Chapter 1268
The mysteries hidden within the Runes of Truth don’t really have a so-called 'standard answer.' These secrets are more like alchemical rules—each person uncovers something different, finds their own answers, and walks a unique path. What you comprehend might be completely different from someone else’s.
That’s why everyone’s approach to studying them is so different, yet the secrets they eventually discover often turn out to be quite similar. The only real difference is whether you apply the same formula to alchemical potions or to alchemical arrays...
Everyone is researching, and Leon isn’t about to waste any time either—his target is the full set of 108,000 Runes of Truth.
In the future, every alchemist who has studied the Runes of Truth agrees on one thing: as long as you comprehend all 108,000 Runes of Truth, you’ll definitely become a Saint Alchemist.
But while everyone is sure about this, most alchemists believe you don’t actually need to master every single Rune of Truth—your power might already be enough for ascension.
Leon found an empty crystal table, took out a bottle of ink and a quill, and fixed his gaze on a particular Rune of Truth on the Whisper Crystal. This rune looked like a child’s random scribble, nothing at all like a real rune.
Yet it gave off an oddly harmonious feeling, as if countless truths were hidden inside. With the help of his Mana Harness for calculations, Leon instantly cracked the outermost layer of information within the Rune of Truth. In that moment, the ugly, awkward rune—like a child’s doodle—suddenly changed.
Now it looked like a rune brimming with power. A few seconds later, as he cracked the next layer of secrets, an even stronger sensation surged in his heart.
It was as if countless data and formulas were surfacing in his mind—things he hadn’t fully understood before suddenly made sense, as if he’d always known them.
Once the secret of the rune was cracked, its shape suddenly shifted. The ugly outline became three-dimensional, and as Leon watched, the rune began to rotate. The form of a Law Sigil emerged—just a slight change in orientation, yet the secrets within seemed to multiply tenfold, growing far more obscure as well.
This time, Leon’s research slowed down. It took him five minutes to crack the secrets inside this Law Sigil, and when he did, the rune itself hadn’t changed much, but the mysteries within grew even more complex. It looked like the most solid and perfect foundational Law Sigil—formed by sixteen runes!
Seeing this structure, Leon was stunned. Sixteen runes forming a Law Sigil—this was the most perfect and solid shape possible.
In the future, this is just common knowledge—there’s no record of who discovered it or which mage created it, but now Leon was suddenly seeing it for himself...
Back in Bill’s ruins, all he saw were basic Law Sigils made of twelve runes. Bill, that mysterious guy—sometimes Leon even wondered if he’d come from the future too.
A Law Sigil formed by sixteen runes is the first thing a mage needs to construct after reaching Sky Rank. All the advanced Law Sigils built later are based on this structure.
Seeing it appear in this era, Leon was shocked. He couldn’t help but wonder if the idea that a sixteen-rune foundational Law Sigil is the most perfect and solid came from the Whisper Crystal itself.
Even if mages in this age saw it, it wouldn’t matter—anyone who can comprehend the Whisper Crystal is already Sky Rank and has their own rule foundation. They might recognize that this structure is more perfect, but it’s too late for them.
Or maybe they simply couldn’t figure out how to form a Law Sigil with sixteen runes. The method passed down now only uses ten runes, which is the simplest.
No mage would, after reaching Sky Rank, abandon stabilizing their rank and further progress just to study a more advanced way to construct Law Sigils.
Anyway, once your rank gets high enough, stacking and merging Law Sigils will always produce something stronger than even the most perfect foundational Law Sigil...
Of course, the main reason is that studying it doesn’t really do much anymore—you can’t even research it at all.
But Leon knew the difference. Before reaching Sky Rank, twelve runes was the limit for constructing a Law Sigil. To build a perfect foundational Law Sigil, you needed extraordinary power.
After advancing to Sky Rank, Leon hadn’t finished constructing his Law Sigil yet, but now, seeing these Runes of Truth, he suddenly felt he could build his own foundational Law Sigil while studying them.
And this chance only comes once—it represents the foundation of Sky Rank. Once it’s built, it can never be changed.
It’s like an algorithm—Leon’s algorithm is completely different from other Sky Rank mages, and much stronger. If you want to change your algorithm later, you’d have to destroy your foundation and start over...
But that would mean falling from Sky Rank, and clawing your way back up would be almost impossible.
Leon was both shocked and fascinated, but he didn’t stop researching. With the help of his Mana Harness, he kept cracking the secrets hidden in the Law Sigil.
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Building the most perfect foundational Law Sigil means it’s the most stable and hardest to crack. Unraveling its secrets becomes incredibly difficult.
After five whole hours, the wild flicker of data in Leon’s eyes finally settled down.
Rubbing his sore eyes, Leon looked back at the Whisper Crystal and saw that the Rune of Truth he’d just studied had already vanished, replaced by a new one.
Instead of rushing to study the new Rune of Truth, Leon closed his eyes and began sorting through the secrets he’d just uncovered. Countless runes and torrents of data flowed through his mind, finally crystallizing into a few special formulas. From these, countless alchemical breakthroughs could be derived.
One formula, Leon remembered clearly—it was part of Magellan’s Formula. Magellan’s Formula wasn’t fully revealed until three thousand years later, but research on it had already started in bits and pieces over two thousand years ago.
Magellan’s Formula is considered the core of alchemical golem technology. Once it was finally published, every alchemist working on golems used it as their foundation.
Especially for alchemical golems, Magellan’s Formula is the bedrock of energy generation and utilization—just like Newton’s Laws in the old world, it’s the theory everything else is built on.
To think that part of Magellan’s Formula could be deduced from the secrets in a Rune of Truth—that was downright chilling.
More importantly, Leon knew plenty of even more advanced formulas, but those were just knowledge—like how anyone might know the principles behind a nuclear bomb or the mass-energy conversion formula, but only a handful of top minds could actually build one.
Now, studying these Runes of Truth, the secrets inside seemed to have a special power—bit by bit, Leon was truly mastering the knowledge, not just storing cold, unused formulas deep in his mind.
Leon had the feeling that with what he’d just grasped, he could immediately start applying the formulas in alchemical experiments—he already had several mature results he could make right now.
This feeling of rapid progress left Leon a bit dazed. Back in the Desolate Archive in Heather City, the Runes of Truth were the star attraction on the alchemy shelves, but you couldn’t make copies of them—and even if you did, you couldn’t preserve their secrets.
There was a copied magical book in the Desolate Archive, a supernatural artifact in its own right, but by the time Northend was on the brink of destruction, it had become just an ordinary book. All its secrets were lost. Legend says that book was crafted by a genius from Astral Academy at their peak—the only magical book besides the Whisper Crystal to contain all 108,000 Runes of Truth.
Even now, Leon couldn’t fully copy a Rune of Truth...
Staring at the key data he’d written on his draft paper, Leon slowly recovered from his shock. Hearing about it is nothing compared to experiencing it firsthand—cracking the secrets of a Rune of Truth for himself made Leon more determined than ever to master all 108,000.
But at this rate, it took over five hours to fully study the secrets in a single Rune of Truth. With 108,000 to go, even if every one went smoothly, he’d never finish in his lifetime.
Records say that the more Runes of Truth you study, the more secrets you master, but the harder it gets. Except for that genius from Astral Academy thousands of years later, nobody’s ever fully researched all 108,000 Runes of Truth...
At five hours per Rune, Leon did a quick calculation—108,000 Runes of Truth, working nonstop, would take seven or eight hundred years...
Clearly, this speed won’t work. He’d have to find another way—his research efficiency was far too low...
Leon frowned in thought. Up to now, none of the creators here had managed to fully research even a single Rune of Truth...
Some people couldn’t even get to the third stage of researching a Rune of Truth...
The first stage of researching a Rune of Truth is easy for creators. The second stage gets tricky, and if you can’t finish it within fifteen minutes, the Rune of Truth on the Whisper Crystal will change to a different one—you won’t even get to the third stage.
But if you reach the third stage of secrets within fifteen minutes, the Rune of Truth you’re studying will persist—at least for you. Others might see a different rune entirely...
That’s what makes Runes of Truth so strange—no one can truly understand them. Even that genius from Astral Academy in the future went mad just before igniting the Godfire...
Leon didn’t keep researching. Instead, he racked his brain for any records about Runes of Truth—there had to be ways to speed up research.
After half an hour digging through his memory, Leon finally found a few methods for boosting efficiency when studying Runes of Truth...
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And as it happens, Leon could use all of them...
First, there’s a spell similar to Mental Agility, but developed by Astral Academy specifically for Rune of Truth research: Heart of Steel.
Cast it, and it’s like shutting off all emotion—turning into a cold alchemical golem, focused only on data and alchemical secrets. Nothing distracts you, and research efficiency at least doubles.
Combine it with Mental Agility, and your calculation speed shoots up. You can even use Mindstorm, because with Heart of Steel active, the side effects of Mindstorm don’t matter at all...
There’s another method, similar to what those two alchemists from the Mosh Family do—using a magical device to break down the secrets in the Rune of Truth, then fusing them with the power of Law Sigils. Afterward, you just need to decipher the information contained in those Law Sigils and recombine it as before, and you’ll still obtain the complete secret.
The last method is related to the Mana Harness...
By using powerful computational magic runes, you can convert all the secrets contained in a Rune of Truth into a massive stream of data, then study, decipher, and recombine that data. Reverse-engineering it yields all the secrets hidden within a single Rune of Truth.
This method seems more complicated, but it actually makes the puzzle much simpler. Problems that would take hours to solve become hundreds of smaller problems that can be solved in seconds, boosting overall efficiency at least tenfold.
And the only magic rune that meets these requirements is the Mana Harness, known as the strongest magical computational rune...
Leon hadn’t paid much attention to these methods when reading about them—they were just footnotes in records about Runes of Truth. After all, these methods were all developed by Astral Academy at its peak.
But all these methods are only useful when directly researching the Runes of Truth that appear on the Whisper Crystal. As the Whisper Crystal disappeared, these methods became mere footnotes in the records.
Leon hadn’t paid any attention at the time, but now, after reaching Sky Rank and strengthening his soul, he could finally recall memories he’d forgotten.
He uttered a few Law Sigils, added some strange syllables, and a wave of energy enveloped his mind. Instantly, Leon felt unprecedented clarity—his calculations were at their peak, and all emotion was stripped away. He observed himself as if from a distance, with only cold, rational thought.
With just a thought, he could recover from this cold, golem-like state. Entering Heart of Steel mode, Leon immediately cast Mental Agility and Mindstorm on himself.
Sure enough, his thinking speed soared, even more than usual. The emotional side effects of Mindstorm were completely absent, since he had no emotions in Heart of Steel mode.
Without pausing, Leon lifted his head and started studying another Rune of Truth. In less than a second, he cracked the first layer of secrets; three seconds later, the second layer was done.
The third layer, containing the truly powerful secrets, took longer. With the Mana Harness operating inside him like a massive wheel, torrents of data spun within, gathering on the surface to form a huge Law Sigil—made of sixteen runes.
In ten seconds, the transformation of the Law Sigil was complete. The volume of data was so vast that even Leon’s Mana Harness could barely keep up.
Instantly, Leon took out the Wheel of All Laws. It was the true master of deciphering—once the Mana Harness created the data stream, the Wheel could crack it, boosting efficiency dozens or even hundreds of times.
But suddenly, Leon paused—the Wheel of All Laws couldn’t directly crack the Rune of Truth.
In Heart of Steel mode, Leon felt no disappointment or surprise. Since the Wheel was useless, he switched to ordinary deciphering methods, and even then, his efficiency was up at least tenfold. In less than half an hour, he cracked a Rune of Truth.
Once he finished, Leon immediately started on the next Rune of Truth. To anyone watching, it just looked like he was staring blankly at the Whisper Crystal, occasionally casting Mental Agility and Mindstorm on himself.