Chapter 180: Rune Fix, West Meet Black (1/2)

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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One of the best things about being in the innermost part of the Underground vault was the peace — in fact, the entire Underground vault was a delight to work in. Quinn didn't have to travel through potentially life-threatening dangerous trials like those inside the Aquatic vault to get to the innermost region. He didn't have to work with something capable of wiping his life in less than a fraction of a second like Absolute Zero (which Quinn still didn't know so much about). Finally, nothing messed with his mind and emotions, and because of that, he could work while being 100% of himself.

Here there was just him and one big-ass stratum of marble waiting for Quinn to work on to repair it to its former glory — whatever it was. Quinn still had to figure out what the runes etched into the marbles did, but he was making progress.

Right now, Quinn sat above the marble platform with a plethora of papers laid in front of him, spreading out and away from him as his eyes roamed on every single page visible to him.

”Nine layers,” commented Quinn to himself, ”nine layers worth of runes — every layer not just connected to its adjacent layer, but to all other eight layers. What was the creator thinking while building this.. .. why did he even need these many layers.”

To put it to comparison, Quinn's Recon was a three-layer construct, MagiFax was a five-layer construct, the containment and defensive mechanism that kept Absolute Zero in check was a seven-layer construction, and that was already a complicated structure. Plus, the addition of layers wasn't linear; the addition of every subsequent layer was a more significant addition than the preceding one. — to see a nine-layered runic construct was something Quinn couldn't even begin thinking what it would result in — the usage when it would complete.

”Well, at least, I have the complete plans with me,” said Quinn while looking at the papers — he had successfully figured out what the original construct was before the roof collapsed and damaged the runes — right now, Quinn was sure that he knew all of the runes and the connection map to get the construct working.

”Time to get to work,” he said, getting up as the papers formed a stack and floated near him. ”Now, where to start,” he hummed. He turned around on the spot to isolate a starting point, and as he did, the paper stack shuffled — bringing the relevant page to the top of the stack.

”Alright, I will start there,” he stared west, choosing to begin with his favorite direction, ”but first.. . .” Quinn closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, his vision had changed. Now, to Quinn, everything on the marble was divided into squares of one foot marked by red lines.

”Casting illusion on myself,” he muttered, blinking his eyes, but the red grid remained, ”I'm not sure if I should like this or not.”

”Whatever, let's get to work.”

Quinn sat down on the ground with his legs crossed. His focus was on just one box in the massive grid. Quinn placed his right hand in the middle on the marble stone with palm flat resting against the cold surface.

”Let's see, what do I have to do here.” Quinn read the page on the top of the stack and read the detailed blueprints written on it.

The magic trickled from his core through his hands into the marble, seeping into the stone.

”Transmutation.”

There were runes engraved on the marble, but they had been worn down with the passage of time and damaged from the fallen debris. Quinn's magic fixed that — the rune engraving which looked like they had been etched with a hammer and chisel, crafted by a grandmaster, renewed their original charm and straightened out, smoothed down every surface while the cracks filled up by shifting and merging the stone together.

Within a minute, the marble top had gone from ancient to something that looked it had been freshly carved.

But Quinn didn't smile in admiration or stopped funneling his magic; instead, he made his magic drip down deeper — as previously mentioned, there were nine layers of runes, and the carving on the surface was only layer-one — eight other layers etched inside the stone remained to be fixed and cleaned up.

Ten minutes later, Quinn removed his hand and breathed out, ”Alright, one block done,” he looked around and smacked his lips together, ”over a hundred more to go.”

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From then onwards, Quinn spent two hours every day for an entire fortnight to complete the renovation of the carvings and another three days to prime the marble by imbibing it in potions and solutions to get the stone ready for conducting magic.

”To the worms below and birds above, thank all that this is finally ready,” clapped Quinn, clenching his fist. He stood in the middle of an intricately carved, beautiful, and, more importantly, clean rune structure.

”I should probably do one last check,” he said, pushing his magic into the magic while flipping through the paper stack, which was now a file, ”uh-huh — north, done.. .. south.. .. east.. .. west.. .. hmm, alright checked and done.”

”Now, let's what this actually does,” smiled Quinn while humming.

He looked down, watching the spot he was standing — the middle of the marble platform was rune free, at least on the surface. This was the spot where he needed to input magic to start the magic.

”This one will need a lot to get this beauty up and running,” he squatted down and grinned, ”let's see if I can fill its appetite.”

While large-scale runes were more powerful, they needed a lot more juice to get working. While Quinn had time-to-time reached the limit of the magic, he could push out at once; he never had, not once, ever encountered a single task that would exhaust his capacity — or even come close to it.

It took dynamic plans that were constantly developed and updated throughout the years of daily magic usage every single day so that Quinn could exhaust his magic by the end of his day — by doing that, Quinn's magic was abundant than ever, much larger than what ordinary magicals could even imagine — Quinn had no doubt had more enormous reserves than anyone in Hogwarts and the British Isles.. .. that included the white-bearded, half-moon glasses old man with sparkling eyes and maybe even the prime Dark Lord, who was currently stuck in a homunculus body.

It was already a surprise that with his reserves, Quinn could exhaust his magic every single day — if someone saw how and how much magic Quinn used every day, they would classify him as a.. .. monster.

Quinn started to discharge in waves and waves of magic. Magic comparable to rivers started ours into the marble and the runes. The white marble patterned with black splash patterns began to glow in rainbow lights.

”Oh, oh, it's working,” smiled Quinn, but then the glow started to weaken, ”huh, it's not enough — need more?” It brought a deeper grin to Quinn's face as he started to push more and more magic into the stone.

”It's getting stronger!” and with it, the light in Quinn's eyes flickered, and soon, they were showing their purple glory.

Hroom.. .. a thrum spread from the marble into the ground reaching every corner of the Underground vault.

Quinn stopped, stood up before running and jumping out from the marble stratum, and then he watched the show. Rainbow lights grew so strong that the orbs of light that Quinn cast for light disappeared within the presence of the stronger light — he had to shield his eyes from the light that was still bright even though his eyes were closed.

When the light finally subsided, Quinn opened his eyes and peeked around to observe what had happened, but nothing stood out.

”Did something happened?”

He walked to the marble stratum and touched the stone to see if he could diagnose the problem. ”Ouch! Hot, tssss!” he pulled back his hand because the stone was skin-searing hot.

Quinn looked at his hand, and he swore he could literally feel the heat from his wound travel through his body. ”Man, that was hot, shit!” he cursed and healed his hand of the severe burn.

”What's the temperature on this?” when Quinn checked, the stone was at room temperature, ”huh, it cooled off so quickly? Hmm.. .. well there were some runes in there that could be interpreted for cooling purposes.”

”But what the hell, man,” complained Quinn, ”did I make a mistake somewhere? That doesn't seem likely.” He went over his notes, plans, and memories, but nothing stood out to him.

”Does it mean that my plans are completely wrong?” he questioned his entire research as he couldn't find anything that stood out.

Quinn couldn't believe that he had made an error, so he started to look around and finally decided to collect samples — he collected a piece of marble, the surrounding soil, and the underground plants that had grown around the stratum.

”There must be some change; the tests will surely reveal something.”

It was getting late, and Quinn decided to end for today. He pulled on his Noir gear and exited the Forbidden Forest with the samples in tow. He hid in an isolated and changed back into his Hogwarts uniform robes before stepping into the castle.

”That was a good magical workout,” if there was one thing that he was satisfied with, then it was the magic exertion.

*Flutter* *Flutter*

Quinn turned around when he heard the flutter of a bird's wings, which was strange as he hadn't seen a bird when he passed by.