Elite Mages’ Academy (Web Novel)

Chapter 110: Copying

Xiao Lin clicked his tongue when he heard that. No wonder the old man was so quick to agree on paying him daily; if just being late would deduct a whole day’s wages, then he might not even have any money at the end of the day.

Xiao Lin sat on his desk in the corner, and in front of him was a thick stack of white paper. A few pages were already full of Ancient Normese. Lolander walked over and said softly, “This was originally my job, but I can finally hand it over to you! According to the rules Professor Brown set, the person with the lowest level in Ancient Normese would be in charge of recording, and now that’s you.”

The team’s task was actually very simple, as Xiao Lin found out during the conversations earlier. All those stone plates on the floor were in pieces and the words on them were already fading–some of them had even completely disappeared. Their job was to restore the stone plates as much as possible, then record the contents on them before handing it to Professor Brown.

“It seems like my job is the easiest.” Xiao Lin smiled and said. His task was only to copy down all the stone plates that were already assembled.

When he said that, the rest of them quickly looked at him with a strange expression. Lolander could not help but smile as he said, “If that’s the case, why would he need to spend money on inviting someone who knows Ancient Normese to do the recording. You’ll understand very quickly!”

Lolander’s sly smile made Xiao Lin feel that he might have had the wrong impression. He realized his blunder in just half an hour. Even though he did not know how troublesome everyone else’s work was, copying was definitely not as easy as he thought. It was much more complicated and tiring.

Ancient Normese was a very difficult language. The difficulty did not rest solely on the complexity of pronouncing the words, it also lied in the writing. Everything was weirdly shaped. It was neither hieroglyphics nor was it alphabets. The writings of Ancient Normese were very detail-oriented, even to a perverse degree.

For instance, one of the letters needed a 45 degree angle for the last stroke to be correct. If you angled it at even 30 degrees or more than 100 degrees, then the word would suddenly have a completely different meaning.

It was somewhat similar to how Mandarin would have some words that had multiple pronunciations and different meanings. In Ancient Normese, every word had multiple pronunciations, so even the difference in pronunciations were reflected in the writing.

Xiao Lin spat in his mind. No wonder Ancient Normese was the original language in that world, but was quickly lost to history. It was replaced by the much simpler Standard Normese. Normal people would not be able to take such a painful way of writing.

A normal person would definitely not have been able to complete this work. If one did not understand the language, then the person would definitely not understand the correct way to write the words.

Even though Xiao Lin’s LV1 was more than enough for the task, he did not dare to be careless at all. The finished copies would be handed to Professor Brown for inspection, and if he noticed any mistakes, Xiao Lin might just be fined. On top of that, Ancient Normese words had a lot of strokes, so the copying work progressed slowly, expending both time and energy.

Xiao Lin arrived a few days later than everyone else, so there were already a few stone plates that had already been assembled. Thanks to the parts that Lolander had already recorded, he temporarily did not have much on his plate, so Xiao Lin could do it much more carefully. Even though the stone plates next to him could be considered assembled, it was realistically only at 60 or 70 percent–some of them went even lower. It could not be helped, since a lot of it was already lost.

The rest of them did work that was quite similar to the evaluation Hank gave Xiao Lin, trying to match words where they should be, but on a larger scale, and with much harder writings. They needed to find the appropriate words and pieces from countless stone fragments to continue from earlier parts.

Judging from the marks around the stone plates, they probably had a very, very long history. Xiao Lin could not make out the origins of those stone plates since he just arrived. He did not ask anyone else either.

Professor Brown really was a strict person. Their lunch was sent in by someone, and none of them were allowed to leave the courtyard. The main hall of the palace had a lot of stone plates stacked around, and Xiao Lin and the others chose to eat their lunch there. All of the furniture in the area had already been moved away, leaving only the grey walls that had traces of decay on them. The hall did not have sunlight coming in, so the entire room was dark. The weather in New Washington was not great that day either. The whole sky was covered in clouds and a cold wind was blowing in from the broken windows.

Eating in a dark environment made Xiao Lin feel like he was going to be depressed. He suggested eating in another room. The palace might not have been big, but there were still a few other rooms. Lolander rejected him. Xiao Lin grabbed his food and searched for other rooms, but scurried back very quickly, glaring at Lolander who was laughing happily.

“You knew all along that we’re not allowed in the other rooms! Why are there even guards in those rooms!” Xiao Lin said angrily.

The palace really did have people stationed even inside of it, not just outside the courtyard. Other than the main hall and the side hall where they were in, every other room had someone stationed in front. Those people did not stand in front of the rooms either; they chose to hide in dark corners. When Xiao Lin wanted to enter, they jumped out from somewhere and a very complicated process of verifying his identity ensued. They even called over Professor Brown to ensure that Xiao Lin was a student invited over from Dawn Academy before letting him off.

Professor Brown warned him not to simply run off for no reason. Without his permission, no one was allowed to enter those rooms, but he did not provide any further explanation.

That only caused Xiao Lin to be even more curious. He was already lacking goodwill toward Judge Academy, so he naturally had this thought in his heart: ‘The more you don’t want me to know, the deeper I’m going to investigate.’

Xiao Lin half-jokingly asked everyone what exactly was in the room, and even asked if any of them had tried sneaking in. He could feel that they were some pretty strong people on the team.

They had been bonded together by the spirit chains; other than understanding each other’s languages, Xiao Lin could actually feel that there was an indescribable power within some of them. It could be mental strength or just energy, but under the chains, they could feel the power within each other.