Chapter 116 - Rune Lecture

The figure that silenced the whole room was a woman, she had supple silky white skin and long flowing blond hair and gave off an aura of serenity and peace around her. Her facial features were similar to that of a Chinese and western mixed race individual and she was dressed in a suspiciously familiar yellow monk like outfit that did nothing to diminish her grace and beauty.

Her sky blue eyes swept around the room before she gave off a slight smile as she slowly began " The core of the Wizard civilization is not magic or spiritual power as most might think but the core lies in runes, regardless of the expression of power, the core lies in the runes, the runes may be located in the soul, blood or even expressed in the genetic makeup but the rune regardless serves as the core the centre of the wizard civilization, Wizard's aim since the dawn of time has never changed and that is to find the truth, as everyone known this is a very difficult task because truth is relative, but the closest phenomenon to truth exist in rune, they are a representation of a certain kind of knowledge or phenomenon, a kind of advanced language if you will to try and express certain aspects of the world and reality we live in." She paused for a moment as if allowing everyone to fully digest her words and understand the underlining meaning before she continued solemnly.

"just like all languages runes in different contexts and combinations can take on a whole different meaning for example the fundamental rune for fire," she opened her palm and numerous fire elemental particles floated to her palms merging quickly changing from its luminous and circular shape to display the fundamental rune representation of fire.

Ignoring what was going on in her open palm she continued speaking as she opened up her other palm "this rune when put together with a fundamental water rune can mean steam, or hot water or even mean electricity." with her words the simple fire elemental rune and the water elemental rune she held in her two palms merged together fracturing and restricting giving birth to the different phenomena she spoke about, she went on to display various other simple combinations such as fire rune and earth, water and air, the seemingly simple combinations when displayed in her palms showed a complex charm that entranced everyone as the simple structure of the runes were restructuring and recombining with each other giving birth to what seemed like endless changes.

"runes existence in the wizard power system is based on the principle of that knowledge has weight and power, it's the weight and power of this knowledge that tempers the soul and effects changes, even if the rune is not inscribed in any part of the body or soul it still serves a vital role, wizards who cast spells using magic arrays apart from using their scarce spirit power as fuel need the help of runes inscribed in a circle to effect magical mysterious changes. runes just like a real language can change and evolve over time, that is with new knowledge and representation of similar knowledge contained in the rune originally, the rune can change and evolve creating a new meaning, in a plane the basic fundamental rune of flame can represent the rapid movement of particles to bring about fire, while in another it could mean the agitation of elemental energy to produce flames, in the end they are all basically fire just different representation and observation of the phenomenon, the difference they display is based on the worldview of the user."

She kept silent and gave a visual explanation of her previous words with the fundamental flame rune that appeared in her palm, before her soft voice resounded once more..

"Fundamental runes can sometimes be referred to as innate runes, since they are fundamental runes it's taken for granted that there exist other runes different from them, some call these types of runes acquired runes. As the wizard civilization gradually formed and progressed further it was increasingly obvious that the wizard world couldn't just continue to thrive on plunder and so after numerous research and experiments it was soon obvious of the hidden nature of runes, as a concrete representation of knowledge as a high level language depicting rules and principles just like a new word or concept could emerge as time went by and civilization evolved so could the runes, they need not labour destroying and conquering worlds to find more runes but by combining their knowledge, observations and thoughts into a concept, symbol, rune describing this created concept and by creating a principle a theory which is based on existing concepts they could create and discover their own runes. But in reality, this power does not really exist, but this person thinks it exists, and because of this thought its nonexistent nature has a chance to become reality, by conceiving the principle of the existence of this force in his own spirit, and establishing a principle which can support its non-existent nature changing to become a reality, Although it does not exist in the real world, it does exist in his spiritual world and the spirit even those of mortals possess incredible power, This is a very incomprehensible spiritual concept, no knowledge is useless, even if the principle is flawed as long as the thoughts expectations spiritual power and beliefs are imprinted unto that rune and concept in the spiritual world it could easily sublimate based on existing fundamental universal runes already existing and gain mysterious power and become magical possessing the same nature if not a greater nature than an innate rune or fundamental rune. Of course, not everyone possesses the determination and possibility of sublimating knowledge into a rune, the hurdles to be crossed include is the innate spiritual power of the individual involved, the talent, the time invested in the endeavour and the strength of the obsession, the other major obstacle is the world itself that is whether the rules of the world can accommodate the existence of such knowledge sublimating into something extraordinary."

She paused for a moment waiting for her words to fully sink in before continuing not minding the doubts, incomprehension and disbelief on most students faces.

"Let me tell you a story…" as she said so a magic circle emerged from her feet and the magic enveloped the audience travelling through time and space to exist as phantoms giving everyone front row seats as they watched from a higher perspective as the tale she was about to speak off slowly unfold.

"This is a story of a painter in a mortal plane, he was not the best painter in his world, he had no formal teaching of the art, he didn't read any theories or attempt to self-study he just painted with colours on a canvas, but he absolutely had a genuine love for the art, he painted day and night put in all his feelings obsessions and soul into his art so much so that others could view his art and faintly resonate with his feelings, he slowly grew rich and acquired a little fame but he did not relent on his art and then one day every work he tried to create was destroyed by various peculiar unavoidable accidents, his body slowly grew weaker but using his obsessions he overcame the weakness and kept on painting, creating works that were doomed to destruction the very moment they were completed. Because of his lack of tangible art creation, he slowly grew destitute but he kept on painting obsessed with the feeling of creation and slowly as he grew older and his body failed him and he began to feel death knocking on his doors he decided to paint one more time, disregarding his tattered body and the feeling of exhaustion and fear of death that lingered over every part of his soul and he painted knowing fully well it would be his last, knowing it would be like all the others inexplicably destroyed but he didn't care, He put all his feelings and thoughts on the painting, thinking that the pinnacle of painting should be like this and In the short two seconds the painting existed he felt sublime satisfaction and died with a smile on his face."

Although the story sounded anticlimactic to the naked ear but the wizards who were viewing the scene from a higher perspective were awed and entranced, they could clearly see the growth of the painter the influence of his every move on his soul how his progress started an inexplicable change in the soul, how every painting that was inexplicably destroyed was a result of the world rules rejecting its existence, it wasn't that the painting was too beautiful that everyone who saw it loved it or that its technique was too perfect, in fact, the process of painting was amateurish but each brush stroke carried a unique dedication a unique charm, a combination of the painters focus and feelings and the combination of each charm filled stroke into a unified whole had created something extraordinary something which a mortal plane like that could not contain, the painting's existence had clearly exceeded the limit of the plane and could only be destroyed and rejected by the plane. And the last painting of his life had resulted in something even more spectacular it was a simple self-portrait not of his current self but of himself when he was young and handsome just after he finished his first painting that had gained recognition. As the painting was completed the inexplicable change that had been brewing in the painter's soul was finally completed and with its completion and by a stroke of sheer luck coupled with the movement of the world rules to reject the final work, the rune in the painter's soul gained the fleeting chance to exist and exert its influencing on the whole plane resulting in a miraculous change resulting in the birth of extraordinary profession and power based on paintings.