Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

CH58 The Final Piece

***

The Class 3 Beast Core glimmered faintly under the artificial light of the pocket dimension’s faux sky.

It lay nestled between two figures: a dormant Bonsai Tree and a sleeping wolf cub, whose body passively absorbed ambient energy—fuel for whatever mysterious transformation was still underway within it.

Alex had thrown the Beast Core towards the cub, hoping it would instinctively draw upon the immense energy inside to accelerate the transformation.

Unfortunately, Alex wasn’t that lucky.

If the cub had already matured into a proper beast, his plan might have worked.

But as a mere infant, attempting to absorb energy from a fully intact Class 3 Core—an object dense with raw, violent power—was far beyond its current capability.

And so, the prized core, for which so many beasts had died in the inner rim of the Subspace Forest, simply sat there... untouched.

Useless.

Or so it seemed.

---

Then, something stirred.

Not the cub.

Not Alex.

But the one existence in the dimension that should have been motionless.

The Bonsai Tree.

A branch snaked outward from the tree’s canopy, its motion almost serpentine. The wooden limb moved like a tentacle, slithering down to the ground.

It wrapped itself around the core with uncanny precision and then lifted it skyward.

Within moments, the core was cocooned in layers of fresh green leaves and hung from the tree’s branch like an unripe fruit.

Had Alex been awake, his Spirit Sight would’ve revealed a startling truth:

The tree wasn’t just storing the core.

It was draining it.

Rapidly.

Within the span of an hour, the entire lifeforce and accumulated power of the Bladefang SkyTiger was siphoned dry—leaving behind no trace.

Not even dust.

Then, two more vine-like branches emerged from the tree.

One snaked toward Alex.

The other toward the cub.

As they reached their respective targets, each began forming cocoons of vibrant green light around them.

Inside, Nature Energy pulsed gently—an unusual variant of elemental force derived from the Beast Core’s energy, but fundamentally transformed by the Bonsai Tree.

Alex received the lion’s share.

A calm, warm wave of vitality washed through his battered body, repairing damaged cells, soothing torn muscles, and strengthening his Mana Vessels and Mana Heart.

The cub, on the other hand, absorbed a concentrated but smaller strand of power—so dense it bypassed the beast’s natural defences entirely.

The energy merged with the twin elemental cores of ice and fire forming deep within its tiny body.

What would become of that?

Only time would tell.

---

Time passed.

Three days later...

The cocoons unravelled.

Alex and the cub were gently deposited back onto the grass, the tree’s vines retreating into its canopy, returning it to its ordinary, still form.

Alex’s breathing was calm and rhythmic, his heartbeat strong and stable.

He was almost healed.

As for the cub—it remained asleep, but its body was exuding a subtle elemental pressure, a sign that its transformation was reaching a critical stage.

---

An hour later, Alex’s eyes snapped open.

In a single motion, he sat up straight, scanning his surroundings with instinctive precision.

’Hmm... things are better than I expected.’

He flexed his arms.

Still a little ache.

Not quite at full capacity—but they no longer throbbed with pain from the slightest movement.

His internal injuries? Nearly gone.

He felt sore, yes—but compared to his state before unconsciousness, there was a miraculous difference.

Then, his gaze fell on the sleeping cub.

Still peaceful.

Still unmoving.

His brow creased slightly.

’The Beast Core is gone... so why is it still asleep?’

A quick glance using Spirit Sight answered his question.

The cub’s mana was still in flux—still transforming—but the process had slowed, not from damage, but from the introduction of a new energy source.

Something unfamiliar, but not harmful.

Alex assumed the new energy within the cub was simply a delayed effect of the Class 3 Beast Core’s absorption.

Satisfied, he put the matter aside.

Had he looked more closely, he might have noticed that the mana signature now present in the cub was vastly different from the one belonging to the core.

But Alex had bigger problems at the moment.

His gaze shifted to the back of his left hand—and his pupils constricted.

’The twenty days are up. I only have the ten-day buffer left to reach the portal... and even that’s already ticking down.’

Without hesitation, Alex stood.

He cast one last glance at the Bonsai Tree and the cub, then issued a mental command to the OmniRune Core.

A wave of bluish light washed over his body as the gate activated.

Prepared to unleash a spell at a moment’s notice, Alex stepped through.

---

Night had fallen.

When Alex re-emerged into the real world, the skies above were a deep violet hue, and the stars peeked between clouds as thin as breath.

He was back in the forest, but something felt... wrong.

Not just because night-time was dangerous in the wilds of the Subspace.

But because the landscape had changed.

The crater caused by his last use of Meteor was far more massive than expected. A hundred-metre-wide clearing had been carved into the dense forest canopy, forming a perfect circle of ash and scorched dirt.

The air reeked.

Burnt wood. Cooked flesh.

And something worse—rotting meat.

Alex wrinkled his nose as the stench hit him.

Whatever aura his final spell had left behind was still lingering. It seemed to deter larger beasts, as none dared enter the area.

Only insects and scavenger rodents moved about, picking over the scattered carcasses that hadn’t been incinerated to ash.

Alex’s skin prickled as he saw them.

The insects here weren’t the kind he grew up with.

They were Class 1 Magical Beasts.

Even the mosquitoes here were monstrous—measuring up to a full centimetre in length.

Far from the harmless 4mm pests he remembered from Earth.

The only upside was their size made them easier to see, easier to predict... and easier to kill—if you had combat experience.

For an ordinary person?

They’d be eaten alive.

Most magical insects were ten to a thousand times larger than their mundane cousins.

Thankfully, few ever grew beyond Class 3, even in the outer world. Poor innate talents kept them from evolving further.

But those that did breakthrough to Class 4?

Those were monsters of an entirely different breed.

---

Alex crouched low, preparing to move stealthily through the area before the forest’s predators detected his presence.

That was when he saw it.

A strange, skittering creature was boring its way out of a beast’s bone near the edge of the clearing.

A glowing prompt appeared in his vision.

[Spindlecarve Mite:

[Low-tier Scavenger Insect. Grows up to 30cm. Belongs to the Mite family. Possesses a transparent carapace. Specialises in burrowing into the bones of magical beasts to absorb residual essence.]

There was nothing special about it on the surface.

Like many of the beasts and bugs within the Subspace, it was rare to extinct in the outside world.

But there was one detail that made Alex’s eyes narrow.

His Truth Seeker Eyes, with their Enhanced Vision active under low light, revealed something subtle—but extraordinary.

Etched faintly on the back of the mite’s shell was a rudimentary Ancestral Marking.

***