Since Ivan was quick on the uptake, Alicia spilled the beans.
"More accurately, we can do this by means of magical texts, each of which has a specific meaning, and by arranging certain texts in a specific way, the magic in one's body can be used to interpret gestures and spells in order to release the desired magic."
"What if we could just tell the magic what we want to do?" Ivan asked, suddenly remembering the magical state he had been in.
"That would involve wandless casting and knowledge of non-charm spells, which only a few wizards are capable of," Alicia explained, then reminded Ivan not to bite off more than he could chew.
After a brief explanation of how magical tools were made, Alicia placed the carving knife in Ivan's hand.
Finally, a stone tablet was placed on the worktable. There were more than a hundred different ancient runes engraved on it, but only half of them were annotated at the bottom, and only thirty of them were detailed!
The vast majority of annotated runes were associated with death, corrosion, and pain, with only a few representing positive attributes such as protection and isolation.
Seeing this, Ivan finally understood why most of the Dark Arts items created by Alicia were Dark Arts.
"Next, try inscribing these runes on the wood. Practice the first one today until you can inscribe the entire rune!" Alicia said, pointing to the board on the table.
Ivan picked up the carving knife and experimented with carving symbols into the wood, which did not seem difficult.
Despite never having experienced this before, Ivan was patient enough to complete the first character after a dozen failures.
It was just that it looked a little crooked, and the carvings were all different.
Ivan, of course, was not satisfied with this kind of magic, so he continued to work hard.
However, inscribing complicated runes on wood was not an easy task, and it took more than a day or two to learn how to do it. Ivan tried dozens of times to do it, but to no avail.
[Ding, after some practice, your alchemy proficiency has increased. Current level: 3 (196/2000)]
Hearing the prompt in his head, Ivan paused his practice of inscribing and became very frustrated. After practicing for more than three hours, his alchemy proficiency had only increased by a few dozen points.
It was clear that inscribing runes required a lot of effort and time to improve.
A few days… or even weeks might not be enough.
How about… trying that one?
Ivan was struck by a thought. Ever since he got home, he had not used any of his school points to purchase a Academic Genius experience card.
In the past, he kept them for self-protection during crucial times. Now that he could freely use the Bloodline Magic, the danger of Knockturn Alley had decreased greatly. There was not much use in keeping them.
As soon as he thought of it, Ivan's mind raced, and the system prompt sounded.
[Ding! 100 GPA deducted!]
The next moment, the familiar feeling came over Ivan, and he suddenly felt that the carving knife in his hand was not so difficult to control. As long as his hand was steady enough, it would not be difficult to engrave the runes.
Alicia watched for a while and was amused to see Ivan's expression change from calm to gloom.
Back then, it took her a long time to learn how to inscribe runes, and she had to give up countless times in a fit of madness. It was only with great difficulty that she was able to inscribe enough runes to be able to use them.
Thinking that learning the basics might take too long, Alicia turned her attention to new ways of arranging runes.
Sometime later, when the research reached a bottleneck, Alicia turned around to check on Ivan's progress and was shocked.
Ancient runes had been carved into the large wooden boards. The front of the board was unevenly carved, but the further back one went, the more regular the runes became.
The last few were no different from the ones inscribed on the slab.
Acia's expression became very strange. If not for the clear signs of Ivan's growth on the board, she would have thought that he had been practising behind her back for years.
This improvement was too fast!
Isiah's eyes were fixed on Ivan's right hand, which held the carving knife without a flicker of movement. As she watched, Ivan carved another thirty runes, each one more precise than the last.
It was clear that Ivan's skill at inscribing runes continued to improve.
Isiah recalled that Ivan had previously mentioned that he had acquired a magical ability after merging his blood, which allowed him to greatly increase the speed of his thoughts and learn various spells quickly.
Alicia had not believed it before. How fast could you learn?
Now I have to believe it…
Could the Fusion Bloodline really improve so much?
She stared at it blankly for a while. If Ivan hadn't told her that the success rate of blood fusion was very low and that the consequences could be disastrous, she would have tried it.
Ivan was not happy with this, as the runes he inscribed seemed to lack something compared to the ones he had seen before.
And the infusion of magic had no effect.
"It's so hard to learn magic!" Ivan exclaimed. It had taken him two hundred GPA and two hours to get to where he was with his experience card, but he hadn't expected the runes to be so substandard.
When he exited this state, wouldn't the carvings be even worse?
The thought made Ivan work even harder.
Alicia was speechless and quickly interrupted.
"Now, you can infuse your magic into the carving knife and engrave the magic words on this piece of yew. Try again!"
"It can also be infused with magic?" Ivan was stunned, but he quickly followed suit, realizing that the carving knife in his hand was also a magical object. After the magic was injected into it, the tip of the carving knife glowed faintly with magic.
Ivan slid the carving knife gently across the wood, leaving a trail behind.
The carving knife had become much sharper, and more importantly, the marks it had made seemed to be different from the ones it had left behind.
Ivan then realised that he had used the wrong spell, so he inscribed it on the yew that Isia had given him, choosing a cross-shaped star with forked runes on each side, representing corrosion…
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