Chapter 22
Two weeks went by fast for Zale. His physical training had been doubled. His sparring sessions with Devon were held every other day. He had yet to win once, however he was lasting progressively longer in each fight. What had him truly worried was the next training planned for Impulse Control. The eels were bad enough, now that they were sold Malchi just grinned mischievously whenever Zale asked about what was to come. With his physical training smoothly progressing, and his sparring matches with Devon his time was mostly filled. The only piece of his day that was his was evenings which he spent trying to comprehend glyphs.
He had been studying the apprentice level runes for close to three weeks now and had little progress. He laid out the book to the first glyph which produced light. The shape was a hexagon with lines coming out of three of the corners and lines going inward on the other three. It was very easy to remember and draw. He began by taking out a small piece of leather and etching it in with a knife. He had acquired a large amount of these small leather pieces for practicing through Malchi, apparently, they were very cheap.
The last step was powering the glyph. This step had two stages. The first was assigning the power. The second was adjusting the output. This was where Zale failed every time. This only applied to glyphs that were constantly powered like the light producing one he was working on. Others were powered by in one lump and were triggered. Most of the trap style glyphs worked this way. He would work on those when he reached them. For now, he needed to focus on the basic consistent output.
He pricked his finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the glyph. The symbol absorbed the drop greedily and Zale instantly felt a connection to it. He began feeding energy to the glyph. This was the easy part, as long as he wasn’t completely drained beforehand, powering a low tier glyph like this wouldn’t even be noticed by him. After he banked enough energy inside the glyph to last a couple hours he needed to control the output of the energy he stored. This was the difficult part. Imagine a faucet filling a cup. He needed to correctly adjust the flow of water so that it depleted the water source at the same exact time that the cup was filled. This degree of control was very difficult.
Bang.
The glyph flashed and sparked. Zale jerked his hand away. The symbol on the leather was burned out. The flow of energy was much too high. He was used to this. He took out another piece of leather and methodically carved the same exact glyph into it and repeated the process. This time the glyph just remained dull and ordinary, a simple etching in leather. He had made the flow of energy to small so the glyph wasn’t getting enough power to activate.
This trial and error process was incredibly monotonous but Zale had stuck to this every night for the past three weeks. He knew that failure a part of the trade. Only with failure can one transcend their limits. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy. He had learned this lesson very early in life. He never gave up. There would be very little time for him to practice glyphs once he went away to school. He would be engrossed in learning different abilities. That was of course as long as he excelled in the tournament. Also, he would need money if he wanted to train his abilities to the highest level. The Spirit Hall’s sponsorship only lasted until the school tournament. After that his costs were on him.
Ten failures. Twenty failures. It didn’t matter how many. Some nights he would go through over a hundred small pieces of leather. He had long ago lost count on how many attempts he had made over the past three weeks. He did however think he was getting closer to success. Each time he failed he was acutely aware of exactly how much energy overflowing or lacking. It was because of this feeling that he stayed up extremely late repeatedly attempting to create the light glyph.
He poured his energy into the glyph. He could feel that it needed to be just a trickle. He let his instincts guide him as he opened the glyph to his energy. He was slow but exact. He could feel the lines of glyph become filled and calculated how much energy was need to sustain it. He waited for the flash and burning but it didn’t come. He opened his eyes and saw a soft glow of light about as bright as a candle. He picked it up and jumped up and down. He had finally succeeded.
He quickly got another piece of leather out to make sure it wasn’t just a fluke. He remembered exactly what he had just done. The feeling of control he had over the energy. The way he could sense the lines of the glyph become filled. He had never focused on the lines that way before. He had always had his attention on the “faucet” he was trying to create. He had to take a minute to control his breathing because he was too excited. When he was composed, he drew the lines of the glyph onto the leather and proceeded to drip the tiniest drops of blood onto the symbol. The process proceeded smoothly. Two pieces of leather glowed brilliantly next to each other. He had succeeded!
Not wanting to forget the feeling of how he had succeeded Zale stayed up the entire night creating light glyphs to engrain the processes into his mind. When his room became too bright and cluttered with the glowing pieces of leather he moved them out into the hallway. Throughout the night, he became more accustomed to the process his turnout increased and soon he had to move up the stairs out of the underground and into main compound with his creations. He did this until dawn. The only reason he stopped was because he suddenly felt lightheaded and passed out due to fatigue. Personally powering over one thousand lights in a single night can do that to a person.