Ascension: Rune Evolution System

”Matters about useless ol’ me aside, how are you guys doing?” Frost asked. ”I heard you’ve been making a killing as professional evolvers.”

Jennifer looked towards the window beside their table, her gaze wandering toward the packed street outside.

A scantily dressed, frail woman was trying to convince a well-dressed young man to become her next customer, and Jennifer watched them for a moment before answering.

”We’ve been doing well, I guess,” she said. ”We’ve only just started entering the mid-ranking hunting grounds.”

Frost raised a brow, looking at her in shock. ”So that was you guys? The Eclipse Guild newbies who’ve been speedrunning through the hunting grounds, I mean...” Jennifer nodded.

’Now that I think about it, I did see an emblem embroidered on the left side of her jacket’s chest.’

Her jacket had been set aside on the backrest of her chair, but he had taken note of the emblem.

A black circle eclipsing a white one... Now that he thought about it, he should have made the connection sooner.

”Wow...” A bitter smile appeared on his face as he looked away. ”Must be fun,” he murmured.

Jennifer didn’t answer, and for a while, neither of them said anything. Eventually, Frost turned back to her with a small smile.

”Thank you for the food,” he said. ”I haven’t had a proper meal in ages.”

He pushed his chair back and rose from his seat, looking at her across the table.

”I’m assuming that was all you wanted to ask me? I wouldn’t want to waste your time or anything,” he added.

”Yeah,” Jennifer said with a nod. ”It was nice seeing you again. I gotta check in on the others as well, so see you around.”

To be honest, Frost didn’t understand why she took checking on everyone so seriously. She didn’t owe any of them anything, yet she still went through all this trouble.

He didn’t believe she was quite as selfless as her actions made her seem, but he wasn’t petty enough to assume the worst of her either, so he simply nodded and went on his way.

”All the best...” He heard her say before walking out.

...

On the way back to his place, Frost was once again drowning in his own thoughts.

Part of him would have loved to rant to Jennifer and try to explain that he actually had an affinity, but what could she do?

They weren’t even buddies, and now, knowing how well the others were doing had only left him feeling bitter about his own situation.

He sighed, glancing down a narrow alley lit by neon lights.

A couple of guys stood by an entrance tucked away farther in, with loud music spilling out from inside.

What the people of this world called music wasn’t bad, but it didn’t really suit his tastes. He had noticed plenty of these places around the slums, where people went to get high on that drug and have fun.

Not that he had any money to spend on such indulgences, or much interest in them to begin with.

’Well, a whorehouse might be an exception to that last part,’ he thought.

Even now, his terribly lustful urges never seemed to leave him, regardless of how miserable his life had become.

’Perhaps I could earn a decent living as a male whore in this place,’ he thought with a chuckle. At least then, he might actually enjoy being overworked.

The thought amused him for a few moments, but he eventually shook his head and continued walking.

Knowing his luck, he would probably end up being told he lacked an affinity for that line of work as well, and he wasn’t sure his pride could survive being rejected by both guilds and whorehouses in the same week.

By the time he reached his place, the brief amusement had faded, leaving him alone with the same thoughts he had been trying to escape.

He shut the door behind him and sat on the edge of his bed, wincing as his back reminded him that a proper meal hadn’t done much for the rest of his body. Tomorrow, he would have to carry that damned pack again.

Frost reached into his pocket and took out the tab, still wrapped in its thin cloth. He looked at it for a moment before setting it aside, somewhere he wouldn’t accidentally knock it onto the floor. There wasn’t much in the room worth stealing, but that coin was currently the entirety of his wealth, and he would rather not spend half the morning searching for it beneath his bed.

For a while, he simply sat there, looking down at his hands. Jennifer’s question had brought back everything he had been trying not to think about, and although he had told her he was delusional, he knew what he had seen.

Unfortunately, a word on a panel wasn’t worth much when he couldn’t do anything with it. He couldn’t exactly take the panel out of his head and wave it in Harod’s face, and repeating himself had only made the man more convinced that he was either lying or losing his mind.

Frost rubbed his face, then leaned back carefully against the wall.

His thoughts drifted towards the hunt, particularly the shimmering triagrams that had appeared whenever the others used their runes.

They had been easy enough to notice, but he hadn’t paid much attention to their details, since most of his interest had been in what happened afterwards.

Perhaps that had been a mistake. He had spent so much time thinking about the powers he wanted that he hadn’t really considered how people used the ones they already had.

He lifted a finger and slowly traced a shape in the air, trying to remember the triagram that had appeared before the water user’s palm.

There had been lines within it; he was certain of that much, but the longer he tried to recall them, the less certain he became about where they had been. After a few attempts, he lowered his hand and stared at the wall.

What exactly had he been expecting? To wave a finger around and suddenly discover that the entire universe had been overcomplicating the use of runes?

A dry laugh escaped him, and he shook his head. Still, the idea refused to leave entirely, even though he knew almost nothing about it.

He wasn’t expecting to learn a rune just by looking at a triagram, but looking was free, and at the moment, free was about the only thing he could afford.

Tomorrow, he would pay closer attention. Whether it helped or not was another matter, but at least it would give him something to think about besides the weight on his back.

With that decided, Frost finally lay down, taking his time as he lowered himself onto the bed.

His body hurt badly enough that finding a comfortable position became a problem of its own, and he spent several minutes shifting around before accepting that there probably wasn’t one.

Eventually, exhaustion did what comfort couldn’t, and he fell asleep.

When he woke the next morning, he immediately regretted it.

His shoulders were stiff, his legs ached, and the first attempt to sit up sent a sharp pain through his back that made him drop onto the bed again.

”Wonderful,” he muttered, staring at the ceiling.