Chapter 76 - The First Step to Art (1/2)
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
The crystal in the ruby dish broke into a pool of crumbs just like that. Gawain and Heidi exchanged a speechless glance.
After a long pause, Gawain then choked out as the corner of his mouth twitched, “This means star raising1 has failed, right?”
“Eh?”
“Ahem, I mean, what’s happening?” Gawain quickly covered up the comment that he’d subconsciously blurted out with a dry cough. “The magic circle overexerted it when drawing out energy and left it in crumbs?”
As light rays of arcane magic floated in Heidi’s eyes, she examined the remaining traces of magic in the ruby dish in detail. The initial look of excitement on her face slowly dulled. “No… I’m afraid this is the inherent defect of such crystals…”
“Defect?” Gawain frowned. He had a vague sense of foreboding, like an unlucky player who threw lots of money into in-game purchases but ended up summoning the most basic Shikigami1. “Is it single-use only? It will be destroyed if it releases energy again after being recharged?”
If that was the case, the value of such man-made crystals would undoubtedly plunge, but Gawain found that he was able to accept that. In this world, crystals that could store magical power were extremely valuable materials. Mages categorized such crystals into two different qualities. High-quality crystals were pure and stable, and they could be carved with magic circles and operate stably. As such, they were used as the cores of various magic articles, such as being mounted on staffs. Whereas, crystals at a grade lower could not be carved with magic circles due to poor stability, but they could be used as storage for magical power and are, therefore, also viewed as an important strategic resource by mages.
However, in all this time, storage crystals could only be obtained from nature; man-made crystals could not substitute for them at all. This was mainly because man-made crystals had severe ‘natural dissipation’ problems; magical power stored in these crystals would dissipate at an alarming rate and would even be emptied within a few days. They were completely unusable; hence, man-made crystals could only be used as supplementary materials in the production of magic articles or even as ornaments in the aristocrats’ castles…
If these crystalline solids that Rebecca had unintentionally created only had the defect of being single-use, it wasn’t a big problem to Gawain. Heidi had confirmed that these crystals were very stable; thus, at worst, they would be used to manufacture single-use magic articles. To Gawain who was accustomed to the industrial times, ‘single-use’ did not mean depreciation but a synonym for inexpensive, convenient, and mass-produced products.
Yet Heidi shook her head. “The problem is not that it is single-use, but that the magical power it stored cannot be drawn out for use.”
Gawain was completely stunned this time. “How could that be?”
“The magical power lost its ‘alignment’, which probably occurred the moment extraction happened. The originally sequenced magical power became disorderly ‘waste energy’ in this process. It will dissipate the moment it is extracted, and even if collected before it does, it remains unusable. After all… it is ‘waste energy’.”
Waste energy. This was the specialized term mages used, also known as ‘disordered magical power’. This was a kind of magical power that could not participate in any magic reaction nor be used to release magical power for any spell. It was worthless, like musical notes that had lost their tone. Disordered magical power was the byproduct of many spells; it was the ‘slag’ left over after mages had released the magical power. And, unforgettable to Gawain, the incident where disordered magical power held the greatest presence was the big explosion of the Well of Deep Blue a year before the Gondor Empire collapsed. Huge amounts of disordered magical power appeared inside Deep Blue which directly led to the Well of Deep Blue operating at full power but unable to export any energy. Finally, the reactor core melted and caused an explosion.
Deposited into the crystal was magical power, but what was extracted became waste residue. This was like the boosters of certain black-hearted games in his previous life. What was put inside was equipment and gems, but taken out were slag and small horn1 which the entire server sneered at…
The facts were clear as day: Rebecca had produced a little, white crystal block that could tick off a strengthening party1 on the spot (no mistake).
Giving a disappointed glance to the powder-form crystal residue, Gawain shook his head. “Rebecca might be able to produce storage crystals that are usable some day… In any case, we’ll remain expectant of that for now. Let’s move on. I saw you working with those antique crystals earlier. Any results?”
Heidi gathered herself, but her tone was a rather apologetic one. “Sorry, Ancestor. There were many magic circles and rune arrangements within the crystal that are lost to us, and they were combined using an incomprehensible method. The precision of the present crystal resonator is limited. So far, I only recognize a part of it, and I’ve restored it into a magic circle… Please come this way.”
Gawain followed. He saw Heidi bring out from her desk some drawings of magic circles that had already been sorted. Other than all sorts of symbols and lines, there were also notes written in a graceful handwriting on the papers; they were annotations that she’d left behind.
Gawain studied the drawings, while Heidi shared her thoughts beside him. “The magic system of the ancient Gondor Empire is very different from today’s. Their magic circles went in ‘layers’. Every layer was connected using key nodes, and those nodes were also a type of magic circle themselves when banded together as if every layer was nested. It is impossible for the technology of today to build a magic circle with such a structure. I cannot imagine how the Master Mages of ancient Gondor shoved this entire set of complicated runes into a tiny little crystal…”
Gawain lifted his head and enlightened her with a smile, “They first prepared a room with almost no dust or suspended particles. Then they used magic-conducting materials to build a huge magic-circle model. Following that, they vacuumed out all the air in the room. Finally, they shined beams at the magic-circle model using powerful magical power from the Well of Deep Blue, and on the focal points of the illumination, they placed empty crystals that were to be processed. Through a unique polarization technique, magical power would brand the layered magic circle onto the interior of the crystal, layer by layer. Just like that, with one more illumination, the crystal would have a set of magic circles branded in it. Twenty-seven could be made in a minute.”