Everyone that knew Ranma Saotome could tell you that once he decided to learn something, he would concentrate on that goal at the expense of everything else. The examples were numerous : The Katchuu Tenshin Amaguriken, the Hiryu Shoten Ha, the Shi Chi Hokodan/Mouko Takabisha, the Umi Sen Ken...
But he couldn't afford it this time around or the Nerima crazies would know he was preparing something. Besides, his past experiences with magic taught him to treat the stuff with great care. He would consult the book and practice in secret each time his absences were above suspicion (Akane still malleted him on principle though).
He quickly mastered the spells of the first chapter of the book. Minor Magic, it was called. Nothing impressive but useful nonetheless : Light, Sense Magic (a must for detecting exotic ingredients in chinese amazon food), Minor Telekinesis (good for pranks), a few Cantrips, that sort of things...
When he started the second chapter, he stopped to consider his options. The minor enchantments he had mastered were more along a way of testing if you had the potential for what followed than basic magic for everyone.
To access the Real Thing described in the next parts of the book, he had to... get tattoos. It sounded silly at first but the reasons were explained in great detail. To say things simply, the tattoos were like an interface to raw magic power, refining it into something usable for practical spellcasting. Runes, it was what the book called it.
Ranma thought long and hard about this, tattoos were permanent and he could be mistaken for a yakuza. On the other hand, a cure for his curse was at hand. He was definitely convinced when he read that they could be concealed at some point.
He searched for a school of Tattooing Martial Arts and found it (it was Nerima after all). Ranma pissed them off so they would challenge him, blaming it on Genma (and it worked like a charm. Nobody, even the Panda, found it strange that the Saotome patriarch had done something like this). He trained hard and won in the end, getting the skills needed to step up his magical education.
Just in time too, the fiancees, fathers and rivals had been more and more annoying recently. Claiming Ryoga had found a new technique and defeated him (temporarily of course), he left on a training trip alone. Since Kasumi was the only person he told that (without much details), the others would be hard-pressed to find him, no one could interrogate Kasumi or accuse her of lying or hiding something.
He was ready. Following the book's instructions, he crafted the first runes on his naked torso. The pain was incredible but he persevered, driven by the legendary Saotome willpower (some would say stubbornness).
(AN - I wrote this based on several stories where magic required body writings : the Tattoon power (Tattoon Master), Heraldic magic (Star Ocean 2), the Patryn Runes (The Death Gates)... No need to know them to continue this however. The runes are there only as a prop/plot device)
See other episodes by Jamil Nate
(Posted Mon, 11 Nov 2002 17:32)
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