Chapter 27: Ancient Runes

The Great Hall.

Allen Finis's review continued.

He flipped through his notes on ancient runes, not expecting these ordinary symbols to hold such magical power! This left Allen Finis deeply amazed.

Other matters were too distant, not something he could do now; checking the library for ancient runes and confirming his gains was most important. Perhaps he could find the correct text's method for recording ancient runes in the library's collection. Allen Finis thought silently.

It would be good to ask Hermione to go to the library to check ancient runes together, but judging by her performance just now, that was out of the question for today. Thinking of this, Allen Finis couldn't help but start to have a headache again.

Allen Finis had always been an action-oriented person; after finishing his meal, he immediately got up and went to the library.

After finding a book titled "Origins of Ancient Runes" in the library, Allen Finis found an empty corner and began to read with ravenous hunger.

Only then did he discover that ancient runes had long since declined.

There is no detailed record of the specific time ancient runes appeared. In the earliest barbaric era, humans were not the rulers of the world, but were regarded as delicious food by many magical races and magical creatures.

Later, people discovered that some ruins contained certain mysterious symbols, and these mysterious symbols, when combined, possessed miraculous power; these symbols were called runes.

Talented humans, by observing the various miraculous effects of these rune combinations, invented the first magic spell. As the population base increased, more and more talented individuals emerged among humans, accelerating the development of magic and laying a solid foundation for the edifice of magic.

Through the efforts of countless people, spells were invented one by one. Especially after the invention of the wand, the threshold for casting spells was greatly lowered. The number of human wizards rose exponentially. Finally, relying on sufficient numbers, powerful spells, and flexible application of spells, human wizards defeated magical races, magical animals, and magical plants one by one.

Defeated magical races: some vanished forever in the river of history; some hid in barren places, barely surviving, forever losing the ability to resist wizards; others were enslaved by wizards, forever trampled underfoot.

During this protracted war, some magical races became allies of human wizards; some integrated into wizarding society after the war and were assimilated by wizards; others lived cautiously within areas demarcated by wizards.

Magical animals and plants fared even worse. They had huge numbers but very limited intelligence and no social organization. Before wizards, they were like a disorganized mass, so they were one by one put into cooking pots, medicine pots, cauldrons, and various other pots, becoming the nourishment for the rise of wizards. In the end, those with huge numbers were stewed by wizards to the point of endangerment.

Magical plants fared better; many were domesticated by wizards, so they were able to continue.

Magical animals fared worse. In the end, wizards realized that without human intervention and restriction, many magical animals would disappear forever. Since magical materials from magical animals had no substitutes, a broad international consensus was reached on the concept of protecting magical animals.

Wizards enacted special laws to protect them. Moreover, to change wizards' mindsets, decision-makers of the magical government had to start from the children; all magical schools were required to offer the Care of Magical Creatures class.

Yes, you read that right! The magical animals that were finally domesticated were even stripped of the prefix "magical," becoming "magical creatures" with less aggression. It was truly tragic!

After completing these great conquests, human wizards absorbed the various magical knowledge of the conquered, thereby creating the stability and brilliance of today's Wizarding World.

Why does a book about the history of ancient runes discuss the conquest history of human wizards? Because humans became powerful through studying runes,

and runes perished as human wizards gradually conquered the world!

Because this human conquest war was simply too long, the destruction of knowledge transmission caused by such a protracted war was immense! Furthermore, runes were too abstruse, the learning cost was too high, and they were not conducive to dissemination.

Moreover, the rise of human wizards was not smooth sailing. Especially when humans first rose and were not yet strong, the situation was often as precarious as a stack of eggs. Wizards who mastered the most rune knowledge were usually the most powerful; in every battle, they had to rush to the front lines for the survival of humanity. Such people were often the primary targets of enemy attacks on the battlefield. Therefore, rune masters often suffered heavy losses, and the loss of even one such master caused tremendous damage to the inheritance of runes.

Later, far-sighted leaders sent rune masters to the rear to prevent them from participating in the war. However, the human rear was not entirely safe at that time; hostile races frequently ran to the human rear to cause sabotage, causing massive losses again.

The learning threshold for runes was extremely high; they were very abstract and abstruse. Learners often needed to study for a very long time to achieve anything, so cultivating successors was also extremely difficult. Moreover, the war destroyed many ruins where humans discovered primitive runes, bringing difficulties to subsequent research.

Later, although the invention of the wand greatly increased the number of wizards, changed the balance of power between enemy and self, and allowed wizards to sound the horn of conquest, it firmly nailed shut the coffin lid of runes, which had already had one foot in the grave.

Although the number of wizards increased due to the appearance of the wand, the increase in numbers meant a need for more efficient means of spreading magical knowledge. In this regard, runes were inherently unsuitable. Furthermore, the pressure of the urgent war situation required wizards to quickly form combat effectiveness, so runes were discarded.

After wizards invented other languages and methods capable of rapidly spreading magical knowledge and launched a new system of magical research and teaching, runes completely fell into the dust.

By the time wizards became the rulers of the world, looking back, they discovered that the transmission of rune knowledge was on the verge of being cut off. Although unremitting rescue excavations and protection were carried out, it was already too late.

Moreover, under the influence of war, runes produced numerous variant characters, non-standard writings, synonyms and antonyms, and mistranslations, bringing a huge burden to subsequent protective research work.

And humans are a lazy species; once they had a simple method to master magic, they were unwilling to use complex methods. Therefore, even now, fewer and fewer people in the Wizarding World are willing to study runes.

To this day, runes are collectively called ancient runes, but their symbolic meaning has increasingly surpassed their practical meaning. Wizards gradually regard ancient runes as a commemoration and symbol of the pioneering spirit of their ancestors who blazed a trail through hardships.

Therefore, ancient runes are now an elective course only available to third-year students at Hogwarts. I hear not many young wizards choose it, because mastering ancient runes well offers little help for future employment.

After reading the origin, development, brilliance, and decline history of ancient runes, Allen Finis's heart could not calm down for a long time...

He did not expect such a shocking history to exist in the Wizarding World. At the same time, he did not expect the characters he saw to have such a grand background, being so closely related to the origin of magic. This made him very excited.

This is a path that looks very difficult, destined to be extremely hard to walk, but Allen Finis vaguely felt that this path was the correct one.