Above the mage

Chapter 165 Composite Runes

Su Sang flipped through the documents for a long time but couldn't find anything.

Finally, he put down the materials in his hand, thought for a moment, and called up the staff member who arranged the courses.

"Why has the attendance rate for all courses at the academy increased significantly recently, especially for basic courses, which have even increased by 40% to 50%?"

Chairman Su asked directly, "What new measures have you taken?"

Normally, the attendance rate of all courses within the college fluctuates within a fixed range, and it is rare for such a large change to occur.

In his view, it's highly likely that the staff below did their job well.

Improving academic atmosphere has always been one of the committee's key tasks, and seeing such remarkable results, he, as the chairman, is quite satisfied.

The staff member being questioned scratched his head somewhat awkwardly: "No. We haven't implemented any new measures."

"What is that?" Su Sang raised an eyebrow and continued to ask.

"It's because the new trainees we recruited this time are all working too hard," the staff member said weakly.

"In the past, new students would have credits calculated based on their mage level upon enrollment. In their first year, they could easily accumulate 10 credits by taking one or two courses, so there was not much pressure. On average, they would take only three courses."

"But this year."

The staff member paused for a moment, then remarked, "It's only been three months, and many new students have only just completed their enrollment tasks, but they've already chosen an average of three courses, which is equivalent to what new students did in a whole year in previous years."

"The hard work of the new students has indirectly boosted the enthusiasm of some existing students to select courses."

Su Sang suddenly realized why the basic courses had the highest attendance rate among all the courses.

So that's because the main force is freshmen.

Freshmen can only take basic courses.

"The new recruits this time are of good character," Su Sang praised.

"The main thing is that there's a catfish," the staff member said.

"Catfish? Who is that?" As the chairman of the committee and one of the top mages in the academy, Su Sang didn't actually know much about what was going on below.

Things that get reported to him are usually important; nobody would pass on gossip to him.

The staff member from "Gaode" explained the dispute between Gaode and Youlan in detail:

"His sixteen courses led Yulan to choose seven courses in order to be number one in credits. Then Gerika was not to be outdone and also chose seven courses. With these three ahead of them, the remaining new students couldn't fall too far behind, and they all added one or two courses to their schedules."

"A second-class mage apprentice, competing with Yulan for first place in academic credits?" Su Sang smiled, picked up the teacup on the table, and slowly took a sip of tea. "And simultaneously enrolling in sixteen courses?"

It wasn't a satisfied laugh, it was a laugh born of anger.

He still had some impression of this Gaode, a "country bumpkin" who was described by others as having gotten lucky.

Su Sang didn't have any problem with Gaode's "country bumpkin" background.

Because he entered Cyrus Academy as a commoner and worked his way up to where he is today through his own efforts.

He wasn't particularly opposed to getting into university based on recommendation letters.

After all, there are still so many aristocratic students in the academy who got in through family connections.

But now, Su Sang's opinion of Gaode has dropped considerably.

He hated two types of students the most: those who entered the academy because of their family background or their own talent, but did not cherish the academy's resources and spent their days idly passing the time.

Another type is those who put on airs, pretending to be hardworking for outsiders, but in reality they are just acting and haven't learned anything at all.

The latter, in particular, completely failed to understand that hard work is for oneself, not for others to see!

Now, Su Sang has categorized Gaode as the second type of student.

After all, Gaode's behavior, from a common-sense perspective, is nothing short of attention-seeking.

They're showing off now, but when the final exam comes, won't their true colors be revealed?

The limelight they're enjoying now will all be returned later.

What's the point?

Let him be. Anyway, he's the one who's wasting my time. At least he's indirectly improved the academic atmosphere of the academy, so it's not entirely meaningless. Su Sang's eyebrows twitched, and she waved her hand, saying, "Okay, I understand."

Frozen Moon, 8th.

After achieving two breakthroughs in guided meditation, Gaode's progress in meditation finally improved as well.

On this day, he successfully manifested the tenth lotus petal.

Logically speaking, even if Gao De's talent for meditation far surpasses his talent for guided practice, guided practice can be aided by many external aids, so the progress will be much faster than meditation.

The reason I can barely keep up now is because frequently entering a flow state by using [Divine Guidance+] also stimulates the growth of mental power to some extent.

This was an unexpected benefit that Gaode Maps hadn't anticipated.

Although the level of stimulation wasn't particularly noticeable, it was better than nothing.

Frozen Moon, 11th.

With the assistance of [Divine Guidance+], Gaode completed learning all 651 level zero basic runes.

"You've mastered all the level zero basic runes; that's already part of the assessment for the second stage of the rune learning course," He west sighed and told Gao De the truth.

"Your current level is comparable to that of a student who has been studying runes for two years, while you have only been studying runes for two and a half months."

The "old students" that He west was referring to were those who had been selected and possessed talent in talisman literature.

In fact, if it were an ordinary person, it would probably take them ten years to reach the level that Gaode has today.

Gao De didn't realize how exaggerated this was. He knew he had some talent for runic literature, but he attributed it more to [Divine Guidance+].

"Next, your studies will cover the combination of compound runes."

"I will first teach you thirty-six classic compound runes, but this is just a template. The composition of compound runes is not fixed. Every rune master has their own summary and their own specialty in compound runes."

"And the combination of runes is also the beginning of the difference between rune masters."

"A good runemaster can combine the fewest basic runes and the simplest structure to create the clearest and most understandable compound runes, based on the needs."

"Furthermore, the composite runes they create possess excellent maintainability, making them easy to maintain and convenient for other rune masters to perform maintenance on later."

"High efficiency, streamlined structure and design allow good rune masters to create complex runes that require less energy to run, while poor rune masters often create complex runes with unnecessary basic runes, wasting mana."

"High scalability: A good composite rune must have a flexible structure, which allows it to connect better with other composite runes to form a magic circle. In contrast, composite runes drawn by poor rune artists often have great difficulty in combining with other composite runes."

"High security."

"High performance"

After speaking at length, He west took out a stack of rune diagrams and handed them to Gao De.

"These thirty-six classic compound runes are good compound runes that perfectly meet these conditions."

"The first step in learning is imitation. You should first master all 36 classic compound runes and try to deconstruct and understand their design principles."

"Once you feel you've grasped it enough, I'll give you a challenge. Then you can design your own composite runes based on the requirements I give you."

(End of this chapter)