Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

Chapter 869: Primary Function of the Shadow Matriarch II

CH869 Primary Function of the Shadow Matriarch II

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“The Warrior Crest uses the Warbeast’s blood essence to take advantage of the agelong bond between Amazons and Warbeasts, allowing it to conceptually resonate with the Amazon bloodline in you and influence its expression within your body.

“The Shadow Ruler’s Marking leverages the Shadow Mana within the Shadow Realm stone to resonate with the Drow bloodline in you, which is characterised by a high Dark and Shadow Mana affinity.

“The Verdant Sigil uses the Treant core to leverage the conceptual bond between Dryads and Treants to resonate with your Dryad bloodline.

“The Succubus Crest uses the heartblood of the Kitsune to trigger a resonance with the Succubus bloodline in you via the shared mental energy proficiency of the two races, which is similarly conceptually manifested as [Charm].”

“Finally, at the core of the formation is the Harmony Mark, whose role is to create or influence the creation of a harmonious environment within your body, wherein all four of your bloodlines can be directed or influenced to express themselves as close to their individual natural potential as possible,” Alex explained.

“There might not be any quick changes—at least not immediately. But over time, I expect your abilities, traits, and potential resulting from your bloodlines to increase significantly and become more versatile as you explore them.”

“This is why I feel something has changed within me, yet it feels like nothing has changed?” Udara asked.

Alex confirmed with a nod.

“In fact, I was worried the needed changes would take too long to manifest, which was why I designed each rune to push for certain obvious growths as quickly as possible—i.e., the so-called secondary abilities of each Rune Tattoo I mentioned earlier.

“To be honest, the secondary abilities of each Rune Tattoo are more abilities that each rune can draw out from your bloodlines than they are abilities I wrote into the runes,” Alex admitted.

When looked at from this perspective, the Shadow Matriarch Rune Tattoo Set was a bit tame, since it mostly drew out abilities from Udara’s own potential.

But from another perspective, it was quite impressive, considering it could draw out certain potential abilities hidden within Udara’s bloodlines.

After all, there was a marked difference between existing abilities and potential abilities. Not every potential ability could be made a reality.

The Rune Tattoo Set made potential reality.

Another fact that made the Shadow Matriarch Rune Tattoo Set special to Alex was the sheer capacity of each of its runes.

Based on Alex’s findings, on average, most humans possessed a Rune Slot capacity of 6. Most basic elementary tattoos occupied a capacity of 3–5. However, the least capacity occupied by each of the Shadow Matriarch Rune Tattoos was a whopping 12.

This was the first time Alex had been able to design such a relatively large Rune Tattoo.

And from these tattoos, Alex was able to confirm that the potential abilities and functions of a Rune Tattoo scaled qualitatively with its capacity.

For example, a Vitality Rune with a single function—increasing the vitality of the bearer—occupied a capacity of 5. However, in addition to acting as a node for the Shadow Matriarch Formation, each of the four nodal Rune Tattoos in the set arguably had three or more additional functions.

Hence, a 5-unit-capacity Rune Tattoo like the Vitality Rune supported one functionality, while a 12-unit-capacity Rune Tattoo supported up to five, maybe more, functions.

This was also before mentioning that each of these five abilities was more complex than the one ability of the Vitality Rune.

The reason for this was actually quite simple. Every Rune Tattoo was essentially a formation made up of the basic parts: Activation, Energy Source, Safety Measure, and Functionality.

However, the more capacity Alex had to work with, the more functions he could cram into the formation, since the different functions could essentially share the same Activation, Energy Source, and/or Safety Measure components.

Therefore, as long as the capacity for these three basic components was out of the way, Alex could fill the remaining capacity with different functions. Hence why the functionality, complexity, and potential of a Rune Tattoo showed qualitative scaling.

This was important because…

‘I won’t be able to replicate the Rune Tattoos at the scale of the Shadow Matriarch’s Tattoos with anyone else other than Udara, and maybe, in the future, myself. No one else I’ve seen has or will potentially have such a large-capacity Rune Slot.’

‘Unfortunately, I can’t currently design bloodline-influencing tattoos for higher-tier bloodlines without the tattoo demanding a Rune Slot capacity on the larger end of the spectrum…’ Alex mused to himself.

‘The bulk of the capacity of a Rune Tattoo is arguably taken up by the Activation, Energy, and Safety/Control components of the tattoo. Perhaps if I can shrink the capacity they occupy further, I might be able to holistically reduce the capacity of Rune Tattoos,’ he pondered.

In the next moment, he shook his head wryly.

‘Just as I think I am clearing my backlog of projects, another one rears its head. It’s like a never-ending cycle,’ he thought wryly.

Udara watched Alex’s expression.

It was clear to her that the young noble’s thoughts had already shifted on to another potential project.

‘He truly has no intentions of prying into my past,’ she thought as she watched him. ‘He never did,’ she deduced intuitively.

But then a realisation dawned on her.

‘How do I know that?’ she wondered.

Then the answer came to her. She recalled something Alex had said.

“If all goes according to plan, you will soon be able to use your Charm consciously. But more than that, you might also gain heightened perception of mental and emotional changes in a target, perhaps even influence it.”

‘Am I already able to perceive mental and emotional states and changes like he said?’ Udara mused.

Whatever the case was, her realisation of Alex’s state of mind regarding her past warmed her heart.

And in that moment, perhaps impulsively, she came to a decision.

“Master… do you want to hear about my past?” she asked, much to Alex’s surprise.

But then, before Alex could respond, she shook her head and said more decisively,

“Master, I want to tell you about my past.”

Initially taken by surprise, Alex soon smiled and nodded.

“It would be my honour.”

This caused Udara to smile as well.

Then she told him about her past. It was mostly as Alex had deduced, but there were strangely many things that infuriated him about it, so much so that by the time Udara was done, Alex’s eyes had turned crimson.

Calm Madness!

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