Power of Runes-Chapter 382: Knowledge That Devours Time

[Ash POV]

Ash sat on his chair in the Soul Library with one hand resting against his cheek and his body leaning quietly against the armrests, his gaze fixed on the piece of paper in front of him.

The paper contained a list of everything he had decided to do and everything he needed to learn while his body was being reformed.

It looked simple at first glance, yet to him it carried a strange weight, almost like a silent contract he was making with himself about how he would use his time.

The list was something like this:

[To do list.]

-Comprehending the Runes.

-Creating a Weapon Art.

-Creating a Movement Art.

-Learning Alchemy.

-Learning Blacksmithing.

He had written down what he genuinely felt like doing. The comprehension of the Runes was his highest priority and it was not something he could negotiate with himself about.

Creating a Weapon Art was also something he had already been researching, and now that research would continue here with better clarity and direction.

The creation of a Movement Art was another task he had decided upon, because after losing the power of Transcendent Step when his mana pathways were destroyed, he had personally felt how helpless and restricted he had felt while facing dangers.

As for learning Alchemy and Blacksmithing, those were things he planned to learn only if he found himself with too much time on his hands.

He knew they were valuable, but right now they were not necessary for his immediate survival or growth.

The list itself was nothing extraordinary. It was practical and direct. Yet Ash could not shake off the feeling that something was missing from it.

A faint sense of incompleteness lingered in his mind, like a forgotten thought standing just outside his reach.

He wanted to add more things to it, something that would make the list feel whole, but no matter how much he tried to think about it, nothing clear came to him.

"I am procrastinating again. I need to atleast start with something."

If something came to his mind later, he would simply add it to the list.

Letting go of the sudden temptation to abandon everything and rest, Ash slowly stood up and appeared in front of his Soul Tree once again.

Placing both his hands against its surface, he closed his eyes, allowing himself to connect with it with full focus.

The next second, he appeared within a pitch black space that stretched endlessly in every direction.

The space was empty of everything except ten enormous Runes floating within the darkness, each one constantly shifting and changing its form as if it refused to be fully understood by anyone observing it.

Taking a slow breath to steady himself, he sat within that darkness and assumed a lotus position, gently closing his eyes to meditate. For several minutes, he focused only on calming his thoughts, allowing every distraction and unnecessary emotion to slowly drift away.

Once his mind reached a quiet and steady state, his eyes slowly opened again.

Knowingly or unknowingly, Ash was sitting while facing the Rune of Truth in its ever changing true form.

Without hesitation, he activated [Eye of Omniscience], and his eye color shifted into a flowing golden liquid that shimmered faintly, reflecting layers of perception far beyond normal sight.

His vision moved past the outer illusion surrounding the Rune and directly entered its core. There were 72 Runic Symbols floating before him, each one carrying a depth that felt endless, like staring into layers of existence stacked upon each other.

He chose to focus on the smallest looking symbol, believing that understanding the smallest fragment first would be easier, not knowing that the weight of knowledge is equal in all parts. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The moment his concentration deepened, his vision shifted again and 360 glyphs appeared before him, arranged in complex layered formations that connected to each other in ways that were difficult to follow.

His gaze settled on the first glyph positioned at the top, the only one he could clearly perceive at that moment. He focused harder, trying to understand its truth, trying to grasp the hidden meaning buried inside its structure, and...

-ARGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Ash screamed as his mind was violently overwhelmed by an unimaginable flood of information entering his mind. The surge shattered his mental balance and he lost consciousness almost instantly.

But even in his unconscious state, his Soul Library began trembling under the immense overload of knowledge. Books start

ed forming one after another, compiling themselves automatically based on the knowledge being absorbed, as if guided by an invisible force ensuring that every fragment was preserved and recorded.

The Library continued expanding without limit, shelves forming endlessly while knowledge kept pouring in without pause. Entire sections reshaped themselves, new volumes manifested, and countless books arranged themselves in perfect order, each one holding fragments of the truth Ash had touched.

After some time, the violent trembling slowly faded and the overwhelming flow of knowledge finally stabilized, settling neatly within the infinite structure of the Library.

And silence filled the surroundings.

In that deep silence, time continued to pass, and after 8 hours, Ash slowly opened his eyes in a groggy state.

His mind felt heavy and slightly disoriented, as if it was struggling to properly process its own thoughts. Before he could fully gather himself, he realized that new but incomplete knowledge had appeared inside his mind, floating there like scattered fragments that refused to form a complete picture.

Without wasting any time, he once again activated his Eye of Omniscience. His gaze returned to the Rune of Truth, and he focused on that same glyph again, the moment his consciousness touched the glyph, the overwhelming surge of knowledge struck his mind once again, forcing him to lose consciousness instantly.

The Soul Library trembled violently due to the sudden influx of knowledge, its shelves expanding and reorganizing themselves to store the incoming information. After another 8 hours passed, Ash woke up again in the same groggy condition, his head throbbing faintly while fragments of incomplete understanding floated inside his mind.

He repeated the process without stopping. Every single time he regained consciousness, he would immediately activate his skill again and focus on the glyph, only to lose consciousness almost instantly under the unbearable weight of knowledge.

This cycle continued repeatedly, creating a strange rhythm between learning and collapse.

The Soul Library trembled again and again as knowledge poured into it, growing larger and more organized with every cycle. After repeating this process around 7 times, Ash finally stopped. Although he felt he could continue pushing himself further, he knew he needed to confirm whether his efforts were producing any real results.

He first checked the time using a clock located inside his Soul Vault.

56 hours have passed...means around 2 days 8 hours inside here....while in the real world, around 2 minutes 20 seconds....

Seeing the time difference, Ash felt both relieved and slightly uneasy. The speed of time inside the Soul Library gave him immense advantage, yet it also meant that he could lose track of himself if he was not careful.

After calming himself, he activated the Eye of Omniscience again. This time, instead of focusing on any Rune, he directed his attention towards himself. He specifically searched for any section that could indicate how much comprehension he had gained over the Runes.

And just as he hoped, such a section truly appeared.

**

[Rune Comprehension]

Rune of Space- 0.000000772%

Rune of Truth - 0.000002702%

**

Ash’s mood dropped slightly when he saw such unbelievably small numbers. For a moment, frustration rose inside him as he stared at the percentages, trying to accept how insignificant his progress looked compared to the effort and pain he had endured.

He wanted to curse out loud, but he did not let the emotions control him, he decided to confirm something first.

Almost instantly, his vision shifted once more as he redirected his attention toward the Rune of Balance. His golden gaze pierced through its outer layers, pushing deeper until he reached a single glyph hidden within its structure.

The moment he attempted to analyze it, the familiar overwhelming flood of knowledge struck him again, forcing him to lose consciousness under the unbearable strain placed upon his mind.

After another 8 hours passed, Ash woke up once again, his consciousness slowly stabilizing as the newly absorbed knowledge settled into the depths of his Soul Library. Without wasting time, he opened his status window again to confirm the results.

**

[Rune Comprehension]

Rune of Space - 0.000000772%

Rune of Truth - 0.000002702%

Rune of Balance - 0.000000386%

**

Ash’s mind began running extremely fast, but the calculation of such enormous numbers started going haywire inside his head.

The numbers kept overlapping with each other, refusing to form a stable conclusion no matter how hard he tried to process them mentally. Realizing that his thoughts alone would not be enough for this task, he simply summoned his most powerful tool for calculations.

A calculator.

Typing out the numbers carefully, he continued calculating everything step by step, making sure he did not skip even the smallest variable.

Time quietly passed around him, and unknowingly he spent nearly 15 minutes doing nothing except verifying numbers and repeating the calculations again and again to ensure accuracy.

When he finally reached the end of it, Ash’s expression slowly darkened as the result settled into his mind.

He slowly checked everything once more, carefully going through each number and multiplication to see if he had made any mistake.

But there was none. Every calculation remained perfectly consistent, and realizing that only caused his mood to sink even further.

According to his calculations, Ash was comprehending around 0.01% of the knowledge in each attempt.

However, that 0.01% knowledge applied only to a single glyph. By calculating further, Ash realized he would need approximately 10,000 attempts to comprehend 100% of the knowledge contained in only 1 glyph.

Ash lost consciousness for exactly 8 hours after each attempt, which meant the amount of time he stayed awake between attempts was almost negligible. Based on this, Ash would spend approximately 9 years just to fully comprehend 1 glyph.

There were a total of 25,920 glyphs in 1 True Rune after counting all glyphs present inside the 72 Runic Symbols.

9 years * 25,920 ≈ 236,712 years

That meant to fully comprehend just one Rune, Ash would need 236,712 years inside his Soul Space. In the outside world, after time conversion, this duration would amount to approximately 165 years.

But it did not end there. If one calculated the time required for all 25 Runes, the numbers became even more terrifying.

Across 25 Runes, there were 648,000 glyphs, which meant...

648,000 * 9 years = 5,832,000 years.

That was five million, eight hundred thirty-two thousand years.

The sheer amount of time he calculated was far beyond anything he had ever imagined before. Just seeing such numbers drained his motivation, making his chest feel heavy as the reality of the situation slowly pressed down on him.

Although only 4,050 years would pass in the real world, that was not the point.

Not everyone has the same cheat of this much time dilation that I have....just thinking about the time one would need to comprehend the Runes in the real world, while also managing to look after other responsibilities, raise their cultivation, and face countless dangers....

The time required for comprehension of the Rune would increase even further.....but not everyone has the Eye of Omniscience. Yes, there might be powerful eye abilities that could somehow shorten the time required for comprehension, but still....if we do not consider those and look at it only from the perspective of someone not having the same skill as me....

The amount of time would multiply by who knows how many times, maybe even tenfold. The 5 million years might become 50 million years. After all, I am directly copying comprehended knowledge from the Rune into my Soul Library, which means directly into my brain. With my photographic memory, it is not like I will forget those comprehensions.

But not everyone can copy comprehended knowledge directly from a Rune. They need to comprehend the Runes Knowledge manually, and the time it would require....is not something I can even imagine.....

****