Oracle consisted of far more than the 1,000 characters he had previously published.
As of October 2014 on Blue Star, approximately 130,000 oracle bones had been discovered, bearing over 4,000 distinct characters, about 2,000 of which could be identified.
These symbols, created gradually by their ancestors through everyday life, labor, divination, sacrificial rites, and other practical activities, recorded their civilization. They were a precious legacy.
Roland had been steadily compiling and revising a dictionary lately. He planned to contact "Arcana" about publishing a supplement to his earlier "Oracle-Bone Character Studies."
This was also at the Arcane Committee's request, to organize his previous papers into a systematic academic discipline.
He had localized the meanings of quite a few characters and terms. For instance, he had adapted "ding" to refer to an ancient cauldron of this world, with the additional meaning of a large cooking pot.
Atrelin's history was divided into several periods, each dominated by different schools and systems of magic.
These reflected people's understanding and use of magic.
Much like the successive unified dynasties in the history of Chinese civilization-the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing-Atrelin had its wilderness era, esoteric arts era, wizard era, magic (empire) era, alchemy era, The Age of Magic, and the present arcane era.
From these arose different schools such as gnosis, runes, and witchcraft, as well as the origins of professions such as wizards, mages, and alchemists.
Yet despite consulting numerous history books in the library lately, he had failed to find suitable cultural soil for his own work.
Thus, special terms such as "Nine Cauldrons" and "Pursuit of the Deer" had yet to appear.
Forcing the numeral "nine" together with the noun "cauldron" would only produce the literal interpretation of "nine large bronze cooking pots."
"Pursuit of the Deer" would likewise become "chasing