Chapter 816: Chapter 707: A Letter_3
Although he could understand it to some extent, reading it was still quite a struggle—he didn’t know at least half of the words in a passage, and they were the kind that he couldn’t even begin to guess.
Originally, Kai was planning to just memorize the content by force, and study it slowly when he had more time.
But very soon, he realized... he couldn’t remember it at all.
It was as if these words had wings—he’d just finished reading them, and the next second, they’d fly out of his head.
Kai grabbed a fresh piece of parchment, trying to transcribe the content... but that didn’t work either.
After he finally finished copying it, he looked back and realized he’d gotten everything wrong—the Runes on the two pieces of parchment weren’t the same at all.
Kai was sure this absolutely wasn’t his fault—he’d been copying it directly, and no matter how complicated it was, there was no way he could have gotten every single word wrong.
The only explanation was that something was wrong with these pieces of parchment—there must be some kind of Magic on them that forbids any form of copying or recording.
Helpless, Kai could only put everything away again and went downstairs to find Sirius.
...
"Rune translation?" Sirius looked at Kai, puzzled. "Why do you need something like that?"
"I got my hands on something, but I can’t understand it," Kai explained.
He wasn’t sure if the Black Family’s private library had anything like that, but this was all he could try now.
As one of the oldest Pure-Blood Families, they should have something like it.
"Original Runes?" Dumbledore, who was drinking on the side, gave Kai a thoughtful look and said softly, "Looks like you’ve received quite the birthday present."
Everyone here could be trusted, so Kai had no intention of hiding anything,
"It’s..."
But as soon as he opened his mouth, he discovered that he couldn’t say a single word.
"Don’t mind it, things from the Department of Mysteries are always like this—there are always some weird restrictions."
Dumbledore seemed used to it and said calmly, "I’m the same way, really. Sometimes I clearly know something, but just can’t say it no matter what. But don’t worry, this kind of thing never lasts long."
Hearing this, Kai nodded and didn’t try to say anything else.
At this point, Sirius finally reacted and said, "The Black Family ought to have quite a few books related to Ancient Runes, but I can’t say for sure if there’s whatever you’re looking for.
"How about I ask Kreacher to bring all the books here, and you can look through them yourself?"
"No need for all that trouble." Dumbledore stood up and said, "If it’s the most ancient Rune translations you need, I happen to have a copy. Just wait a moment."
After he finished speaking, Dumbledore disappeared.
It wasn’t until five minutes later that he reappeared in the dining room, handing an old book to Kai.
"I’d been wondering what gift to get you—now I don’t need to think about it."
Kai reached out his hand to accept it.
The book really was old. It must have been browsed through quite often—even the paper inside was faded.
But this was exactly what Kai needed: inside were comparison charts of Original Runes and Simplified Runes.
"Thank you, Professor," Kai said.
"Don’t mention it," Dumbledore said. "You’d best hurry back. If I’m not mistaken, there should be a time limit on whatever you’ve received, right?"
Kai nodded, then Apparated back up to the third floor.
With a translation to refer to, reading the content on the parchment wasn’t nearly as complicated.
Even if he had to check the translation every other word, it was enough.
And more importantly, Kai discovered that this was an instructional letter—Merlin was teaching someone how to cast the Iron Armor Spell... the letter called it Armor Defense. He wasn’t sure if that was a translation issue, but the effect should be the same.
[Blend ’resolve’ into ’protection’, and combine it with ’wall’, to form a Magic Array at the tip of your Wand...]
[’Earth’ is the key...]
"That can’t be right." Kai shook his head and muttered in a low voice, "Here it shouldn’t mean ’earth’, but rather ’continuous growth’."
The same Rune could have many different meanings—especially these ones that hadn’t been simplified. So even with a translation, reading them wasn’t easy at all.
All Kai could do was list out every possible meaning one by one, then cross-check and adjust them according to the context.
I have to admit, this was an incredibly time-consuming process, but Kai was enjoying every minute of it.
