Chapter 84: The Mother of All Texts

If Joan possessed any exceptional quality, it was his unwavering willpower; without such tenacity, he could never have maintained his spellcasting concentration from dawn till dusk. Yet this time, the torment he endured was too severe, so heavy it nearly surpassed the limits of endurance.

Suspended upside down above the spring, Joan’s ruined right eye brimmed with viscous blood. Every half hour or so, a drop would escape the socket and fall onto the water below, splashing a crimson ripple across the surface.

With his sound left eye, Joan stared intently at the water. Whenever it rippled, his pupil contracted, and he summoned all his focus to suppress the pain and observe the changes on the surface.

Yes, the water was changing.

Each time a drop of fresh blood fell, the ripples in the Spring of Wisdom would form a strange rune. Joan’s task was to memorize these runes, to absorb the wisdom hidden within them with a fervor bordering on obsession.

Time was scarce. The runes created by the ripples faded almost immediately; as soon as the water stilled, they vanished. Only when the next drop of blood struck and sent waves across the surface would a new rune appear.

For nine days and nine nights, Joan had watched those fleeting runes with unwavering attention. By his count, there were twenty-four in total, always appearing in a fixed order: the first was Rune One, “Feoh,” followed by Rune Two, “Ur,” then Rune Three, “Thorn,” and so on, until the twenty-fourth, “Odel.” Once Odel vanished, Feoh would reappear, beginning a new cycle.

...

Nine nights suspended from a wind-shaken tree,
Pierced by a spear,
I was the sacrifice, offered by myself to myself,
Upon the hidden tree unknown to all,
With neither bread to sate hunger nor water to quench thirst.

I looked down and gathered runes,
Calling out as I picked them up, falling from the tree.
...

A mournful song echoed in Joan’s ears. Throughout those nine days, Mimir had been chanting this ancient, mysterious ballad. From the clues hidden within the lyrics, Joan surmised that the runes he saw in the spring must be the “runes” Mimir sang about. As for who created these ancient symbols imbued with boundless wisdom, or what their precise meanings were, Joan could not guess.

He did not know if anyone in this era still used the runes, nor what use his study of these ancient symbols—buried in the sands of history alongside the old civilization of the Asa people forty thousand years ago—might have. He devoured the runes with hunger, pondering the meaning behind each one, perhaps simply to distract himself from pain, exhaustion, and thirst, to endure a few moments more during this ordeal.

The spring became calm, and the twenty-fourth rune, Odel, slowly faded. Just as Joan expected the runes to begin another cycle, the vine wrapped around his ankle suddenly loosened. He fell headfirst into the spring with a splash, gulping two mouthfuls of icy water, and broke into violent coughing.

Flailing in the freezing water, Joan tried to surface. Suddenly, his body felt lighter, as if lifted by an invisible hand, and he was deposited on the bank.

He sat by the spring, coughing for a while, then realized the water on his body was evaporating on its own. His damp clothes steamed, and within a minute they were dry and spotless, as if freshly ironed.

He touched his hair—it was dry as well. Even more astonishing, after the brief soak, all the pain and fatigue accumulated over nine days vanished without a trace, as though he’d feasted and slept soundly; his energy was unprecedented.

“Mimir, sir, does this mean I’ve passed the trial?” Joan asked anxiously.

The floating head of the old man smiled and nodded. “Yes, you have passed, my child. You should be proud of your courage and strength.”

“So, I’m qualified to drink from the Spring of Wisdom?”

The old man’s laughter made Joan realize he’d asked a foolish question, and his cheeks flushed. Of course, he had just drunk from the Spring of Wisdom—he’d even taken a cold bath in it.

With a thread of anticipation, Joan cast “Introspection” and entered a meditative state to check his intelligence attribute. The result made him overjoyed—his intelligence had soared from 17 to 22. A single mouthful of the Spring of Wisdom had granted him five points of intelligence; all the pain he endured over nine days was worth it!

“Child, compared to the intelligence gained from the spring, your greatest reward is the runes you saw and memorized over these nine days,” Mimir said, his tone full of meaning.

“You mean those twenty-four runes?” Joan asked, curious.

The “Wise Elder” nodded solemnly; his deep eyes reflected the changes of forty thousand years as he gently revealed the secrets behind the runes.

“The runes” are the oldest script known in the world of Vares, called “the mother of all writing.” It is said that all written languages—including Elven, Dwarven, and Draconic—were derived from these twenty-four ancient runes. Accordingly, any spell written in Elvish, Dwarvish, Draconic, or any other tongue can be parsed using the runes. This is their greatest use: analyzing the structure of spells.

“Whether the spell is inscribed on a scroll or imbued in a magical device, you can use the runes to swiftly extract and interpret it, as easily as taking a painting off a wall or scooping a pebble from an aquarium,” Mimir told Joan.

The deciphering ability of the runes is akin to “Identify,” but far more powerful. For Joan, replacing Identify with the runes offers an extra benefit: he no longer needs to consume pearls as spell components, saving a fortune in identification costs—a boon for a young mage with limited means.

“If you reverse the process I just described, you can use the runes to imbue spells into specific devices or arms, allowing you to create magical items at lower cost and higher efficiency. This is their second major use: crafting magical implements!”

“Besides analyzing and constructing magical items, the runes have many other wondrous functions. You will have to discover those for yourself.” Finally, Mimir gave Joan a gentle smile. “Well, my child, you have lingered here long enough. It is time we said farewell.”

“Farewell, Mimir. I will forever remember your teachings!” Joan bowed deeply to the venerable demigod and turned to retrace the path he had come.