God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The blueprint for the rune already existed;

His spirit...

To truly create something like that, he had studied his spirit even as he gathered the motes of spirit essence.

He had come to a peculiar discovery.

Cain sighed to himself,

'Who would have thought my knowledge of Inlay magic would become so useful today...'

The nature of magic was not static. Instead , it was a constant, neverending series of riveting changes.

Because of this, despite magic having a set of governing principles, numerous branches could be created.

Summoning magic, elemental magic, divination magic, illusion magic, necromancy...

The applications were endless...

However, there was one that stood out to be rather unique.

Sorcery was a rather unique branch of magic, founded and pioneered by the Demon of Sorcery, Azazel.

As a 'student' of Azazel, Cain had somewhat inherited the demon's knowledge on sorcery, although he was still lacking quite a bit.

Amongst the things he had learned, was Inlay magic.

By imposing a few runes, glyphs, or even magic circles onto one another, or in other words, grafting them into layers, one could birth something completely new.

Sorcery was unique because of its unpredictability.

And it worked wonders because it could meld two or more branches of magic together to create something new.

In a sense, it was a study of the arcane arts that was truest to the original nature of magic.

Ever changing and chaotic, but with direction and purpose...

Creating a rune that embodied the spirit weaving properties of the spirit was not something that could be done with ordinary means.

In short, it would take nothing less than a genius amongst geniuses to achieve something like that.

Cain furrowed his brows,

'If the same runes can be applied to spirit essence in the same way as mana, then all I need to do is draw out a rune of weaving.'

Cain's thoughts suddenly paused...

'How would a rune of weaving look like?'

Frankly, he had no idea.

He shook his head,

'No, that's not it.'

Cain thought about it for a second,

'The weaving part should come later, no? Before any weaving can be done, the threads have to be spun into existence.'

His spirit would be woven together, but the threads of spirit has to be spun out first.

The root of the idea had formed, and Cain's consciousness shuddered with excitement.

'So first, I need to create a rune that takes the gathered spirit essence and spins it to form spirit threads.'

This was the most important part.

Creating such a rune was not going to be easy. Despite his knowledge on the runes, he had never encountered something like that before, so all this was new territory.

With that in mind, Cain began his first attempt.

He drew out a rune that would suck in the spirit essence, and another that would spin it together, then inlayed the first one onto the second.

The moment he was done, the spirit essence gathered by the spirit rune of gathering began whirling towards the rune he had just created.

The gathered spirit essence turned into a miniature whirlpool. The function of the second rune kicked in immediately.

The motes of spirit essence began to collide and spin into one another.

Cain watched it happen calmly, then shook his head,

'This isn't going to work.'

Fundamentally, the material which was spirit essence, was different from traditional threading material.

The same kind of logic couldn't be applied.

'Then what do I do?'

Cain tried again, this time, beginning with a rune that would funnel the spirit essence before attempting to spin them together.

Again, it failed.

Then he tried again.

And again.

And again...

He had lost count of how many times he had made an attempt. It was even more difficult than gathering the spirit essence with his will.

'Perhaps if I tried to... No, that won't work. Will it?'

He had exhausted most of his options already, and had resorted to just attempting random ideas that popped up in his mind.

'Linking each individual more of spirit essence together before spinning? In theory, it sounds like it would work, but trying to connect each one of them is like trying to count the number of drops of water in an ocean. It's impossible...'

He shook his head.

'Impossible doesn't exist in sorcery...'

That was the case.

Because it was ever changing.

And so, if there was a problem he encountered, then there would be an arrangement of runes that could fix that problem.

That was the nature of the nature world.

Cain paused,n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

'What if I create a link that spreads? An infinite, boundless link that actively seeks out the next mote of spirit essence to connect with on its lonesome...'

Cain immediately put it to the rest.

First, he drew out a rune that sucked and funnelled the spirit essence into a singular point.

And then, a rune that would propagate a link. It was a rather complex rune to get down, involving a number of details that would be easy to get wrong.

Fortunately, his accuracy was rather impressed and he was able to complete it without error.

The finally part of this inlayed rune, would be the rune responsible for gathering these linked motes of spirit essence and spinning them into threads.

Cain cautiously finished the last part, then carefully combined these runes together to create a complicated rune that was on the verge of becoming an entire magic circle.

However, it was not one. Instead, it was a complex rune that borrowed attributes from several other runes.

A true masterpiece, an original...

Once he was done, Cain let out a sigh.

'Now, all that's left, is to see if it will work.'

He was tense, but hopeful.

After a momentary delay, the spirit essence began to gather together, sucked in by the power of the rune.

Then, they were funneled into a singular point.

And then, the most crucial part...

A single mote of spirit essence suddenly broke down, splitting in half. As such, a string of energy was released. It latched onto two of the nearest motes of spirit essence, linking them together.

It happened again, at another point within the funneling.

Cain watched in awe as the gathered spirit essence radiated an intense glow.

It was magnificent.

It was splendid.

And of course, it signified his victory.

The motes of spirit essence began stringing together, creating numerous fibers of spirit essence all at once, causing a rippling pulse of energy to spread out.

Cain held his breath as he witnessed the splendor as the effects of the final piece of the rune kicked in.

The individual fibers of spirit essence that had been created with the links began to spin.

Gently spinning to create a spirit thread.

Cain watched with bated breath, observing the process with intense concentration.

And then, it was finally done.

Cain observed the finished product carefully.

Then he stared at his spirit.

He sighed to himself,

'It's the same thing.'

All the tension he felt faded away, and although he wasn't experiencing this in his body, he felt as though all his nerves and muscles that had tensed up and were on the verge of exploding, had suddenly softened and relaxed.

He had done it.

He had created a string of spring essence.

A spirit thread.

Albeit a rather short one when compared to how huge his spirit seemed.

But it was a step forward in the right direction.

'And now that I have it figured out, I will be able to replicate it much more easily.'

Staring at the thread, Cain tried to reach out with his will.

The thread wriggled and writhed under the touch of his commanding consciousness.

He nodded in satisfaction.

Now, all that was left, was to find a way to weave it into his spirit.

He remembered the system's warning...

If he did any of the weaving, there was a high chance he would mess something up, resulting in his death, or a possibly worse fate.

As he pondered on what step to take next, the rune he had just created pulsed with an off-putting radiance.

Cain only had enough time to give it a glance before it exploded with overwhelming radiance.

The spirit threads he had just created broke away from his will and swam towards the rune.

All the spirit runes of gathering he had created also gravitated towards the rune alongside all the motes of spirit essence they had gathered.

Seeing that things were not fully outside his control, Cain decided to just sit back and watch.

Even if something went wrong, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He would only have himself to blame then. The rune quickly became the nexus of the second brightest thing in the lightless void.

And so, he diligently watched as all the runes spun and melted into one another, gathering and spinning more motes of spirit essence into spirit essence fibers, and then to spirit threads.

It was as though the rune he had just created had come to possess a mind of its own.

Very quickly though, Cain found out that this was not the case, as the rune, alongside everything it had gathered around it, began to move towards his spirit.

At first, he was concerned.

Why was this happening?

What was the cause of it?

Was it, perhaps, his own spirit's doing?

He shook his head. How was that possible?

It was his own spirit. He should be aware of why it was doing all this.

But the fact was, that he wasn't.

He could only watch passively, unable to do much more than hope.

Very quickly, the rune, alongside everything else made contact with his spirit, precisely the hole in his spirit.

All the spirit threads the rune had created slithered out and attached themselves to the strands of spirit threads floating from the gaping hole.

Cain watched as the rune he himself had created slowly turned from familiar to unrecognizable, to even just a single glance causing him mental pain.

He groaned and shut his eyes.

When the pain subsided, he opened his eyes once again.

He was amazed...

The hole had been mended, and at the center of where it once was, was a rune that seemed different from the rest scattered around his spirit.

It was beautiful. It was also familiar, but grossly incomprehensible at the same time.

He couldn't understand it anymore...

Suddenly, Cain felt a wave of exhaustion come over him, hitting him like a ton of bricks.

As he took one more glance at his healed spirit, he was filled with both fear and anticipation.

As the exhaustion mounted, the darkness seemed to swallow everything.

And then, he woke up...

***

{Congratulations to Host... You have acquired the internal passive skill, Spirit Weaver}.