you seek answers then
seek
far then wide deep
and search for truth
seek
and search wide the wide realms
yearn for knowledge traveller then
for glory
you yearn then
yearn wide the yearn then traveller you
arrive then seek answers
you yearn then
the wide seek glory you traveller
deep wide why why
why then seek realms
quest for knowledge
This message is obtained from the previous scrambled text by cracking the substitution cipher that has been applied. Certain common words such as "then" allow guesses for what the character in the ciphertext means in the plaintext. In this example we see "XLYO" is a fairly common four letter word in the ciphertext. It could mean "then" as that is common 4 letter word with 4 unique letters. We assume that t --> X, h --> L, e --> Y and n --> O and then use these to see if that makes sense elsewhere.
Patterns of letters also helps - q is always followed by U in English (with the exception of some infamous made up scrabble words), and not all letters can be double letters (as in, the two T in letter). L is the most common double letter, followed by S and then E, O and T. We see double letters in this message in "seek", "deep" and "traveller".
Cracking these is often a matter of finding which guesses work, and backing up the guesses by counting the number of times each letter shows up. The distribution of letters in English is well known, with lots of E, A, T and S but very few J, Z or Q so if your solution has this correct kind of distribution you may well be on the right track.
While this text has been revealed it doesn't really make much sense reading it. Nobody has puzzled out what it is hiding yet, once this is done it will be posted here.
Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2021 9:13 pm
