Chapter 158: The meaning reveals itself

"You've already mastered all five of today's zero-circle basic runes?" He Xi looked at Gao De, who had knocked on his door, with an expression of disbelief.

"So I was thinking, is it possible to increase my daily learning load of basic runes?" Gao De earnestly proposed his idea.

In truth, from childhood to adulthood, his learning habits had always leaned toward self-study.

Because the material taught in class was too basic, it never took much time to master.

But this world was different from his previous life; it wasn't a place where you could just "go online" and find a pile of courses and materials with a single search.

The knowledge of this world was firmly held in the hands of high-circle magic users; even with money, you weren't guaranteed to buy it, let alone have it made public for anyone to learn.

Therefore, he had no choice but to disturb He Xi.

"Let me see the runes you drew today." He Xi's emotions calmed slightly as he made his request.

He needed to confirm that Gao De had indeed mastered today's five basic runes before he would "add tasks" for him.

Gao De was prepared and handed the magic paper containing the basic runes to He Xi.

He Xi took the magic paper, looked at it, and couldn't help but let out a soft "Oh?"

"Your brushwork... is very seasoned." As he spoke, he couldn't help but look up at Gao De.

In He Xi's "educational" philosophy, the focus was generally on "stability."

He wouldn't belittle his students, as it would affect their mindset and self-confidence, nor would he easily praise them, fearing they would become arrogant and inflated.

Unless the student truly performed exceptionally well.

Like right now.

It had clearly been less than two months since Gao De started learning "Runology," yet his brushwork was already indistinguishable from a veteran who had been immersed in this craft for a year or two.

It had only been a few days, and he had already reached this level.

"What about the failed runes? Let me see those too. It's best not to throw away the scrap rune paper; collect them, study them more, and you can draw experience from them and gain something," He Xi instructed earnestly.

"I understand," Gao De smiled sheepishly, "but today I succeeded on the first try every time, so there are no failed runes."

He Xi, already over three hundred years old, had always been a man of few words and as stubborn and silent as a stone due to his long-term research into "Rune Logic and Calculation," and his impression on outsiders had always been that of an old pedant.

At this moment, this steady old pedant's voice was louder than it had ever been: "What did you say?!"

"Motherf—" Before Gao De could answer, he couldn't help but blurt out a profanity, but halfway through, he suddenly realized that swearing in front of a student would damage his image, and he stopped abruptly.

However, his high-strung emotions urgently needed expression, and his usually tight-lipped mouth turned into a machine gun:

"That thing hanging in the sky right now, we call it the sun, there is one and only one, but now, there's a second one. Gao De... I'll be damned! How did you do it? Learning fast is one thing, but how can you not make a single mistake? Are you really a beginner?"

He Xi had always known Gao De had talent, a lot of talent.

But even now, he couldn't understand how he did it. "As I learned more basic runes, I discovered that all basic runes actually share a certain pattern, and one can deduce part of the information for a new rune based on old ones," Gao De thought for a moment and gave his answer.

"So later on, learning new runes wasn't starting from scratch, but a combination of part of the old runes and part of the new ones, so the learning difficulty decreased, and naturally, I learned faster."

Beyond the underlying logic, in terms of information density, runes actually shared similarities with "Chinese characters."

For example, in Chinese characters, sounds made with the mouth mostly have the 'mouth' radical: "ha," "xi," "he"... Runes are the same; runes of the same nature but different functions generally share these similarities.

"Runes are indeed like that; an average person needs to study runology for at least a year or two to gradually realize this... You've realized it in less than two months; your insight is very strong."

"But that's one thing; that's just the reason you learn fast, not the reason you don't make a single mistake." "Then I don't know."

Gao De repeated the process of drawing the runes in his mind, confirmed there were no special techniques, and answered honestly:

"I just drew the runes according to the rune diagrams, relying on my own feeling. I just don't know why, I rarely fail."

"You're a damn genius!" He Xi finally couldn't hold it back and blurted out the full profanity.

This wasn't the first time he had called someone a genius.

But this time, the weight of "genius" surpassed the last.

"Fine, from today on, your daily basic rune learning load is increased to 10," He Xi pulled a few more rune diagrams from the mountain of data on his desk and threw them to Gao De, "It's best if you can finish them, but if you can't, leave them for the next day; don't force it."

"Learning fast is a skill, but it's not everything. Learning deeply and broadly is the real skill; even if you're a bit slow, it doesn't matter. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Gao De answered respectfully, though he didn't fully agree with He Xi's words in his heart.

Learning fast, deeply, and broadly—that is what you call a skill.

He inherited the educational system of his previous life, that educational system filtered by layers of exams from a young age; in such an educational environment, learning slowly was a death sentence.

If you were one step slow in elementary school, you couldn't get into a good middle school, and if you couldn't get into a good middle school, you couldn't get into a good high school, and then a good university was naturally even more impossible.

Furthermore, expecting Gao De, who was very young in both his previous and current life, to understand "great talents mature slowly" was clearly unrealistic.

Leaving the Jia Wen Building, which belonged to the Rune Department, Gao De arrived at the Alchemy Department.

Today he wasn't here for class, but to claim his medicinal field and magical plant seeds.

This was the assessment content for the "Magical Plant Cultivation" course.

Select a certain number of seeds from the provided magical plant seeds, and then plant and cultivate them in the medicinal field.

Finally, the grade and whether one passed the "Magical Plant Cultivation" course assessment would be judged based on the number of surviving magical plants and their condition after survival.

Because magical plants need a certain amount of time to grow, one has to claim the medicinal field and cultivate the seeds when the "Magical Plant Cultivation" course is halfway through, otherwise, you wouldn't make it in time for the grade assessment by the end of the course.

"These are the seeds you can choose from." After stating his purpose, a student from the Alchemy Department quickly led Gao De to the seed vault and let him choose for himself.

"These are zero-rank magical plant seeds, including Taro Fruit, Morning Dew Grass, and Frost Flower; these are first-rank magical plant seeds, including Silver Lotus Grass and Thorn Fruit..."

He gave Gao De a brief introduction to the seeds available for selection, all of which were magical plants whose cultivation methods had been taught in the "Magical Plant Cultivation" class.

"You can take as many of these seeds as you want, no limit."

The seeds themselves weren't particularly valuable, so there was no limit.

"For the 'Magical Plant Cultivation' course, as long as you cultivate ten first-rank magical plants in good condition, or thirty zero-rank magical plants in good condition, you can get a full score in the course assessment."

"Now there are only two months left until the end of the 'Magical Plant Cultivation' course..."

The "Magical Plant Cultivation" course spanned four months, making it a branch course with a relatively long teaching time.

"So you should choose some magical plant seeds with short growth cycles." The Alchemy Department student reminded him while Gao De was choosing seeds.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 159 =====