Chapter 62: Power Of Runes
Something inside the bracelet was preserving his connection to the stored mana even after he stopped actively controlling it.
That made it much more valuable than simply carrying extra mana. Curious, Alex looked at the engravings again, this time paying closer attention.
Hidden among the decorative patterns were geometric circles and unfamiliar symbols that looked remarkably similar to the markings carved inside his wand.
They blended into the design so naturally that he had missed them at first glance. They had to be runes.
Seeing another practical application of runes only strengthened his earlier decision. Becoming a Runesmith had definitely been the right choice. Every new discovery convinced him there was far more to runes than he currently understood.
After filling the bracelet with as much compressed mana as it could hold, Alex slipped it onto his wrist.
He gave his backpack one final check to make sure he had everything he might need before looking over at Mia. The cat had already finished eating and was quietly watching him.
"Come here, Mia. I’ll keep you inside the backpack while we’re moving. You can keep your head out if you want, but it’ll be much safer than walking outside," Alex said as he crouched beside the backpack.
He reached out to pick her up, but Mia slipped neatly past his hands before he could touch her. She hissed once, ran straight to the apartment door, and sat down in front of it. Alex let out a quiet sigh.
"Come on, Mia. Don’t make this difficult. It’s dangerous out there, and I can’t keep watching you while I’m fighting. Just get into the backpack," he said.
Mia simply stared back at him without moving. He could have used Body Reinforcement Spell to catch her, but that wouldn’t solve the real problem. Even if he forced her into the bag now, she would probably jump back out the first chance she got.
The backpack certainly wasn’t too small. It was a large camping backpack that he had bought because his friends had insisted on dragging him along on a camping trip, even though he wasn’t particularly interested.
There was more than enough room for Mia to sit comfortably, so space clearly wasn’t the reason she was refusing.
She simply didn’t want to be inside.
Alex let out a tired sigh and gave up trying to convince her.
"Fine. You can walk next to me, but don’t stray too far. If a monster comes near, I’ll protect you," he said.
Mia answered with a soft meow before rubbing her head against his leg affectionately.
Alex rolled his eyes, though he couldn’t help smiling a little. It was good that the Collar let her understand him to some extent, but a cat was still a cat.
They were going to do whatever they wanted, just like how Mia refused to enter the backpack. Even so, he wasn’t overly worried because beneath her stubborn and daring attitude, she was secretly a scaredy-cat.
Once she ran into a monster, she would probably decide that hiding inside the backpack wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Until then, he would simply have to keep an eye on her. With that thought, Alex opened the apartment door and stepped into the corridor.
The elevator wasn’t working, though he wouldn’t have used it even if it had been. Being trapped inside a metal box while monsters roamed the place was not a smart decision.
The corridor was littered with broken concrete, shattered glass, and chunks of the ceiling, forcing him to watch every step as he headed for the staircase with Mia quietly following behind.
The stairs had suffered damage as well, but they were still usable. As Alex made his way down, he gradually lowered the intensity of Battle Instinct Spell.
Keeping it running at full power consumed too much mana while also making his brain work on overdrive, which translated directly into stamina consumption.
His maximum mana had increased, but his recovery speed hadn’t, so there was no reason to waste resources outside of combat.
As the spell’s intensity dropped, the worries he had been suppressing slowly returned. Thoughts of his parents and younger sister occupied his mind almost immediately, making him wonder whether they were safe.
He wanted to rush toward them, but he forced those thoughts aside before they distracted him completely.
This wasn’t the time to lose focus. Monsters could appear without warning, and getting lost in his own thoughts would only make him easier to ambush. Finding his family would be meaningless if he died before reaching them.
A few minutes later, Alex reached the ground floor, where the lobby had become almost unrecognizable.
The entrance doors had been smashed apart, leaving twisted metal and broken glass scattered everywhere. Bodies lay motionless across the floor, surrounded by dark pools of blood that had already begun to dry, and the sight made his stomach tighten.
For the third time in his life, he found himself slightly grateful for being antisocial. He didn’t personally know most of the apartment residents.
Even the security guards were only familiar faces he had passed by countless times. That made the scene a little easier to bear, but only a little.
Only a few hours ago, these people had been living ordinary lives. Now they were simply corpses lying where they had fallen. Alex almost raised Battle Instinct Spell back to full intensity so it could suppress the emotions building inside him, but he stopped himself before doing so.
This world was his reality now, whether he accepted it or not. People would continue dying, and scenes like this would only become more common.
If he depended on Battle Instinct Spell every time he saw something disturbing, he would never truly adapt.
That thought didn’t make accepting the scene before him any easier.
He had learned magic and fought monsters, but until last night he had still been an ordinary college student. No amount of fighting over the past few hours could erase that part of him so quickly. He couldn’t suddenly learn to stay calm in front of so many corpses.
In the end, Alex settled on a compromise. He kept Battle Instinct Spell active at a low intensity, just enough to stop himself from throwing up, but he didn’t raise it enough to calm his emotions.
If he wanted to survive in this world, he needed to become accustomed to sights like these instead of hiding behind magic.
Beside him, Mia had stopped walking. Her fur stood on end, and her tail had puffed up as she stared silently at the bodies. Alex realized she might be taking this even harder than he was because many of the apartment residents had often given her treats or stopped to play with her.
"Stay close," Alex said quietly.
Mia let out a subdued meow before following him as they stepped outside the apartment building.
The smell outside was even worse than inside. Blood mixed with smoke, burning plastic, gasoline, and dust until the air itself felt heavy.
Because his senses were still enhanced, the scent was so overwhelming that it drowned out almost everything else.
Alex immediately stopped channeling compressed mana into his nose. That helped, but it didn’t solve the problem completely because Battle Instinct Spell was still enhancing the way his brain processed information from his ordinary senses.
Smell of blood and dangerous smell like that of gasoline was still being highlighted even without directly reinforcing his nose.
That realization gave him an idea. If he could adjust which parts of his brain Battle Instinct Spell enhanced, he might be able to reduce certain senses while keeping the rest of the spell active. It would make the spell far more flexible while also reducing unnecessary distractions.
’This is a good way to increase my master of Battle Instinct Spell, and level it up,’ he concluded.
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