Chapter 7 Part 4: Faith, Prayer... and Runes?

Jun cleared his mind as he stared at his hand.

‘It’s not imagination,’ the silver flame chided. Jun’s lips curved down. ‘Pray, and then use your faith to ignite it.’

As much as the person before him explained, and even the Silver Flame coached, he couldn’t seem to grasp this. It wasn’t remotely like biology. It wasn’t physical like swordsmanship. This ‘spell-casting’ was unlike anything he could grasp.

Mei giggled, her eyes welling up before the tears cascaded down.

“Looks like I beat you old man,” she elbowed him, her tone hiding her previous frustrations. Jun grumbled and set his head down on the desk. He noticed the heat before seeing the flame dancing in front of him.

Mei gloated as she showed off her flame in front of his eyes.

“I don’t get this!” Jun flicked her hand away. Mei only continued the tease.

“Oh come on. It’s simple. Just make the prayer rub together till it lights. Just like those camping trips.”

Jun stilled. Was it really that simple? He shifted up and concentrated, forcing his prayer to brush against each other vigorously above his hand. A small puff of smoke appeared and he jumped, making the ember fizzle out. Mei laughed at his attempt, but at least this made more sense than what the others said.

Amalie watched them, leaning against the wall, a thoughtful hand against her chin. Others in the class continued to make a flame appear, some, like Mei, excelled after making it manifest, others couldn’t even make a puff of smoke. At least he wasn’t the only one.

They had been here for a week, learning about faith and prayer. This test was on something completely foreign to the two, so they had some introductory courses explained to them, detailing the foundation of prayer and faith, and even explaining one of the new organs as a vessel for holding prayer in reserve. Like a stash of wood, it wouldn’t heat up without being drawn out and circulated.

Jun closed his eyes and began to meditate. When he had done his healing, he had moved the prayer to stimulate the cells and even rubbed the prayer to burn the poisons. Was it really so simple to just create friction on itself? So then why had Mei produced fire while his produced embers and smoke? He was supposedly a white flame, entry-level, and Mei was just barely entering blue. He could hardly imagine being able to make white flames like Amalie. In that regard, he silently thanked her for teaching him to control his prayer so that he didn’t reveal his status without abilities to match it. It would be worse than lying on your resume. At least, that was the impression he got from this.

Then came the final type of testing. Runes.

For the next week, Jun and Mei learned about runes and the theory behind them. A few others were in this class setting as well. Zain waved at them along with Christopher as they came in. Amalie, shifted to join a group of students headed to the combat fields.

Mei moaned as a book was placed in front of them. Jun eyed the cover. In his years being here, books were rare, though not as rare as history shared. The gold lettering was in a language Jun was completely unfamiliar with. His eyes flicked to other students who received their copies. Some glowed and held it close, others you couldn’t convince to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Like him, there were a few that didn’t have extreme reaction to the sight of the book.

“Alright. For those of you who have seen a book before, join me on page 10. If your neighbor doesn’t seem to follow, please guide them to the sources as we go along.”

Mei fingered the pages, counting them under her breath. Jun flipped it open and looked at the mix of letters and symbols.

Runes are a delicate type of writing created by the Silver Flame Alinta in the year 300 T.I.. They can be inscribed onto objects to channel prayers into complex functions. In short, they systematize the outcome of prayers that are channeled into them. This allows a prayer channeler to create more varied miracles than normally possible

Jun read through it, starting to look at the strange symbols called runes. One in particular was for cooling. One even concentrated the prayer to act like electricity—a lightning bolt.

“Jun Jinshari.” The professor called and Jun looked up, realizing he had gotten lost in his studies.

“Yes professor?” A few snickered behind him. He refused to let his discomfort show. It was mild anyway, and he had already gone through school. Besides, he didn’t have anything to prove, nor did he care about his social status.

His brows raised as he looked down his nose at Jun.

“Well then, perhaps you would care to demonstrate.” He indicated to a board where a few runes were arranged in a circular formation. Jun only recognized two runes out of the bunch. One was part of the lightning bolt, but instead of being followed by the corresponding rune, it was followed by a rune meant to soften and disperse the prayer before gathering it again. This rune he remembered because it reminded him of a child’s attempt at drawing the planet Saturn with its rings. There were two spots that could hold runes that were blank. Jun’s eyes flicked to his book and he spotted a similar circle on the open page.

He rose with a deep sigh and approached the board.

“Page 34 right?” he looked to the professor who’s small smile turned upside down. He flipped open one of the other books at the front and then copied the scribbles as he saw them.

“This is for making things hover at a specified distance. I imagine it’s part of, or inspired, the boats that we rode on,” Jun continued as he worked. The class was quiet and he tapped the chalk against the end of the scribbles, indicating he was done. He then bowed to the professor.

“I assumed we could set the pace of our education, so you must be new here…” his words were quiet, intended only for the man to hear them. There was no need to embarrass students or try to humiliate someone who was deep in study like this. And frankly, he didn’t need to verbalize this. As he returned to his desk, the professor was quiet. Then as Jun tried to get back into his reading, he continued the class.

He focused the remainder of the time on rune recognition and noted that there was a direction to write the runes to amplify their effects or dampen them, making this more complicated than your typical writing.

The test had specialized proctors, senior students who were watching how you organized and wrote the different runes. There were also questions that asked them to describe the rune’s functions and case uses. Jun held no hopes in this. He didn’t try to get high marks, and left quite a bit blank when he didn’t understand them. But on the ones he recognized, he gave it his best shot and felt satisfied as it came to a close.

One month. One month of specialized classes and tests and it felt more like the first year of entry courses distilled into a short span of time. He and Mei retreated to their quarters and he listened to her endless complaints.