130 Imbuements

"You said you did your Body Imbuements a different way than how Lee did them, right?" Noah asked as he and Moxie made their way back toward the tavern.

"All at once," Moxie said with a nod. "Never thought about trying to do it in layers before, which is a bit stupid of me I suppose. It makes sense. Gradual change is always better than a sudden one."

"I missed the classes where Lee started teaching Body Imbuement, but did Todd follow your method?" Noah asked. "He was using it a while ago, but somehow by accident. Is there some way to test out a Body Imbuement or otherwise make sure you don't get a bad one?"

Moxie thought for a moment. "That's a good question, actually. I never really thought about it because I was more focused on the others, since Todd wasn't having any difficulties. I can't think of any way to really do a Body Imbuement quickly or temporarily. You can always remove them, but your body isn't Catchpaper. It's not going to be a fun experience."

"So you can definitely remove the Imbuements if they don't work?" Noah asked.

Moxie nodded. "Most people remove them when they reach the next Rank. No point keeping a weaker Imbuement. It hurts, but as long as you aren't doing it constantly, you'll be fine."

Good to know. No reason to keep holding off on my own Imbuements much longer, then. Just need to figure out exactly what I'm going to go for.

"Interesting. Maybe Todd's stumbled into something different, then. Either that or he's just a natural at Imbuing himself and got really lucky with an Imbuement that doesn't suck."

They reached the tavern a minute later, stepping through the doors to the sight of the rest of their group gathered around one of the tables. Brayden was in the process of pushing several large bundles of cloth into a glowing rift in the air before him.

He shoved the final one through and the purple rend sealed up. Brayden brushed his hands off, turning as he spotted Noah and Moxie out of the corner of his eye.

"Good timing," Brayden said. "I'm all packed up. Shall we? I'm eager to get back on the road."

***

Throughout that day, Noah's thoughts remained on his Body Imbuements and Runes. He barely even noticed the hills going by as they walked. If something happened, he was sure somebody would get his attention.

The biggest point of Body Imbuements would be to help make up for my shortcomings. Ideally, I'd like something to make me a bit harder to kill. The problem is, I don't see how Pyroclastic Resonance is going to do much in the way of protecting.

Noah idly called on the Rune as they walked, feeling the magic as it coursed through his fingertips. He wished he could take out his journal and write down his thoughts, but that would have been pretty difficult to do while they were walking.

Instead, he just let his thoughts drift. The Rune had demonstrated that it could do everything with ash that a normal Ash Rune could, and it also had control over a degree of flame.

Noah hummed to himself, pulling a tiny tendril of ash out from his bag and swirling it across his knuckles. A flicker of a frown crossed over Noah's face.

I want a way to use this in my Body Imbuement. What benefits could it give me, preferably ones that help me stay alive?

Noah tapped his fingers together, generating a silent but steady rhythm. He focused on it, calling on the Pyroclastic Resonance Rune and channeling it into his fingertips. Nothing changed, but he could feel his fingers warm slightly.

Intent. Need to figure out exactly what I'm going for. It might be a bit of a stretch, but could I somehow generate ash from the vibrations, rather than just controlling them? Having a way to actively make it rather than carrying around a tool to do it could be beneficial. That does kind of go against the whole premise of not being able to generate something from nothing, though. Maybe an energy transfer of some sort would work.

He continued to tap his fingers together, not fully paying attention to his own hands as much as his thoughts. A spike of pain suddenly shot through Noah's fingers and he yelped, shaking his hand off and sending an accusatory glare at it.

Noah paused. A tiny tendril of smoke was rising up from his reddened fingertip. He'd managed to heat his nail and burn the flesh beneath it.

Oh, shit. The energy from the vibration was enough to generate enough heat to burn me? That's similar to what Combustion does, but it's the vibration itself that carried the energy. That… now that could have some uses. Especially if I combine it with Combustion. I just need to figure out how to Imbue it. Maybe it's time for some drastic measures.

The beginnings of a plan started to etch themselves into Noah's mind. Perhaps he was approaching the Body Imbuements from the wrong angle – at least, the wrong angle for when Pyroclastic Resonance was involved.

It wasn't a defensive rune at all, and even if he could find some way to use it protectively, it probably wouldn't be that well suited to it. Nobody said it had to be defensive, though. There was one problem that Noah would never get away from, and perhaps this was the solution.

Instead of protecting me from other things, I can make Pyroclastic Resonance protect me from itself – or rather, ash and smoke. That way I won't have to worry about injuring myself when I'm using it.

I also just filled my Greater Wind Rune. I can redo my Pyroclastic Resonance combination – assuming nothing goes wrong in the process. Hm. I think I'll do the Imbuement first, as I need to test if Body Imbuements can be removed anyway. Also, I really want to see if my thoughts are right. I'll fix the rune up and do it again if I'm correct.

Noah's lips tugged up in a grin. He brought the Rune to the front of his mind, channeling its energy, and started to Imbue it one thin layer at a time upon his lungs.

The process wasn't comfortable. It felt like he was inhaling hot steam. It took him several tries to figure out exactly how much power he needed to use, but now that he actually had a plan of what to do, he started to make progress. The pain was annoying, but his desire to see the results muted it enough for him to keep it from showing on his face.