Apotheosis

It wasn't really because the old man looked down upon Zen. Only that judging from his eyes and expressions, his behavior seemed too weird.

The old man had been selling raw materials his entire life. He was considered one of the most famous figures in the World Commercial Alliance, Cloudy City Branch. He was familiar with the magic array experts and runic experts of Cloudy City. The most famous weapon refiners and alchemists were his acquaintances.

He was even friends with some magic array experts of Cloud Hall, as a result of which he also had a knowledge of runes.

Magic arrays were composed of runes and it wasn't an easy thing to learn to draw the runes.

Usually, young apprentices who wanted to learn to draw runes were required to have a mentor, who taught them the art in person. In a way, the mentors prepared them with all kinds of tools right in the beginning. It was strange for new apprentices to buy the tools by themselves. After the purchase and some practices, as soon as they accumulated certain experience and knowledge, they required better rune pens.

It wasn't difficult to guess Zen was a brand-new freshman. Learning runes seemed just like a passing fancy for this young man. With his little knowledge of runes, he might have thought drawing runes was simply just to draw some brushes with a pen.

Some young men thought impulsively and wanted to learn new skills immediately in the spur of the moment. In reality, only a few could manage to acquire the skills successfully. The old man had seen many such agog freshmen. As far as he knew, if they didn't bear with the training, the materials they bought from him would simply go to waste. This was precisely the reason why he didn't want to entertain Zen's requirements.

But Zen ignored his attitude and spoke seriously, nodding his head, "Yes, I want to learn runes. I want to try some simple ones first. Here is the list of materials, an

he resumed investigating the ancient jade as he was before Zen had appeared with his illogical demands.

Zen was in a dilemma. He did not know how to deal with him. His shop was the biggest in the market. Disappointed, he decided to step out and take his chances somewhere else. Right then, the cyan dragon's voice spoke in his head again, "Don't leave, Zen! I have a solution to convince him to sell you the materials."

"Really? What do you propose?" Zen asked with eyes wide open.

"Do you see the ancient jade in his hand? It is a piece of phoenix ancient jade. The texts recorded above are in ancient phoenix words. This old man has no way of understanding and decoding the words written on it. If you tell him the meaning of these words, maybe he will sell the materials to you," the cyan dragon explained.

"Hmmm... that is a fair point, but I do not know the meaning of those words either." Zen rolled his eyes despondently.

"Hmmmm..." the cyan dragon replied, sensing Zen's impatience. He explained further, "I know you can't read the ancient phoenix language, Zen, but I can!"

The longevity of the dragon was beyond Zen's imagination! Not only did he know the ancient phoenix language, which itself was rare, there were only a few languages he didn't know.