Inscription Runes

Yin Ming: "..."

I was quietly reading. Who had I offended?

Robert Kava, chairman of Scholar Ember, knew eighteen extraordinary scripts and over two hundred derivative scripts. He might not have mastered or recognized every single one, but he had seen and studied them all.

From a script's structure and style alone, he could identify at a glance which civilization it belonged to.

For scripts from the recent ancient era or the Tribal Era, as long as he knew the common language of the Academy Principality, he could muddle through and understand half of it.

Even those tribes that had vanished and perished had left behind numerous excavated ruins. How could no script sharing the same origin as this stone tablet be found?

"Chairman Robert, if you don't mind, could you let me take a look at the tablet?" Yin Ming had grown interested. He closed his book and spoke.

"This... I'm afraid that would violate the association's rules. The inscription is our client's knowledge and wealth. Leaking it would be equivalent to infringing upon the client's property." Robert Kava shook his head and refused with a righteous air.

You cursed so loudly on purpose. Wasn't that meant to lure me in?

Yin Ming was slightly taken aback as well, thinking he had been flattering himself. He stopped, then said, "Then forget it..."

Before he could finish, Robert Kava smoothly pulled out a sheet of beast hide. "Let's sign a contract first. You must promise not to reveal the contents of the inscription to anyone."

The contract was made from an ordinary Magic Beast hide, entirely written in Wizard Script:

Great All-Knowing Eye, the seeker of truth XXX swore to you that he would not reveal the contents of the inscription to anyone. Otherwise, his path in pursuit of truth would be stained with dust.

A contract? An oath to the Heavenly Dao?

For one lousy stone tablet, was this really necessary?

The owner of the inscription was at least a One-Ring Wizard.

Yin Ming carefully inspected the contract. There were no strange decorative patterns, nor was there any hidden layer within the beast hide.

The instant he wrote down his name, it felt as though a gaze had fixed upon him. His scalp went numb, and goosebumps rose all over his body.

In the next instant, that feeling of being watched abruptly vanished.

"Come take a look. Is this a derivative script of your Celestial Seal Script?"

Robert Kava lifted the red cloth, revealing an ancient, weathered stone tablet.

The tablet was dark and grayish-black, covered in spiderweb-like cracks, as though it might shatter into countless pieces at any moment. Yet the characters carved into its surface remained remarkably clear.

"These eighteen characters are definitely not Celestial Seal Script!"

Derivative scripts of Celestial Seal Script included Small Seal Script, Chinese Characters, Simplified Han, and a few variants in the surrounding regions. Even derivative scripts from other worlds under the Heavenly Court's jurisdiction could be deduced and deciphered through Celestial Seal Script.

Yin Ming was absolutely certain that the eighteen characters on the stone tablet had nothing whatsoever to do with Celestial Seal Script.

His finger slowly traced across the tablet. The carved glyphs were exceedingly strange.

The shapes and patterns that formed them were incredibly difficult to remember. How could they possibly be standardized and passed down?

Their writing conventions also completely defied human nature. The positions of the eighteen characters were chaotic beyond measure. They were neither evenly arranged into rows and columns nor formed into a circle, but were scattered randomly across the tablet without the slightest discernible pattern.

"The fourth character feels somewhat familiar, but I can't remember where I've seen it." Yin Ming's finger suddenly paused over the fourth glyph, a twisting, winding symbol with a tiny tail.

"This old man also finds some of these characters inexplicably familiar. Otherwise, I would have treated them as graffiti long ago." Robert Kava nodded in agreement.

"Then... something isn't right!"

It was understandable for Robert Kava to find them familiar. After all, he had mastered and studied numerous languages; it was inevitable that one or two of them might share similar elements with the tablet's script.

Though others called him Scholar Eno, Yin Ming knew his own situation best. He was practically half-illiterate.

He only knew Wizard Script, the common language, and Demon Tongue. He had only ever seen those three languages, so there was no reason for him to find this mysterious "inscription" familiar.

"Tell me quickly. What exactly is wrong?" Robert Kava had always felt an indescribable strangeness about it. Hearing that Yin Ming found it strange as well, he immediately felt as if he had found a kindred spirit.

"I don't know, but I believe I'll find it soon enough!"

He possessed only that pitiful scrap of knowledge in total.

Even using the clumsiest method of elimination, he would quickly find the source of that familiarity.

Demon Tongue, Wizard Script, the common language, and all kinds of scripts flashed rapidly through his mind. He compared them with the fourth glyph on the tablet, yet found nothing similar.

"Couldn't find it? Then only runes remain!"

The runes Yin Ming had mastered included: ten Vast Sea Mental Power Eternal Fortification Runes.

Three true name runes: Lava Troll, Twisted Treant, and Winged Serpent.

Three wizardry runes: Wizard's Hand, Flesh Strengthening, and Crimson Flame Ring.

Three abyssal runes: Abyssal Sacrifice, Abyssal Summoning, and Soul Severing.

"Found it!"

At one corner of the Abyssal Sacrifice rune,

Yin Ming successfully found a pattern similar to the fourth character on the stone tablet.

He turned to Robert Kava and said, "These aren't characters at all. They are spell formulas that make up a rune. Someone erased the energy construction circuits."

Spell formulas?

Zero-Ring Wizardry: Wizard's Hand consisted of only two basic spell formulas.

The spell formula composition of First Ring wizardry was ten times more complex than that of Zero-Ring Wizardry. A rune composed of eighteen spell formulas was already nearly at the First Ring level.

"Scholar Eno, you are a genius. These truly are rune spell formulas. If anyone calls you a fake scholar again in the future, this old man will firmly stand by your side." Setting aside the matter of scripts, Robert Kava quickly found patterns corresponding to the tablet's glyphs among the many runes he had mastered.

"Ah..." Robert Kava then sighed in dejection. "What a pity! A single rune composed of eighteen spell formulas is worth even more than First Ring wizardry, yet it was destroyed just like that!"

The contract had already been signed!

Now that results were in sight, you wanted to cast me aside? As if that were possible.

Yin Ming smiled without smiling as he sized up this old fox, Robert Kava. "Not necessarily. Whoever erased the rune's energy circuits could easily have erased the spell formula patterns as well. Since they deliberately left the spell formula patterns behind, it means they hoped later generations would discover this tablet and restore the rune."

Knowledge neither increased nor decreased.

Having one more person master it caused no harm to oneself. That was the generous way ordinary people thought.

Wizards never thought that way. Even mortal nobles monopolized knowledge, let alone knowledge of the extraordinary, which was far more precious.

For the same knowledge, every additional person who mastered it reduced its value by a fraction.

The moment Robert Kava realized the inscription's worth, his first thought had been how to cast Yin Ming aside and reduce the number of people who knew the inscription rune. This was practically the instinct of every wizard.

The Immortal Path had a saying: teachings were not passed to the ears of a sixth person. Wizards were even stingier in this regard.

Even if he were exposed one day, there would be no need to feel the slightest shame.

In the eyes of other wizards, Yin Ming simply lacked understanding. He had not asked to share the results, and would instead become an object of ridicule.

"If Scholar Eno says so, this old man happens to have several vials of potions specifically used to reveal elemental traces in ruins."

Seeing that he could not muddle through it, Robert Kava did not press the matter. He took several bottles of unknown potions from his storage wizard artifact.

He poured them onto the stone tablet and spread them evenly, allowing the liquid to slowly seep into its interior.

"Pssst..."

Countless points of elemental light suddenly illuminated deep within the tablet, linking the eighteen inscriptions into a whole and outlining the phantom image of a complete rune.