd?”

“Pass,” Todd said.

“Same here,” Isabel said.

Noah chuckled. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to an answer a question. Being wrong is fine, so long as you’re willing to accept it and continue to learn.”

“You’re saying Formations aren’t Rune circles?” Emily asked.

“Do the people that use Formations through music work with Rune circles?”

“I mean, I don’t know. I guess not? But music is just a way to show off how good you are at Formations. It’s basically a gimmick.” Emily’s brow furrowed. “It’s just a different way to do a Formation.”

“One you didn’t consider, which means your understanding of Formations is flawed. If there’s one thing you don’t know about them, don’t you think there’s more?”

“I don’t know a lot of things about Formations, but I still know they’re practically impossible to learn,” Alexandra said. “Especially for me.”

“Perhaps. That’ll be up to you to decide. Here’s the thing. I think Formations are much more than what they seem to be. I’ve been working on them for quite some time now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that not only are Formations actually considerably easier than we’ve been lead to believe, they’re also deeply tied to Runes themselves.”

“You? You’re a Formation master?” Alexandra asked, blinking in surprise. “Aren’t you a Rank 3?”

Rank 4, actually.

“And there’s the problem. That’s the big fallacy that everyone has arrived at,” Noah said, thrusting a finger at Alexandra. “Everyone says that Formations only work for one set of Runes, but that’s wrong.”

He held his hands out and his violin materialized in them. Isabel and Todd’s eyes widened in shock, and Emily’s mouth dropped open. Alexandra just watched him, a mixture of confusion and doubt on her features.

“No damn way,” Todd said. “You use music?”

“Music isn’t a trick to using Formations. I’m convinced it’s actually the best way to do it, and this whole Rune circle bit is bullshit.” Noah paused for a moment, then corrected himself. “Well, maybe I should correct that. It’s not just music. It’s pattern.”

“Explain.” Todd leaned forward, his features unreadable. It did make a degree of sense – his father had been an Imbuer and Todd had held the man in very high regard. There was a good chance that Noah was insulting practices that Todd’s dad had done.

“I want you to think about your Runes,” Noah said. “And I mean really think. This is something that I ruminated over for a long time, but why is it that Runes hold power at all? What makes them special? I mean, seriously. Why doesn’t a random circle I draw on the ground turn into a Rune?”

Nobody responded to that. It was a pretty ludicrous question, of course. Noah could practically read their thoughts.

They’re just Runes. That’s how they work. Who cares?

“Well?” Noah asked. “That wasn’t rhetorical. Give it a shot.”

“Because you need energy in the first place?” Emily tried, starting to get a little more interested in the lesson. “You can’t just take it from nothing.”

“Okay. Let’s say I’ve got a filled Rune. Why can’t I just stuff all that power into a circle I draw? Why do I need to draw the same Rune?”

“The Rune is a representation of the energy it holds,” Alexandra said. “And energy can’t change.”

“I like the first part of what you said.” Noah gave Alexandra an approving nod. “A Rune is a representation. Let’s hold onto that and touch the second half of your claim before wrapping back.”

Noah pressed his hand to the ground and called on Natural Disaster. He’d yet to use the Rune, but he was delighted to find that the energy flowed exactly how he wanted it to. A mound of dirt rose up beneath his palm, trembling as it was pressed in on itself by a miniature earthquake.

He then took a small pebble and set it at the top of the mound. “What would this be?”

“A rock,” James said.

“Thank you, James. I’m going to call it something else. This is potential,” Noah said. He flicked the rock with his finger and it rolled down the hill, coming to a stop at the bottom. “And I just used that potential.”

“What does this have to do with energy changing?” Alexandra asked, her brow furrowed. The question wasn’t meant to be inflammatory – she was definitely trying to figure out what he was saying, but it hadn’t quite clicked yet.

“I’ll admit I’m not an expert on this particular part, but there are basically two kinds of energy in this case,” Noah said, picking the rock back up and returning it to the top of his hill. “The first part is the potential. While the rock is at the top of the hill, it has the potential to roll down. That’s the energy in your Runes before you use it.”

“Okay,” Alexandra said with a small nod. “That makes sense.”

“But what about when the rock is halfway down the hill?” Noah moved the rock, holding it in place on the side of the mound. “Half of that potential energy is gone, right? Did it just vanish?”

Alexandra nodded. Noah could see the gears turning in her head as her brow furrowed. “It’s moving now.”

“Exactly. The energy changed. Instead of potential, what we now have is kinetic energy,” Noah explained. “The potential energy is turning to motion. Thus, energy changes.”

Alexandra rocked back and nodded her understanding. “Okay. I’m with you. In that case, what does it have to do with the patterns Runes have? Are you saying that they’re potential energy before you use them, then kinetic energy while you use them?”

“I don’t know if using Runes would be kinetic energy, but the analogy is there, yes. Let’s pull in the other thing you said. The shape of a Rune is a representation of what it is, right?”

Nobody said anything. They all watched him with either curiosity, confusion, or a combination of the two.

“Well, my claim is that a Rune’s physical form is more than just a representation. It’s a pattern that holds the energy. Or, in other words, I think the natural state of Runic energy is kinetic energy – the rock in freefall. By drawing a Rune out, we’re holding the rock at the top of the hill.”

He paused for a moment to let his thoughts sink in – not just to the kids, but for himself as well. The more Noah had practiced with Formations, the more he’d come to the conclusion he was saying now, but this was still the first time he’d put it to actual words.

“That means that Runes are basically just patterns,” Todd muttered. The blood drained out of his face and his eyes went wide. “Gods. Are you claiming that Formations can use musical patterns to basically make a new Rune?”

“It’s a new way to control the magic,” Noah said with a smile. “And that’s what I want to try to take advantage of. Understanding Formations means understanding your Runes better, and the same goes in the other direction. So, shall we get started?”