Chapter 1673: Bruce Wayne and the Magic Stone (Seventeen)

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Three people who jumped down through the door on the floor didn't feel the pain of falling onto the ground as they had imagined. They fell into a pile of something with hard edges, so the situation wasn't much better than crashing heavily onto the floor.

"Heavens!"

Barry let out a cry of pain. He struggled to push aside the objects beside him with his arms, like a drowning person making a futile effort to escape. It wasn't until Harley and Bruce also fell that the tall, mountain-like pile of hard objects slightly slid down, allowing Barry to free himself.

He fumbled in the dark, advancing through the room, nearly stumbling over something on the ground again. Fortunately, he felt the door and opened it, then found a source of light in another room with candlesticks.

When Barry returned to the original room holding the candlestick, he realized they had landed on a pile of books—a true mountain of books. There were probably thousands of books stacked in the center of the room, with the exit of the passageway at the mountain's peak.

Harley rolled down the mountain of books, finding it amusing. She even did a few flips on the spot, performing an agent's landing maneuver. Little Bruce, on the other hand, was much more graceful and composed. He steadied himself and walked down the path Barry had rolled along.

"Hope you're not getting sentimental about your sacrifice, because we already knew this trial wouldn't be life-threatening." But Little Bruce's words were still as cutting as ever.

Barry pressed his lips together and exhaled sharply through his nose. He shook the candlestick in his hand and said, "There are still plenty of books scattered on the ground. If you keep talking like that, I'll turn off the light and make you fall flat on your face."

"Childish."

"You too."

"So where are we? Some bookstore's stocking area?" Harley looked back at the towering mountain of books. She casually picked up a book from the ground and, as if about to faint, pressed her forehead and said, "God, what language is this?"

Little Bruce approached, glanced at the strange runes engraved on the book she was holding, then picked up another book from beside her. He dusted off the pages, opened it to a page filled with even more bizarre and complex characters that were completely unreadable.

"This doesn't seem to be a language used by humans," Little Bruce mused, stroking his chin. "I don't see any repeating phrases, which suggests it's not using human word formation."

"Look at this, look at this symbol," Harley pointed to a book featuring a ram-like emblem. "I suspect this might be Demon Language, or at least some kind of script from hell."

"Are all the books like this?" Barry looked up at the mountain of books and asked.

The three of them searched through the towering stacks for a while. Little Bruce pulled out a fragment of a bookshelf from the books, feeling the runes on the side where the magic hadn't fully dissipated. "It looks like someone smashed the Demon library and threw all the books here."

"Isn't this the pile of books you got from Beelzebub's Palace?" Constantine turned his head to Bruce and asked, "How did you throw them here?"

"In fact, he threw that pile of books to me," Schiller lit a cigar, leaned against the sofa, and said, "I haven't read half of them since I got them back, and I'm not interested in deciphering Demon languages. So after the college was established, I piled these books in the basement."

"There's no valuable information in there," Bruce shook his head. "Demons, beings who operate on instinctual strong power, don't meticulously record history like humans. Most of the people who wrote these books are Demon servants, and their complex Demon Language is just to show they have enough knowledge from Demons. Besides being complicated, it has no advantages."

"When your professor tells you not to read books, you better listen quietly," Zatanna smiled. "Even if you've graduated and no longer need to write papers, you still have to set an example for your college students."

"I've been especially troubled by this lately," Miss Magician pushed her hands away. "I don't know how to teach these little brats to submit their assignments on time. I'm beginning to understand you more, Professor Rodriguez."

"Then you don't understand enough," Schiller snorted, but not at Zatanna. He was hinting at someone present whom everyone knew. "When one of your students tries to compensate for never submitting assignments on time over the past four years by using a paper shredder, you should understand that any other teacher in the world would be lucky."

"And there's a limited edition bat doll," Bruce emphasized.

"Yes, another bat doll. I still haven't found a place to put it."

"So what's this puzzle again?" Little Bruce asked, puzzled. Harley walked to the side room where Barry had brought the candlestick. She opened the door and peeked inside, finding it to be a very ordinary lounge with nothing inside.

The only door that seemed to lead out of the suite was on a wall of the lounge. There were no signs of a lock, but the door wouldn't budge. It had an extremely complex rune drawn on it, which at least Little Bruce, Harley, and Barry couldn't fully understand, not even recognizing one of its parts.

"I guess we might need to find the meaning of this rune among the books and then follow its instructions to find the key," Barry sighed. "If I'm not mistaken, it should be a puzzle set by Professor Rodriguez."

"Oh God, spare me!" Harley let out a scream, sliding down the wall like rotten mud, staring despairingly at the mountain of books and saying, "I'm going to die here!"

Little Bruce remained silent for a while, then walked beside the mountain of books, flipping through them one by one. Barry also seemed somewhat discouraged; he didn't think he could survive to read through all these books.

It's not that there were too many books, but every book they could see was in a language humans couldn't understand. This meant that finding clues based on the content was impossible. They either had to read all the books or find another way.

"I bet reading all the books isn't the normal solution," Barry began tapping and knocking along the walls, seemingly looking for a mechanism.

Bruce continued silently reading the books. Harley eventually chose to join Barry's team because, although she was indeed a clever genius, she wasn't good at code-breaking.

"What kind of rune is that? Why have I never seen it before?" Off-screen, Constantine stared curiously at the complex pattern on the door. After looking for a while, he cautiously said, "The characteristics look chaotic, with some Phoenician elements, but they also resemble patterns used by the Israelites..."

"I drew it randomly."

As soon as Schiller said that, everyone turned to look at him. Schiller then revealed a slightly mysterious smile and said, "Remember the purpose of this trial? Don't respect authority too much, and don't think the knowledge of Demons and Angels is noble."

"So the key..."

"Digging open the mountain of books will reveal it."

Constantine slapped his forehead and said, "So it's purely a physical task?"

"What we're aiming for is to make dealing with Angels and Demons a physical task, isn't that right?"

Strange immediately nodded in agreement.

"The purpose of studying magic theory isn't to truly understand the obscure knowledge of Angels and Demons. I'd rather see it as a guide to avoid being deceived. Your brain must hold enough truth to discern what Angels and Demons are truly saying—what's real and what's fake."

"But all of this is based on Angels and Demons not being able to forcibly control you," Strange stroked his chin. "If they can't use force, and sorcerers are increasingly educated and harder to deceive, then they really can only choose to talk with us."

Barry and Harley searched almost every corner of the room but found nothing. Harley detonated a grenade in the smaller lounge and even tried shooting the door lock, but it was useless. Clearly, it was built differently from the ground structure.

Then Barry, somewhat despairingly, believed they really had to read all those books. He dejectedly approached Little Bruce and asked, "Have you found anything? Is there anything I can help with?"

"In fact, I haven't seen anything," Little Bruce shook his head. "If given enough time, I think I could decipher these mysterious languages, but I feel it's pointless."

"But if we can't understand, what about those Mystic Runes?"

Little Bruce snorted and threw the book he was holding, watching it tumble on the ground twice before crossing his arms and saying, "As you said, this is a puzzle designed by Professor Rodriguez. Don't forget, besides being a professor at Gotham Magic College, he's also a world-renowned Master Psychologist, at least in your world."

"So?"

"Have you heard of the 'elephant in the room' theory?"

Barry shook his head blankly. Harley frowned and said, "I've heard a bit. Does it refer to something in a space that's very noticeable but everyone ignores?"

"More like 'we all know it exists but deliberately ignore it,'" Little Bruce looked up at the mountain and said, "This is a reverse application of that theory. The professor created something we absolutely cannot ignore and must pay attention to, which precisely indicates that the answer has nothing to do with the nature of this thing itself."

"That makes sense," Little Bruce stopped walking, stroked his chin, and said, "Perhaps Angels and Demons are manipulating us in the same way. When we seek answers from Demons, they give us forbidden knowledge but say nothing else, as if learning this knowledge would naturally lead us to the answers we seek."

"But the answers might be everywhere, except in the knowledge. When sorcerers finally go mad from these forbidden knowledge, they jump out and say we never said the answers were in the knowledge."

"I can already imagine sorcerers being deceived like that." Harley walked up to Little Bruce, stood beside him, and asked, "So where do you think the key is?"

"I believe Professor Rodriguez is the type of person whose every action has a purpose. Since the knowledge comes from hell, perhaps... the key also comes from there."

After speaking, Little Bruce looked towards the base of the mountain of books.

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Next Chapter =>Chapter 1674: Bruce Wayne and the Magic Stone (End)