Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 395: The Greater Rune Irony

CH395 The Greater Rune Irony

***

The next morning, Alex’s eyes snapped open as the first cascade of sunlight spilled into the tent.

He exhaled a long, weary breath as he rose from his meditative posture.

’Nothing comes easy,’ he mused dryly.

”You’re awake.”

A soft, beautiful voice washed away the last traces of the previous night’s mental strain.

”Good morning, my lady,” Alex greeted.

”Come on out. You’re the last one up,” Zora said with a gentle smile as she rose and walked toward the tent entrance.

Alex nodded and followed her outside.

The camp was already alive with activity.

Mogal and Kavakan — with Senu’s help — had hunted down enough game to feed the entire group for breakfast. Eleanor, Mordor, and Sugud were sorting through a spread of plants they had gathered from around the valley. Fen, with the help of a Fury soldier, was already tending to the cookfire, preparing the morning meal.

Further off, five Fury soldiers led the horses to a nearby river, letting them drink and graze along its grassy bank.

”What about Udara and Silver?” Alex asked.

”Udara wanted to scout for any nearby danger, so she pulled Silver and Havel along with her — and a couple of your family’s soldiers,” Zora replied.

”Oh, and Kron Belloc — was that his name? — they dragged him along as well,” she added with a faint chuckle.

Alex nodded with a complicated expression.

He was genuinely pleased to see the camp functioning so smoothly without him micromanaging every detail — a testament, no doubt, to the competency of his wives and followers. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel oddly guilty for becoming a hands-off leader so early into their expedition.

Zora noticed his expression and chuckled knowingly.

”Don’t overthink it, Alex. Delegating minor matters is normal. You only need to step in for the important decisions. That’s what leadership is.”

She leaned slightly closer.

”Besides... your Spiritual Force feels much weaker than usual this morning. You’ve already started working on Rune-Tech, haven’t you?”

Alex nodded.

”So? Any progress?” she asked.

”A little,” Alex admitted. ”But not nearly enough yet.”

He continued, ”I’ve already indexed every Rune circle I’ve ever cast or seen. That means OmniRune can start cross-referencing them the moment I witness their Sigil equivalents. My Spiritual Force is drained because I spent most of last night half-casting spells so OmniRune could catalogue the Sigil spell circles and begin identifying individual Sigils and their functions.”

Zora studied his face carefully, narrowing her eyes.

”I sense a ’but’ coming,” she said.

Alex gave a wry smile.

”But it’s not going as smoothly as I expected,” he admitted. ”Sigils and Runes are far more different than I realised. The difference goes beyond them originating from different planes.”

Around them, the rest of the expedition team finally noticed Alex’s presence. They paused their tasks to salute him, and Alex returned each greeting.

Mogal and Kavakan moved to helping Fen with preparing breakfast — unsurprising, given both men had very particular preferences for how their meat should be cooked. High above, Queen Senu returned to the skies after greeting Alex, resuming her surveillance with the scouting party.

”How was it? It looked like you were working quite hard last night,” Eleanor said as she approached to join Zora and Alex.

The three settled onto wooden stumps serving as makeshift seats on the edge of the camp.

After Alex summarised the situation for Eleanor, he picked up where he had stopped with Zora, continuing his explanation of the previous night’s discoveries.

”Runes and Sigils differ on a deeper level than simply being glyphs from two different planes. Their structures and behaviours are fundamentally different — meaning they have different strengths, different limitations, and different ways I can incorporate them into Rune-Tech.”

He paused before continuing.

”Structurally, each Rune has a fixed meaning and fixed function. Runes combine linearly — left to right or right to left — when forming a Runic Circuit, or clockwise in Array formations. All of these follow an assembled meaning, or what I call a ’clear logic.’”

He raised a finger.

”Behaviourally, this structure makes Runes predictable, repeatable, and deterministic. They always behave the same way and always produce the same result — which is why they form the perfect foundation for Rune-Tech.”

He sighed.

”Sigils, on the other hand... at least based on my current findings... are all over the place.”

Eleanor blinked. ”All over the place?”

”Yes,” Alex confirmed. ”Sigils are layered characters. Each Sigil is composed of several complex, composite strokes. And their meaning — or more accurately, their function — doesn’t come from each stroke individually, but from how those strokes interact with one another as a whole.”

He raised his left hand, partially casting a spell. A shifting Sigil-circle flickered above his palm.

With his right hand, he tapped the Beta Bracer.

A holographic projection flared to life — showing the Runic version of the exact same spell circle.

If Alex were to put the structural difference into simple terms, then Runes were like English alphabets and words — neat, linear symbols that lined up cleanly into sentences with clear, fixed meanings. They were mechanical and rigid –essentially standardised.

Every Rune was written the same way by everyone.

Sigils, however, were another story entirely.

If Runes were English, then Sigils were like Chinese characters — layered strokes stacked atop one another to form dense, complex symbols. And worse still, Sigils also behaved like calligraphy, where the style of writing each stroke was inconsistent and seemed influenced by the caster’s personal variation rather than a universally fixed template.

In Alex’s eyes, Runes were a rigid mechanical language — perfect building blocks for the structured logic behind Rune-Tech. Sigils, however, were... artistic, organic and uncomfortably fluid.

There were far too many unpredictable transformations for him to view Sigils as something that adhered to classical computation principles like GIGO — Garbage In, Garbage Out, where a consistent input always led to a consistent, deterministic result.

”I’m sure Sigils have a proper writing method I’ll need to learn,” Alex admitted, frowning at the flickering Sigil-circle above his palm. ”They are still this world’s glyphs of logic, after all. But based on my current understanding... Sigils seem to produce emergent effects. As if their function depends on the caster’s inner conditions — intention, emotional resonance, mental state, ambient mana... all sorts of variables.”

He winced.

”It feels all over the place.” He repeated.

Despite his complaints, Alex couldn’t deny the truth that Sigils fascinated him. Almost exactly the same way Runes had fascinated him enough for him to build an entire Ascension/ Cultivation Path around them.

From what he had observed so far, Runes behaved like strict machine code — rigid, reliable, and perfectly structured. Sigils, by contrast, moved like living organisms. Their logic was flexible, reactive, almost adaptive.

A comparison came naturally to him.

Runes were machine codes while Sigils were living codes.

Rigid versus fluid. Mechanical versus organic. Predictable versus emergent.

And that organic quality made them unnerving.

’Considering how Pangea’s magic society leans toward technological parallels... the mechanical nature of its Runes fits perfectly,’ Alex thought silently.

’If so, Verdantis may very well be a bio-tech plane — its Sigils functioning like biological information structures instead of mechanical ones.’

”How does all this affect your chances of recovering your Rune-Tech?” Zora asked, breaking his train of thought.

Her eyes held steady concern — and a hint of determination, reminding him she intended to keep him on a sane path even if his ambition ran wild.

Alex breathed out slowly.

”It slows the process down significantly,” Alex admitted. ”I can’t use the direct-correlation method I originally intended. I’ll need much more time to deduce the underlying pattern behind Sigil construction — their stroke logic, their transformational rules, the meaning-deciphering methodology behind them. Only after that groundwork can I proceed.”

But he added quickly, ”Of course, if I can get a proper education on Sigils, things would move far faster than brute-force self-learning.”

Zora and Eleanor exchanged glances as they digested his explanation. Then a thought struck Eleanor, and she voiced it without hesitation.

”Doesn’t that mean you won’t be able to form a Sigil-Tech at all? Even if you wanted to?”

”Huh?” Alex tilted his head.

”You always describe Rune-Tech as something built on rigid, deterministic logic,” Eleanor said. ”Sigils aren’t rigid or deterministic. If Sigils don’t follow fixed logic, wouldn’t that make them completely incompatible — even antagonistic — to your entire Glyph-Tech approach?”

Alex paused.

Then nodded.

”That’s a good point,” he conceded.

But a moment later, he shook his head.

”However... I don’t think that’s the case. It’s just a hunch, but I believe that as long as I gain a structured understanding of Sigils — even a basic foundation — I’ll be able to cobble something workable together.”

His posture eased, his eyes sharpening as a deeper realisation hit him.

”This might sound ironic... but I think Sigils are actually closer to the core of Rune-Tech than traditional Runes are.”

Both Zora and Eleanor blinked at that.

”How could Sigils be closer to a system literally built on Runes?” Zora asked, mirroring Eleanor’s confusion.

Alex smiled faintly.

”Think about what is truly unique about Rune-Tech — the thing that actually sets it apart from all other runic disciplines.”

He didn’t wait for an answer.

”Greater Runes,” he said simply. ”The Greater Rune system is the heart of Rune-Tech. Everything else is secondary.”

He gestured to the projected Runic circle hovering beside the half-cast Sigil spell-light.

”And Greater Runes are... layered. Exactly like Sigils.”

He continued, voice steady and analytical:

”Greater Runes are forged by compressing multiple base or lesser runes into a single composite symbol. A multi-layered character. Their true functions are hidden beneath the compression, just like a Sigil’s function is hidden within the interplay of its strokes.”

He tapped the air lightly.

”Without formal training — without the decryption and decompression techniques — it’s impossible to understand a Greater Rune’s inner workings. That is identical to Sigils. Both require structured education. Both require insight into their layered architecture.”

Then Alex chuckled softly.

”If not for one key difference — that Greater Runes are rigid and deterministic once created — I would argue that Greater Runes resemble Sigils far more than they resemble traditional Runes.”

**1**