Mystery: I Married the Queen of Mystery.

Chapter 131 The Hermit Class is Open Again
Odysseus, the "Hermit", described the experiences of the elves in the Fourth Age in a storytelling tone.

The other members felt somewhat emotional when they heard about the complete decline of a race.

Audrey Justice asked, "Are there still elves now?"

"As far as I know, there should be more," Alger replied, "They live in the dangerous waters of the Raging Sea and lead a very difficult life.

"But I also heard that they found some relatively safe islands in the dangerous waters, but no one knows the specific situation."

This made everyone suddenly yearn for the ocean. Because of the existence of the violent sea, there are still many unknown waters on the ocean. Although there are unknowns and dangers there, there is also room for exploration and adventure.

The hall was silent for a few seconds before Odysseus broke the silence: "Ms. Magician, I have something I want to discuss with you alone."

Magician Fors was slightly taken aback. Was it another publishing issue?

She said, "Okay."

So, with the help of Mr. Fool, a private space for communication between the "Hermit" and the "Magician" was established.

Odysseus said, "Ms. Magician, we discussed the Abraham family last week. You should be able to contact a member of this family, right?"

Fors immediately became alert: "You...what's wrong with you?"

She did not deny it outright. First of all, she did trade intelligence about the Abraham family last week. It was a consensus among other members that Miss "Magician" had some connection with this ancient family, so it was useless for her to deny it.

In addition, with Mr. Fool's protection, Fors believed that the "Hermit" could not find his real-world self and would not pose much of a threat to him, so he readily admitted it.

She was also curious about what the "hermit" wanted to do with the members of Abraham's family?

Odysseus got straight to the point: "I hope to purchase a magical item with the ability to travel from the Abraham family."

Klein, who was eavesdropping, thought to himself: No wonder the Hermit said he was short of money. It turns out he was planning to buy a Sequence 5 Sealed Artifact. This power, this level, is not cheap!
Fors relaxed her guard slightly. "I can indeed contact members of this family, but I'm sorry, for some reason, I can't help you with this matter at the moment."

Not long ago, she had just established a stable relationship with Mr. Dorian Gray Abraham of the Abraham family. She was very clear that she was still observing this member of the ancient family.

If she suddenly asked him to buy magical items at this time, Dorian would probably hide away and stop contacting her.

Odysseus was slightly stunned when he heard the answer, and realized that the timing of his proposal of this transaction was somewhat inappropriate.

He smiled helplessly: It seems that I can only go the way of the "Mysterious Queen".

However, Odysseus did not end the conversation at this point, but said: "If you think the time is right, you can help me contact them and facilitate this transaction.

"Well, if the deal is finally concluded, I will pay you a commission of 600 pounds."

600 pounds!
Fors took a deep breath. It was almost catching up with her current savings, but she remained rational and said, "Okay, I'll let you know when the time comes."

As soon as the private conversation ended, Audrey, who had been waiting nearby, said, "Mr. Hermit, I would like to initiate a deal with you to continue understanding the issue of occult symbols."

Odysseus nodded: "Yes, please tell me your question."

Audrey asked, "Mr. Hermit, what exactly do occult symbols do?"

"It will cost you 1000 pounds to explain this to you completely," Odysseus said. "Are you sure you want to trade?"

"Sure!" Audrey breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't expect it was only 1000 pounds.

Odysseus nodded, then asked, "Do you need to talk to me in private?"

Audrey still chose: "Let's listen together."

Fors sighed, "You are a generous lady."

"Sun" Derrick said simply, "Miss Justice, if you want to know about the 'God-Forsaken Land' or some ancient myths, feel free to ask me."

After the Hermit’s last explanation of occult symbols, the other members were very curious about the Hermit’s research and wanted to listen too.

Audrey liked this atmosphere very much. She smiled and said, "No problem."

However, she pondered for a moment and then said, "The amount of this transaction is too large. I suggest that other members who wish to observe this should pay something, such as the ancient myths that 'Sun' just mentioned."

She really didn't care about this little money. Although the previous assassination of the ambassador of the Intis Republic had emptied her savings, her weekly pocket money was enough to complete the transaction.

But Audrey had just observed that Mr. Hanged Man and Mr. Hermit seemed somewhat disgusted by her generosity, which made her immediately realize that she had broken some of the rules of this extraordinary gathering.

We can all listen to the last transaction, but if it continues like last time, it will probably become a routine, and transactions of thousands of pounds cannot be as casual as before.

That's why Audrey immediately changed her words.

After hearing Justice's words, Alger, the Hanged Man, felt somewhat relieved and said, "Ask me anything about the sea." Fors immediately said, "I'm willing to contribute a chapter of 'Spiritual World Observations'."

Klein thought to himself, "Now that 'Visions of the Spirit World' is in your hands, it can finally be said to be effective."

He had originally planned to manipulate The World into saying it wasn't interested in the deal, and then use The Fool to eavesdrop. But after a moment's thought, he felt there was no need to be so frugal, so he manipulated The World into saying, "I know a lot about the occult, and I can share some of it with you."

Audrey smiled and said, "Okay, deal done. Mr. Hermit, let's start the transaction."

The prices paid by the other four members were all things that interested her.

Odysseus nodded and began to explain: "To understand the specific role of mystical symbols, we must first clarify two issues. The first is the nature of mystical symbols, and the second is the formation process of mystical symbols.

"Let's talk about the second question first. I've said before that the textual logic used in occult symbols is completely different from the textual logic we use today.

“Let us do a thought experiment together. Go back to the Second Age, or in the First Age, and join an ancient human tribe that lives a hard life and may fall prey to extraordinary creatures at any time.

"In these days when lives can be lost at any moment, there is some crucial information that must be passed on to future generations to reduce the damage caused by repeated trial and error.

“Language is a good way, but ambiguity can easily occur during the dissemination process, so they have a need to record it.

"The earliest writing must have had the appearance of realistic paintings. In fact, the predecessor of writing may have been a simplified narrative painting."

Following the description of the "hermit", everyone seemed to see a unique person in a primitive tribe, writing and drawing on the rock wall.

At this moment, Alger suddenly realized a problem: "Some realistic words are easy to express, such as the word 'wheat' we discussed at the last gathering. All we need to do is draw the shape of the wheat.

“But how do you express some abstract meanings?”

"That era had its own wisdom," Odysseus said with a smile. "For example, in common mystical symbols, the symbol for 'light' is like this."

With the help of Mr. Fool, Odysseus materialized the symbol representing "light".

The upper part of the symbol is a circle, and the lower part is a symbol made up of five different strokes.

Klein noticed that the lower half of the symbol looked a bit like the Chinese character for "light."

"Let's look at the lower part first," Odysseus explained. "Doesn't this symbol resemble a person half-kneeling on the ground with arms outstretched? The circle on top represents the sun.

"First of all, this represents people's attitude towards the sun, well, I mean the sun in the real sense.

“The sun in the sky has been providing us with free light and warmth, and has never asked for anything in return. Therefore, people’s attitude towards the sun is to kneel on the ground and praise it.

"When this image was painted by the inventor of writing, it became 'light' in an abstract sense."

Alger, Audrey, and other members nodded slowly. For those who had never come into contact with pictographic writing, what the "Hermit" had just said was beyond their comprehension, but also made sense.

Even Klein felt like he was listening to a "Chinese Character Explanation" program.

Odysseus continued, “This is how most of humanity’s commonly used mystical symbols were formed. Someone once described the scene after these symbols were formed: the sky changed drastically, ghosts wept bitterly, and the gods were furious.

"Humanity can now record everything in the universe, and future generations can easily gain access to the experiences of their predecessors. As time passes, even ghosts and gods will no longer have any secrets.

“So it was seen as a blasphemy, a blasphemy of human beings going beyond their own limitations.

"Because language is produced by the vocal cords and heard by the ears, animals also have their own sounds, which are abilities given to us by the Creator.

"But writing is different. It is a product created entirely by ourselves!"

Fors felt the empathy from ancient times and the creativity of ancient humans, but she suddenly felt that this empathy seemed to be broken.

The Hermit's subsequent description cleared up Fors's doubts: "But during the Second Age, humans achieved integration in a very short period of time and were forced to abandon their original written language."

He looked at everyone's puzzled expressions and explained with a smile: "You can imagine that the hieroglyphs and pronunciations of one tribe are different from those of another.

"For example, the word used by one tribe to describe 'grain' might be used by another tribe to describe 'dogtail grass', so the pronunciation is of course different.

"Suddenly, when human tribes began to merge on a large scale, they had to solve the problem of language barriers. The tribes would not compromise with each other. They could not allow themselves to continue using the word for 'grain' as 'dogtail grass' for a long time.

"So they had no choice but to compromise, take a step back, and work around the text to reach a consensus on pronunciation.

"The basic idea is to reach a consensus on how to pronounce 'grain', regardless of what the character for it looks like.

"Gradually, the phonetic writing system was formed and soon became mainstream."

Klein thought: This sounds very troublesome. This is the consequence of not having the First Emperor!

(End of this chapter)