Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 278 - 277: Worthy of Study

Kamel proposed a solution for a high-power long-range weapon, and in Gawain’s view, while this plan might not completely solve the "cannon" issue, it could at least partially fill the biggest gap in Cecil’s army at present.

The Cecil Clan warriors already had very powerful personal armament, establishing absolute superiority on the traditional battlefield, which relies on soldiers fighting to the death, in this era. But for Gawain, with memories of planet Earth, without heavy weapons that could utterly surpass human power and impact the balance of the battlefield as a whole, a modern army was far from being formed.

When faced with monsters from the chaotic wave, the strength of "human waves" was ultimately unreliable; only more powerful firepower could give humans hope for survival.

Even if Kamel’s plan was feasible, Gawain had not given up the idea of manufacturing physical ammunition weapons. There were too many bizarre magic materials in this world, and too many unpredictable threats in the Gondor wasteland. A single type of weapon would struggle to cope with the ever-changing battlefield. For the inherently cautious Gawain, kinetic weapons were still more reassuring.

After summarizing the various issues that had arisen in this defensive battle, and finalizing the details of the troops’ adjustment, training, and propagation guidance after the battle, Gawain sighed and turned to Aunt Heidi, "How is Rebecca?"

"Nothing serious, it’s just that she will sleep for half a day due to excessive mental energy exhaustion," Aunt Heidi’s expression was a bit strange, hard to tell if she wanted to cry or laugh, "From childhood to now, she rarely had moments of excessive mental energy exhaustion. That child’s mental energy and magic power reserves far exceed the average person; she never seemed tired after throwing hundreds of fireballs in a day. This time she really went overboard."

In this world, mental energy and magic power reserves are two important indicators in measuring a person’s magical talent, each having different functions—in the simplest and most straightforward explanation, mental energy refers to the ability to control magic and perceive magic power, determining the skill and stability of continuous spellcasting. Magic power reserves, on the other hand, are the energy consumed during the actual casting of spells, determining the total amount of spells one can release within a certain time. Generally speaking, these two indicators align—it’s rare to find someone whose mental energy greatly exceeds their magic power reserves, or vice versa.

Of course, exceptions exist, like Santis, the Grade-2 Arcanist serving as a teacher on the territory, whose magic power reserves are significantly lower than his mental energy.

Although Rebecca is quite an eccentric girl, her "development" in these two indicators was normal, even stronger than the average mage. She was merely born with few "spell slots," leading to casting limitations, equating to a mage with a loose screw in the community.

So when Rebecca recklessly used the Magic Web as her magic power reserve, she faced a situation where her mental energy couldn’t bear the load, to a severe extent—but you can’t really blame her, after all, the Magic Web itself was a brand new concept. How could ordinary mages get a chance to handle such vast energy? For a typical mage, using a magic crystal to cast over-limit spells was already considered extravagant, while the city-level Magic Web on the territory could overwhelm an unknown number of magic crystals...

Luckily, the silly girl’s head was really tough, and humans have a "pass out if can’t withstand" self-protection mechanism, otherwise, there would’ve been serious trouble...

"This time she was a bit too much, but when is she not?" Gawain said, a bit helplessly, "And this time, thanks to her antics, we got an idea for creating a new type of weapon."

"Speaking of Miss Rebecca, there is something I’ve always been curious about," Kamel suddenly said, "She only knows one Fireball Technique, right?"

Aunt Heidi nodded, "Yes, that’s the only one she knows, and she can’t learn any others."

"But her Fireball Technique has all sorts of shapes and... levels," Kamel’s tone was filled with confusion and contemplation, "I’ve seen her create ordinary tiny fireballs, large fireballs, fireballs like the Flame Burst, this time a fireball larger than a city gate, I’ve also seen her create two bird-egg-sized fireballs to play with... Did anyone teach her these?"

"She has progressed to using fireballs as cultural play walnuts?!" Gawain was shocked, then coughed twice, "Ahem, no one taught her—and honestly, with so many bizarre fireball techniques, what normal mage would study them? These are just things she randomly figured out on her own."

After all, the silly girl has nothing but playing with fireballs to do, what else would she ponder on?

Kamel seemed more curious than before, "Has she always had this ability since childhood?"

After getting affirmations from Gawain and Aunt Heidi, this ancient Master Mage finally spoke about his point of confusion, "Do you think it’s possible for the Fireball Technique to have so many variations?"

"...Actually, a long time ago, I was curious about this question too," Aunt Heidi paused for a moment, finally speaking, "I even took her to consult with a famous archMage from the southern region, but that master couldn’t explain what was wrong with Rebecca’s magical talent. She can only play with fireballs, but she’s able to come up with all sorts of incredible techniques..."

Gawain silently looked at Aunt Heidi, thinking to himself that under his leadership, everyone on the territory has started assuming fireballs are "played" with—just recently, everyone was properly saying that the Fireball Technique was "cast"...

"In Miss Rebecca’s Fireball Technique, I felt a primitive and pure magic power fluctuation. I suspect that the magic that looks like a Fireball Technique is merely heated energy created by her enormous magic power—just because a spherical shape is the easiest to self-stabilize in magical structures, hence the high-temperature energy mass appears as a fireball..."

Aunt Heidi’s tone turned slightly anxious: "Master Kamel, have you figured out what’s wrong with Rebecca’s magical talent?"

Although she often knocked on Rebecca’s head in daily life, it was clear that she still cared deeply for the niece she had raised from a young age.

"No, I can’t discern the root cause of Rebecca’s peculiar spellcasting abilities," Kamel said slowly, "but I suspect... she might not really know the Fireball Technique. Yet, I don’t think this is a ’defect’. If her Fireball Technique is a more fundamental release of magic power, then it means she’s breaking the metaphysical constraints on ’spell levels’ and ’skills’. For her, the Fireball Technique isn’t a level one spell, nor level two or three. If we can understand the principle behind her spells, our research on the essence of magic might advance even further."

Gawain finally understood why Kamel was so persistent about this matter—because of the barrage of "whys" he had thrown at him after the successful development of the Magic Obelisk, which ignited the ancient Master Mage’s enthusiasm for researching the essence of magic. Now he’s gotten to the point where he wants to investigate any anomalous magical phenomenon he encounters.

But speaking of which... Rebecca’s strange talent for fireballs... is indeed quite worthy of study.

"We should wait until Miss Rebecca recovers," Kamel quickly calmed down from his researcher state, "and there are too many unknowns. I need to rearrange my work plan."

After the meeting ended, Gawain and the others left the Administrative Office one after another, and soon the meeting room became quiet.

Kamel remained behind until the end. He floated up from his seat, but before leaving, he heard a faint noise from under the table. Then, a long tail first probed up onto the table’s edge. After swaying back and forth twice, Tiel rubbed her eyes and climbed up.

"Ha..." It seemed the sea demon had fallen asleep again during the latter half of the meeting and wasn’t quite sure of the situation yet. "Everyone’s gone?"

Then she stretched her upper body vigorously, the tail straightened almost to the point of bouncing off the wall. After a stretch, she shook her hair contentedly: "Back to sleep, sleep..."

Kamel watched the sea demon, who seemed not to notice him, and couldn’t help but break the silence: "Miss Tiel, please wait a moment."

"Huh? There’s still someone here?" Tiel paused, turned her head slowly to take a look, "Oh, the glowing one—did you fall asleep too?"

"I stayed behind," Kamel replied meticulously, as he wasn’t good at making jokes, "Miss Tiel, I’d like to talk to you."

"Talk about what?" Tiel lazily lifted her eyelids, "If it’s about researching our sea demons’ magic or technology, then forget it. Our spells and technology are completely different from you non-elemental beings, more different than the magic systems of humans and elves."

"No, it’s about those... aberrations."

Tiel, eager to go back to sleep, said, "Aberrations? Then you should find Gawain; he’s the expert, died his whole previous life researching this field."

"It’s about what you said on the city wall today," Kamel’s eyes flickered with Arcane Sparks, "you mentioned that the aberrations are ’failed experiments’ that didn’t completely mutate during the chaotic wave, not created by it, but transformed by it... is that correct?"

"I didn’t say it so conclusively, but that’s more or less the idea," Tiel stopped yawning and raised her upper body slightly, supported by her serpentine tail, almost looking down on the floating Kamel, "no wonder I felt your energy response was intense at that time... You said you were frightened by one of Rebecca’s spells, but it takes more than a spell to scare an ancient Master Mage like you."

Kamel said nothing, which was a tacit agreement to Tiel’s words.

"I’ve heard Gawain speak of the story of the defied Fortress, and your plans back then, it was touching... so I guess I know what kind of answers you’re hoping to get from me," Tiel slowly lowered her body, and then suddenly reached towards her abdomen—Kamel watched the scene in internal horror. He saw the sea demon reach directly into her body; her torso, arm, and a part of her clothing turned into a watery texture during the process. Tiel fumbled in her belly for a moment, then pulled out a bone fragment, ominously hued with dark red. She handed it to Kamel, "You have to find your answers yourself—this bone fragment was found on the city wall, from an aberration. Its chaotic energy has been purified by me, so you can study it safely. But you must hurry, it’s decaying every moment."

(Here’s a recommendation for a book with brains and creativity, a new book by Xia Hua called "I Am Truly Immortal," already 800K words, available for consumption. The content... you can guess it from the title; the protagonist is an immortal living in modern society...)