Noah regretted not stretching. Lee didn’t seem concerned with making sure that human bodies could actually move in the same way that hers could. By the time her class was finished, he could barely stand on his own two feet. Moxie and Emily did show up about halfway through it, but he was so caught up trying to keep with Lee’s every increasing demands for flexibility that he didn’t even have a chance to greet them.

Lee finally dismissed the class for Noah, leaving everyone lying on the ground in varying stages of pain. Noah shook his limbs off in a futile attempt to get some feeling back in them and caught Moxie’s attention as she stood.

“Say, have you heard any rumors?” Noah asked. “About the exam.”

“You mean your escapades with Magus Allen?” Moxie asked with a wry smile. “Yes. They’re quite amusing. People are saying you defeated him in a test of magic.”

“That’s… technically true. But that’s also definitely not giving anyone the right idea,” Noah said with a frown. “I don’t suppose you’ve met Magus Allen recently?”

“Why would I associate with him?” Moxie asked. “He hates my guts. Not nearly as much as he hates you, though. I’ve heard he’s got Edward locked in a room, forcing him to copy runes for hours on end. He’s pissed.”

“That’s not a very constructive way to get a student to improve.”

“Feel free to tell him that, but he might try to smash your face through a wall. If you do, please let me know. I’d pay good money to watch that.”

“How much?”

“What?”

“Never mind,” Noah said, clearing his throat. “I thought you didn’t hate me anymore.”

“You’ve still got an annoying face.” Moxie shrugged. “A girl’s got to have some hobbies.”

“Hobbies should not include watching your friends smash through walls.”

“Says the whackjob that fights monsters without a shield.” Moxie crossed her arms. “Which was the main reason I shadowed your class, by the way. I’m still waiting for that.”

Noah winced. “Yeah. I’m sorry. There has been so much happening as of late that I haven’t been able to properly teach the class. I owe an apology to my students as well. I’ve been… distracted. Badly. I’m hoping to have it dealt with very soon, and I’ll make it up to you once I have. I’m also working on getting those Greater Wind Runes – you didn’t tell me the monsters in the Windscorned Plateau were fluffy.”

Moxie stared at Noah. “Why would I need to tell you that? You could have found out yourself if you just went to the library and checked a dossier on the area.”

Noah gave Moxie a blank look. Her eyes narrowed.

“You just went to an area you don’t know without reading up about it at all?”

“I really hate waiting around,” Noah admitted. “It sounded a lot more interesting to just go and… do things. Reading is great, don’t get me wrong. But true learning is experienced by doing.”

And I really don’t want to sit around if I can avoid it. I can’t afford to sit around anyway. I need to kill the Hellreaver before it drives me to insanity or I trip up from the lack of sleep. I’ve done far too much of that. I’ll save the books for the really important things – like learning about the Linwick family.

Moxie read his face before he could even speak.

“I haven’t gotten the book yet.”

“How’d you know I was going to ask?”

“It wasn’t a very difficult guess. I’ll probably have it in a week. You could always try to ask Allen to get it from Edward for you.”

“That sounds like a roundabout way of getting him to drive my face through a wall.”

Moxie grinned. “Maybe he’ll be feeling charitable. Did you make any progress on getting a Greater Rune?”

“No more than you made on the book. Maybe we’re equally incompetent, eh?”

“I told you it would take time,” Moxie said with a frown. “It’s not easy getting something like this from an entire town over.”

I’m not controlling myself as well as I should be. This lack of sleep and constant stress is screwing with my head. Damn the Hellreaver.

“Sorry, that was uncalled for,” Noah said. “I haven’t been fully here recently. About the Greater Rune – I wasn’t prepared for how fluffy the monsters would be, but I’ll be more ready next time. I’m going back after this class.”

“It’s fine. And have fun with that,” Moxie said. “I’ve got even more meetings to go to. You’re lucky your family got you out of all of them. Granted, I’m pretty sure that was to make sure you couldn’t do anything to disappoint them even more.”

She chuckled at the glare Noah gave her, then picked Emily up by the back of her shirt from where she was lying on the ground and set her on her feet.

“Five more minutes?” Emily asked hopefully. “My legs feel like noodles that got soaked in boiling water.”

“You’ll live,” Moxie said with a heavy sigh. “Get going.”

Emily pouted. She nodded to the others and trudged off.

“She seems more like your little sister than a student,” Noah observed.

“That’s because she is. Basically, at least,” Moxie said with a shrug. “She’s a younger member of my family. She’s really my niece twice removed or something along those lines, but they sent her here so they could make sure she got a good teacher.”

“The best,” Emily said, sending Noah a challenging glare over her shoulder. Moxie scowled at Emily and the student jogged off before her teacher could say anything else.

“That’s cute,” Noah said. “And kind of you.”

“It’s just my job. Good luck with the Greater Wind Runes. For both of our sakes. I really want one of those.”

“What family are you from, anyway?” Noah asked as Moxie turned to leave. She paused for a moment.

“Torrin,” Moxie said and headed off after Emily, disappearing around the corner of the building.

“I’m off as well,” Lee said. “Don’t forget to stretch this time. It’ll be worse for you next time around.”

She hopped onto the side of the building, scaling it in seconds, and vanished onto the roof. Noah and his students stared at her retreating back, then silently glanced at each other.

“She’s… interesting,” Isabel hedged.

“Crazy,” Todd finished. “I think I’m more flexible, though. I can almost touch my shins now.”

“That’s pretty pathetic,” Isabel said with a laugh. “You really should practice more. Professor, are we going to be doing anything else today?”

“No. I’m going to be working on getting my hands on a new Greater Rune. The two of you should just work on sparring since you don’t have any other good ways to strengthen your Runes safely right now. No going into the forest without me.”

“That’s not true. We can still just strengthen them normally,” Todd said. “It’s not really fast, but it’s all we ever did before you decided to change things up. That’s what pretty much everyone our age does, you know.”

“It’s just slow because we don’t have access to any of the resources to speed it up that noble families do,” Isabel said, a bitter edge to her words. “It’s not easy to distill a bunch of monster parts down into some super soup that makes your Runes absorb energy faster.”

Runes absorb energy from the environment passively? Moxie did mention something about that, but I thought it was something you had to do on purpose. I suppose it doesn’t change anything about my strategy, but that’s interesting to know.

Maybe I could augment their training by trying to get some of these monster parts? I definitely kill enough of them. I’ll have to look into it without coming off as too clueless to Isabel and Todd. I’d also imagine you need stronger monsters for that to be effective.

“Hey, if it works and you think it’s worth your time, then do it.” Noah shrugged. He paused for a moment. “But, while you’re at it, could you keep your ears to the ground? Let me know if those rumors are getting too out of hand.”

Isabel gave Noah a grim nod. “I’ll pay attention. I don’t want to find Magus Allen waiting at my door one morning. That would probably go very poorly for me.”

“He’s a professor,” Noah said, sounding more confident than he felt. “I’m sure he wouldn’t resort to anything that vile. Maybe leave something on the handle when you sleep just in case, though. A little caution never hurt anyone.”

Isabel snorted. “I’m used to sleeping with one eye open. I’ll be fine. It’s Todd you should be worried about.”

“Hey, I’m not the one that crushed Edward in the exam. That was you.”

The two of them devolved into an argument with surprising speed. Noah watched them for a few moments, a small smile on his face, then headed off to find Tim. It was time to get back to hunting Fluffants – his Greater Wind Rune was waiting for him.

***

Just like that, two weeks passed. The rumors never did amount to anything more than just that, but Noah never saw Magus Allen or Edward again in that time. Amy also swung by to deliver his pay of ten gold for the month, which Noah stashed away. His time was all spent split between classes with Lee and hunting Fluffants in the Windscorned Plateau.

The pipe continued to give him trouble – though he continued to practice trying to light the strands of grass aflame every day. But, instead of wasting time until the pipe was working, Noah dropped by the Scorched Acres to collect a large bag of ash. He took to carrying it around while fighting the Fluffants, and put it to enormous use against the monsters, cutting them down with little difficulty.

He did avoid using Sunder again, as even though he could now handle it for a few moments, the damage it tended to do was usually just as much against him as it was against his opponent. For the time being, he was satisfied to know he was getting closer to being able to truly use it.

When he wasn’t fighting Fluffants or in class, Noah finally forced himself back to the library to both return the previous books he’d taken and check some new ones out. He finally confirmed that there were far more ways to grow the strength of his Runes than he’d initially thought, though killing monsters was still by far the most efficient way.

The method that Todd and Isabel had spoken of was barely even a method in the way that they used it. Runes, like muscles, grew stronger with usage by drawing energy from the body. It was at such a low rate that it was nearly unnoticeable for Greater Runes, but when augmented by parts from dead monsters, users could improve at significant rates without ever putting themselves at risk.

There were also a variety of other strengthening methods that involved intentionally drawing energy from the environment while meditating, copying down Runes, contemplating the benefits of one’s Runes – the list went on. Nobody seemed able to agree on how many variations of improvement there were, but none of them matched up to absorbing energy from other Runes directly.

Unfortunately, the only way to properly absorb the energy from another Rune was to take it from the owner. It wasn’t like the monsters could understand Noah even if he asked politely for their runes, though.

Noah also checked out the dossier on the Windscorched Plateau. It identified the Fluffants as Flower Sappers – information that he promptly wiped from his mind. His name was far superior.

He’d gotten fairly good at fighting the Fluffants in the past two weeks, but he couldn’t help but notice that they had far more variation in how they fought than the monkeys did. Some were aggressive, and others would try to rip clods of dirt up and throw them at him, to essentially zero effect beyond maybe the slight satisfaction of pelting someone in the face.

Almost no two of the monsters fought exactly the same, though. When Noah checked the dossier, one of his earlier theories was confirmed as well. There wasn’t any record of a Master Rune wielding monster in the area, which explained why the Fluffants seemed more unique. They weren’t part of a hivemind.

Noah filed the information away. His methods would be far less effective if he brought Isabel and Todd to the Windscorned Plateau. It was best to continue in the forest or find another location governed by a monster wielding a Master Rune when the time came.

To his delight, Noah managed to fill several of the papers during his hunts in the Windscorned Plateau. Three, to be precise. But, less fortunately, they were all Lesser Runes. But, as Noah stood back and watched the last of the group of Fluffants he’d just killed that day fall to the ground, the papers in his pocket trembled.

That felt like a lot of energy.

Noah pulled the papers out. Three Lesser Wind runes stared up at him, but he leafed past them. Swirling blue lines greeted him on the paper and a huge grin stretched across his lips.

“Greater Rune. About damn time!” Noah crowed, laughing in delight. “Your days are up, Hellreaver Ape. Once I learn this, I’m coming for you. My days of torture are about to end.”