Elios was full of energy and even after closing the book, he couldn't stop his fascination for runes.
So, thinking of his somewhat recovered mental power, he closed his eyes and started to build the next rune circle, [Corpus] (Body).
"Fortunately, my meditation talent is relatively high. Else, it would be difficult to progress so fast."
Meditation talent, in fact, is not only the speed of mental recovery.
Elios had read that accompanying the meditation rune, there would be meditation techniques to strengthen himself and accumulate power.
For example, the heart's gathering of magical power is very passive. Although it's faster than before he had the rune, it was still far from the high speed of harnessing magic when one has the meditation technique.
And, such meditation techniques are all fitting for the rune, so if Elios had his meditation technique, he could also improve his body and soul.
Although he wasn't sure which direction it would improve, thinking of the Arcane Wizard's goal of "Three Essentials, Six Abilities, Nine Supremacy", he guessed that the meditation technique likely guided him towards the six abilities.
For example, it could make his mana more pure, which is the foundation of the arcane path. Or it could change his body to be easier mutable or have a higher compatibility to other species' bloodlines.
But, meditation techniques were top level secrets of the Wizard Alliance.
Since he was a genius student of the Arcane Warlock Wizard Tower, he would get the technique for free – that was one of the topics in the class. It was to impress the students with the wizard tower's generosity.
But this wasn't a lie. Most students wouldn't get the technique upon becoming an apprentice, even geniuses weren't exempted from this, except they were extremely talented.
So, the wizard tower's gift of a meditation technique was very welcomed by Elios. After he was assigned a residence in the higher floor, he would probably also get the meditation technique.
Not even the general affairs hall in the second floor where they lived had the right to distribute such a high-level technique.
Fortunately, although it was an essential item, generally, it was less important than rune formation.
Things such as runes didn't need to be hidden. Even if you get them, you can't do anything with them, since each rune belongs to their respective systems.
Basic runes such as [Magia] (Magic), [Corpus] (Body) and [Anima] (Soul) are very common and distribution of them was no issue.
Actually, the rules of keeping the meditation techniques hidden is more so to protect the interest of wizard towers and ensure the wrong people don't get such technology.
In the far past, there was a distinction of wizards.
White Wizards and Black Wizards.
Essentially, both wizards were the same, the only difference was how they treated mortals. White wizards thought of mortals as sheep, cutting wool now and then, which was the production of wizard apprentices. Black wizards thought of mortals as pigs, their best use was when they were slaughtered.
There were also other distinctions, such as the white wizard's focus on research and the black wizards focus on battle. Naturally research of that time was more rudimentary, and many times, involved human research.
Fighting was also very low-end, comparable to knights...
There was a time when there were knights in the wizarding world, it was an experimental result of white wizards… but their power relied on injection of bloodlines, not from themselves.
Their use was little and they didn't bring profit, so the wizards stopped this practice.
Generally, the distinction slowly died out as white wizards researched higher methods while black wizards relied on risky paths to advance. None of these came out on top - white wizards were too weak for the ancient times, black wizards were too few to exist.
At one point, they simply united and through various treaties, combined their powers. In the whole wizard history, this unity could be called the first step towards becoming true wizards.
As for what 'knights' were -
When the planar expansion started, they learned from different resources that there was a vast category called Warriors in the sea of stars, and that every physical focused power system would be called a warrior, their 'knights' were then changed to 'bloodline inheritance warriors'.
There is also a magic power focused category in the sea of stars, called 'Mage'. Wizards have compared this and found out that there were many factions, but none was as comprehensive as their wizard system.
After all, the core system of wizards have been built on the idea of ancient warlocks – to be an all-rounder scholar who can research, create and fight.
They would have liked to research more, but the planar expansion and expedition hasn't been that long. Basically, the wizards are focused on fighting planes of similar strength or weaker, and they didn't have much time to explore further.
Most of these key information came from wanderers who drifted around the sea of stars.
There was even a large organisation, called 'Star Scholars', who take it as their responsibility to record every plane in the sea of stars, connecting them and communicating.
Unfortunately, this was the limit of Elios' knowledge. He didn't know more, but one thing was for sure, those scholars were extremely important – else, the Wizard Alliance wouldn't have allowed them to create an embassy in the wizard world.
…
Time passed and when it was time for dinner, Elios woke up from his rune engraving session.
He looked tired yet the motivation for runes didn't diminish.
"Maybe I have talent for runes? Just the second time of building a rune circle, and it's actually a lot easier than before.
Well… if my guess is right…" he stopped himself from talking, instead thinking to himself 'If it's really right and the Gate of Worlds is a rune artifact of sorts, or maybe even higher, a rune relic, then my mind should have been influenced by it for a long time.
The longer it stays with me, the better I will develop a feeling for runes, until I'm at the level of being able to truly understand them…
Well, haha, it's a bit of a presumptuous wish, but the ancient wizards were able to build a whole wizard system by looking at these rune artifacts and relics… would it really be too much to have a bit more understanding of runes?'
Naturally this newfound talent didn't change his choice to later on wander into the world outside.
Being a talented runeologists is definitely profitable, and he also thought he had other talents.
No, the reason he 'insisted' in going out was because he knew very well that talent didn't equal success.
He might be talented for now, but who says there weren't more talented people that lost their way?
Just looking at his own path – it was stuck at the third stage, even though the wizard world has reached higher stages for a long time!