Rampaging Maximus

Presently, Nini had yet to completely manifest the Life Runes that made up her physical body. Nini had only failed to manifest her Life Runes due to Max lacking the necessary resources and the required Soul Force amount to carry through the creation process.

At the end of the day, every single one of his failures had always been because of his Soul Force Limit.

In Nini's case, because he lacked the necessary Soul Force, he didn't bother to have her gain an adult spiritual body. Instead, he made her assume the figure of a little girl.

With such limitations and proportions, not only was he able to maximize her capabilities, but he was also able to fully create her with his limited Soul Force.

As for how he was able to achieve something like this in the first place, where he got the knowledge to create Nini from, and whether he devised this godly Runic Creation method by himself or not, that would also be a topic for another time.

For now, as Maximus's state of mind is in complete disorder from his pent-up frustration and anger, all the vital information in his head is blocked from access, as such, there is literally nothing to get out of him presently. Therefore, we could only wait till he eventually calmed down by himself.

Until then, brace yourself for his—

"Aaaahhhh!! Why! Why! Why was I given such a genius mind but mediocre aptitude in Soul Force?! Just freaking why?! Arghhhh!"

Boom! Boom!

Unable to restrain himself, in the end, Maximus went on a sudden and utter rampage. He started smashing his carefully crafted devices and machines as though they were worth nothing to him— even though it was quite the contrary as he would only regret his actions later on.

Unable to watch it anymore, a tiny silhouette with a frame of a petite body suddenly emerged from one of the realistic mannequins used for conducting experimental simulation tests. It was then accompanied by numerous tiny sprites of golden runic characters and symbols that slowly gathered and flickered upon their appearance.

As the sprites of golden runes gathered around the tiny silhouette, its figure eventually turned into a petite, young girl, reminiscent of a 6 to 7-year-old child. Even the outfit she wore seemed to be that of a dazzlingly pink princess dress decorated with white frills.

Her appearance, however, was illusory and translucent. It was almost as if she did not exist, as you could almost see right through the figure of her body.

But if someone with keen eyesight looked at her carefully enough, they would be shocked to see the countless tiny runes interconnected with each other that held her delicate body together.

On the other hand, if someone with ordinary eyesight were to see her, they could only mistake her for a young ghostly girl.

This young ghost-looking girl was the manifestation form of Nini, albeit an incomplete manifestation.

Once she appeared in the room, she hurriedly attempted to stop her Master, Maximus, who was on the verge of being deranged from his latest failure.

[M-Master, please calm down. You will break everything in this place again!]

Nini's clear voice rang out. However, her attempt only resulted in failure as Maximus continued his rampage within the room like a mad man.

"Ahhh! I don't want to hear it! Everything should be damned!"

At this very moment, screws, bolts, and nuts along with some other parts of some devices in the room flew with each fist he threw out. Every stomp he made smashed some broken devices further into irreparable pieces. He was like a rabid dog with its lease cut loose as he ransacked the room. He couldn't help but destroy everything in his path in his fury.

Boom! Boom! Crack!

Actually, this wasn't the first time he was on a rampage after failing his Runic Path simulation test. Nini could even be said to have gotten used to his reoccurring tantrums by now.

However, despite knowing full well of the current circumstance, she still wanted to try to stop her Master from destroying his own creations, even if he had a valid and legitimate irrational reason for doing so. After all, those devices and gadgets that he destroyed cost him money to create. This was especially so for the ruined Runic Force Crystals that were smashed along with the gadget that they powered.

It all started with his 900th simulation attempt and failure, which was so close to success but still failed in the end for the same reason as always. It was then that Maximus finally reached his limit of patience and began going on a rampage after every subsequent failure. He would always destroy things in his laboratory to release all his pilled-up frustration over the past years.

Although most of the things that he created from sheer boredom could fetch a hefty amount of money on the market, he had no intention of selling them. That could very easily break the economy, and even likely incite greed in people.

The reason for that decision was extremely justified. After all, things such as the Mental Force Induction and Stimulation Device or the incredibly complicated Spatial Storage devices that normally take many experts working together to successfully create were things that could make him a lot of money.

However, in the process, he would only attract too much unpleasant attention to himself, so he opted not to do so for now.

Of course, the gadgets and devices he was currently smashing around were all prototypes and had a couple of faults that needed to be fixed. This was mostly why Maximus didn't care about destroying them.

Hopefully, that was his reason for smashing them into pieces. After all, even though those gadgets and devices were worth nothing in his eyes, they were worth a lot of money when sold in the market.

After an unknown time had passed, Maximus had finally stopped smashing his creations and calmed down only to regret his actions from before. He was currently sitting on the floor with his arms wrapped around his shin in a hugged manner, and his head lowered in between his knees.

All around him were debris of broken machines, electronic devices, and mechanical gadgets, almost like the place had been ransacked.

Even though not all of the machines and gadgets were broken and damaged, there were still more of them that were severely damaged than those that were not. Even then, the ones that were not too damaged might not function properly with their Runic Circuit Board having amassed visible cracks from Maximus's rampage.

"What have I done? Why did I do something so horrible to my creations? Ah, what should I do now? I was preparing to sell those trash inventions at the market in exchange for Runic Force Crystals, but now… Haah..."

He couldn't help but sigh melancholically at his loss.

By his side, almost at the same time, a muffled sigh could be heard faintly.

"Hm?" Maximus suddenly raised his head with surprise, and asked: "Did you sigh just now, Nini? Are you capable of such expressions now?"

[N-No. How is that possible? Master must be imagining things] She hurriedly denied it in her electronic voice.

"...Is that so?" Maximus muttered, and then a moment later, he said: "That reminds me, I thought I heard you speak properly for the first time a while ago. Earlier, you even spoke to me in a proper tone of voice, even addressing me as 'you'— something that hasn't happened before whenever you address me. I remember that I clearly sacrificed your voice and body's maturity for more perfected functions during your inception because I lacked the necessary Soul Force..."

'Hold on, where am I heading with this? There's no need for my baseless doubts, is there?'

Maximus realized that he had been thinking too much. As Nini had been with him all this time, he should be able to tell if anything was different about her. Furthermore, if there had been a dramatic change in her spiritual form, he would have noticed it immediately. However, he didn't find anything new about her even though he had made the habit of periodically checking her foundational runes for faults all this time.

"Forget what I said just now, Nini. You're right, perhaps I was indeed imagining things in my delirious state of mind. That must be why I thought I had heard your clear voice just then. I truly need to stop this irrational behavior of mine as it seems to be slowly affecting my cognition."

Having concluded this to be the case, he shifted his attention elsewhere and looked up at the projected monitor of the computer that was positioned on this rectangular-shaped frame that had no back cover. With the help of the latest laser technology, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of laser lights were employed to create a projection on this rectangular-shaped frame.

Currently, no one has been able to produce a flawless holographic projection without the aid of a device to display the projected image. Since there was nothing to reflect the projection lights on or hold the projection images in the air, these rectangular-shaped frames that utilized numerous lights were manufactured for that purpose.

That aside, at this time, there was shocking news on the local News Channel. This news had been playing nonstop for a while now, almost as if to warn people of its contents. Maximus had already seen the contents of the news about 2 to 3 times by now. It was the reason why he stopped rampaging in the first place as the topic of the news caught his attention, bringing him back to reality.

The headline stated—

[Breaking News: A reckless attempt at the activation of a faulty Runic Path resulted in the death of a Renowned Runic Construct Creator.]