Free Web NovelChapter 121: Runic Arts Club [1]
The next few days were uneventful.
Brutas had surprisingly not challenged him again for the rest of the week, leaving Ronan time to think and train. He spent most of it processing the conversation with Grace. She had been avoiding him since Brutas interrupted them, and Ronan considered forcing another meeting, but he suspected she would not reveal anything useful yet. The way her demeanor had shifted in that corridor, from nervous fidgeting to sharp focus, suggested she had expected him to be someone else. The thought was irking, but Ronan could look past it.
There was no hurry.
From the looks of it, Grace’s interest was almost solely on Luca. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
What bothered him more was Brutas himself. Ronan watched as Brutas glared at him again during dismissal, the hostility radiating from the larger student, and the target of it was Ronna.
The attention felt uncharacteristically random. Sure, people disliked Ronan at the Academy, but rarely did anyone actually do anything about it.
At the end of the day, he was an Ashbourne.
No one dared mess with an Ashbourne.
Except Brutas, apparently, though even he had been keeping his distance after Selene’s intervention.
Ronan did not know how long that would last.
He remembered what had been said earlier.
Brutas had connections with the Ravencrest family. Or more specifically, his family worked under their own.
Had the Ravencrests issued something against Ronan? It seemed unlikely, but it could be true. He just didn’t have enough information to go off of. There was no way he would be able to draw an accurate conclusion from what he had.
Realizing thinking about it any longer would just be grasping at straws, Ronan stopped.
He turned and left the room. Usually, he would return to his dorm to practice Steel Bone Armament.
In the last 5ish days he’d been using it, he’d leveled it up once. Even considering that as the skills leveled up, there was probably an exponential curve upwards as to how difficult it was to level up a skill.
That didn’t stop him from drawing comparisons. The leech had leveled it up four times in the matter of hours.
Was it because Ronan was causing less damage to his bones? In truth, Ronan wanted to fracture all his bones at once and recover all at once as well, but that simply wasn’t possible. That would take multiple days, and he would have to skip classes for that. Sure he could say he was using a skill, but Steel Bone Armament was a skill that was considered "forbidden." Not technically forbidden. It was legal. It was just that it had self harming connotations tied to it, and it was frowned upon. Even Aura thought the skill to be foolish.
But the results were definitely there. He felt like he could kick a metal pole with his shins and he wouldn’t even wince.
It was interesting, considering he hadn’t actually broken any of his bones in the shins. Only arms and forearms, but they transferred evenly throughout his whole body.
Ronan continued forward past his room.
He couldn’t invest his time on it today, however.
Today was the first meeting of the Runic Arts Club.
Learning runes was crucial. Runes held up everything in this world. Utility runes powered lightbulbs and transportation networks. Safety runes kept homes secure. Combat runes turned weapons into weapons.
But more than that, they were actually a viable way to fight.
His sister, Victoria, could draw runes so quickly that her combat style revolved around them entirely.
Many people hated her for it, dismissing runic combat as cowardly or unorthodox, but they could not deny the effectiveness. She was ranked second in her year, only behind Prince Arthur himself.
Ronan entered the designated club room and scanned it briefly.
Four people occupied the space.
Before the mass purge, many students had signed up for the Runic Arts Club, but most of those people had been eliminated. They likely had signed up due to rumors that the Princess was signing up as well. freewёbnoνel.com
In reality, not many students were interested in runes. Most mages preferred flashy spells or direct combat.
That was what made Sapphire’s presence so important during the Inter-Class War, because not only was the one of the few runesmiths, she was a good one.
Ronan took a random seat near the middle.
No one was speaking to each other. He glanced at the other three students. Two were females, one male. The guy had blonde hair, neatly combed back, his posture rigid and formal. The girl sitting beside him shared the same blonde hair, the same sharp features. Siblings, Ronan guessed. Probably nobility, judging by their matching pins and expensive tailoring.
The third girl sat in the corner, utterly detached from the other two. She had dark green hair cut in a neat bob, dark skin, and eyes that flicked across the pages of a thick book in her lap. She looked utterly uninterested in all of them.
And sitting alone was Seraphina. She glanced at him and waved, and Ronan waved back.
Then the next student walked in.
It was Sapphire. She looked nervous, clutching several heavy books against her chest. The texts were clearly about runic theory, far beyond Ronan’s current understanding. Her eyes swept the room, scanning for a familiar face, and when they landed on Ronan, she visibly brightened.
She hurried over and took the seat next to him, immediately leaning in and whispering, "I’m surprised you’re here. Then again, it’s normal since you’re Victoria Ashbourne’s brother. Not that I’m saying you have to be a runesmith ’cause of your sister, but y’know, it would be a shame if–"
And then she began rambling. For a girl so outwardly shy, she could get passionate about certain subjects. Ronan tuned her out after the first few sentences.
She was talking about Victoria’s contributions to runic theory, her groundbreaking work on layered stabilization arrays, her revolutionary adjustments to transport runes.
All things Ronan already knew. All things he did not particularly care about right now.
Then the door opened again.
A woman with platinum hair stepped inside. Her expression was completely cold, her gaze sharp and clinical as it swept across the room. She lingered on Ronan for a second longer than the others, then looked away with visible disinterest.
Ronan recognized her immediately.
Victoria Ashbourne. His sister.
She walked to the front of the room, hands folded neatly behind her back, and spoke.
"I am Victoria Ashbourne, president of the Runic Arts Club."
Her voice was flat, emotionless almost.
Sapphire stopped mid-sentence, her mouth hanging slightly open in awe.
Victoria continued without pause. "This club is not for those seeking easy credit or social connection. If you are here for anything other than runic study, leave now."
No one moved.
Victoria’s eyes swept across them again, colder this time.
"Good. Then let us begin."
