In Sky City Nevis, at the headquarters of the journal Arcana.
Magic arrays shone, the rustle of pens on paper sounded intermittently, and submissions arrived from various places now and then.
"Roland submitted anonymously!"
Suddenly, following an elderly veteran of the Runes School's startled cry, the news swept through the entire editorial office like a whirlwind.
"Is it the Compendium of Bronze Inscriptions?"
"He finished compiling it already?"
Contemporary rune studies were in decline. Roland alone was still producing fresh material; everyone else lived off his output.
Countless people were counting on him to keep producing foundational material related to Seris so they could build their own results upon it.
For now, however, the review's progress was unclear, leaving everyone completely in the dark.
Only after the Grand Mage on duty finished the preliminary review and a few scraps of information leaked out did everyone feel truly encouraged.
"This Bronze Script contains a full 2,420 characters, far more than the previous Oracle script!"
More characters!
That was the Grand Mage on duty's first impression of this new work.
Even that brief remark revealed quite a bit, sparking lively discussion.
"Roland said he wanted to simplify this script and bring it closer to spoken language..."
"That's a major trend in the development of many ancient scripts toward their modern forms!"
"Excellent. That fits the patterns of linguistic development very well."
Some of the sharper minds seemed to have spotted the real key.
"Compared with Oracle script, Bronze Script is gradually shedding its ancient pictographic qualities. Its character forms are becoming simpler and more clearly defined!"
"Most importantly, there are fewer variant characters!"
Roland had previously hinted that he was simplifying character forms and reducing their many variants by sacrificing their function as vessels for profound principles in favor of practicality.
His