The world spun around Sylas, and he found himself on yet another long, foggy path accented by doors. This time, there were ten of them instead of nine. But the location felt pretty identical to the first Secret Realm he had entered.
Rune Sight. Rune Visualization…
The first Secret Realm, Introduction to Rune, Rune Patterns, and Rune Geometry, was related to Rune Sight. It taught him the fundamentals of Runes and how to interact with them before describing the concept of Strokes and Foundations to him.
He memorized a great deal of Strokes and their culminating Foundations from that Realm before he handed it to his sister. Now it seemed that it was time for him to finally improve.
Sylas entered the first door, but it was only a few seconds before it vanished, and he appeared on the road again.
He stood in silence for a moment, his eyes closed.
The Rune Sight Secret Realm was all about getting him familiar with Runes. It was titled appropriately. Those with Rune Sight could see and interact with Runes, but it wasn’t on an exceptionally deep level.
By comparison, those with Rune Visualization could begin to “feel” Runes. They didn’t just interact with them through a single sense but rather through multiple.
Upon seeing a Rune, it was possible to formulate this Rune in one’s mind and imprint it into memory, understanding it implicitly in exchange for a good amount of study.
However, Sylas had long reached this level. When he stamped his Runes into the air to pass the first door of the Rune Sight Secret Realm, he was already using an advanced application of Rune Visualization.
Most with Rune Visualization were only able to etch Runes in part; only those nearing Rune Enlightenment could do as he had done. But even then, it wouldn’t be nearly so quick.
‘So this Secret Realm is a game of memory. Easy enough.’
He took a step forward and vanished into the second door.
When he appeared inside, he found a more complex formulation of what had been in the first door. There was a quick flash of a few Strokes, and he was meant to recall them.
It was too easy.
When he got to the fourth door, the test changed a bit. The Strokes came faster, but then at the end, he was presented with three Foundations. He was meant to recall the Strokes he had seen earlier and point out the Foundation they formed.
The ancient cursive that formed the Foundations was incredibly similar. A layman might not even realize that there were three different Foundations before them in the first place, and they might even assume they were looking at three identical images.
Sylas only gave them a glance before picking one.
The room was cleared, and he moved onto the fifth door, then the sixth…
When he got to the seventh, it was no longer Strokes flying at him. Instead, it was Foundations. Remembering a flood of Foundations was obviously many times more difficult, but as Nosphaleen had said, with Rune Soul, Sylas was capable of grasping a Rune with his Sixth Sense. In an instant, he could get a full 3D rendering of the Rune in his mind in its full form.
Even with his dinged Wisdom, he sliced through the challenge, not struggling at all.
At the end of the ninth door, the Foundations fused into true Runes that looked nearly identical to one another. But the Runes themselves were hardly made up of 10 Foundations when Sylas was used to working with 50 Foundation Runes by now.
Considering Runes became exponentially more difficult to manage every 10 Foundations, it was hard to even fathom how much more difficult dealing with his Slow and Freeze Ice-Poison Runes were over this.
He cleared the ninth door with lightning-like efficiency, his eyes darting around with an ease that belied their speed.
He stepped out and moved to the tenth and final door.
When he entered, there was a flash in his eyes, and an enormous Rune appeared before him.
“Hm?”
Sylas was a bit surprised. That was because he saw that this Rune was easily tens of times more complicated than any Rune he had come up against previously.
He was starting to feel a bit disappointed in this Secret Realm. At least the Rune Sight Secret Realm had taught him something new, but he honestly hadn’t learned much this time around. Well, other than some useful configurations for Strokes.
Sylas raised his hand, about to clear the door. After the novelty wore off, he realized that it was not very complicated at all. All he had to do was replicate this Rune with his Rune Visualization, and it would be considered a pass.
However, he paused after a moment, giving the Rune another long glance.
‘Rune Visualization… is it really true that it isn’t trying to teach me anything?’
He thought back to the previous doors and how they progressed. Namely, he thought about the choosing challenges where he would get a choice of three Foundations or Runes he had to choose from depending on the Strokes or Foundations he had interacted with earlier.
When he came to this point in his thoughts, he had a flash of realization.
‘Those Foundations and Runes were nearly identical; they only had small differences between them. I thought that that was the challenge and just picked the one that perfectly matched the previous Strokes and Foundations. But… what if therein lay the secret…?’
Sylas realized at that moment that the Runes and Foundations during those choosing challenges weren’t just somewhat identical; for all intents and purposes, they were identical.
If he used his Rune Soul to form any one of them, they would all perform the same exact function. So what was the difference between them?
The obvious answer was that the small quirks were identical to the Strokes and Foundations that preceded them. But staring at this “complex” Rune before him, Sylas realized something else.
He had almost missed something profound.
This Secret Realm wasn’t just teaching him how to visualize and memorize Strokes, Foundations, and Runes… it was also teaching him the most efficient configurations of them.
On the one hand, it was a memorization exercise, but by the same token, the methods you could use to remember Runes with greater ease were the same methods you could use to draw them with greater ease, the same methods you could rely on to expend less Wisdom and Aether per Rune, and most importantly…
The same methods you could use to construct them the fastest.
Sylas’ gaze flashed, and his intention moved. With a glance, he memorized the large, complex Rune, and in the next instant, an identical one was formed right over it, shattering the original to pieces and replacing it with a far more perfect form.
Not only had he cleared the tenth door, he had improved upon its design, creating something unprecedented for someone with Rune Visualization.
—
[You have pleased the system]
—
Sylas looked at this message and shook his head. Last time he received a System Reward, but it seemed that he wouldn’t be so lucky this time around.
The Demerits hanging over his head were too heavy.
