The m.

  Sir Weissenaseeded two more days to finalize the promotional material. Hence, “Beauty and the Demon” premiered iheater and pyed without anyone knowing about it.

  At the same time, Joshua took Ciri and Hyrn with him to the patent offi Nornd.

  The office building had been pleted just over a decade ago, and it looked more like a museum than a gover administrative building.

  Nornd’s patent office was crowded but anized. Mages in different-colored robes carried stacks of dots with them as they strode across the reception hall in hurried steps. Fn visitors of various skin colors respected the atmosphere in the offid whispered amongst themselves.

  “This way.”

  Hyrn had been there before. She brought Joshua to the registration ter, where a dy in wooden-framed gsses sat behind the gss partition. She looked surprised when she saw Hyrn.

  “Hyrn, have you finally finished your work? Are your days of non-stop nagging from that lecturer over?”

  “Oh, I am nowhere near finished, Sansa...”

  Hyrn shook her head and corrected her friend’s assumption. The dy behind the ter was Hyrn’s cssmate from the academy. She was a close friend, but one who would occasionally give her a headache.

  “Why are you taking so long? Hyrn, e visit the academy sometimes. The lecturers and even some of the boys miss you. By the way, I hear that Ricard has four tickets to the shows iional Theater today. You’ve heard of the Flower of Farucd Farucci, the Nation of Arts, right? People say that the women there are the most beautiful in the world.”

  Hyrn did not remind her friend that she was a woman too merely because she did not want to linger oopic.

  Hyrn came to know that Bckswaer had debuted in Norly due to their strong marketing efforts. She would even find a few of their promotional leaflets every day when she swept the atelier’s courtyard.

  The pany piqued her i at first, but ever since she watched the movie, “Beauty and the Demon”, whatever was left of her meager curiosity for theater evaporated into thin air.

  Anyone who had tasted fine wine would never go for cheap alcohol again. Theater was a form of art worth preserving across geions, but it was far less iing than movies.

  “That aside, I am here today to guide this gentleman. He would like to apply for a patent for his iion.”

  Hyrn ehe friendly catch-up with business.

  “You’re applying for a patent? One moment, please.”

  She fished out a piece of paper that was stamped with an illegible wax seal and framed by inscriptions. Magic radiated off the paper’s surface like static.

  It ecial kind istration form. Joshua took the piece of paper and ied its tent, which was basically a list of basic personal information. He filled in the form line by li left out his family name. When he came to the nationality n, Joshua briefly sidered how to keep himself inspicuous.

  In the end, he wrote Daxia as his try in.

  The ink painting in the Weissenasche Theater would prove that there was indeed such a try in this world that was simir to a called Daxia.

  “Please head to Room 372. Take this badge with you and stand oeleportation circle over there.”

  Sansa was so eager to tinue chatting with Hyrn that she did not examine Joshua’s form iail and even ighe relevant dots for his patent application.

  Joshua took the badge beled 372 and did not interrupt Hyrn’s catch-up session with her friend. Only Ciri followed him to the teleportation circle on the floor by the window.

  White inscriptions on the badge glowed, and after a brief moment of weightlessness, Joshua found himself standing in a cluttered office.

  Papers were strewn all over the desk, and the book racks along the walls were also in disarray. However, the most striking thing was a gray owl perched on top of a rack, staring unblinkingly at him.

  Joshua knocked on the door to announce his arrival. The office owner heard it and popped out from behind the desk.

  It was an old man in his seventies, dressed in a long gray robe in need of washing. He looked a little like Gandalf the Gray from Lord of the Rings.

  “Ahem, I’m here to apply for a patent,” Joshua broke the silence first.

  “An application? Hold on, please. I’m looking for a letter.”

  He searched through the books on his rad fished out a particur book, causing the rest of the books on the shelf to crash down on his poor self in a domino effect.

  All of a sudden, white runes began to glow midair. Then, the books that were scattered on the fllowed simirly and flew into the farthest er of the office.

  “These damn books nearly broke my bones.” Gandalf’s double got up from the floor and massaged his temples.

  The owl could not stand the nonsense any longer a its perch to pick up a letter beled with “ the Runes of Order be used for Long Distanunication?—The 72nd Topic of Discussion by the Owl Penpal Society” and dropped it on his desk.

  “It’s here... I’ve been looking for it for two days and here it is!”

  The man shook away the dust from the letter joyfully, put on his gsses, ahe letter. After that, he picked up a feather quill beside him and wrote down his reply at the very end before he folded the letter back.

  The owl nded on the desk, picked up the mildly sched up letter, and flew out of the window. Mere seds passed before a white owl flew in from the same window and dropped another letter on his desk.

  The man unfolded the letter and sed through its tents.

  “What rubbish! It’s poio design runes for long-distanunication like that!”

  He left a furious reply iter and passed it back to the owl, which left promptly.

  Joshua watched the entire sequend realized what the old man in the gray robe to.

  In short, he was “scrolling through the ents and bashing the op”.

  Joshua had a glimpse of the letter and found that there were replies were in various handwritings by different people. They were writing their own ents on the paper and passing it on with owls, thus achieving a way of long-distanunication.

  Weebkun