Stone Stele Rune

Yin Ming: "..."

He had been quietly reading. Who had he provoked?

Robert Kava, chairman of the Scholars' Embers Association, 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 each of them.

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

For scripts from the recent ancient tribal era, as long as one knew the common tongue of the learned duchies, one could understand half of them through guesswork.

Even those tribes that had vanished and perished had left behind many excavated ruins. How could there be no script from the same origin as the stone slab?

"Chairman Robert, if you don't mind, could you let me look at the stone slab?" Yin Ming asked, somewhat intrigued as he closed his book.

"This... I'm afraid that would violate the association's rules. The inscription belongs to the client; it is their knowledge and wealth. Revealing it would be no different from violating the client's property." Robert Kava shook his head and refused with righteous solemnity.

You cursed so loudly on purpose. Wasn't the point to lure me in?

Yin Ming was slightly taken aback. Thinking he had been presumptuous, he stopped walking. "Then forget—"

Yet before he could finish, Robert Kava smoothly pulled out a sheet of beast hide. "Let's sign a contract first. It will guarantee that you won't reveal the contents of the inscription to anyone."

The contract was written on an ordinary magic beast hide, entirely in Wizard Script:

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

A contract? An oath to the Heavenly Dao?

For a lousy stone stele, was all this really necessary?

The owner of the inscription had to be at least a One-Ring Wizard.

Yin Ming carefully inspected the contract. There were no strange patterns or decorations, and the beast hide had no hidden layer either.

The instant he put pen to hide and wrote his name, it felt as though a gaze had fixed upon him. His scalp tingled, and goosebumps rose all over his body.

In an instant, the sensation of being watched abruptly vanished.

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

Robert Kava lifted the red cloth, revealing an ancient, mottled stone stele.

The stele was dark blackish-gray and covered in spiderweb-like cracks, as though it might shatter into countless pieces at any moment. Yet the characters carved upon it were exceptionally clear.

"These eighteen characters definitely aren't derived from Celestial Seal Script!"

The derivative scripts of Celestial Seal Script included Small Seal Script, Chinese Characters, Simplified Han, and a few minor variants in 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 stele had not the slightest thing to do with Celestial Seal Script.

His finger slowly traced across the stele. The script carved upon it was exceedingly strange.

The shapes and patterns that formed the characters were incredibly difficult to remember. How could such a thing be standardized and passed down?

Its writing conventions also completely defied human nature. The eighteen characters were positioned in utter disorder. They were neither evenly arranged in rows or columns nor formed into a circle, but were scattered across every part of the stele without the slightest discernible pattern.

"The fourth character looks familiar somehow, but I can't remember where I've seen it." Yin Ming's finger suddenly stopped over the fourth winding, twisting character, which had a little tail.

"This old man also finds some of these characters inexplicably familiar. Otherwise, I would have treated them as doodles 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 was familiar with many languages; it was inevitable that one or two might share similar elements with the stele script.

Although people called him Scholar Eno, he knew his own limits. He was practically half-illiterate.

He only knew Wizard Script, the common tongue, and Demon Tongue, and had only ever encountered those three languages. There was no reason for him to find this mysterious "stele script" familiar.

"Tell me quickly. What exactly isn't right?" Robert Kava had always felt an indescribable strangeness. Hearing that Yin Ming found it strange as well, he immediately felt as though he had found a kindred spirit.

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

He only had that tiny, pitiful amount of knowledge in total.

Even using the stupidest method of elimination, he would soon find the source of that familiarity.

In his mind, Demon Tongue, Wizard Script, the common tongue, and all kinds of written symbols flashed past rapidly. He compared them to the fourth character on the stele, yet found nothing similar.

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

The runes Yin Ming had mastered included: Vast Sea Mental Power Eternal Fortification Runes: 10.

True Name Runes: 3—Lava Troll, Twisted Treant, Winged Serpent.

Wizardry Runes: 3—Wizard's Hand, Flesh Strengthening, Crimson Flame Ring.

Abyss Runes: 3—Abyssal Sacrifice, Abyssal Summoning, Soul Severing.

"Found it!"

In one corner of the Abyssal Sacrifice rune,

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

Turning to Robert Kava, he said, "These aren't characters at all. They're spell structures that make up a rune. Someone erased the energy circuit structure."

Spell structures?

Zero-Ring Wizardry: Wizard's Hand was composed of only two basic spell structures.

The spell structure composition of One-Ring Wizardry was ten times more complex than that of Zero-Ring Wizardry. A rune composed of eighteen spell structures was already nearly at the One-Ring level.

"Scholar Eno, you're a genius. These truly are rune spell structures. If anyone calls you a fake scholar again, this old man will firmly stand by your side." Abandoning the notion that they were characters, Robert Kava quickly found patterns corresponding to the stele script among the many runes he had mastered.

"Ah..." Robert Kava then sighed despondently. "What a pity! A single rune composed of eighteen spell structures is worth even more than One-Ring Wizardry, yet it has been ruined just like this!"

The contract has already been signed! Now that results are within reach, you want to cast me aside? How could that be possible?

Yin Ming surveyed that old fox Robert Kava with a smile that was not quite a smile. "Not necessarily. The person who erased the rune's energy circuit could easily have erased the spell structure patterns as well. Since they deliberately left those patterns behind, it means they wanted future generations to discover this stele and reconstruct the rune."

Knowledge neither increased nor decreased.

Letting one more person master it brought no loss to oneself; that was the generous thinking of ordinary people.

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

When one more person mastered the same knowledge, its value dropped by a fraction.

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

The immortal path had a saying: laws are not passed on in the ears of six. Wizards were even stingier in this regard.

Even if he were exposed one day, he would not need to feel the slightest shame.

In the eyes of other wizards, it would only mean that Yin Ming lacked awareness. He had not requested to share the results, and would instead become an object of ridicule.

"If Scholar Eno puts it that way, this old man happens to have several tubes of potions specifically used to reveal elemental traces in ruins."

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

He poured them over the stele and spread them evenly, allowing the liquid to slowly seep into the stone.

"Sizzle..."

Countless motes of elemental light suddenly lit up deep within the stone slab, linking the eighteen stele characters into a whole and outlining the phantom image of a complete rune.