The discovery of the seemingly deranged contents of the journal ca as no surprise to Kieran. If he paired the condition of these scribblings to the Bundal's ntal state by the end of the dungeon, it all tracked in his expert opinion.
When it ca to madness and the loss of reason, he knew a thing or two about that subject. Bundal would have found it extrely difficult to formulate coherent sentences in his mind while believing he was doing just that.
Such was the lunacy of madness.
Kieran flipped the journal every which way in an attempt to parse usable details. At so angles, the writing almost resembled a few runes he had encountered but never learned the aning of.
And Alice, who lood near his shoulder, took a gander at the supposedly illegible contents.
"Oh..." Alice muttered, gently freeing the book from Kieran's hand to study intently. After a few monts of poring over the details with her finger guiding her down the page, she nodded. "This writing displays hints of a strange script I rember seeing in the Tower of Rias."
Kieran's brow shot up at the ntion of so tower, echoing a question. "Tower of Rias?"
"Yes," Alice nodded. "It's known as the Tower of Northern Magic, or the Magic Tower nested in Nelorias our land. But, those who visit it co to learn that it is nad after the Great Sorceress Rias."
"Oh? Perhaps I should pay that place a visit when I can," Kieran answered.
The comnt made jokingly ended up spurring an avenue of thought in his mind. It all related to the Compendium's suggestion to find the fragnts of history buried throughout the Boundary. While the Tower of Rias's primary purpose was rearing and molding exceptional spellcasters, it doubled as a lting pot of knowledge.
Mounds of history had to be buried in those fine, ancient walls. Modern magic was rely the surface of what the Towers had to offer.
'Huh... I'm really thinking about this, aren't I?'
Shaking the thought aside, Kieran awaited more answers from Alice, who held the journal and continued scrutinizing the scribblings to match their origins in her mind.
"A lot of these symbols are broken, but their fragnts hold the most fundantal level of so runic writing. If we're diligent, I believe we can piece together the aning behind so of it," Alice said.
She eventually returned the journal to Kieran's hands, apologetically shaking her head. Bastion rubbed his chin thoughtfully after glimpsing so of these inky-black strokes on the weathered sepia pages. "You know... that kind of reminds of sothing."
Intrigued, Kieran listened for Bastion's correlation.
"Right!" Bastion snapped his fingers. "I once saw this old docuntary where there was like a dical crisis, and doctors would prescribe dicine. The handwriting was super shit and looked just like that."
Kieran's expression fell into a deadpan, and his gaze glazed over with a frightful yet contained fury. "...You dumbass."
Whereas Kieran berated himself for believing Bastion had so profound input to offer, the others laughed nonstop. The scribblings did, in fact, resemble the spastic hand movents of an overwheld, busy and impatient doctor.
All of that could describe Bundal's experints to create a perfect chira... or whatever his true goal had been. The disturbing abominations in that lab grew increasingly complex to identify as if the Mad Alchemist was doing it without rhy or reason.
However, was it genuinely aimless experintation?
Kieran highly doubted that.
And those doubts reminded him of the greatest doubt-crushing or doubt-affirming tool at his disposal mysticism. Not long had passed since he first opened the journal, and though the idea had floated idly in his mind since then, Alice moved faster than he thought to employ that ability.
Another reason he didn't imdiately invoke the ability was because of his eyes' inability to instantly parse the truth. After all, as he learned in the Trial, his eyes had ever-present passive effects that heightened the connection between his eyes and mind.
That aroused so suspicions in Kieran.
Though he knew the strength of his mysticism scaled based on his Hidden Attribute Wisdom, he realized that Truthseeking with mysticism worked in various ways. When used to determine an item's specific details, he could glean the information with alarming precision.
Yet if he were focusing on sothing more abstruse and less definitive, the information he gleaned had to be comprehended by his mind. He wondered if unknown writing fell under that second category wherein his comprehensive capacity experienced a great stress test.
Those questions needed answers, and he intended to find them.
"Step back," Kieran ordered.
As everyone gave him a wide berth, Kieran stretched his arms while stepping forward. His mind connected with the Mystic Gate positioned in the center of his Realm, and upon opening, a torrent of mystic essence poured out, fueling Kieran's slow fabrication of his Supre Ciphers.
They spun into reality, shimring with pristine blue-gold light that enraptured all. Though they knew Kieran had a secondary ability separate from his blood powers, Altair and the others didn't rember it being so brilliant and vibrant.
The radiance set the room alight, but Kieran disregarded the minute changes to his mystic abilities.
'I'm a Mystic Runemaster... yet that title seems wasted upon . How can I call myself a master of runes when I barely recognized them?'
With that self-deprecating thought, Kieran sighed.
His ager grasp of runes and the small breadth of knowledge he had on the subject was a poignant truth despite his illustrious identity as the Mystic Light.
As he stood before the weathered journal, Kieran's decision to study all iterations of runes in greater depth solidified. It was unbecoming for him to be a Mystic Runemaster yet be left at an impasse when it ca to identifying them.
Translucent ciphers ford of gossar thread energies compressed into glass-like layers. Then, he looked through them, passing them over the page deliberately. The ink seed to move, but only to Kieran, who could perceive the effects of his Supre Ciphers.
The runes took roughly ten seconds to change from their misshapen form to a perfect version. Then, those runes were seared into Kieran's Mystic Gate as if another collection of knowledge was being compiled inside his mind.
However, as Kieran expected, knowledge of the runes aning did not flow into his mind, aning they were empty. There was a disconnect sowhere along the way - a lack of reference to cent the aning in Kieran's mind.
It was like a child learning to read, write, or sound out syllables. Before they could accomplish that, they required reference, which was often a parent or older figure who set the
foundations in their mind.
Luckily, Kieran wasn't floored by this outco.
He had learned there was a hierarchy to runes and their superior forms. The Supre Letters should exist at or sowhere near the epito of that ranking. In relation, runes were akin to the alphabet — a set of simple strokes that could be woven together to move from simple to
complex.
Soon enough, the book's contents were burned into Kieran's mind, and he stopped channeling his mystic essence, which caused his Supre Ciphers to dissipate.
Then, he turned to Alice, who spared him a quizzical and mystified look. She was taken aback
by the brilliant display that illuminated the room.
"I have only solved half of the problem. For the rest... I'll need your help."
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