[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-re-tales-of-the-rune-tech-sage":3,"chapter-re-tales-of-the-rune-tech-sage-re-tales-of-the-rune-tech-sage-chapter-72":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":20,"prevChapterSlug":21,"totalChapters":22,"novelImage":23},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":16,"volume":17,"translator":18,"content_hash":19},147735,246,"Chapter 71: Alex the Mad Scientist","re-tales-of-the-rune-tech-sage-chapter-72",72,"\u003Cp>CH71 Alex the Mad Scientist\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>***\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>’So that’s it...’\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The creature behaved like a nest queen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It consumed resources, laid drones, and expanded its domain in cycles.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Classic broodmother logic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And with his knowledge of similar archetypes from games and fantasy novels back on Earth, Alex could already predict the likely next steps.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It would build a nest. It would expand its brood. It would multiply exponentially.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>’There’s nothing more to see,’ Alex thought grimly, eyes narrowing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>’In that case... let’s get things under control before they get out of hand.’\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Suddenly, Alex’s eyes shifted— no longer human.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They became beastly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beast Intimidation!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A newly awakened ocular ability triggered from his Solmir True Name.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His gaze locked onto the Nest Queen and unleashed a crushing, primal dominance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The effect was immediate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The creature froze, paralysed mid-motion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even its mental instructions to the drones ceased.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Overwhelmed by primal fear, the Nest Queen cowered beneath his stare.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>-\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beast Intimidation was a power that asserted one’s dominance over any creature within line of sight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It instilled dread.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It suppressed lesser beings and could paralyse them completely— if their mental defences were weak.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only those with greater spiritual force, a stronger will than Alex’s or a superior cultivation, could shrug off the effect.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Nest Queen, unfortunately for her, met none of those conditions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>-\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Under Alex’s unblinking, oppressive gaze, the creature halted reproduction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Driven by a primal, instinctive fear, it lowered its spiny head and emitted a low-frequency drone—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>—a nonverbal gesture of submission.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>--\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With precision, Alex manipulated the intensity of his Beast Intimidation, forcing a neural reordering within the creature’s mental hierarchy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Nest Queen reclassified him at the top.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Highest Node in its Hive Mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A sort of Alpha designation—above even herself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This didn’t guarantee absolute obedience.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What it did guarantee was priority.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Any entity connected to the Hive Mind would prioritise Alex’s commands above all others— unless doing so would compromise their individual safety, or endanger the Hive itself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beast Intimidation, after all, was not mind control.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was just that—intimidation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If backed into a corner, even the weakest creature—even a rabbit—could lash out, abandoning fear in a final act of defiance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Still, what Alex had accomplished was enough.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>More than enough.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>’Since it’s now a mass of living Runes... understanding its structure—and communicating with it—depends on decoding its Runic framework.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>’For that... I need to crack the encryption protecting its Rune structure.’\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>-\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To begin, Alex turned to his eidetic memory, recalling the Runic structure of the virus that had set this entire sequence into motion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He concentrated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In his mind’s eye, the memory replayed:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The moment before the failsafe activated, just as the virus seeped into the mite’s body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By sheer luck—or fate—he had caught a clear enough glimpse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And even better—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The virus’s structure was composed mostly of Rune script, not Ancestral Markings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That gave Alex an opening.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He fed the remembered structure into the OmniRune Core, using its simulation functions to begin a slow, meticulous reverse-engineering of the virus.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It took him half a day of focus.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Bit by bit, he reconstructed the virus’s internal logic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From its activity patterns, he was able to deduce the remaining Ancestral Marking components— approximating their function even without fully understanding their script.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With the full blueprint of the recursive virus—the one that had rewritten the mite’s DNA—Alex now had the syntax rules of the living Rune system.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Runic grammar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The logic that governed how this genetic programming was written.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With that in hand, Alex could finally breach the final barrier— the encryption protecting the creature’s Runic structure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And with a triumphant grin...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He broke it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>-\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With the encryption cracked, the Nest Queen’s Runic Structure now lay exposed—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>completely visible to Alex and the OmniRune Core.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The AI immediately attempted to process it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It failed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The structure was simply too complex.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Alex didn’t push it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>’If even the AI can’t make sense of it, there’s no point in me trying to fully replicate the design.’\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Instead of aiming for total understanding, he pivoted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He only needed enough understanding to secure control over the Nest Queen, and determine how best to utilise her\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With that narrowed objective, the OmniRune Core found its footing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Alex began manually guiding the AI’s processes, and together, they drafted a biological-neural interface— a bridge protocol that allowed him to transmit simple logic commands into the Hive Mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, building on the Alpha Authority gained with his Beast Intimidation, Alex injected a new system:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A Command Hierarchy Protocol (CHP).\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A Runic Array that hardcoded specific operational parameters into the Hive Mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The CHP elevated Alex’s mana signature as the designated Master Node, defined what qualified as valid commands, introduced autonomy thresholds, and embedded emergency failsafes within the mental network\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In practice, this allowed Alex to issue orders to the Nest Queen— and have those orders propagated through the Hive via resonance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every connected being would understand the commands through the translation interface of the OmniRune Core.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And the Queen would enforce them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For the final stage, Alex crafted a special Rune.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A Runic Loyalty Seed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He embedded it directly into the Nest Queen’s neural command matrix.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This wasn’t crude mind control.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That would be too aggressive... Too likely to trigger an instinctive rejection from the creature.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Instead, Alex took the subtle route.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Loyalty Seed was an emotional tether.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It encoded an artificial instinct to obey him, baked into her core logic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>’Instead of forcing the Nest Queen to obey me... this will trick her into thinking that obeying me is natural instinct,’ Alex thought.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>’For a creature ruled by instincts... that’s as good as branding permanent loyalty into her being.’\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once that instinct settled in, it gave him the opportunity to plant deeper failsafes that the Queen would’ve rejected earlier.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He wove together a logic bomb— a hidden command that would detonate if the Queen ever tried to sever his link to the Hive Mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He also embedded a Wipe Command— a hidden override that would allow him to instantly deactivate all current and future drones linked to her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With all of this in place, Alex finally had a sturdy control protocol.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The final step?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Behavioural conditioning.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He needed to establish a feedback loop— a Pavlovian reinforcement.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Positive and negative stimuli.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Rewards and punishments.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A system that would train the Nest Queen’s Runic psyche to depend on him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But for that to work, he had to understand what she was capable of.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fortunately, while Alex had been busy weaving in protocols and safeguards...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The OmniRune Core had been quietly working in the background— analysing her primary Rune Structure, to deduce her capabilities.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>***\u003C\u002Fp>",1115,"2026-05-29T03:49:10.136Z","2026-06-01T04:29:07.188Z",1,"novelbin.me","2cdfed3afa2a537bdfbfdaf054b515466e7c450f1fb68d583f6d9742acf4706a","re-tales-of-the-rune-tech-sage-chapter-73","re-tales-of-the-rune-tech-sage-chapter-71",692,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fre-tales-of-the-rune-tech-sage-cover.jpg"]