A runic breakthrough

Jin

Since Ebiron has returned, Erinara had gotten a lot more freedom at her disposal as she no longer needed to help Vorial and Lazzal. Because of that, we also got to spend a lot more time together.
Almost all the time I spent in the study learning runes, Erinara was in the room with me, working on improving her light magic. 
“Sorry, I have a question about this rune”, I said, gesturing at the note ahead of me. Erinara walked over to me, pushing her body against my side. A comfortable warmth embraced me, both from her touch and from the golden light shining off of her.
She was waiting for me to point out what confused me.
“Here, on this defensive rune set-up. The start of the rune gathers mana, then the next part makes it use the magic to fortify itself against the attack, but what does the last part do?”, I asked.
“It makes the rune stabilize itself at the point of its creation”, she explained.
“Why does it need to do that?”, I asked with confusion in my voice.
“I can show you, just a moment.”
Erinara created two iterations of the basic defensive rune in the air, one lacking and one containing the final verse found in the notes.
“Strike both of them lightly, if you use any considerable amount of power these runes would shatter before you can see the difference.”
I lightly punched both of the runes. One of them blocked my attack, the other moved through the air with my fist.
“Oh”, I exclaimed.
“There you go, that’s the difference”, Erinara chuckled, “in general, you only need to define a rule for a rune to lock its location if it creates a solid body.”
“What about the defenses you use against me in sparring matches? How many rules do those ones need”, I inquired, baffled at the sheer complexity of the magic Erinara used without so much as a batting an eye.
“A lot”, she winked at me before returning her focus to the light magic.
Over the last week she had learned to form the light into stripes as long as her hand. The light was floating through the air along her arms.

Vorial entered the study.
He too had gained a lot more free time, since the executives’ preparatory rune and reagent system had been activated a few days prior. As such he roamed around the citadel sometimes.
“Until soon”, he said, waving one hand slightly.
“Out to gather reagents again?”, Erinara asked. Vorial nodded.
“Have a good trip, see you soon”, Erinara and I said.
“Thank you for letting us know, I hope you can get everything you’re looking for, Vorial”, I added.
“Thanks.”

After Erinara and I went to our respective rooms to get rest for the night, I spent a bit more time trying to teach myself basic runic magic.
I tried drawing a rune into the table's surface ahead of me over and over again. Observing how Erinara was training herself to use her new innate magic had left me inspired to try just as hard, even though the skill differential between us was incredible.
I could see how mana was gathered into a rune for a while now, very recently I learned to recognize mana around me if I focused my entire perception on it.
All I really had to do was understand how I could channel magic properly. On occasion, I managed to see some miniscule amount of magic move toward me on my misled attempts, but I hadn’t managed any more. Something in the back of my mind told me that I was incredibly close to finally having a breakthrough.

The next day, I asked Erinara to showcase how she uses runic magic again.
She did so with ease.
“I am able to see you draw mana into your hand for the runes, but I’m unable to copy that as of yet”, I stated.
“You are honestly already on an amazing pace with learning magic”, Erinara beamed at me, “Here let me try something.”
She hovered her hand over mine.
“Try to just receive the mana I’m going to transfer to you, okay?”
“Right.”
I closed my eyes, trying to focus purely on her touch and the energy within it. My breathing came in consistent deep breaths. Erinara slightly pressed the palm of her hand into the back of mine. With the pressure came another, much fainter sensation. Somewhere in her touch hid a buzzing energy, that ever so slightly prickled onto my skin. I tried focusing on that sensation.
The more I narrowed in on it, the greater it became. Soon the sensation had spread through the entire back of my hand, then into my palm and finally into my fingers. Erinara took her hand off of mine. The unusual sensation remained, even though it became much fainter when Erinara let go of me.
“Impressive! You’ve managed to take in and hold a large amount of the mana I was passing on to you”, Erinara said cheerfully.
“It feels unusual, I’m trying to get used to it”, I remarked.
“Yeah, mana feels like if a warm rain fell onto every part it is gathered in, doesn’t it? You can even feel it inside of your skin, too.”
“That description fits very well actually, yeah, precisely!”, I agreed. Then, after a couple moments I uncertainly asked:
“What exactly do I do now that I have the mana you passed over to me in my hand?”
“For starters, I would recommend opening your eyes”, Erinara chuckled quietly, “it would be hard to draw a rune with your eyes closed, wouldn’t it?”
“What if I lose concentration and the mana disappears?”, I asked.
“Jin, you are already talking to me while firmly keeping it in your grasp. I think you’ll do just fine.”
I slowly opened my eyes. I could feel a little bit of the mana dissipate, as my focus on it grew slightly less, but I did manage to hold on to most of it.
“Do you want me to get you a particular note on a rune to try?”, Erinara asked me.
“No need for that, but thank you”, I said.
Truth be told, I had one particular rune I wanted to create as my first for a long time.
I closed my hand to a fist, leaving only my index finger stretched out. I tried to focus the magic swirling in my hand into the tip of my index finger.
Once again, a decent chunk of it got lost in the process.
Before I lost the rest of the mana at my disposal, I quickly drew the markings of the rune onto the table with my finger.
A tiny circle appeared on it. I held my breath as I slightly pressed in on it.
The rune warmed up ever so slightly.
Erinara wrapped her arms around me from behind.
“Look at you! That’s some amazing progress in one go!”, she planted a kiss on the side of my face, “you’ll be able to do this kind of magic in no time, I’m sure of it!”

“It will probably take some time until I can gather magic from my surroundings myself”, I admitted.
“But you’ll be able to draw a rune when you do so! The speed you’re learning at is honestly incredible”, she patted me on the back.
“Thank you for your continuous support, Erinara”, I smiled at her.