Above the mage!

Chapter 131: Stone-Like Man

After reading the materials that Hosé O'Kenley asked him to read, and completing the "after-class exercises" and "after-class thinking questions" that he had "assigned", Gao De put his answer sheet under his notes and quietly left the rune workshop.

"Read the information on the table first, then you can leave" - ​​this was Jose O'Kenley's instruction.

Gaode acted strictly according to the instructions.

So, after he left, the huge rune workshop fell into a long silence.

It was not until a long time later that a slight sound broke the silence of the workshop.

That was the sound of the door of the small room inside the workshop being gently pushed open.

Then an old man came out with a cane.

The old man was wearing an extremely simple and old-fashioned grey robe, without any patterns on it, and it was plain and shabby.

His hair was gray, but it was combed meticulously.

There were wrinkles on his forehead and his eye sockets were slightly sunken, but the blue eyes were not cloudy but as deep as lake water.

The old man looked a little tired.

He is old and his energy is not as good as before, but he happens to be doing the most energy-consuming thing.

He is Jose O'Kenley, the mentor assigned to Gold.

He hasn't had any students for a long time.

No one wanted to be his student.

Although he is a three-ring mage.

Although his identities in Seres Academy are: senior instructor, head of the Rune Department, and chief rune instructor.

Although his area of ​​expertise is rune construction, which is known as the "crown of runes".

Although he is the only rune master in the entire Principality of Sean who can create third-level rune constructs.

However, the "Rune Logic and Calculation" he devoted himself to studying was considered nonsense by other instructors in the Rune Department, and even by the few high-level rune masters in the entire Principality of Sean, and was considered a dead end leading to a cliff.

It's actually more than that.

A long time ago, in the place where rune technology was most advanced on this continent, Hosé O'Kenley's research was already regarded as a fantasy and had been denied more than once.

All students know that if they follow such a mentor, they will only "waste their time" like him, then "be at a dead end", or even fail to graduate.

And He Xi will not provide any resources to the students.

No one in the Principality of Sean understood why Hosé O'Kenley, who should have had a bright future and could create third-order rune constructs at a young age, would be immersed in such a wrong path and unable to extricate himself.

He did not improve his mage level, did not improve his rune skills, and did not try to create a fourth-order rune construct that would change the ecology of the Principality of Sean and allow him to ascend to heaven in one step.
Instead, they put all their time and energy into something that even an "outsider" knows won't work.

Fifty years ago, Jose O'Kenley could easily create a third-order rune construct.

Fifty years later, he has made no progress.

Other instructors in the Rune Department advised him, Dean Shell Ian advised him, and even King Jeroos XIII of the Principality of Sean advised him personally.

Everyone hopes that he can give up this wrong path and get back on the right track.

But Hossi O'Kenley was like the mercury ore in the mine under the Coolie Cliff, shining with golden light, but smelly and hard, silent, and no one could change or shake it.

His research results are just like his personality, boring and rigid.

Translated into simple terms, it means "No matter how much time is spent, there is no substantial progress."

"Someone should be dissatisfied." murmured the already very old Jose O'Kenley.

He knew that the college had forced a student on him under the guise of a recommendation letter from the former dean just to serve as a warning to him.

Since coming to the Seres School of Magic, for a full fifty years, Hossi O'Kenley has devoted all his energy to the seemingly dead-end topic of "Rune Logic and Calculation", but has not yet achieved any results.

As a once famous figure in the rune world of the Principality of Sean, he gradually disappeared from people's sight.

He is just like the sweeping monk hidden in the Shaolin Temple, just sweeping the floor silently, keeping his martial arts skills hidden.

The academy has long been dissatisfied with his behavior, and the continuous reduction of funding for their Rune Department in recent years is a sign of this.

For this reason, other instructors in the Rune Department also complained.

Everyone expected him to do the right thing and make a rune construct.

As long as He Xi O'Kenley is willing to put his energy back into "Rune Construction", it won't take much time. As long as he makes this decision, the Rune Department can return to its former glory. But he still goes his own way.

"I don't have many years left. Why should I care about things now that I didn't care about when I was young?" Jose O'Kenley said softly.

He didn't understand why the academy didn't understand this, but he knew that he was in the last years of his life.

After spending so much time and energy, his research still did not make any breakthrough progress.

But He Xi was not disappointed.

A few decades is really an insignificant period in the history of the development of runes.

What's more, what he has to do is to completely subvert the entire existing rune system that has developed for thousands of years.

The power of one person over several decades to accomplish this "great feat" is as unrealistic as a grain of sand trying to fill the sea.

History has long proved that in order to achieve subversive or leapfrog development in a certain system, it either requires several or even more than a dozen generations of people to devote their wholehearted research, or the emergence of a groundbreaking figure like "Leo Meng" who created the eight-ring spell.

But He Xi does not think or expect himself to be such a person.

He just followed his own heart to study what he thought was right, and then left something behind, so that after his death, he would leave some information and direction for future generations.

However, after so many years, there has never been anyone who followed him, and there has not even been anyone who agreed with him.

Seeing that the time God had left him was running out, his mood changed subtly.

If he does not have any colleagues or people who agree with him, then after his death, no one will remember his research.

By then, everything he had spent his entire life to create would probably be seen by others as just a few ridiculous words on a manuscript paper.

It would be thrown carelessly into some garbage dump in the academy, where it would rot along with rancid food scraps and become crawling with worms.

The old man sighed slightly. He had anticipated this possibility, but there was nothing he could do to avoid it.

As the old man thought about it, he walked to the workbench in the center of the rune workshop.

Although this student named Gao De was forced upon him by the academy as a reminder, he has actually always been a very responsible person.

No matter where this student came from, since he has chosen him as his mentor, He Xi will teach him some things about runes.

Of course, the prerequisite is that people are willing to learn and can learn.

In fact, he hadn't accepted any students for a long time and had even forgotten how to teach a student.

So he specially took out two hours last night to read the introductory book on runes that was almost fading from his memory.

Then he compiled some information for "Gao De" that could help him gain a preliminary understanding of the profound subject of "Symology" in the shortest possible time.

But when He Xi glanced at the workbench, he didn't find the materials he had prepared last night.

He thought about it carefully, then tapped his cane in annoyance.

"I'm old and confused. I was so busy coming here for the test this morning that I forgot to bring my information, but I subconsciously thought I had brought it."

Then, He Xi thought of another question.

Since the information was not brought over, what was the freshman named Gao De doing?
Are you just going to leave like this without looking at the information or asking me about it?

He Xi frowned slightly. He could understand why Gao De "backed down when he saw the difficulty" after reading the information, but he could not accept him "leaving without saying goodbye".

"Oh!" He sighed again, feeling that it was meaningless to care about this at this time.

However, the countless hardships he had endured in his childhood in order to learn "Character Literature" made He Xi instinctively reject this behavior of not cherishing the opportunity to "learn".

Thinking of this, he began to sort out the verification papers that were scattered randomly yesterday.

After sorting and categorizing, He Xi closed his handwritten notes and prepared to take them back to make a few more copies.

Maybe making a few extra copies would ensure that one or two of them wouldn't end up in the trash?

The old man thought his idea was a little ridiculous, but he was really prepared to implement it.

However, after picking up the notebook, the old man found that there was a piece of manuscript paper under his notebook.

"Did I forget to organize and categorize the calculations I did one day?" he thought, while his eyes subconsciously fell on the manuscript paper, on the handwriting that was obviously not his.

Then, the pupils of this calm old man dilated for the first time in a long time, and his eyes, which were as calm as a lake, suddenly became turbulent.

(End of this chapter)