Chapter 85: Today’s Lesson: Compound Runes
"Can’t you just ask for money like a normal person?" Yennefer asked, sounding thoroughly annoyed.
Then she let out a long sigh.
Compared to Zerena, this wasn’t nearly as troublesome for her. Years had quietly worn down most of her embarrassment about being seen naked. At this point, it ranked somewhere around farting in front of family.
You certainly didn’t do it out in public.
But inside your own home?
If it happened, it happened.
"I will," Max said, sounding faintly amused.
Before he could say anything else, Yennefer had already ended the call.
He stared at the phone for a brief moment before slipping it back into his pocket.
"...Tomorrow. Same time," he muttered with a small smile.
For the first time in his life...
He’d ended a phone call with a woman.
It wasn’t much.
Yet somehow, it still made his heart beat a little faster.
Then another worry suddenly struck him.
’...Did I come across as rude?’
The crippling social anxiety of a lifelong shut-in weeb immediately resurfaced, making his smile stiffen for a moment.
Max took a slow breath, forcing himself to calm down.
"She’s just an NPC..." he muttered under his breath. "You don’t have to worry about her feelings."
After successfully convincing himself with that extremely questionable logic, he looked back at the picture. Admiring her breasts, just a while longer.
As the call ended, Yennefer continued staring at the screen of her phone, still unable to believe what she was reading.
Max had only sent her a handful of pages.
Normally, explaining even a single rune thoroughly required thirty pages or more. Yet somehow, he’d condensed explanations for ten different runes into roughly the same amount of space without sacrificing her understanding in the slightest.
If anything...
She understood them better than ever before.
Her eyes settled on one particular rune.
It was a smaller variation of a "Heat Absorption Rune", commonly used during potion brewing to draw away excess heat produced by unstable reactions.
But Max’s notes explained something she’d never considered.
The rune wasn’t limited to absorbing heat.
It could also release the heat it had already stored. More importantly, by adjusting the mana flowing through it, the brewer could precisely control how much heat the rune absorbed—or returned—depending on the stage of the potion. Some ingredients demanded additional heat to react properly, while others would be ruined if the temperature climbed even slightly too high.
The explanation was so simple...
Yet it made the entire rune feel as though she’d only truly understood it for the first time.
It wasn’t even a single rune.
It was a compound formation created by weaving several runes together, the overlapping strokes making it far more difficult to understand than an ordinary rune array.
Normally, deciphering something like that required pages upon pages of explanation.
Yet after reading Max’s notes only once, Yennefer already understood most of it.
Not because he’d simplified the rune itself.
But because he’d explained the purpose behind every individual stroke, what each one was meant to accomplish, how they interacted with one another, and, more importantly, what the engraver needed to keep in mind while drawing them.
Suddenly, what had once looked like an impossibly complicated collection of lines no longer felt confusing.
It simply... made sense.
She continued reading for several more minutes.
Only after reaching the final page did she finally lower her phone.
A broad, excited smile had already spread across her face.
She couldn’t wait to try engraving the runes herself.
Yennefer was only a Second Ring Mage, but she’d already learned most of the common foundational runes over the years. On the surface, the ones Max had sent didn’t seem particularly advanced either.
Yet...
She’d never seen them explained like this.
Some of the compound formations were entirely unfamiliar, while others used basic runes in combinations she’d never even considered possible. It felt less like learning new runes and more like someone had quietly opened a door she’d never realized existed.
Just reading the notes had given her several new ideas she wanted to test immediately.
By the time she finished, she’d become so absorbed in the possibilities that she’d completely forgotten why she’d asked for the notes in the first place.
Her grandson had somehow been pushed entirely out of her mind.
Now only one question remained in Yennefer’s mind.
’Where did Zerena find someone like this?’
She simply couldn’t understand it.
These notes reflected the understanding of someone who had gone far beyond ordinary magic. This wasn’t merely the work of a talented potion brewer. Whoever had written them possessed an insight into runes that most mages spent their entire lives chasing.
If she had to guess...
The person had to be at least an Eighth Ring Mage.
Perhaps even closer to the peak than that.
’Then... what are they doing here?’ she wondered.
This wasn’t exactly a forgotten backwater. The military presence alone attracted a fair number of capable warrior mages, and the city itself housed craftsmen, scholars, and potion masters. There were even a handful of Fifth Ring Mages living here permanently.
But someone of this caliber?
That was a completely different matter.
People like that belonged in the royal capital, great academies, or the headquarters of the continent’s strongest factions.
Not quietly hiding in a military town, writing rune notes for someone like Zerena.
Then Yennefer slowly shook her head.
Whatever the reason was...
It clearly wasn’t something she should pry into.
From the way Max had insisted she tell absolutely no one—and had even gone so far as making her send him nude pictures as leverage to guarantee her silence—it was obvious this wasn’t some harmless secret.
There had to be trouble lurking somewhere behind it.
Enough trouble that he didn’t even want Zerena finding out he’d shared those notes with her.
Yennefer let out a quiet sigh.
’Whatever they’re involved in... it’s probably better if I don’t know.’
The thought of blackmailing him back briefly crossed Yennefer’s mind.
After all...
She wasn’t completely without leverage anymore.
But after thinking it through for a few moments, she quietly dismissed the idea.
The disadvantages outweighed the advantages by far.
Max was currently the only connection she had to whoever had written those rune notes. Antagonizing him over something so trivial would be unbelievably shortsighted.
No...
If she ever used that card, it would have to be during a negotiation where Max demanded something she simply couldn’t accept.
Until then...
It was far more valuable left in her hand than played on the table.
As for the nude pictures Max had asked for...
Yennefer couldn’t deny that sending them had been embarrassing.
She hadn’t argued much before doing it, but that didn’t mean it had been easy.
Like many women her age, she’d long since lost most of her interest in sex. It had been years since she’d willingly exposed her body to anyone, so suddenly taking nude pictures of herself and sending them to someone else felt undeniably awkward.
She’d only done it for one reason.
Her grandson.
If it meant giving him a chance to learn potion making, swallowing a little embarrassment was a price she could accept.
Besides...
She doubted those pictures were worth very much in the first place.
Who would be interested in the nude body of an old woman?
That thought eased her mind considerably.
If Max asked for a few more pictures in the future, she could probably manage it.
After all, nude pictures only really had value if someone intended to use them for something perverted.
And judging by how openly he’d mocked her breasts and acted almost disgusted by the idea of them...
That clearly wasn’t what Max had in mind.
Well...
Technically, Max had only said that once.
And even then, he hadn’t exactly been telling the whole truth.
He hadn’t just been trying to convince Yennefer.
He’d been trying to convince himself.
Calling her breasts "loose flaps of skin" had been a remarkably creative way of lying while his body was busy reaching the exact opposite conclusion. They’d looked plenty erotic to him.
The problem wasn’t the breasts.
It was that his standards had been thoroughly ruined over the past day.
At that very moment, Max was sitting with his penis in one hand while staring at the pictures Yennefer had sent him.
Unfortunately...
After spending the previous day being helped by an actual woman—one as beautiful as Zerena, no less—while holding her breasts in his hands, a few photos on a phone screen simply weren’t having much of an effect anymore.
Max let out a disappointed sigh.
"...My standards climbed way too fast."
With nothing particularly exciting happening below the waist, he gave up on the pictures altogether and turned his attention toward the system notifications instead.
[Registration Complete.]
[The candidate has been successfully registered as an official System Target.]
[The target has been added to the Target List.]
[The remaining duration of the Registration Act has been converted into a Bonus Period.
During the remaining time, the Host may complete the Registration Act’s objective with already registered System Targets to earn additional Forbidden Points.]