Sure enough, Oksaya and the mages of the Orthodox Runes School escalated their efforts, creating one alias after another to wage a war of words against Boisitus and his supporters. The situation grew increasingly chaotic.
While Oksaya's commentary had at least offered substantive arguments, his followers simply ignored the paper itself and harped on the author's status as an Apprentice Mage.
It was not that they were mindless. This affair concerned more than just arcana.
At its core, it was a cultural undertaking, a struggle for the right to shape the discourse, a contest of leadership!
The waters were gradually being muddied.
"Oracle-bone characters-is this just a publicity stunt, or is there genuine substance behind them?"
For a time, even the uninvolved onlookers began to feel confused.
Roland watched it all with cold detachment, perfectly clear about what was happening.
Language and writing were not immutable. Their cultural memes were constantly influenced by outside factors and were closely bound to the fate of a civilization.
On Blue Star in his previous life, square characters had faced existential trials on several occasions: the differing scripts of the various states during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, calls for Latinization when his homeland lagged behind the world, and the inability to enter them into computers when the computer age arrived. A number of prominent cultural figures had questioned or even rejected them.
Solutions could likewise be found in history.
Traditional Chinese characters, simplified Chinese characters, Vernacular Chinese, Hanyu Pinyin, the Wubi Input Method, the Pinyin Input Method!
But whether importing them wholesale would cause problems in this new environment remained open to debate.
Standards for digitizing text such as GB 2312, GBK, and UTF-8, for instance, were designed for computer systems rather than the magic network.
It came back to the same point: he needed to improve his mastery of arcana and acquire real expertise.
Almost a month passed quickly, and Roland received some good news. His third paper had been accepted outright and was scheduled for publication on the tenth of the following month-December 10.
Not only that, but Yvonne's paper on runes and lexical analysis had also been accepted and would be published at the same time.
Only Skord's modifications to the Copying Spell required major revisions.
"I've got it so rough!"
Skord could not help feeling dejected and began seriously questioning his life.
"Don't give up on yourself. Revise it carefully and flesh out the content, and it should still get accepted."
"That's right, Skord. We'll help you."
Roland and Yvonne had to spend some time comforting him.
Writing it for him was out of the question, but they could still help in other ways within their capabilities.
For example, they could lend a hand or transfer the funds and materials left over from last time to him.
As for Roland himself, along with congratulations from all quarters, he was also receiving words of comfort.
"Don't take what those people say too seriously. They'll quiet down after a while."
That was what Lunifis told him in an email.
"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing..."
After typing silently for a while, Roland thought it over and deleted the message.
"I'm so hurt, so utterly heartbroken. Could Nisi give me a warm hug...?"
During this time, the debate in the newspapers had not died down. Instead, it had only grown fiercer.
Because the Tower Spirit processed things slowly and had to update everything in one batch at midnight, their arguments resembled the newspaper debates from before the rise of the internet and could drag on for a very long time.
Mages enjoyed lofty status and freedom of speech, and many had long since developed outspoken personalities.
Verbal sparring and sarcastic insinuations were still relatively mild. Some went straight for personal attacks.
For a time, "convince me with evidence" and "fuck your mother" flew around in equal measure, with refinement and vulgarity sharing the stage.
"So even the mighty mages have such lousy manners."
Roland had now witnessed one of the arcane world's grand spectacles-a flame war on the magic network-and was glad he had not rashly plunged into it.
Ding! Rich and Generous has sent you a new email...
"If you want to see pretty pictures of your big sister, just say so. No need to beat around the bush!"
"I do!"
Roland instantly forgot all about the debate.
On December 10, his third paper, "Improvements to Light Spell Scrolls Based on Research into the Magical Adaptation of Oracle," was published as scheduled.
This time, the reactions of his senior schoolmates were finally much more subdued.
After all, Runes was a publication within their reach as well.
Skord, whose submission had failed, was reminded of his own plight and sank into dejection again, radiating the air of someone who had given up on life.
Yet the next day, after stumbling across some piece of news while browsing the magic network, he hurriedly told Roland to check the newspaper.
"Roland, quick, look at the Arcana Review!
Someone published an article there about your paper. Good grief, they must have spent at least several thousand gold coins on experiments to write it up this quickly. They're really loaded!"
The Arcana Review was another newspaper affiliated with the journal Arcana. Unlike the Arcana Communications Journal, it had no specially invited commentators and openly solicited submissions from all mages, making it a platform for the masses.
It had always been home turf for the "fuck your mother" crowd, fully capable of holding its own against the Arcana Communications Journal, which represented the "convince me with evidence" camp.
Hearing that this was actually a professional article that had cost a considerable number of gold coins to produce, Roland found it unbelievable. "If they invested that much money, surely they'd want some kind of return. Instead, they wasted it on a publication like this, where people just hurl abuse?"
"Uh, it's not a total waste. At least they get to insult someone to their heart's content," Skord replied.
"Fuck!"
Roland hurriedly found a copy of the newspaper and read it.
"After seeing the article 'Improvements to Light Spell Scrolls Based on Research into the Magical Adaptation of Oracle' in the latest issue of Runes, I replicated its experimental procedures and reached the following conclusion.
The spell structure of these improved scrolls is unstable and contains a fatal flaw!
I have no way of knowing whether the author deliberately concealed this or simply made a careless mistake. Regardless, it concerns the most fundamental issue with Oracle-Bone Magicalization. We believe it is unsuitable for use as a magical script!"
"Good grief, it's only been one day since publication, and they've already found me a fatal flaw?"
Roland's heart sank, and he hurriedly read on.
Sure enough, the article listed three major drawbacks.
First, the structure of the script retained pictorial elements, and it often failed to convey its meaning accurately, making it difficult to understand.
Second, its grammar was chaotic and its phrasing arbitrary.
Since pinyin had not yet existed in ancient China, people had often indicated the pronunciation of unfamiliar Chinese characters through same-sound annotations or the fanqie method. Yet the Oracle Roland had introduced here had no pronunciation at all, which people found very difficult to get used to.
Third, there was still the issue of its magically adapted structure. Many magical terms were difficult to translate, and establishing a connection with the magic network was also difficult, as though it were wholly incompatible with this world.
A Nobel laureate on Blue Star in his previous life had once raised these very issues, and Oksaya had already criticized them harshly. Now, sure enough, the mages here were rehashing the same arguments and had even taken the controversy to new heights.
They had spared no expense in testing them and had produced hard evidence!
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