Pain. Of all things in the world, Jacob had always hated pain the most, not in the casual way most people claimed to dislike it, but in a deep, almost visceral manner that shaped his every decision. From as far back as he could remember, he had done everything in his power to avoid it. He didn't just dislike the sting of a blade or the burn of exertion he feared the raw, suffocating sensation that came with damage to the body, and more than that, he loathed the helplessness that often came with it.

His first true encounter with pain hadn't come from some accident or fall like most children, but from his first sparring match. At the time, he had been young and still held childish fantasies of becoming a knight, dreaming of glory and valour, of fighting on the frontlines like the heroes of old. But that dream had shattered the moment his opponent's practice blade had struck his side, knocking the wind from his lungs and leaving him writhing in agony. It wasn't the injury that had shaken him most, it was the realization that such pain was normal, expected even, for those who chose to fight.

He had made his decision immediately after that first match. If being a knight meant enduring wounds like that, he wanted no part of it. The same went for battle mages, burns, backlash, explosions, broken bones, none of it appealed to him. Scholars, on the other hand, could live their lives in peace, unbloodied, unbroken, surrounded by books instead of blades. That was when he first started thinking of runes and theory, knowledge and discovery. It was safer, saner.

And yet, here he was, bones aching and muscles screaming, every step forward accompanied by a dull throb in his spine and the ever-present sting of the burns etched into his chest and arms. The pain didn't come in waves it came in layers, stacked one atop the other until it all blurred together into a single, crushing weight. But he had already gone too far to stop now. Pain wasn't an excuse he could afford anymore.

Across from him, the mage had already summoned four fresh runes into existence, each of them swirling with dense mana, suspended like ominous stars in the air beside him. Jacob could see the mage's lips moving, mouthing something softly that he couldn't quite make out, and then a familiar red hue began to seep into each rune, faith, that strange and alien power, neither mana nor aura, that made even a simple fireball deadly.

Without thinking too hard, Jacob reached down and grabbed a fallen sword lying near a shattered chair, its handle warm from a recent battle, its blade notched but intact. Sword in one hand, the borrowed artefact gripped tightly in the other, he began to run. It wasn't a confident sprint, his movements were sluggish, uneven, his legs refusing to cooperate fully, but he pushed forward regardless.

'I can't just keep playing defence,' he thought grimly, gritting his teeth. 'If I take many more direct hits like that, even the new barrier won't hold up. I have to fight back, even if it's hopeless, if I can just disrupt his casting for even a moment, it might buy time.'

The mage sneered at the sight of him charging forward, his expression twisted with amusement and contempt. "A mage dares to brandish a sword? How ignorant," he spat, and one of the runes ignited in full, surging with a thick plume of flame as a massive fireball erupted from it, streaks of blood-red faith energy twisting through its core as it shot toward Jacob with a speed too fast to dodge.

Jacob surged forward, each stride driven not by confidence but desperation and a half-muttered question echoed in his mind: 'should I dodge?' He almost laughed at the absurdity of it. That wasn't the real question. The real question was: could he dodge? And the answer, frankly, was no, not unless someone intervened, and help wasn't coming.

So instead, he clenched the artefact in his right hand even tighter, his knuckles whitening, and poured his mana into it. Instantly, a subtle shift washed over him, his body grew lighter, his steps steadier, his thoughts sharper, as though all the clutter in his mind had been cleared out and replaced by singular focus. It was strange, almost serene, in the eye of this violent storm.

When Jacob had first retrieved the artefact, the one nestled within that scrap of cloth torn away by an arrow, he'd been surprised for two very specific reasons. First, the odds of that entire sequence unfolding the way it had were impossibly low: a man running past him, an arrow grazing his cloak, and the arrow snagging on precisely the part where the artefact had been hidden. The probability was laughable.

The second reason was the nature of the artefact itself. Its primary barrier function wasn't extraordinary on its own, capable of holding up against a few low-ranked attacks, sure, but not indefinitely. It wasn't invincible. A steady barrage of just these rank ten fireballs, and it would eventually fizzle out.

But that wasn't the artefact's fault. It was his.

The device drew its strength from the mana it was fed, and Jacob's mana, even now, was barely refined, he was still a rank ten mage, the weakest tier. He simply hadn't absorbed or compressed enough mana into his body to ascend any higher. So the artefact, faithful to its design, could only output defence equivalent to the quality of mana it received. If, hypothetically, a rank one mage used it, most low-level attacks would bounce off it effortlessly.

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Still, the true value of the artefact lay beyond that. The secondary rune etched into its design activated when he channelled his mana, feeding him power in return, sharpening his reflexes, firming his muscles, making his limbs respond with just a little more speed and control. It wasn't transformative, not enough to turn the tide outright, but it gave him an edge, however slight.

For the first time in this fight, Jacob felt like he could react not just flinch and endure.

Unfortunately, that was also the moment his inexperience showed itself.

He saw the incoming fireball and instinctively moved to dodge, leaping slightly to the side. But he had dodged too early, too predictably. The mage had been watching and reacted with a minor adjustment, the trajectory of the spell shifting mid-flight. Jacob thought he'd escaped, right until the fireball curved and slammed into his side.

He staggered backward, coughing through the blast of heat that clung to his skin even through the barrier. Before he could reorient, another fireball was already hurtling toward him. Gritting his teeth, Jacob dashed to the left, trying to anticipate this one better, but even as he ran, he could see it adjust again, turning with him, following like a hunting dog on a scent.

He focused. Waited. 'Now,' he told himself just as the fireball closed in, so near that he could see the barrier around him glow faintly, struggling to keep the heat at bay. He lunged to the right, dodging at the very last possible moment.

And then he heard it.

"Explode."

Just one word. Quiet. Simple. And yet it cut through him like a knife to the spine. A command laced with power.

The fireball burst in the air behind him, the heat slamming into his back like a hammer, knocking him off balance. The explosion rang out like a cannon, the concussive force making his ears ring and his head spin. He hit the ground hard but refused to stay there, dragging himself up even as his knees wobbled.

And that was when he saw it, another fireball, already flying toward him, no time to think, no time to breathe.

'Just one more,' Jacob thought grimly, eyes flicking to the floating runes. Four, there had been four since the beginning and if the mage adhered to any known limits, that should be all. A rank ten mage wasn't supposed to be able to sustain more than two active runes at once, but faith was a strange, erratic force. It warped reason, stretched boundaries, and in the hands of someone truly devout, it could turn impossibilities into routine.

Jacob ducked low as another fireball tore through the air above him, the pressure of its heat brushing across his hair like a hot wind. He pivoted to keep it in view, watching as the fireball curved around unnaturally like a thrown boomerang turning for a second pass. His attention, however, wasn't on it alone; it was split between the circling projectile and the fourth rune, which still floated unused in front of the mage.

He wasn't retreating.

He was closing in, sprinting toward the caster with his sword raised, his muscles trembling from pain and exhaustion but still obeying his commands. His mind was a haze, but not from fear, from clarity. A strange clarity fed to him by the artefact, pushing away distractions.

He was just a few feet away when he saw it, the slight curl of the mage's lips, a smirk that signalled something was wrong.

Jacob's eyes darted to the final rune again, only for it to vanish.

And then, a split second later, it reappeared right in front of him, impossibly close.

He didn't even have time to process the trick before it exploded. The fireball erupted in his face, halting his momentum entirely, and at that same moment, the curved fireball, the one that had been circling, slammed into his back.

The pressure collapsed around him like a vice, and Jacob let out a strangled scream of pain as the flames consumed him. The barrier barely held, its glow flickering erratically under the weight of dual impacts, and in the chaotic swirl of fire and light, he saw something that made him forget the pain entirely.

Tiny runes, so small they could barely be seen floated within the heart of the flames.

His first instinct was fear. He thought the runes were hidden attacks, traps planted inside the fireball that would soon detonate and overwhelm his shield. There were dozens of them. Maybe more. And if they all exploded together, he'd be finished.

But something felt… off.

He blinked against the brightness, focusing through the fire's dying light. These runes, they weren't drawn like his. Their shape was subtly different. Their structure lacked the familiar weaving of mana, and more than that, he couldn't feel mana coming from them at all.

They didn't seem cast.

They seemed… inherent.

The flames were beginning to fade, the heat loosening its grip on his skin. He could move again, but he didn't not yet. He just stood there, eyes locked on those strange, silent runes floating in the remnants of the fire, trying to etch their form into his mind.

A thought took root in him, bizarre, irrational, but undeniable.

If his handbook was correct, if what he'd read about True Runes was even half true, then these might be more than just residue or visual noise.

They might be the foundation.

According to the text, everything in existence could be broken down into runes, True Runes, not drawn by humans, but embedded into the fabric of reality itself. If that were true, if the very fire he faced was composed of these runes, then maybe, just maybe, he was seeing the fundamental blueprint of fire.

The building blocks of flame itself.

As the last wisps of heat vanished and the rune-laced smoke drifted away, Jacob took a single step backward, still breathing hard, but not from fear.

The shape of one of the runes was already burned into his memory.

And more than that his mana had begun to move.

It was subtle at first, a writhing sensation beneath his skin, tracing a path through his arm toward his palm. But the pattern was different from before. Not the chaotic loops of a standard rune, not the clumsy structure of an imitation.

This was deliberate. Refined. Ancient.

'Maybe… maybe this could work.'

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