Ch42.Circle 1 - Part2

Having completed the creation of all of my Runes, I then made some arrangements just in case the unlikely event in where I fail in the creation of my Magic Circle. I have prepared a new body just in case this comes true, I don't want to randomly be sent into any random animal or something. For the last few months, there was someone who has been messing with some of the shops that are under my protection . I believe he is a member of the gang located in the territory east of mine, it would seem like he has been ordered to test out my bottom line, and what they can get away with in my territory.

The first time he caused some trouble was by breaking some of the wares in a cutlery store under my protection. A few of my clan members proceeded to beat him up and steal all of his valuables in order for my client to recover from her losses. A severe beating didn't stop this guy though, after he recovered, he tried again by breaking into someone's house and then stole some of their their money and other positions. Since it was the same guy, I ordered my men to catch the guy and then break his arms and legs in front of the house he robbed in order to send a message. This still didn't stop him though, he was somehow promptly healed and then he tried to attack one of my Clan members who patrol my territory while looking out for my clients. He fortunately didn't succeed in his attack and since he has tested my patience three times, I ordered my men to make him vanish.

He was then abducted from the hotel he was sleeping in, this was very easy for me since I have made a point to invite some of the local hotel owners, as well as some of the medium sized business owners to my Arena events. I have granted them a VIP ticket for their first event since they were invited, they were required to pay if they wanted to attend again though. I did this in order to both bribe them into accepting certain 'jobs' from me and my people.

He was fortunately sleeping in one of the hotels that are under my control, although the hotel isn't in my territory. All I needed to do to 'abduct' him was to ask the owner to slip some sleeping pills into his food and then give my men the keys to his room, as well as have the halls cleared and available to my men. I then had my guys go in and shove this guy into a box before leaving unnoticed and arriving at my house.

He has been locked up in my basement ever since, not the Arena basement, that one has become too busy lately basement is and since I needed some more space to handle my own things, I had some builders create another underground level under my Arena. I have made sure to starve this guy for a few days to weaken him as well as have rigged a small device around his neck that, when activated, will swiftly break his neck. Although I am still not too keen on killing, since this guy has messed with me, I will use him as a spare body in case something goes wrong in the process of creating my Magic Circle and I need a temporary body.

Since I have gotten everything in order, I am currently sitting on a nice big lazy boy couch. I have that little punk tied up and restrained right next to my chair, if the need arises, I can press a button and have a new fresh body prepared almost instantly. I then close my eyes and feel the Magical Energy coursing through my body, after understanding more about Magic I have successfully mastered the most basic ability every mage needs to know, and that is how to use your Magical energy to 'see' the inside of your body. In cultivation novels they tend to have some sort of inner vision, divine sense or something along those lines. Unfortunately there is nothing like that in this world, in order to create your first circle or to discover where your Runes are internally located, you will need to be able to view the insides of your body.

Although there exists Rune Devices with similar X-Ray functionality, these are not going to help you when you are trying to manipulate your Runes internally while both being X-Rayed and looking at the results in real time. Instead, Mages have come up with a solution that will allow them to have very delicate sense of their Magical Energy.

The first step to being able to clearly sense your own Magical Energy, is to be able to feel your energy and treat it as if it were a limb such as your hands. After achieving this, the next step is to then use your Magical energy to 'feel' the inside of their body, you achieve this sight by using the sense of touch of your energy. A better way to describe what is happening would be to compare the process to how a blind person uses their hands to feel their own face, thus forming a mental picture on how they look like.

As I close my eyes, I use my Magical Energy to form a mental picture of the insides of my body. I have long since decided on the order that My Runes will follow in order to form my Circle so I first go and grab the 'Energy Gathering' Rune and separate it from its spot in my body. This is a very delicate procedure, as even though it isn't too hard to remove the rune I need to make sure that I don't accidently alter the Rune in any way as I remove it.

I then slowly guide it towards my brain, after that I proceed to gather each Rune in order and place them all in the center of my brain. The order I have followed was, 'Energy Gathering', 'Shadow Lord', 'Permanent Growth', 'Hard Body', 'Muscular Enhancement', 'Supple Bones', 'Tension Release', 'Camouflage' 'Toxic Adaption' and then lastly 'Greater Comprehension'.

The reason I have followed this order is because I feel that the effect the adjacent Runes may have on each other will bring the best benefits to me. I have hopes that Energy Gathering Rune will affect my Shadow Lord Rune by benefiting my Shadow Space in reducing the amount of energy needed to expand or possibly start passively increase in size as it can start gathering energy on its own. I also believe that it will improve my 'Greater Comprehension' Rune by allowing me to better gather information in the surroundings, this idea is more hopeful on my side but that if it actually happens that, the benefits would be immense.

I hope that my 'Shadow Lord' Rune will affect 'Energy Gathering' Rune by absorbing some shadow energy and hopefully giving my Magical Energy a shadow or darkness attribute and then further affecting 'Permanent Growth' by having my body become more in tuned with shadow energy, thus improving my Shadow based abilities.

Next I chose the 'Permanent Growth' Rune because I hoped that it would effect my 'Shadow Lord' Rune in a similar but different way by also permanently allowing my Shadow Space to grow larger without needing my input. I then hoped that it will effect my 'Hard Body' Rune by improving the defense of my body as it grows, I am not too certain on this result but I believe that these two runes will only bring me positive results.

I then chose the 'Hard Body' Rune because, I hoped that it would improve the toughness of my 'Permanent Growth' Rune as well as possibly slowing down the speed at which my body is growing due to the fact that it would be growing with enhanced defenses. I also hope that it will improve the toughness of my 'Muscular Enhancement' Rune so that it will not only improve my strength but the toughness of my muscles as well.

-----[(A/N) Above I have added 'Rune' to the end of each of the Runes and below I am trying a different approach by mostly just naming the Rune. I feel that I am using the word Rune too often in these paragraphs and have tried something else. Let me know whet you guys think?]-----

Then with regard to my 'Muscular Enhancement' Rune, I hoped that it would further enhance the hardness of my body through 'Hard Body' by permanently increasing my bodies hardness along with the increase of my Magical Energy and then further increase the strength of my 'Supple Bones' Rune. I wasn't too sure about whether I should swap 'Muscular Enhancement' with 'Supple Bones', but decided on this order as 'Muscular Enhancement' should have a better affect on 'Hard Body' than the 'Supple Bones' Rune would.

I am also hoping that my 'Supple Bones' Rune will increase the flexibility of my muscles from 'Muscular Enhancement' as well as increase the amount of tension I am able to store up in 'Tension Release', as if I can somehow split up the tension release in to different parts with the help of 'Supple Bones' I may be able to use my 'Tension Release' Runes abilities multiple times in a row instead of having to build up tension again.

I then chose the 'Tension Release' Rune next because I could not determine how it could possibly affect 'Supple Bones' or 'Camouflage' but I have high hopes that the 'Camouflage' Rune will affect 'Tension Release' by allowing me to hide the part of my body that I am building up tension in. This will then prevent making my only combat related Rune Magic obvious as well as adding a lot more usability to it. I also have no clue how 'Camouflage' will affect 'Toxic Adaption', but this is the only order of Rune placement that I could think of that will give me the most advantages.

I have some unrealistic hopes that the 'Toxic Adaption' Rune will improve the adaptability of my 'Camouflage' Rune and that it will allow me to have a wider range of versatility with my camouflage changes. I am also hoping that 'Toxic Adaption' will somehow improve the absorption and adaptation of the intake of knowledge and information while using 'Greater Comprehension'. This will theoretically allow me to continuously improve the level of my comprehension and the more things I use it on the better my ability to learn will become. This is very much wishful thinking on my part, but you have to dream big sometimes!

Lastly I am hoping that my 'Greater Comprehension' Rune will increase the speed at which I absorb Toxins and my body will adapt to different poisons faster as well as hopefully improving my tolerance to similar Toxins without me having to absorb them. I also hope that it will somehow improve the speed and efficiency of 'Energy Gathering'.