Vhalar 10 & 11 721
Goku spent the late morning in his mentor’s home, struggling to read through a book he’d bought at random. His hone lessons had slowed down in efficiency because there was so much to read. The more complicated runes were bottlenecked by his reading speed so naturally that was something that needed to be improved upon.
“What a stupid story,” the man said while slouching ever further into his mentor’s living room chair. From what he gathered it was a short story about a woman and a man who stole some horses and went off on some kind of adventure. They were taking a break from military training and there was some love plot involved that Goku regretted skipping over because he missed out on some key plot points down the line. He ended up closing the book three quarters of the way through and tossed it into the fireplace since he couldn’t possibly care less about how it ended. Besides, he was going to need to keep a cool head for today’s lesson.
Not too long after the book’s demise Roshi walked into the room while carrying a mysterious crate full of what sounded like it was filled with metals. He cocked his head to signal Goku to help him and within a moment Goku had stood up to help place to box onto the floor.
“The rune for today is a lot more dangerous than any other rune you’ve learned,” Roshi instructed as he sifted through the box to pull out a number of bladed tools and weapons. “It’s not dangerous because it has the potential to cause harm, it’s dangerous because it does the opposite.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Goku said after giving it a moment’s thought. He bowed his head to the floor to examine the tools. Roshi got to his feet and walked away, each of his steps thudding softly on the floor. They were ominous in a way. Each footstep made Goku remember the growing pains of learning how to use runes and the pain associated with his failures.
“Today’s rune is the rune of regeneration. It’s healing magic, in a sense.” Roshi paused at his most comfortable chair and took a seat. A look of bliss spread across his face as he did so. “You’ll read more about it but the main point that I want to drill into your head is that the magic simply helps your body heal itself faster. My point being, don’t be a fool when you’re testing it out. Very small nicks will do until you find success. I’d do them for you, but you wouldn’t want my shaky hands handling any sort of blade.”
Goku gulped. Despite how cool the rune sounded he couldn’t imagine just how painful the testing would be. His mind raced as the mortal mind did when it was faced with danger. Surely there was some other way? Then the idea came to mind. “You once said that it’s possible to apply runes to others. Why not have me do that to someone else for testing?”
Roshi burst out laughing and winced afterwards. “by all means, go find someone willing to let a novice mage experiment on their wounds. Now if you’re done with your silly suggestions shut on up and get to work. I’ll be taking my nap now.”
The student grumbled something vulgar yet under his breath that Roshi’s old ears couldn’t pick up from across the room. He then got to work reading the pages in the grimoire that pertained to the rune of regeneration. After the tenth packed page Goku had to skip ahead just to see how many more pages he had to go. There were dozens more and the first ten had taken so long that the fireplace no longer provided enough light. He shuddered because this was more information than he’d had any of the previous runes he’d learned. Clearly Roshi had spent a great deal of time using this rune which made sense since he was a military man and surely he’d had to deal with wounds.
Goku lit some candles and read on despite knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to cover the rune in one day. In fact he stopped one more page later because his head throbbed with the information he’d gleamed. If he had to summarize what he’d learned so far it was that the healing process was just like having the would heal naturally. So nasty wounds usually came with nasty scars. There were a lot of particulars about what could even be healed. Cuts and gashes were the easiest things to deal with but the deeper the injury or if something important sounding was injured then the chances dropped significantly. The writings didn’t go into very specific details concerning anatomy because Roshi was nothing close to a doctor. All he could do was make top level observation such as “damaged eyes won’t work afterwards” or “don’t even bother if there’s a hole through the heart” or Goku’s favorite “place a weak rune if you know it won’t make a difference. Save energy”.
Most of the other things Goku read quickly faded into the back of his mind where they were forgotten. Goku didn’t feel qualified to even draw the rune let alone apply it properly. He thought about various potential injuries that could occur and he thought about how the rune might work. A broken knee, a sliced thumb from cooking, getting kicked by a horse….
Next thing Goku knew he was being prodded with a familiar wooden cane. “I said I was taking a nap and you decided to take one as well? You’re something else.” Roshi looked at what page Goku ended up at and shook his head. There’s no chance of finishing tonight. Just bring out the spare blankets and plan on spending the night. I’ll not have you sleeping again until you’ve at least learned how to draw the symbol.
“Yessir,” Goku said after wiping the drool from the sides of his mouth. He sat up and immediately got back to his readings. He focused on the shape of the symbol and absent mindedly drew it over and over again while thinking more about what he’d read. There was so much more to learn and read but at this point he was so pent up with energy that he just wanted to give it a try. At the same time he didn’t want to make himself bleed so that kept his urges in check. Adrenaline kept him up for hours past his normal bed time. By then he’d been able to master the shape of the rune and he had a good idea worked out for how to test the rune without going too far. That, however, was going to have to wait until morning.
Morning came and went all without Goku even coming close to waking. Roshi had patience for his student but once noon came and went it was time to prod him awake with the cane again. “Get to it” was all he said before leaving to go run some errands.
Goku couldn’t get straight to work because he had to eat and clean up a bit out of respect for his teacher. He cleaned a lot more than he would have normally because he still had an aversion to inflicting harm on himself. However there was soon nothing left to clean and he had no choice but to sit down with one hand hovering over some blank scrap pieces of paper while his other hand clenched a small yet sharp knife.
He was no great shakes with a blade. He’d tried to pick up swordsmanship a couple of times but he’d always gotten so busy with work and he rarely had energy for physical activities outside of said work. Still, he knew enough to know that the pointy end was enough to make him bleed so he pressed the tip of the knife ever so gently into his skin on the back of his hand. He intended to press just enough to cause a jolt of pain and draw blood. He drew more blood than he’d intended and he tossed the knife aside in frustration. Expletives streamed from his lips as he waved his hand around and squeezed the puncture wound simultaneously. He’d planned on placing the rune of regeneration right after hurting himself but there was no way he had the focus to actually do it so quickly. He hissed and waited for minutes to pass until he regained some sense of composure.
“Okay, okay. Whoooo, you can do it, just get it over with,” Goku told himself. He couldn’t believe that he’d manage to fudge up his very first attempt so badly. He traced the rune slowly across the back of his hand and the rune went into effect. At least, he thought it did. There was no way of actually knowing if he was healing faster than normal so all he could do was wait and see what the effects would be. He seemed to recall that simple wounds could be healed within a handful of minutes but he was nowhere near as competent as his mentor so perhaps he would need several times as long.
Minutes went by and the bleeding stopped. Goku had initially been very intent on staring at the wound but the novelty of it all wore off quickly. The rune was there on his hand and staring at the wound was like watching grass grow. There was a point when Goku noticed that the rune had worn off and he placed another one yet he didn’t feel any different. He supposed he couldn’t associate any feeling to the healing process so he was just going to have to wait and see how things turned out. He remembered that he’d not finished his readings and he hurried over to the big book to pick up where he’d left off.
Reading was an excellent time killer. An hour of reading passed by relatively quickly and the next time Goku checked his hand there was little evidence that there had ever been a wound on the back of his hand. There were some flecks of scabbing and a dimpled dot which he assumed to be a scar but that was about it.
“It worked! I think…” Goku exclaimed. “Or do I normally heal that quickly? How am I even supposed to know how quickly I normally heal?” He pulled is hair in light frustration. He fetched the knife again and thought to keep careful timing this time to see if he healed faster on his second attempt. He tried his best to replicate his first injury but on his opposite hand this time. He guesstimated the same amount of force and before long he was focusing a large amount of ether into his hand to try healing it with another rune.
The process was repeated a couple more times throughout the day until Goku was sure that the rune was at least functional to some degree. The effectiveness seemed to vary on factors he wasn’t sure of but the simple fact that his wounds were healing at varying times was enough to tell him that he was in fact succeeding at some level. With any luck this would be the first step he would take into becoming an expert magician.
