Free Web NovelChapter 220: Chapter 194: A Path Never Imagined
It’s a well-known fact that a star-studded roster doesn’t guarantee a team’s ultimate strength.
When it comes to things like a "Galaxy Battleship," few ever take flight; most of them just end up crashing.
After Zog assembled the all-star team of the Mage Guild’s elders, things didn’t go as planned. The problems didn’t just solve themselves, and they certainly didn’t whip up the Magic Language in a jiffy.
On the contrary, right from the very beginning, the research and development process was fraught with difficulties.
Because every member was too powerful in their own right, they each had their own strong opinions, stubbornly holding their ground and refusing to compromise.
Even the words of the chief, Saint El, didn’t carry much weight.
You could tell from Soron’s "chief-style" pajamas that he wasn’t exactly thrilled with his current rank.
The others felt the same way.
The Mage Guild itself was a very loose organization, unlike the Drama Guild, which was geared toward profit and had a highly professional structure.
They were more like a hobby club for students of Magic—the most influential guild on the Continent, and also the biggest thrown-together mess.
In the early stages of development, their work model was bizarre. There was no division of labor whatsoever. For every single step, everyone designed their own proposal. Then, they would compare them all and use whichever one was deemed best.
Looked at another way, the team possessed an incredible capacity for self-policing, as every member was passionately dedicated to finding fault in everyone else’s work.
While this development method was painstakingly slow, it had its merits. The solutions that were ultimately implemented were genuinely solid.
So Zog reluctantly accepted their development model. After all, this was a completely new field, so sacrificing efficiency to guarantee the quality of the final result was an acceptable trade-off.
However, after slogging through this process for some time, they hit a snag that brought all development to a complete standstill.
The question of which language to use.
The issue wasn’t a lack of good options. Rather, after the Mages grasped the project’s basic principles, they were astonished to discover that it seemed almost any language would work.
In reality, the keywords were merely functioning as symbols. It didn’t even have to be a language—a few indecipherable scrawls would do the trick. Using a language was purely for the sake of readability.
Once these Mages from various races realized this, a debate very naturally erupted over which race’s language should be used.
In the meeting room.
"Sutton Language. It has to be Sutton Language. There’s no language more beautiful," Soron declared, speaking first.
"Hah! A crude country that only cares about money. Their language is just as devoid of rhythmic beauty," another Elf Mage from the Round Table retorted with disdain. "Only the Elven Language—elegant, noble, and ancient—is the best choice to be used as the Magic Language."
"Ha, ’ancient’! You long-lived fossils just love to brag about how ancient everything is."
And wherever an Elf spoke, a Dwarf was sure to be there to argue.
"If you ask me, the Dwarven Language isn’t half bad, eh?"
"What contributions have you lot—who know nothing but mining, gambling, and drinking—ever made to the development of Magic?"
"I say only the Dragon Language is the best choice," Furin chimed in. Although not a member of the Round Table, she was still part of the project. "The Dragon Language is the only one that can be used directly for Casting."
"And then, while you’re in the middle of writing, the Magic just casts itself. Yeah, that’ll be a real blast," Soron sneered.
"Have you still not grasped that the Magic won’t be cast unless the program is running?"
They had already accepted the term "program" by this point.
"To be fair, can’t we just use the Common Tongue and be done with it?"
Zog, who had been listening to this for what felt like half a day, asked helplessly.
’I don’t get it. They’re just symbols. What difference does it make which language we use?’
"Absolutely not!" nearly everyone retorted in unison.
"The Common Tongue is the most boring language in existence."
"Can anyone name a single classic Magic Book written in the Common Tongue?"
"It would be an insult to the greatness of Magic itself!"
Although the Common Tongue was the most widely spoken and widespread language, it was also the most despised.
The Common Tongue was born during a brief period when the Continent was unified.
An unprecedentedly powerful Empire accomplished the miraculous feat of unification.
This was the once-glorious Great Loman Empire.
The Empire implemented a common language, solving the long-standing communication problems among the various nations and races.
But because it was forcibly imposed and the use of all other languages was forbidden, it met with fierce opposition from nearly all people and other sentient beings.
Coupled with its tyrannical rule, the Great Loman Empire crumbled amidst widespread rebellions, with the surviving Imperial Family becoming what is now the Loman Empire.
They still harbored dreams of restoring their ancestors’ glory, though of course, none of the other countries on the Continent paid them any mind.
Historians acknowledged the Empire’s contributions. However, for those who lived through that era, as well as for the people of today—not so far removed from it—the Empire was the absolute archvillain, the ultimate focal point of all hatred.
Countless works of art and literature cast the Empire as the final enemy to be overthrown, its memory vilified time and time again.
Thus, while everyone despised the Common Tongue left behind by the Empire, they had no choice but to use it for the sake of convenient communication, as it was already firmly established.
This didn’t stop people from avoiding it whenever they could communicate in their native tongue or any language other than the Common Tongue.
"The Elven Language. There are no other options. The first race to discover Magic was the Elves."
"That’s just a legend."
"The Solvi Language. I recommend the Solvi Language."
"The Dragon Language is the best choice! Zog, say something! You must think so too, right?"
A new round of arguments began.
Zog felt a throbbing headache coming on.
It was like watching a pack of Doudou’s clones arguing over which Mechanical Warrior was the strongest.
Yes, Doudou had joined a comic-lovers’ guild, where "power-leveling debates" were a weekly event.
As one of its core members, Doudou often practiced debating with himself so he could dominate the arguments during guild events.
Incidentally, thanks to his efforts, the Black Rhino Hero’s status had been elevated infinitely, reaching the "Quasi-Emperor Hero Realm."
"Enough! I’ve had enough!" Zog yelled, at the end of his rope.
If this were a team under the Zog Group, he could just order them what to do.
However, these wily old-timers weren’t on his payroll, so Zog was in no position to make demands.
"How about this," he proposed, waiting for the Mages to quiet down and turn their attention to him. "Why don’t we create a brand-new language?"
’Mr. Tree-man had taught him well: When you want to open a window, you should start by threatening to tear off the roof.’
’Now that I’ve made such a radical suggestion, surely they’ll compromise and accept the Common Tongue.’
Zog had never been ruled by the Great Loman Empire, so he held no prejudice against the Common Tongue.
Clearly, he had underestimated the depths of the Mages’ hatred for the Common Tongue.
This was because their ancestors had largely been nobles from other nations; it was very rare for a Mage to rise from the common folk.
And the nobles of these Foreign Countries were the primary targets of the Empire’s iron fist.
And so, after a moment of silence, the Round Table Elders exchanged glances and nodded in unison, signifying their approval of his proposal.
Only Furin shot Zog a venomous glare, as if to ask why he hadn’t supported her.
Her gaze held a hint of a threat, and Zog knew he was probably in for it tonight.
At that moment, El spoke up. "Alright, we’ll create a new language, then. The question now is, who’s going to design it?"
That question stumped Zog.
’Right, who *is* going to design it?’
’I wasn’t prepared for this.’
’Should I suggest the secret code Furin and I made up as kids? No, that stuff is way too imprecise.’
’Wait a minute.’
Zog suddenly remembered his origins. ’I know a "brand-new" language!’
"I’ll provide the language," Zog said, picking up a pen and quickly writing on a piece of paper.
Creating a new, functional language was no easy feat. Furin stared at Zog, a little surprised.
’When did he learn how to do this? Back when we designed our secret code, I was the one doing all the work. Zog was just forced to play along.’
’Could it be that during all those years he spent recovering from the Magic Goddess’s punishment, he didn’t just come up with a pile of scripts and games, but also studied an entire language?’
Soon, Zog held up the piece of paper.
On it were several blocky, square-like characters. Next to each one, the pronunciation was annotated using the phonetics of the Common Tongue, but with a key difference from typical phonetic marks: there were small, short lines marked above the vowels.
"These two characters together form a word that means ’Magic’," Zog explained. "The two characters also have their own meanings. For example, the first character refers to Magic, while the second means ’method’ or ’art’."
’My real mother tongue has made its appearance. I can guarantee it’s a one hundred percent new language to the people of this world, and it has a complete system, rigorous details, and can stand the test of time.’
’I wrote it in proper Regular Script, modeled after the style of Wen Zhengming. Though I haven’t quite captured its true essence, it’s more than enough to impress these guys.’
’Compared to the local calligraphy, which is just about making letters look fancy and connected, this is on a whole different level.’
As a painter, Furin looked at the strokes and instinctively sensed the beauty within them.
’Just how many skills has this darn Red Dragon been hiding from me?’
’But it really does look good... Crap, I suddenly think Zog is kind of hot.’
Soron attempted to repeat the word. "’Punish Uncle’?"
"No, not ’Punish Uncle.’ ’Magic’," Zog corrected.
"What’s the difference?" Soron asked, rubbing his big, bald head in confusion.
"The tone is different."
"Huh?"
"Look," Zog said, pointing to the phonetic marks beside the characters. "These little lines mark the tones. There are four of them in total."
He then demonstrated the differences between the four tones.
Soron began to wonder if there was something wrong with his ears.
"A different tone means a different word? This language you’ve designed is completely unnatural!"
"Frankly, I find all the trills in the Sutton Language to be far more anti-Dragon. I can’t pronounce them at all."
For any language learner, sounds that don’t exist in one’s native tongue are incredibly difficult to master as an adult.
Thankfully, the Dragon Language didn’t have trills, or else Zog felt he might not have survived in Dragon society.
The Sutton Language was even more ridiculous. It didn’t just have trills; it had major and minor ones. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was beatboxing.
"Can this language cover all the requirements for Magic programming?" El asked.
"Of course. This language is particularly well-suited for describing various concepts."
’If I had to find any faults with my language, it would be that the vast number of homophones can make communication difficult between strangers, and the tones complicate songwriting.’
’But for use as a Magic Language, I can’t think of any issues off the top of my head.’
"Then it’s settled. We’ll use this one," El declared.
No one else objected.
Zog was immensely relieved.
’E-language, my friend... what you couldn’t achieve, your bro is about to make a reality!’
