Chapter 634: Scorpion Warlord Language
The man didn't comment on anything in particular, instead beginning to speak about the Stroke, confusing Sylas somewhat.
"This Stroke is known as Kru."
Without missing a beat, he drew another line. This one was shorter than the first, and it was more vertical. Though, probably more accurately described as slanted.
"This Stroke is known as Zin... This is Vak... This is Tho... This is Gri... Shu... Dro... Mak... Tzu... Fen..."
Seemingly understanding what kind of student he was dealing with, the man's sleeve of darkness waved about faster as Sylas almost robotically copied his actions.
Every Stroke Sylas drew was the exact same as the man's, and they could have been perfect mirror images of one another if not for the fact they were even more perfect than that, being one to one comparisons.
After drawing the tenth and last Stroke, Sylas felt the characters on his page come alive. It was like they were whispering to him, and the man, who had been about to speak once more, stopped, watching Sylas in silence.
The man realized that Sylas could already feel it.
There were thousands upon thousands of Strokes. However, compared to the number of Runes in the world, this number was miniscule.
This seemed to make sense. After all, there were only a few dozen letters in an alphabet, but how many words could they form?
The trouble here, though, was that there still weren't a mere several thousand Strokes in existence. It could even be said that the number of Strokes was just as infinite as the number of Runes.
That was because even the same stroke could have a completely different meaning depending on the intent behind it. Much the same way an inflection could change the meaning of a word entirely in a complex language, so too could a flare of Will change the meaning of a Stroke.
In this language, these were known as the Scorpion Strokes. But if Sylas had been sitting across a projection of the Serpent Warlord instead, these Strokes would look exactly the same, but have completely different names.
They would be known as Siv, Sha, Zel, Ris, Siu, Ves, Skai, Syth, Sra, and Fiz.
The same strokes, completely different feel, completely different meanings.
The reason the Warlords all chose these ten Strokes was because it could be said that these...
were the true Inheritance. And Sylas seemed to have already realized that.
Every Rune Inheritance was built on a foundation of Strokes that built up the rest of the language. Only by understanding the Strokes could one then build the Foundations that came next, and the Runes that followed that.
Even so... this was the simplest it would be.
'I see...' Sylas thought to himself. '... These Strokes are perfectly suited to forming battle armors that elicit the call of a beast of some sort. They are simple, but sturdy. They don't have much surface area to work with, but that makes them more solid, and they're excellent at forming bridges, whether that be with your Will or between themselves.'
Sylas, like a child learning to sound out words for the first time, felt that he could finally understand the blobs of words that he had been experiencing before.
"It seems that I do not need to explain the individual meanings of the Strokes. You may continue."
Sylas found the world warping around him before he could say much of anything. The eye was stunned to find him back so soon and he wondered if Sylas was rejected already.
According to what the eye knew, without the beam of energy from earlier, even drawing the Strokes should be impossible. That was because a newbie to the Scorpion Warlord Inheritance wouldn't even know how to infuse the right type of Will into their Strokes and thus fail to grasp the fundamentals of the language.
However, when Sylas took the eleventh step, the eye almost collapsed out of the skies. How the hell was this possible?
Sylas had no idea what the eye was thinking and he was still somewhat lost in thought. He walked up the next set of ten steps as though they weren't there.
The eye, still watching from a distance, felt that maybe it should check to see if the systems here were faulty after all these years. But something in his intuition was telling him that there was truly nothing wrong with it.
Sylas was just that difficult to fathom.
'Just what level is his Rune Mastery at?'
This was the first time the eye asked this question to itself. The world here was designed for a newbie to enter. According to the restrictions, they couldn't be more than 50 years old.
This was the usual threshold chosen for existences. This was because if one reached the E- Grade before 50 years old, aging would basically stop for a while.
More aggressive Inheritances designed for the F-Grade would be even more draconian with their limits. But Rune Masters tended to be more forgiving because the Profession was simply too difficult.
However, someone younger than 50, at best they could have grasped Rune Flesh, right?
'Even if he was from that Race, at best it should be Rune Soul... but... this feels like it's beyond that... he can't possibly have Rune Essence Mastery already, right?'
As the eye was lost in thought, Sylas appeared at a kneeling table once more with the same man across from him, and the same sheets of paper and calligraphy brushes.
The man only seemed surprised by Sylas' speed for a moment before he pulled out the brush and began to draw. His wrist hardly moved at all as his arm swung vigorously. Every stroke was filled with a sharpness and conviction that pierced down to the soul.
SHU! SHU! SHU!
The man came to a stop, a Foundation appearing before them.
Sylas recognized it. The first layer of the Scorpion Warlord statue had 100 total Runes, each of which had 20 or so Foundations. This was the one Foundation found in all of them.
Without understanding this Foundation, you couldn't grasp this Inheritance at all.