"Miss Styraatu."
In the darkness, a gentle male voice suddenly rang out: "We will begin learning to read today. Reading is a very important thing. To make Shurima great, you can only master magic through reading, and only by learning magic can you assist General Aatrox."
Then the darkness gradually dispersed like mist, revealing an unfamiliar study. A warm ray of sunlight streamed through the window onto the desk. Sitting at the desk was a little girl dressed in a lavish blue dress, its fluffy skirt adorned with countless stars. Her porcelain-like skin, highlighted by the dress, gave the impression that she was a princess.
Next to her sat a refined middle-aged man in a white robe and turban. The two were studying 56 basic Ancient Shurima phonetic symbols from a language book.
"Yes, Sir!" The little girl's clear voice rang out.
"This character is 'Heaven,' meaning the sky. Where the eagles fly is the sky…"
"This character is'Sand,' meaning sand. The place where we live is made of sand…"
This teaching continued for nearly three hours. The little girl suddenly looked up and said seriously, "Teacher, I've learned it. Teach me how to write!"
The middle-aged man's face stiffened, and he said sternly, "Miss Styraatu, learning should never be rushed, nor should you think about learning to write before you've even learned the characters. The Emperor's maxim once taught us that only by firmly stepping into the yellow sand with each step will you realize the hardship of your journey…"
"Teacher, I really know these characters now. Can you teach me how to write them instead?" The little girl interrupted the middle-aged man's endless chatter, repeating her request.
"Alright, I'll test you. If you pass, then I'll teach you how to write; if you don't, then you'll honestly continue to learn characters with me."
He took out a stack of slightly rough yellow paper and wrote a character on it with a quill pen.
"What does this character mean?"
"Sky!"
He wrote another character.
"White!"
The middle-aged man's face showed a hint of shock, as if surprised by Styraatu's learning speed.
Then, a joyful smile appeared on his face, and he taught the little girl thirty more characters, having her study them three times before telling her they could move on to a new batch of words.
Then he repeated the previous steps, and she truly memorized the characters again.
The scene paused with the little girl continuing to learn characters and the middle-aged man showing a look of gratification, continuing his teaching duties.
Crack!
As a cracking sound rang out, the entire scene shattered like a broken glass mirror, then turned into nothingness.
…
Piltover, Harbor District, Vocal Avenue, House Number 45.
In the first room on the left, a book lay open on the desk. As Durin's eyelids grew heavier, page after page seemed to turn mechanically. The once familiar Noxus annotated text slowly became meaningless…
Darkness completely enveloped Durin's vision. His head slumped heavily onto the desk. After an unknown amount of time, a cracking sound like a booming bell rang in Durin's head.
This jolted him awake. He slapped his cheeks hard with both hands, his eyes somewhat dazed as he looked around, appearing disoriented.
Another dream?
After a day's interval, he dreamt of Styraatu's memories again, and this time it was her childhood memory of learning to read.
Wait!
Literacy?
Durin slapped his cheek again, then picked up the book and quickly browsed through it. He found that he could understand seventy to eighty percent of the Ancient Shurima characters that had been extremely unfamiliar to him.
This result made Durin extremely excited. Didn't this mean he could learn the formula for the Composite Recovery Potion?!
So, he began to translate the potion formula. He first roughly translated each word, then derived a general overall meaning, and then consulted language books for a detailed translation, combining it with the context.
During this process, Durin found himself gaining a deeper understanding of Ancient Shurima characters, and some details from his dream gradually came back to him during the translation.
The pronunciation of Ancient Shurima characters was not regular. Early Ancient Shurima characters developed from block-style writing. Along the way, various large and small nations were destroyed, and foreign vocabulary from many countries was absorbed, polluting the original pronunciation rules.
This feeling was like someone at an English proficiency level of band 4 trying to translate a reading comprehension passage from an English proficiency level of band 6 exam, and still needing to ensure 100% accuracy.
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