I cultivated for two days straight to digest the energy I received from the best meats and used a lighting elemental crystal to fasten things up. Attributed elemental crystals can speed up the cultivation process, but they are rare and expensive. But, the Runic Arts class held on that day forced me to stop.

As Jacob didn't choose Runes, I walked alone among the crowd and reached the classroom. While going for the last benches, I saw those were filled with students. Only the front seats were empty.

'What the… Aren't you guys the geniuses of the great council, brilliant students of the Krieger? Why are you competing with a little guy from a little town for backbenches? At least leave one seat for me.'

Having no other option, I sighed and sat on an empty seat in the front row. I also got some companions in no time.

Suddenly, an old lady with gray hair barged into the room with a thick book. She slowly went to the podium and hit the table with her book loudly.

"Wham!"

Students also reacted quickly to this noise and shut down. Just a single wham made the noisy fish market a dead-quiet place. She took out a long breath before speaking, "Haaah, let this old lady take a breath first."

After resting for a while, she finally spoke again, "Hmmm. Let me introduce myself. I am Professor Catherine of the Rune department. I will teach Rune Arts to you folks. Ps, I started studying runes at the age of 12. Now I am 938 years old."

While everyone was shocked by this revelation, the professor continued,

"That means, I have been studying and teaching runes for more than 900 years. And I taught thousands of students like you. So, I know that many of you find studying runes boring. But you were told by others to take it as your subject. I must warn you to take my classes seriously. I don't know if you read the booklet, but there will be exams on all the subjects you will be studying. If you fail in any of them- you will be kicked out of the academy. So, don't take these noncombat subjects lightly."

Gulping sounds could be heard from different areas of the class. Professor's declaration made me a little nervous too. I have never studied Rune before, but mom told me to pick it. That's why I was here. I didn't want to get kicked out of the academy because of this stupid subject.

Professor Catherine started her lecture.

"Runes are the symbols that we use to communicate with this world. If you are curious about how we communicate with the world, you have to study these runes like me - for hundreds of years. So, let's not ask a question that's way above your level. You are familiar with the legend of Aadhavan, right?"

"Yes, professor," the class responded.

Professor nodded, "It is pretty popular with all the elementalists. Similar to this, there is also a legend popular with rune artists. This legend was from a forgotten empire's ancient scroll collection."

"Even before Aadavan was born, in a small village near the bay of Noa. A small child drew some symbols on the trunk of a tree while playing. It was just a child's artistic intuition. But, 20 years later, the child, who has become an adult, sat under the tree in an injured state. He just wanted to rest for a while. But to his surprise, his injuries began to heal on his own. After looking at his surroundings, he discovered among many messy childish drawings, that one particular symbol was shining in a green hue. Just touching it gave him a sense of relief. While the symbol was shining, the trees created a halo around it for the man, providing him vital energy to heal.

Soon after, other villagers also came to know about this and gathered there. That event was nothing but a miracle to them. So, they started calling it a sign from the god of life. It became a pretty famous symbol as they drew this symbol everywhere. But things became suspicious as symbols in some specific places started showing the same effect as the 1st one."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Students listened to the lecture intently as she continued.

"When someone drew that symbol on a tree with weak vitality, other trees around it began to die. But, that tree grew in astonishing size. Can anyone explain this?"

And a nerdy-looking guy with glasses raised his hand.

"Yes, please.", the professor permitted.

Then the guy with glasses stood up,

"The symbol you are talking about is a wood elemental energy gathering rune. As they drew this Rune on a tree with weak vitality, it helped the tree to gather and absorb origin energy faster from its surroundings, which other trees couldn't compete with, ran out of origin energy and died in the process."

Professor drew a weird symbol on the board and said, "Correct. And that's how humans discovered the world's first Rune. This symbol represents the very origin symbol of 'Wood'. That's why it was so powerful. It made our ancestors think of many possibilities- if one symbol can do this to the wood element, there may be symbols for other elements too. And they set on a journey to discover more runes, giving us such a rich collection of Elemental runes of different elements. Now, our runic art is so advanced that we can use runic language to communicate with the world . The world allows us to use its origin energy and helps in generating elemental energy. The main selling point of runes is that we can use runes on dead objects and harness elemental energy. That's why we have various kinds of runic armor, weapons, formations, etc."

Her lecture was long and broad. But, I didn't complain as everything she taught looked interesting to me. As if the door of a new world was opened to me. 'You can communicate with the world just by some symbols! How cool is that!'

After an hour of informative lecture, the professor finally held the thick book she brought.

"Well, now that we have the basic idea about what runes are and our goals of learning them- it's time for the real deal. The book I am holding is "Elemental Rune for beginners" written by Ali Khawarz. He is one of the earliest and most well-known rune artists still alive. Hmm, how old is he? Maybe older than the empire I think, whatever. This is the best book you can find for your current level. It contains the basic 1700, rune symbols, their structures, context, explanation on rune sequence, etc. I hope that everyone gets this book by the next class and treats it as your life partner for the next 3 years."

My heart skipped a beat. This hell of a thick book is a "beginner" level rune book that only contains 1700 symbols? Are rune artists insane? How do they study more than ten thousand rune symbols and graduate as Rune Master?

I was pretty sure I wasn't the only one thinking this.

Without caring about our inner thought, Professor spilled out the final sentences of the day,

"Reading theoretical books on runes is great. But, that's not enough. As you know, runes are used to communicate with the world. So, if you want to learn and apply runes, you have to get closer to nature first. Being close to nature and friendly with the world will not only help you in rune studies. It has other benefits too. So, that will be your homework for this week."

One student asked, " Umm, mam. How can we get close to nature?"

Professor replied with a smile, "It's not that hard you know. For example, to make sure you get some intimacy with nature, you can help some cute animals too. Although nature promotes survival of the fittest, it also loves every creature it gives birth to. So, don't discriminate too much. Haha, you can also join the Nature club in your fourth year. That will help you more. As you learn more about us, you will understand we, Runemasters, are called representatives of the world for a reason."

That was the first thing she asked us to achieve in our first class.