Sword of Dawnbreaker

Those materials glowing faintly in the darkness swept away most of Gawain’s sleepiness. Disregarding that these dark gray materials would stain his clothes, he began digging directly in the big basket.

Soon, some fragments, evidently different from its surrounding materials, were turned out.

The light set in them was even brighter, more centralized, and stabler.

From the exterior, these pieces were still dark, hardened materials, but there were many crystalline solids less than one millimeter in diameter that looked like poor-quality crystals with unstable patterns. These crystalline solids were the source of the glow. Gawain crushed a piece of hardened material and carefully picked out a few crystals from it. He found that they were still glowing and were even brighter without the influence of the surrounding impurity.

A certain instinct had him activating his own magic-sensing ability; hence, some constant, shimmering cloud-like mist appeared in his vision — these crystalline solids, sure enough, contained a certain amount of magical power.

Gawain pinched a grain of crystal, his fingers slowly used force, and the solid finally crumbled. It was very hard, almost as hard as rock, but weaker than the natural crystals used by mages to process staffs or store magical power. And as it was crushed, its glow also disappeared.

Magical power dissipated from it completely.

So what exactly was this?

Gawain frowned deeply. He was so tempted to immediately consult Heidi about these things, but she was probably already asleep. Tonight’s unforeseen circumstance must have tired her out; moreover, she still had to worry about matters regarding the construction of the camp in the day. It wasn’t easy for her to get a good sleep.

Therefore, Gawain could only repress his thoughts and plan to approach Heidi early the next morning.

The rest of the night was finally peaceful. The camp was enveloped in darkness and silence; the kingdom of the legendary Lady Night befell…

Early in the morning the next day, Gawain headed towards Heidi’s tent with those bits of crystalline solids that could glow in the dark. He learned that Heidi had already woken up even earlier and had gone to the laboratory, so he went there instead.

This ‘magic laboratory’ was situated at the southeastern corner of the camp, near the Dark Range. It was the only house in the entire camp that took up a sizable area and was built with rocks and wood as its main materials. Even without extra furnishing, it could be considered the ‘mansion’ here. This was not because Heidi wanted to be special but due to a magic laboratory’s effect on its environment. Many magic and alchemy experiments were required to be conducted in fairly quiet and stable locales. At the same time, using rocks for the walls was to make it more convenient to carve magic circles.

Mages were beings who were rather particular about being practical.

In the eyes of laymen, this solid yet grand building was filled with a mysterious aura. Amber had always suspected that Heidi’s work in here was to mix potions and poisons, like an old witch, but she simply didn’t dare to step in to confirm her suspicions — she was afraid of getting a beating.

When Gawain arrived in a rush, Heidi was already occupied with a pile of crystals. She had placed her working platform in the center of the laboratory. The exceedingly spacious circular desk was divided into three parts: one part was engraved with magic circles, with all sorts of magic materials arranged around them; another part was used to set out various bottles and jars and alchemy tools; whereas the last part only had a set of equipment, and that was the crystal resonator they had purchased from Tanzan Town at a high price.

It was equipment specially used to study all types of crystals as well as the engraved magic circles inside crystals. This was an outstanding creation from the mages of this world. Its precision and beautiful exterior were poles apart from those crude, primitive tools that Gawain has seen in the civilian society of this era. It had a pedestal which was its core. Brass gear fixed three natural magic crystals of different sizes in place on the pedestal. And around this centralized platform were numerous independent, circular man-made lenses with adjustable angles. Before every piece of lens was a gray upright frame for imaging.

This could be said to be the most expensive item in the whole laboratory. Heidi was always cautious when she used it. Even her niece, Rebecca, who was likewise a mage (though she’d only ever mastered fireball spells), was not allowed to touch it.

It seemed Amber would really get beaten if she dared to sneak in…

Gawain saw Heidi place a light purple crystal in the middle of the crystal resonator. Through the stimulation of three magic crystals, the target crystal would produce a resonance, and such resonance would create detectable ‘ripples’ in this magic-pervasive environment. Through the man-made lenses all around the resonator, such ripples would then form an image that could be observed by the naked eye and projected onto the gray frame.

A relatively clear rune structure could already be seen on two of the frames, and on the rough papers at the corner of the table was a sketch that Heidi had drawn according to the projected structure.

It seemed she was studying those ancient military-use crystals from the vault in the mountains.

Regarding Gawain’s sudden visit, Heidi appeared to be slightly surprised as Gawain would usually be checking on the progress of projects at the various areas at this time or drawing a pile of blueprints in his own tent. “Ancestor? Why are you here?”

“I have some things that I would like to show you.” Gawain replied while pouring out those hardened pieces with bits of crystalline solids set in them from the small sheepskin bag he always carried around. At the same time, he looked at Heidi’s ‘workbench’. “You’re studying the magic circles inside those ancient crystals?”

“Yes.” Heidi nodded with a slightly apologetic look on her face. “Pity the progress is no good.”

While she spoke, she looked towards those coarse and ugly fragments in Gawain’s hands. “These are…”

“The ‘waste’ residue that Rebecca produced the previous time. But I found something interesting in it.” Gawain explained as he rubbed those crystalline solids in the residue. “These things have magical power.”

“Magical power?” Heidi’s brows furrowed; then, she carefully sensed for some time and was instantly astonished. “They actually do?! What are these?”

“That’s why I’m having you take a look.” Gawain picked out one of the fallen crystals. “Can your crystal resonator make out its structure?”

Heidi did not expect Rebecca to come up with something so strange after a bout of slipshod work; she believed that Rebecca’s act of baking rocks all day in the work shed was simply an amateurish pursuit, even if this task had been given to her by Gawain. After all, Rebecca had had numerous mind-boggling ideas during this process, for example, throwing locusts into the furnace and the likes of it. She carefully picked up the crystal handed over by Gawain and lifted it before her eyes to observe it.

“Aren’t there bigger ones?” Heidi frowned, slightly troubled. “It’s so small. It’s not easy to examine.”

Gawain could do nothing about that. “This is already the biggest piece. At least it’s about the size of a rice grain.”

“Alright, I’ll try my best,” Heidi said while removing the ancient crystal in the crystal resonator. “Its rune sequence has been recorded. There’s no need to continue testing.”

Following that, Heidi carefully picked up the ‘crystal’, only the size of a rice grain, with a pair of small tweezers and placed it in the center of the pedestal of the resonator. Then, she activated the three magic crystals.

After a brief wait, some blurred lines appeared on the ‘screens’ around the resonator. Not only were they extremely blurry, they were so faint as to be almost transparent. If Heidi hadn’t doused the magic crystal lamps around in advance, Gawain probably wouldn’t have been able to see them at all.

After all, the crystal was really too small as a subject of examination.

“This structure… It is indeed a type of man-made crystal, and it has a very regular pattern.” Heidi carefully distinguished between the forms of these patterns and gingerly infused the lowest level of magical power into the pedestal. Following infusion of magical power, those patterns on the projection gradually turned brighter and were coated with a rainbow-like glow. “…able to absorb external magical power and transform them into a stable form within the crystal…”

Heidi removed her own magical power and observed the subsequent changes in those projections.

Several minutes passed. There wasn’t the slightest degree of change in the image projected on the frames, and the resonator’s mechanism, which could precisely sense magical power, was totally calm.

“Magical power has been stably stored?!” Heidi revealed an even more surprised look. “The rate of dissipation… is this low?!”

Gawain stared fixedly at the central pedestal of the crystal resonator. On the pedestal, the ‘man-made crystal’ was radiating a white glow that could be observed with the naked eye. It seemed that as magical power filled it, its brightness would also grow.

He immediately realized why he hadn’t previously discovered these bits mixed in the waste products even when it was very dark in the tent. These man-made crystals were empty when they were first produced. Without magical power, they naturally wouldn’t glow. And as they were laid aside for an extended period of time, they started to absorb the magic energy drifting in the atmosphere. This was a gradual self-charging process; continuously charging over two days, they were then able to glow faintly in the night and finally discovered by Gawain.

Heidi was also attracted by the peculiar properties of this crystal. She continued to infuse energy into the crystal with an uncontrollable excitement. The grain-sized crystal must have absorbed a considerable amount of magical power for she very quickly realized that this thing had entered a ‘saturated’ state.

The tiny crystal began to release a stable milky-white glow. There were no signs of self disintegration due to saturation.

“So this is a man-made crystal that can store magical power?!” Gawain looked at Heidi in surprise, feeling as if he’d picked up a treasure. “Then how does its maximum capacity compare to a natural crystal? The stability? I see it’s been glowing the entire time. How is its self-consumption rate?”

“Hold on, hold on. I still need… I still need to do more serious tests.” The agitation in Heidi’s heart could match Gawain’s, but she still maintained the composure that a mage ought to have. She picked up the tiny crystal and walked towards the side with the magic circle used for analysis while answering, “Its self-consumption problem shouldn’t be too severe. Although it is glowing, it is mainly the drifting magical power in the atmosphere that is resonating due to the influence of the crystal. There isn’t much loss of the stored magical power in the crystal, so it should be able to store magical power for a very long period of time…”

While doing so, she placed the crystal into a ‘dish’ made of ruby with a trough around the center and placed this dish in the center of the magic circle. She prepared to try extracting the magical power stored inside the crystal again.

The magic circle was activated.

The crystal bit in the ruby dish let out a soft crack and became crumbs.