Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 46: The Current Stage of the Mages

The people working in the camp quickly realised that the “ancestor” from 700 years ago was a weird person.

The commoners and serfs did not think much about how the Cecil feudal lord changed from Ms Rebecca to Lord Gawain. In this day and age, the lower class would feel grateful for the feudal lord’s generosity and wisdom as long as their stomachs were more or less filled. They did not mind who the feudal lord was and to them the only thing that was worth discussing after Gawain had become the feudal lord was the weird rules set by this “ancient person”.

When it came to the serfs being able to be promoted to freemen and how they could receive salary for what they did, most people remained doubtful as they believed that it was just a way for the new feudal lord to show his benevolence. Under normal circumstances, they believed that such promises would be realised in stringent or sneaky ways. They thought it meant that probably only one or two serfs would become freemen and even if they got paid, their pay would be docked for all kinds of reasons and only a few lucky people would receive some symbolic coins so that the feudal lord could justify that he lived up to his words.

However, the commoners and serfs would not complain about it because a feudal lord who was willing to show benevolence was much better than the one who abused his people to show his power right after he inherited the position.

Some good things would eventually happen to them right?

As compared to those generous rules, all the so-called “rules and regulations” set by Lord Gawain were the most confusing.

They were grouped into small teams which had to compete against one another, they needed to register their work load and there were even “assessments”… those were really things which they had never heard of.

Some people were discussing secretly and guessing which part of the new regulations would become part of taxation even though everyone was too poor to pay taxes. Some other people were talking about how Lord Gawain turned simple labour work into complicated tasks, was it because ancient nobles had some weird habits…

No matter what, they still could understand certain things that concerned their own interest — The first team in everyday’s evaluation would get to eat meat while the second and third team could eat as much bread with meat soup as they wanted.

For those whose standard of work was mediocre, they could only get plain vegetable stew and black bread. Although those two items were filling, to those people who did not get to eat meat on the first day of “tent pitching evaluation”, the torture of watching others eat meat stew while drinking vegetable stew was simply too painful to go through again.

No matter if those wondrous tales about promotion and getting salary were true or not, at least it was true that the feudal lord provided meat for them to eat.

Therefore, on the second day, Herti saw the people working like never before. Both commoners and serfs were working crazily hard and they would complete their work very quickly even without anyone supervising them. As they were working in groups and not individually, they started to work together subconsciously, thereby increasing their efficiency.

For those who were the group leaders, most of them quickly realised that the only way for them to eat meat was to increase the efficiency of the entire group and let the entire group eat it. The minority who were not so quick-witted or became group leaders by using violence or scheming ways would probably be replaced soon.

Using incentives and not physical abuse to motivate them to work was an incredible sight.

The tents were pitched and Rebecca led a group of people to survey the nearby undeveloped land. The lumbermen went upstream of the White River in the west early in the morning. Before noon, a batch of timber would flow down the river to the flatter and broader area. To prevent the timber from being washed away by the river, Herti allocated the supervision job to Knight Byron before the stipulated time and waited by the river personally.

At the stipulated time, the first batch of timber appeared and they were tied together using thick ropes to form a raft. The bigger timber were at the bottom while the smaller ones were secured and piled on top in different directions, thereby making everything look like a big piece of ugly wood floating on the river. Two nervous looking serfs stood on the raft and controlled the path of the “wooden raft” by using long sticks: the flow of the White River at this part was already very slow, the river was still and there was no wind blowing. However, controlling a raft that was made in a rush was challenging and any careless mistake would cause the entire raft to fall apart. Therefore, they were anxious.

Very quickly, the two serfs realised that the raft started to drift closer to the shore. They saw a huge semi-transparent palm at the side of the raft and the hand formed using air pushed the raft to the shore gently and strongly. One of the serfs exclaimed subconsciously and the other serf slapped that moron’s head with the stick and pointed to Madam Herti who was standing at the shore.

They cooperated with their master and maneuvered the raft to the shore and let it rub against the rocks before it stopped stably.

Afterwards, the people who had waited by the shore for quite some time rushed to them. They untied the ropes, dragged the timber and prepared to turn them into the wooden houses which their camp needed.

Usually the timber needed to be dried in the shade, deinsectized and processed in order to become quality and durable material. However, they did not care about the details because many buildings in the campsite were temporary and they were in a rush to build them.

Gawain stood behind Herti and said as though he was thinking of something, “Magic is indeed very convenient…”

Just as Herti sighed, the voice that suddenly came from the back gave her a scare and she almost fell from the rock, fortunately Gawain pulled her up.

“So… sorry…” This lady apologised frantically. “I didn’t know that you were standing behind…”

“It was me who scared you.” Gawain did not mind and he waved his hand. “By the way, that hand which you used just now looks pretty good?”

Herti blushed. “The Sculpture Hand was a very basic magic and I practised it frenziedly and it can last for a longer time. In this way, even a very heavy raft could follow its lead and be pushed to the shore. However, it would not work if the flow of the water was faster…”

Although Gawain was a knight, the pioneering era forced everyone to become a jack of all trades. He knew a bit about some theories of magic, even though Herti made things sound simple, he knew that it took tremendous effort for her to improve such a basic skill to this stage and at the same time it was something rare.

“I… do not really have a flair for magic.” Herti was even more shy after hearing Gawain’s question. “Although I started learning magic from a very young age, my ability to focus was weak and I could not build spell moulds that were too complicated. Therefore, even until now, I’m just a grade three mage, I’ll probably remain at this grade for the rest of my life and all I could do was to strengthen the basic skills over and over again.”

“Rebecca’s flair for magic doesn’t seem exceptional too…” Gawain frowned and thought of that stubborn great great… great-granddaughter who could only create four types of fireballs.

“She has a great volume of magical power and she can focus very well. However, she has the same or even worse problem as me when it comes to building spell mounds.” Herti hung her head low. “She only mastered the Fireball magic or any spell mould similar to it like the Big Fireball magic. To be honest, she’s a very hardworking child and she knows that she’s not talented in different things: she’s neither a good feudal lord nor a good mage. Although she seems to be carefree, she knows all these things and she has been working hard secretly. However, she doesn’t have a choice, the lack of innate talent is the obstacle which she cannot overcome.”

She sighed and said, “Therefore I sighed when I saw the rogue mage’s notebook at that time… he was not the only one and that situation was common for a mage stuck in dire straits. He could only be a low level mage because his spell mould skills was not on par with his theories. To practical mages, the inability to translate theories into real magic and skills means achieving nothing…”

“That’s not true.” Gawain’s interrupted her suddenly.

Herti did not react in time, “What?”

“If only creating a fireball by yourself is considered ‘practical’, then there would not be much different between a mage waving a staff and a monkey waving a stick.” Gawain shook his head. “Theories are not nothing, they are the ‘one’ in front of uncountable number of ‘zeros’, it is just that you haven’t found the position of the decimal point…”

Herti frowned. “I… I do not really understand. If you can’t realise the theories in your mind using spell moulds, then what’s the point of having so much knowledge? Can you beat anyone?”

“One day, you’ll understand that ‘beating someone’ is not everything when judging a mage and it shouldn’t even be the main criterion.” Gawain laughed. “I’ve sent people to Tanzan Town to inform Knight Philip to purchase some additional things. When the rest arrive, they will start constructing your magic laboratory.”

“Magic laboratory?” Herti froze for a moment and frowned immediately. “Those things are costly, for the initial stage…”

“I have taken a few Mithril coins from the vault in the mountain, they are not uncommon coins and do not need to be recast. Hence, they can be used to purchase magic supplies directly and they are sufficient to get you a set of basic things. I know that your laboratory in the castle has been destroyed and we need a new one as soon as possible.”

Herti thought of the task which Gawain had given her previously.

“I understand, I’ll print out the blueprints which you have requested when the crystal resonator arrives!” Herti could not contain her laughter, although she pitied those Mithril coins, as a mage, how could she not feel happy now that she could get her own laboratory again? There was this saying that went: the child that sells his grandfather’s land does not feel the pain…

Was there anything wrong with the ancestor buying some laboratory supplies for his great great… great granddaughter? There was no problem at all!

Good, although this thinking did not apply to Herti who was accountable and mature, it applied to Rebecca.

Should he get a laboratory for that stubborn girl when he had the ability? Although she would probably be researching fireballs in the laboratory…

Gawain returned to the tent feeling a little distracted and he wanted to go and take a good look at those weird crystals.