82 Rune Stone

"I want to challenge him."

"You can’t!" Brian protested when he saw Bai Xi walk over. But he quickly realized that he had said the wrong thing.

"I can’t?" Bai Xi put her face up to his. "Why not? I’m also a first year student, and I just entered the school too. How come they can but I can’t?"

"This…you…" Brian stammered.

"What, can’t find an excuse? Then move," Bai Xi huffed. "I want to challenge him and I want to be concertmaster!"

"I support you!" Charles called out from the crowd. "You’re prettier than Yezi! It won’t be a waste if you’re concertmaster!"

Faced with Bai Xi’s protests, Brian could only retreat. But he still would not Bai Xi enter the ring.

Commotion erupted. They could allow his bias against the challenger, but not letting someone participate was too obvious. The audience started gossiping, and Brian’s expression turned ugly as he listened to the taunting discussions.

Yunlou Chaoyue quietly watched the show from the entrance. As if she did not understand, she turned to Sydney and asked, "Why can’t she? Is there a school rule about this?"

"Uh…" Sydney was troubled. He could not simply say, "This is just so a group of elites can show a kid his place. Oh, right, that kid is Eastern like you. We’re really not discriminating. Really, don’t think like that…"

"She can," he forced out with a tight smile. "Why can’t she? Of course she can!"

And so the most boring duel in the history of the academy unfolded before everyone’s eyes.

--

It was unnaturally calm within the snake circle.

"Cousin, are you thirsty? I brought water for you."

"Oh, thank you!" Ye Qingxuan accepted the bottle and drank it in one breath. His burning throat finally felt a bit better.

"Cousin, are you hungry? I brought peanuts."

Ye Qingxuan’s eyes lit up. "Are they salted? Give me some. Seeing Charles eating made me so hungry." And so a bag of toasted peanuts landed in his hands.

"Cousin, I brought a stool," Bai Xi said. "Take a seat."

"Okay!" Ye Qingxuan felt like he was hallucinating and had the sudden urge to cry. "Cousin, you’re being so nice to me all of a sudden."

Over the audience’s boos, Bai Xi asked politely, "Cousin, is my service good?"

"Of course!" Ye Qingxuan had never been treated so well by his cousin before. It felt like heaven.

"Of course. If you dare to say anything bad, I’ll kick you out of here!" Bai Xi ground her teeth and threatened Ye Qingxuan, "I’ve never served anyone like this in my entire life, but I’m doing this for you. If you lose, kill yourself."

"You don’t need to tell me." Ye Qingxuan clenched his fist. "I’ll win for you."

--

"Edmund, you should personally go next round." Outside the ring, a hoarse voice sounded behind Edmund. He looked back in confusion and saw Banner’s eyes. His pupils were vertical like a wild beast and their green light shone in the darkness. They were thirsty for blood.

"You…lost control?" Edmund yelped.

"Not yet, but ‘it’ is angry, you know?"

Edmund studied him, seeing the murderous intent in those beastly eyes. The thirst they reflected upon Edmund’s pale face was chilling and menacing.

"Don’t disappoint me," he or ‘it’ said softly. "If we lose the title of concertmaster to him because of you…there will be no need for you to stay in this school."

"I know." Edmund nodded, fierceness flashing through his eyes. "I’ll take care of him." He rubbed the amber ring on his forefinger and turned toward the snake ring.

--

"Ten minutes have passed." Brian looked impatiently at Bai Xi. "Stop wasting time if you’re not going to challenge him."

"Who said I’m not going to challenge him?" Bai Xi rolled his eyes. "I poisoned him. Don’t you see him eating it now?"

"You poisoned him?" Brian echoed.

"Yeah. In one-hundred years, when he’s an old fart, the poison will be activated, and he’ll die after burping!" Bai Xi mimicked slicing one’s throat. "Are you scared?"

"I’m so scared! What am I going to do?" Ye Qingxuan acted along, crying and putting on a terrified expression.

Brian’s facial muscles quivered as he tried to keep himself from losing control. Clenching his jaw, he enunciated carefully, "Stop wasting time!"

"Psh!" Bai Xi kicked Ye Qingxuan. "Are you ready? I’m going to start!"

"Oh, yeah! You can start!" Ye Qingxuan hurriedly wiped the crumbs from his lips and returned the stool, water bottle, and half a bag of peanuts. She had come stocked with supplies and was going back like that too.

Under everyone’s annoyed gaze, Bai Xi stood at the edge of the snake circle. Ye Qingxuan lifted her by the back of her collar and dropped her outside the ring.

Beside them, Brian announced listlessly, "The ninth round goes to Ye Qingxuan." He was starting to hate this job.

--

"Are you done fooling around?" a cold voice asked behind Ye Qingxuan.

Ye Qingxuan turned around. Seeing Edmund, he finally understood. "You waited until everyone tired me out to appear?"

"Tire you out? There’s no need for that." Edmund’s eyes were sinister. "Having others participate was just so we could all play a little longer. But sadly they were useless pieces of sh*t and couldn’t help at all…"

"Pieces of sh*t are like birds of a feather. They’re your friends so don’t be so hard on them," Ye Qingxuan replied, obviously bored.

Pa! A cold arc zipped past Ye Qingxuan’s foot. It landed on the ground, leaving a white frost burn. Edmund had cast a rune without chanting or with even any preparation, making the audience to yell in surprise. "Pay attention. I’ve spent a lot of money to deal with you." Edmund blew away the cold smoke around his fingertips and cackled. "Next, I’ll let you and all of the other mutts know who’s the real boss."

Studying Edmund’s palm, Ye Qingxuan’s eyes finally turned serious after being sure that he had seen correctly. "Instantaneous rune?" he murmured to himself.

--

"Yezi is dead meat." Outside the ring, Charles’s brows furrowed. "The opponent is starting to fight with money."

"Are you talking about rune stones?" Bai Xi finally processed the fact.

"You know about that?" Charles asked in surprise. "I’d prepared a long explanation for nothing!"

Bai Xi did not even bother to roll her eyes anymore.

Rune stones were from the Dark World. There were many theories about where they had came from, but there were only two main output methods. One was to create a fissure in a region with heavy aether, and use large scale equipment to track the rune stones. The other method was the favorite of Pioneer musicians from the Dark World—Hunting.

In regions where the aether was chaotic, most organisms would be killed by the aether. The few survivors would become even stronger, fiercer, and more violent. Just like the children of the Dark Mother, they would transform into demons. Some demons had a frequency inside their bodies after death that could help to find rune stones.

Rune stones were naturally occurring crystallized aether in the structure of a rune. Because of its stable structure and pure state, they were able to be kept in specific circumstances.

These rocks that had natural rune power were one of the most important alchemist resources. Most alchemy equipment depended on their power. Of course, there was an even more luxurious use—Smelting Meditation. The musician would reach Coherence with the rune stone. By using the rune stone’s power, he could quickly increase his sense of the rune. In the end, he could reduce a complicated chant to a single syllable. That was the Instantaneous rune.

It was a trademark of a Musician, but with the help of a rune stone, even a student could reach the same level after using enough rune stones. The only downside was that it could only instantaneously cast the rune that the stone could sense. And if one wanted to use this method, one would need a lot of money.

Rune stones were in high demand. They were often sold out as soon as they were out, and the price was never low. Many musicians even used them as hard currency. At the moment, the price of a basic rune stone was about the same as two lapis bricks made by the church. If converted to Anglo currency, it would be at least a few million!

For a student to reach that level of instantaneous casting, the rune stones he had used were surely enough for high grade alchemy equipment. That was why Charles had said Edmund had starting fighting with money. And it was because of this that he started to worry about Ye Qingxuan.

--

Charles had been the one handling Ye Qingxuan’s practice and training over the past few days. He knew his junior’s level better than anyone else.

It had already been five days since Ye Qingxuan took those moldy books from Hermes. Over those five days, Ye Qingxuan stayed in the library and learned to read ancient literature with Abraham in the morning and started practicing in the afternoon. He would lock himself up in the basement, memorizing madly.

Charles could not deny that Ye Qingxuan had improved immensely over the past five days. In fact, he had improved a dozen times faster than others. But it had only been five days…only five days.

Even with the "Light" and "Mirror" rune that he already knew, Ye Qingxuan had only learned five runes. They were the easiest auxiliary runes too.

They were: Flow, originally designed to control liquids, now modified to increase physical strength; Blur, to warp the air and blur everything; Air, to create wind. None of them were attack runes. He had used practically all of them in previous rounds.

Now, faced with an opponent who could use a rune stone and instantaneously cast Frost, and knew him like the back of his hand…How could Ye fight back?

Outside of the ring, Charles scratched his head in worry. He racked his brain for a battle tactic, but could not think of any solution.

"Yezi, you’re dead this time," he murmured.

At this time, the center of the snake circle was already illuminated with Frost!