"No, but I recognize this character,"

he said as he extended his index finger to point at a crookedly inscribed "light" character at the end of the line on the grass paper.

"Is this pronounced 'qing'?"

Oke's face turned pale with surprise, and he exclaimed with joy,

"Incredible! You can actually read it!"

Luo Yan smiled and moved his index finger down to point at the "explode" character at the end of the next line.

"And this one, 'bao'?"

"Exactly, exactly right! You're simply a genius!!!"

Oke clenched his fists excitedly, his look of admiration making it hard to tell whether it was flattery or heartfelt.

However, for goblins, there wasn't much of a difference anyway.

"Alright, you know that's not what I want to hear," Luo Yan put away his smile and looked at Oke as he continued, "So, is there anything else you want to report to me?"

Fearful and excited, Oke nodded and continued tentatively,

"Of course, my lord... If it were just a trivial matter, Oke wouldn't dare to disturb your rest, but, but that's not the only astonishing thing!"

As he spoke, he quickly flipped through the grass paper in Luo Yan's hands to the next page, where rows of runes were listed in separate categories, each line ending with the same character.

There were ten permutations and combinations containing "move," seven containing "light," and five containing "explode"…

Of course, that wasn't everything.

But even with just these inscriptions, a lot could be explained.

A look of interest appeared on Luo Yan's face.

As an imperfect but illustrative comparison, it felt like a "command set" in a programming language?

He flipped through the grass paper and, as expected, saw what looked like a conditional "judge" and a looping "cycle" on the last few pages!

A dreamy expression came over Oke's face as he murmured,

"Did you... notice? These chaotic runes actually have patterns! It's just unbelievable!"

It indeed was unbelievable.

The chaos of rune magic was the direct reason for the decline of the Ancient Language and the inability to form a systematic magic.

Luo Yan remembered learning in his Magic History class that before the First Epoch, during the era of the Primitive Tribes, there were mainly two types of Extraordinary Power active on this land.

One was the elemental magic, originating from the nature worship of the Primitive Tribes.

The other was rune magic, the root of whose belief came from the pictograms of the "most ancient civilization"—a total of 172 pictographic characters that made up the "Ancient Language."

The complex and varied system of Extraordinary Powers we see today has evolved from these two systems, at the end of the day.

For example, Dragon Language Magic is the most typical.

In Dragon Language Magic, one can see both the early influence of elemental magic and the heritage from rune magic—

that is, the power of rules contained within the language!

But the Ancient Language associated with rune magic is clearly much more forceful than Dragon Language.

So much so that it is said during the time of the Primitive Tribes, the creatures of the most ancient civilizations active on this land were incapable of lying.

Because any words spoken in the Ancient Language took on the binding power of an oath granted by the Extraordinary Power, and anyone breaking such an oath would suffer the punishment of the Extraordinary Power... for instance, someone who makes a lightning oath and breaks it might actually be struck dead by lightning.

To avoid being struck dead by lightning and to prevent offhand remarks from being exploited by others, more and more creatures began using homophones, using the correct pronunciation only when necessary.

After all, whether an oath has been broken is inherently subjective.

The clever chieftains and priests, exploiting the conservatism in people's hearts and their fear of the unknown, quickly took this power for themselves, centralized the Extraordinary Power, and thus became the earliest privileged class, leading their tribes in the conquest of other Primitive Tribes.

For a considerable period, rune magic had an overwhelming advantage over elemental magic and even dominated the battlefield.

After all, the early tribal folks hadn't truly mastered the way to condense faith yet; their babble wouldn't call forth a downpour, at most a few drops of rain.

However, as time passed and civilization continued to evolve, the situation quickly changed.

One of the most important inventions in the history of civilization—the concept of religion, was born.

At some point, the worship of nature by humans, elves, dwarves, beastmen, and all other creatures gradually turned into worship of deities, and in this process, they began to form distinct divine personas, evolving into clear pantheons and ushering in the Mythological Era!

Compared to the increasingly conservative and even clumsy Ancient Language, this vast power not only crossed the barriers of species but also transcended the concepts of tribes and later, nations.

It was like a tank emerging in the primitive era, sweeping across the land with irresistible force, turning thousands of raindrops into a torrential downpour!

In contrast, while rune magic reached its zenith in the tribal era, it remained in the hands of a few from beginning to end. No matter how much it condensed Extraordinary Power, it couldn't change its niche status, and thus it ultimately lost to the times themselves, buried in the dust of history.

It's poignant that although the essence of rune magic was the power of rules, it never evolved a self-regulating force like elemental magic did until its heyday had passed, ultimately becoming the largest pile of code wreck in the underlying system of this world.

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