CHAPTER 99: RUNE LANGUAGE

At first glance, the power system of this world looked very simple—or that’s what Kael assumed. There were simply Ranks which one needed to climb up by killing monsters and other races.

It seemed so simple, as it was basically the power system of almost every LitRPG out there.

But the more he delved into it, the more he understood it, the more he got to know how deep and dangerous it truly was.

Evolution and Leveling Up were tied up so closely that without the first one, the second one was impossible. One couldn’t even push through their limits simply by working hard and having the hardest will.

If they did, they were bound to get Corrupted.

In a way, the higher one went in the rankings, the more chances they had of getting Corrupted. After all, their souls would be stretched and would have more chances of letting in corruption.

Of course, it wasn’t that easy to get Corrupted, as everyone had different means to resist it. Some could even do it simply by their sheer will.

It truly expanded Kael’s horizon and reminded him of the dangers he had to face if he wanted more power. It came with a cost that many didn’t have the capabilities to pay.

But he was ready to pay that cost even without the power, so he didn’t really care.

Shaking his head at his thoughts, Kael focused on the matter at hand and said, "This is why you should never try to rank up without having confidence. Without a powerful soul, your ranking up simply means allowing the corruption to seep into you."

The lion family nodded with solemn looks on their faces. They had seen the outcome of Nyraxx in that dungeon who was Corrupted, and not even in a million years did they want to end up like that.

They would prefer death over turning into those disgusting monsters.

"Now, as you can see, this soul has reached the limit, and if I force my way with it, cracks will begin to form—which we don’t want," Kael said, showing them the dough which was starting to have some cracks, so he stopped.

"This is the limit of one’s potential," he said, "So, what should one do in this situation if they still want to continue ranking up?"

"Evolution..." Kiona muttered.

"Yup. Let’s see what Evolution actually does," Kael said, taking out more wheat flour.

Then, he began to work on it again and made the previous dough into a bigger one. It was bigger, denser, and even quality-wise it had become better for some reason.

Kiona didn’t see what Kael did, but somehow the dough had also changed colours and turned reddish. It also seemed like he didn’t give his all and just made the dough for the sake of making it.

It was a strange thing to see.

Kael presented the dough to everyone and said, "The process you’ve just seen is your Evolution process. It brings ingredients through the ritual or the Astral World—I’m not too sure about it—but it does, and it changes your soul like this. Now watch closely."

He once again began stretching the dough, and this time, it didn’t crack like it had done previously for obvious reasons.

Kiona and the twins also noticed that the dough stretched for far more length than previously and also seemed to have the potential to keep going.

Sadly, it still came to a point where the dough became thin and began to show signs of cracking.

It had reached the end of its new potential.

"Ooops! Looks like the new Evolution Stage can only bring you till here," Kael smiled and said. "You certainly attained a rank you couldn’t have achieved before and went past your limits through Evolution. But even the new stage could only do this much. Now, what will you do?"

"Evolve once more?" Jon blurted out. "If one Evolution doesn’t do the work, then just evolve even more."

"You think Evolution is some rock that you can find easily?" Seth snorted. "Evolution becomes harder the higher the stages you achieve."

"At one point, you also need to go through certain rituals to Evolve," Kael said, turning towards Kiona. "Just like how Nanjing Sheng needs a ritual to upgrade his class—which is similar to our Evolution to advance to the next rank. He knows that if he tried to Advance with his current rank, he will simply fall to madness."

Lower Evolution Stages had easier requirements, but the higher stages were very different, as they evolved the soul to a stage where it could significantly affect the Astral World.

"As for your suggestion, let’s assume that you can’t Evolve anymore due to some condition," Kael said, patting the bag beside him. "Let’s just say that there is no more wheat flour left. What will you do now?"

The lions fell into deep thought, as they couldn’t find anything that could actually affect their soul aside from some herbs or natural treasures.

But they were hard to find, so they assumed that Kael didn’t mean to point out that.

Kiona remembered their earlier conversation and said with uncertainty, "Master, is it perhaps related to mastering skills?"

"Bingo!" Kael flashed a thumbs up at her and said. "I’m sure you don’t know how you actually gain the skill, so let me give a brief introduction to them."

He pointed at the dough and asked, "Can you see the red particles on the dough?"

Seeing them nod, he continued, "These are the skills imprinted on your Soul. In other races, they have their Deity who gives them a system and also the skills. How it works is also pretty simple."

He paused for a moment and then said:

"I’m sure you know a little about Runes, but I’ll still add it. Runes are probably the language of the Astral World, which is why it affects nature and especially the Astral World so much. It’s the set of information that holds the power to govern the very concepts and laws of our worlds. It can also influence the Astral World deeply."

Lightly tapping on the dough, he added:

"Just like how you can combine various letters of a language to form words through which communication can be established, you can also combine the Runes to form... something that can influence the Astral World and bring the desired results."

He raised his hand and activated [Storm Pulse] as he stared at the lightning pulsating in his hand.

"My soul has Runes of this skill imprinted on it through my Evolution. It works as the medium through which my soul influences the Astral World, and using my mana as the energy source, it helps me create this lightning. Why? Because the Runic system says so."

He smiled and let the lightning disappear.

"You can get skills usually through two means. First is when your Gods give them to you upon your achievements, and second is through your Evolution. The beasts don’t have a God, so they are only left with the skills of Evolution. This is also the reason why we are getting so weak. We don’t have the skills."

Turning towards Rias, he added:

"But I think there is also a third way to get skills. Or rather, a fourth. The third one is pretty simple but very difficult to achieve."

Seeing him pause, Kiona asked, "What are those methods, Master?"

"Third one is simply to learn the Rune Language," Kael shrugged, making all of them speechless. "How do you think the Gods give you skills? It’s just a guess of mine, but after achieving Godhood they probably gain an innate understanding of the Runes, so they imprint the Runes themselves in a way."

He imagined the Dawnfire Goddess personally sitting in an office and working 24/7 engraving Runes on everyone’s soul as they waited in queue.

A chuckle left his mouth as he added, "But they probably have some functions or something which makes the process automatic."

Only then did he notice how all of them were giving him strange looks, so he coughed lightly and changed the subject, "As you can see, this method is not feasible for most people. But your handsome master surely has plans to achieve it."

His words surprised even the usually calm Rias, as she asked, "Are you sure you can even do that? It’s supposed to be nigh impossible to learn unless you’re really close to Godhood or have already achieved it."

Kael winked at her and grinned, "You don’t need to worry about that. It will take some time, but I’m confident in learning it before becoming a God."

It was normal for her to doubt his claims, as they didn’t know about Alpha. She was very special and was the reason for his confidence.

"Wait! If you master the Rune Language, then you can also imprint skills on our souls?" Kiona’s eyes lit up as she asked with hope.

With the Beast God dead, they didn’t really have any option for gaining skills, so she really looked forward to it.

Kael sighed and answered:

"Unfortunately, no. Even if I master the Rune Language, I doubt I can imprint skills on souls unless I become a God—or at least a Demi-God of Rias’s level."