The Truth of the Ancient Rune

What Fran sees now is a standard three-story building. Except for the first floor, which is made of stone, the upper two floors have obvious wooden plank structures.

The second floor of the small building has a protruding balcony with a straw lounge chair and a terracotta flowerpot next to it, filled with some brightly colored flowers.

There was a Nameplate on the wooden door in front of her that read "[Baker Raymond's House]".

Fran glanced at the paper in her hand; it contained information that the Enchanter had bought a small house here after selling his shop.

She knocked directly on the door of the house, hoping that the Enchanter hadn't moved again, or she would have to go looking for him again.

After a moment of silence behind the door, the sound of shoes clicking on the wooden steps could be heard, and someone was hurrying downstairs.

"Sorry, I'm off today, so I haven't made the bread yet. Thank you for your concern..." A deep male voice came from behind the door, followed by the sound of the door lock being opened.

Raymond initially thought it was a regular customer who had come to visit him since his bakery was closed.

When Raymond saw that there was a stranger behind the door, he was about to ask why she was knocking when he noticed Fran's mage robes, which even had patterns on them.

He paused for a moment, then quickly said:

"I'm sorry, Master... I didn't know you would knock on my door..." He stammered a little because he was too nervous, but fortunately he expressed himself fairly accurately.

Fran ignored his apology and asked directly:

"Let me ask you a question: were you working Enchanter five years ago, and then came here after selling your shop?"

Raymond quickly replied;

"Yes, Your Excellency, it has been a long time since I have practiced this profession..."

He was quite puzzled when the mage suddenly approached him to inquire about his past work, unable to understand why a mage would care about an Enchanter.

"Did you carve this rune?"

Fran handed him a Short Sword, which Raymond hurriedly took. After examining it carefully, he nodded and said:

"Yes, this is one of the few orders I've received..."

"Tell me how you acquired the skill to inscribe this rune?" Fran interrupted him, urging him to get straight to the point.

After organizing his thoughts, Raymond immediately began his narration.

Seven years ago, Raymond found a tattered book in his home, which surprised him greatly, as a book like that could fetch a considerable price in the Gede Town, at least two silver coins.

However, after carefully reading the contents, he discovered that it described how to inscribe a rune on a weapon, which excited him.

It's important to understand that while there are quite a few Enchanter in Gede Town, their income is nowhere near what those who farm or do manual labor earn.

After several attempts, he was actually able to inscribe a rune.

So he immediately borrowed money and began his career Enchanter, but reality dealt him a heavy blow.

Because Enchanter isn't just about drawing runes as he imagined; it's a service industry where customer satisfaction is paramount.

His customer traffic plummeted because he didn't know how to apply extra coatings to weapons or create runes with additional effects.

But overall, they can still barely maintain a decent life, after all, Enchanter is a high-end Profession and the fees are quite expensive.

But what truly jeopardized his Enchanter business was the Short Sword in front of him.

The customer wanted a Frost Rune, which is a relatively niche rune that other enchanting shops don't have, but after flipping through the enchanting book, he decided to take it on.

Although this rune looked different from the other runes in the book—more complex and more peculiar—he did it for this job.

However, after he began drawing, he was horrified to discover that after drawing halfway through, each stroke required even more Mental Power, making it impossible for him to continue. As a result, he fainted after only drawing halfway through.

When he woke up, he looked at the half-finished rune and didn't know how to tell the customer what to do. But to his surprise, it actually worked, though it would occasionally malfunction.

Although the customer wasn't entirely satisfied, he reluctantly accepted it after the explanation that the rune was rare and difficult to draw.

Just as he was feeling smug about making another sale, bad news arrived: rumors were circulating that his Arts were lacking and that his runes couldn't be activated reliably.

As a result, the shop, which used to have a few customers occasionally, suddenly became deserted, leading to huge losses. He even considered closing down and going back to farming.

But to everyone's surprise, the Adventurers Guild suddenly acquired his land, giving him a large sum of money that immediately covered his losses.

This time, he didn't plan to do that kind of business anymore and simply became a baker. Although the income wasn't as good as before, it was more stable.

"I found this in a book at home, Your Excellency, please wait a moment."

As he spoke, Raymond trotted into the house and rummaged through the house for a while before finally finding a dusty book.

He originally intended to sell the book, but when people heard that it was a runebook sold by Enchanter couldn't even engrave runes accurately, they only bought it at the normal book price, which was far too little for someone who had received compensation for demolished property.

So he simply stayed at home, as a memento.

But now that a mage has come to ask for the book, Raymond has given up on keeping it as a souvenir and simply handed it to Fran.

Fran pulled out twenty silver coins, which was the normal price for a rune fragment. This was the price because it wasn't a certified Runology book.

What could Raymond do? Getting twenty silver coins was already a pleasant surprise, and he certainly wouldn't dare to haggle with a mage, so he accepted the offer directly.

After leaving Raymond's house, Fran opened the tattered book in her hand and read it carefully.

There are also many normal contemporary runes, but only seven are recorded, which are no different from Fran learned.

To Fran's surprise, those complex runes also had seven of them, and they were perfectly complete.

When Fran flipped to the seventh rune, she almost threw the book down because the pattern on it looked strange.

It was a simple line drawing of an elephant sitting among mountains, and this was the symbol of the Elephant of Mountains, a portrait of a Deity with religious faith in the Material Realm.

[Once this rune is engraved on a weapon, it will give the weapon a weight similar to that of mountains. However, be careful to protect the weapon, as the rune may damage it.]

This is the description of this rune. If it also has a progress bar effect similar to the one used to inject Mental Power, then it might be Ancient Rune.

Fran stared intently at the rune.

Since this rune symbolizes the Elephant of Mountains, then are the previous six runes also symbols of a certain god? She had just looked at them all; those six runes all had the same format, with an animal image in the center and some smaller images around it.