Chapter 280 : Chapter 280
Chapter 280. A New Ancient Rune
Fulan’s consciousness sank, and once it reached her body in the Material Realm, she opened her eyes.
The first thing she noticed was that her magic traps had not been triggered. No one had disturbed her while she was in the Spirit Realm, and that made her breathe a sigh of relief.
Then she looked toward Nora, and to her surprise, Nora’s body was still illusory.
“No way, Nora still hasn’t come back from the Spirit Realm?”
Fulan found it rather strange. After robbing the Emerald Market and then going to Monsa to speak with the Lord of Radiance, at least half an hour should have passed.
Had Nora not returned from the Spirit Realm the moment the Emerald Market came under attack?
What was she still doing there?
Filled with questions, Fulan looked toward Nora, but there was still no sign whatsoever that Nora had returned to the Material Realm.
So Fulan could only sit around in the room and wait in boredom.
Only after another half hour passed did Nora’s body finally become solid again. That was the sign that Nora had returned to the Material Realm.
The moment Nora came back, Fulan saw her immediately reveal a miserable expression, as though she had run into something truly infuriating.
“Why were you in the Spirit Realm for so long?” Fulan asked curiously.
Seeing that Fulan was already here in the Material Realm, Nora relaxed a little, then complained in a tone full of grievance,
“Don’t even mention it. The people at the Emerald Market canceled my pass permit.”
“After that explosion happened, the staff used the attack on the market as an excuse and made all of us stay inside the auction hall. Only a few people managed to run off in the chaos.”
“I wasn’t planning to do anything, so I just stayed there, but...”
Nora spoke through gritted teeth,
“I have no idea where those staff dragged in some idiot from, but he swaggered in and declared on the spot that, because all of us were suspected of attacking the market, our pass permits were being revoked immediately.”
“That damned garbage. I’m never going to the Emerald Market again. Let’s see whether the Emerald Market can even stay open after an attack like this...”
“That pass permit cost me a fortune to get...”
It was obvious that Nora was deeply dissatisfied with how the Emerald Market had handled things.
“Oh, right. You came back so early. Were you with that other group of people they gathered together? Did they revoke your pass permit too?”
“Uh, I didn’t run into any staff at all. Just as the attack started, I was about to walk out of the central district, and then those streams of light fell, so I returned to the Material Realm.”
“I see... What rotten luck. The first time I brought you to a Spirit Realm market, something like this happened.”
Fulan scratched her head and smiled without replying. Then she said,
“Oh, right. Do you know of any other Spirit Realm markets? Since this one was attacked, I still haven’t sold my things, so I’ll need to find another one...”
Nora packed up the things on the floor and said,
“It’ll have to wait until next week. There’s one that stays open for seven days. That one opens once a month...”
“Then shall we meet here again next week?”
“See you next week.”
After that brief exchange, Fulan furtively returned to her residence with the purple short sword.
Logically speaking, Fulan should have already lost that purple short sword and should not have had it on her anymore, so she had hidden it away earlier.
As for the other things she had taken from the storeroom of the Emerald Market, she had temporarily left them all in Monsa to help cover up what she had done.
If she had returned from the Spirit Realm with a small mountain of Spirit Crystals beside her, along with weapons and a large number of precious materials, Nora would probably have suspected on the spot that she was the one who had attacked the Emerald Market.
After returning to her residence, Fulan immediately set down the things in her hands, took out her enchantment materials and Rune Pen from a box, then used Rune Removal Solution to wipe away the runes on the purple short sword before beginning to inscribe new ones.
She sat before the table, took a deep breath, and after only a few strokes, she carved the shape of an ocean wave.
What she intended to carve was precisely the figure of the Goddess of the Currents.
In the Emerald Market, Fulan had encountered two followers of the Goddess of the Currents, and one of them was very likely an Emissary of the Goddess of the Currents.
And during that battle, for some unknown reason, it had seemed as though she had activated Astrology and seen the true appearance of the Goddess of the Currents.
Based on her previous experience drawing Ancient Runes, seeing the appearance of the Goddess of the Currents meant that she should be able to draw the rune of the Goddess of the Currents.
And perhaps it was only an illusion, but in Fulan’s view, the amount of detail she could draw for the Goddess of the Currents’ rune was even greater than what she had been able to draw for the Lord of Radiance.
Fulan picked up the Rune Pen and slowly etched the image of the Goddess of the Currents onto the blade.
An image of the Goddess of the Currents standing upon the waves gradually appeared before Fulan.
Fulan could feel that her earlier sense that the Goddess of the Currents she had seen was richer in detail had not been an illusion, but the truth.
She could even sense that, before this rune was fully completed, it was already stronger than the rune of the Lord of Radiance.
“Maybe it’s because of the difference in the scale of their believers, which changes how much of the vision I can perceive,” Fulan guessed based on the information she already had.
That much was already obvious from the fact that, after the Lord of Radiance had developed so many believers, the deity no longer spoke to her through books, but directly through the statue.
The scale of a god’s believers affects how clearly one can observe that god’s appearance.
Fulan was certain that if she now requested to see the full appearance of the Lord of Radiance, she might be able to perceive even more details.
Returning to Fulan’s rune carving, her work was not yet complete.
At this point, the appearance of the Goddess of the Currents and the traits of the currents themselves had all been fully carved, but Fulan still remembered the things she had seen behind the Goddess of the Currents.
She wanted to carve in those sailing ships as well, along with those colossal beings within the sea, but...
“This material can’t withstand it anymore.”
Fulan sighed. She could sense that, if she were to fully carve the complete rune, it would definitely unleash second-tier power.
But the amethyst on this purple short sword simply could not bear that level of power, so she could only stop at this point.
Fulan could feel that, merely by depicting the concrete appearance of the Goddess of the Currents, this rune had already nearly touched the threshold of the second tier.
If she could find a finely forged weapon made from second-tier materials, then she would be able to possess a true second-tier weapon.
“I’ll deal with those second-tier materials after I learn 【Furnace Hand】. When that time comes, I’ll melt down this purple short sword and forge a new one.”
Having settled on the future plan for this rune and for her new weapon, Fulan checked her panel.
The moment she decided not to inscribe the complete rune for the time being, she received a notification from the panel.
【You have once again reproduced a lost Ancient Rune. It was left unfinished midway due to the limitations of the material, but I think you already know how to truly draw a genuine Ancient Rune now. Runology proficiency +5000】
Looking at that notification, Fulan believed that, because she had not yet truly drawn a complete rune of the Goddess of the Currents, she had not received the full twenty thousand proficiency points like she had from the Lord of Radiance’s rune.
If she really did draw the complete rune of the Goddess of the Currents, she felt it should at least give her around fifteen thousand proficiency points.
“In that case, it looks like I’ve found another way to grind Runology proficiency.”
Fulan’s current Runology proficiency was 【Runology (Extraordinary) (Proficiency: 27464/100000)】.
At the rate she was discovering and drawing new Ancient Runes, as long as she found three or four more gods and saw their appearances, she could earn a huge amount of proficiency by drawing “Ancient Runes.”
With a bit of luck, judging from how this panel upgraded skills, she might be able to raise her Runology proficiency beyond Extraordinary very quickly.
And if she truly raised Runology beyond Extraordinary, then she might gain an even more powerful ability.
“This method is not bad. Once I find the time later, I should explore more ways of using Astrology.”
Although Fulan still did not quite dare to use Astrology to predict the future, she had always been making use of a few minor applications of it.
For example, using Astrology to investigate knowledge from Earth that she had never known before, then using that knowledge to strengthen her techniques.
In Fulan’s view, using Astrology to see the full appearance of gods should likewise have no side effects.
“It’s just... do I really need to find Emissaries of those gods? That’s genuinely hard.”
The first time Fulan had ever seen the term “Emissary” was on the trait that had appeared in her panel. Up to this day, she still had not found a single book in the Material Realm that mentioned that term.
Ordinary mages had never even seen the term “Emissary.” Even if one stood right in front of them, they might not realize it.
Under such circumstances, meeting that Emissary of the Goddess of the Currents had already been exceptionally good luck.
So how was she supposed to find Emissaries of other gods now?
“No, maybe I don’t need to find those gods’ Emissaries at all. Maybe their statues would be enough.”
Based on the way she had used Astrology to examine information from Earth, along with her shallow knowledge of the Astrology School, all knowledge of the Astrology School seemed to follow one fundamental law.
That was: if you want to know something, you must first possess something related to it.
Only with a connection can any Divination be carried out, and that connection cannot be too weak. If it is too weak, then it ends up like Richter’s corpse she buried before, from which she could barely extract any information at all.
What Fulan wanted to know now was the appearance of the gods themselves. That was her purpose in using Astrology.
“Compared with an Emissary, a god’s statue should have a much closer connection to the god itself, right?”
Fulan could go search for statues of those gods instead. Those would be much easier to find, and perhaps she could raise her Runology beyond Extraordinary very quickly.