Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 54: The Rogue Mage’s Inheritance

After she saw that tattered notebook. Herti finally understood the root of it all. “Were these… left behind by that rogue mage?”

“Yes. He was a novice mage who was stuck at grade two for his entire life and was discriminated against by the mainstream mages. However, his talent was beyond our imagination, if he had been born at any other time…” Gawain sighed as he looked at the notebook in his hands. “I recently read some of his research notes and in my opinion, this notebook is worth at least half the title of a duke.”

“Ah?!” Herti cried out, dumbfounded.

However, Gawain had not exaggerated at all. The truth was, from a technological development standpoint, the inheritance left by the nameless rogue mage would become more and more valuable as time passed by. Even though most of his research was still at its infancy, Gawain was very certain that when it came to many revolutionary ideas and thoughts, the foundations were the most important.

Gawain placed the notebook on the table and looked up at Herti. “His daughter, Annie, is likely to have suffered from the shadow-related elemental assimilation disease, the rarest type out of the many magical diseases. As a mage, you should be familiar with this type of disease.”

“Elemental assimilation… that is a unique disease from the Violet Kingdom. The chance of catching it is low, but it is incurable.” Herti nodded her head slightly. “I guessed it when I saw the journal.”

In this world where magic existed, there were many things that were completely different from the world in Gawain’s home. There were both pros and cons about this place—-elemental assimilation disease was one of the worst.

These types of diseases which were caused by the invasion of magic, occurred mostly in areas where magic was thick and the elements were active. During the era of the Gondor empire, they took place in the Well of Deep Blue region of the capital. Even during the peak of the empire, it was considered as one of the diseases that were practically incurable. Now, in this era, it was the “specialty” of the Violet Kingdom in the North.

If superpowers were a gift from nature to humans, then the elemental assimilation disease that accompanied it would be the evil in that gift.

Elemental assimilation only appeared in newborns, it was a mutation caused by magical radiation while they were growing in their mother’s womb. Children who had this disease could grow up normally in the beginning. However, as they grew older, signs of specific elemental invasion and assimilation would gradually emerge. The patient’s body would undergo changes during this process and experience partial elemental assimilation, then as normal biological tissue started to undergo elemental assimilation, they would be rejected by the main physical world – other than the very few groups of people who had special innate abilities, any biological elements would not be able to survive in the physical world for a long time. That was one of the fundamental laws of this world.

This process would speed up as the condition worsened and it was irreversible. After more than half of a person’s biological tissues had undergone elemental assimilation, he would be ‘exiled’ by the physical world and pushed into the elemental dimension which corresponded to the element of the elemental assimilation disease.

The person would then die in the crack between the physical world and the elemental world—the remaining biological tissues in the patient would make this process abnormally terrifying, making them feel like they were being torn apart.

The daughter of that rogue mage, Annie, probably had this disease, and it was the shadow type elemental assimilation: the rarest of all the elemental assimilation diseases.

Mages and scholars had conducted a lot of research regarding the different elemental realms with the exception of the mysterious shadow realm, where research was difficult.

“There is no cure for elemental assimilation disease, it can only be slowed down and the best way to do it is to bind the patient’s body using magical power. It’s similar to how elemental summoners use magical shackles to force an elemental being to stay in the elemental world.” Even though Herti was just a novice mage, she was quite knowledgeable about the theories behind this disease. “However, this is harder than binding an elemental being as elemental assimilation disease would worsen, hence there is a need to pump in more magical power throughout the whole process…”

“A grade two mage, especially one who is discriminated against by the Association of Mystics, would not have the power and money to afford such an expensive treatment.” Gawain nodded his head and continued, “Hence, he used his own method: to build an unprecedentedly efficient self-recharging magical formation. He broke the rule that such arrays could only undergo inner looping and made it into an array that would ‘charge’ his daughter. He was pretty much at his wit’s end, since the high level focal points had already been used and the lower level magic focal points scattered in the forest were unable to provide enough power. However, he used his own unique intellect to solve this problem.”

“However, the sudden surge of unusual magic destroyed his magical formation…” Herti suddenly remembered. “If that’s the case, wouldn’t this self-recharging ‘magic web’ have a very huge flaw? It can’t withstand surges of magic…”

“No, it was not a magic surge that destroyed the structure of the magical formation, it has very complete safety precautions.” Gawain shook his head. “When I witnessed the structure of the magical formation, I was sure that it was intact even until the end. According to the diary of the rogue mage, the problem that occured at the end was not the magical array but the ‘Shadow Transformation’ ritual that he started. Magic binding can only slow down the process of elemental assimilation, but it cannot eradicate the root of the problem. At that time, Annie was already on the verge of losing control, hence the rogue mage conducted a very risky ritual that he was unable to control. In the end, he lost control of the magical power created by the magic web during the magic surge.”

“If that’s the case… I have no need to worry any further.” Herti nodded her head slowly before looking at the notebook left behind by that rogue mage with a complicated expression. “I can’t believe it, a downtrodden rogue mage was actually capable of doing such a thing….This large scale magical array pieced together using basic units is different from any other magical arrays that I know of. It basically abandoned all the complex and difficult structures, while bringing out… simplicity to the extreme.”

“Please call it ‘universality’.” Gawain smiled. “The job of setting up an experimental ‘magic web’ in the smithy will…”

As he was talking, he began hesitating between Herti and Rebecca. A technical job like setting up a magical array would obviously be more suitable for Herti. However, Herti was already in charge of overseeing most of the construction work in the campsite. Although she was very competent, there was still the job of building a magic laboratory waiting for her. Gawain really did not wish to continue adding onto her burden. It should be okay to hand the job to Rebecca. Although she only knew how to release fireballs, setting up magical arrays was different from casting spells, especially for such self-charging magical arrays where she only needed to follow the blueprints and build them. This would only need a grasp on the theoretical knowledge as well as computing abilities, but how should he put this…

Everytime he looked at Rebecca, he could not help but look at her as if she was a doofus… can she really do it?

As though she could see Gawain’s hesitance, Rebecca did not wait for Herti to speak before jumping up. “Ancestor! Ancestor! Give it to me! Give it to me! I can do it!

“Are you sure?” Gawain gave her a deep look. “The importance of this project is far greater than you can imagine. It can be said to be a foundation, the preface to many of my plans for the future… Can you handle it?”

Rebecca stopped jumping momentarily and thought about it seriously before looking at Gawain fearfully. “Then… if I spoil it, would you hit me?”

“…Forget it, Herti, it’s better for you to do it…”

Before he finished, Rebecca mustered up her courage and said with her head held high, “But I still want to try!”

Gawain looked at her interestingly. “Oh?”

“This magical array… I think this magical array is very interesting, there are many areas which are… very good, maybe I can… can…”Rebecca started to stutter and could not continue from her ‘can’ even after a long time. Hence she decided to just be thick-skinned and continued, “Even though I only know the fireball technique, my grasp of theory is very good! My computational skills are great as well! Besides, Aunt Herti is so busy lately and I haven’t been doing anything other than assessing the soil quality and burning the wastelands. I think…”

Looking at Rebecca’s nervous expression, Gawain could not contain his laughter and looked towards Herti. “Herti, what do you think?”

“Rebecca’s theory and computational abilities are strong. Actually, if we don’t consider casting spells, she has better innate abilities than me.” Herti looked at Rebecca with a slightly grudging expression. “Of course, it would be better if she was slightly more mature.”

“I’m definitely mature!” Rebecca puffed out her chest, but her eyes remained fixated on the blueprints that Gawain had laid out on the table, making Gawain curious.

“Are you very interested in this magical array?” Gawain could not help but ask.

“Yeah,” Rebecca scratched her head and continued, “In fact, I thought about this a long time ago. If I could simplify those complex and difficult spells and make the casting of spells simpler, perhaps I could do more than just the fireball spell… this array gave me a lot of inspiration!”

Gawain stared at Rebecca suddenly, causing her to get goosebumps.

However, after a few seconds, Gawain smiled. “Great, you will handle this matter then.”

Rebecca was exhilarated. “Really?!”

“Of course.” Gawain pulled out another piece of paper from beneath his table. It was a rough draft that he drew up for the ‘smithy’. “Just follow this scale, and make sure that the whole courtyard is within the coverage of the ‘magic web’. Also, build the first batch of furnaces here at the same time. You can get the materials necessary for making the magical array from the treasury on the mountain, there are ready-made ones in there. Although the scale of this magical array is large, it is a ‘basic array’. I believe that the ready-made mage metal and the quartz sand which Knight Philip brought back from the Tanzan Town stored in the treasury should be enough for you to use.”

“This is an experimental magic web, let’s name it ‘Magic Web 1’.”

Rebecca, who had been given a huge responsibility left happily while Herti went back to continue instructing the serfs and commoners who had just arrived at the campsite on the construction of tents, leaving only Gawain and Amber in the big tent.

“Why do you look so happy?” The half-elf young lady asked as she sized up Gawain. “You weren’t even this happy when you took the document from that old king—-Is flirting with your great-great-great… great granddaughter so interesting?”

Gawain: “…”

Would it kill her to say something nice?