Sword of Dawnbreaker

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.”

With a clatter, a dip pen in Heidi’s hand fell to the ground and broke in two.

Damn, the ancients turned out to be so formidable?!

“However, this is where my point of view differs most from the people of this era. You all believe that many things are precious and rare. It is only natural and right for masters to carefully craft it and then leave them for people to pass down through the generations. But in my opinion, it is only natural for these things to be mass-produced cheaply. It’s a pity. We lost the Well of Deep Blue, and people of that generation are all dead. It’s inevitable that all of you would progress this way.”

Heidi’s expression was odd; she had an intense sense that the unfilial descendants had disappointed Ancestor once again…

Just then, Gawain’s eyes were suddenly caught by the magic circles on one of the drawings. “Hmm?”

Heidi quickly leaned forward; after spotting what Gawain’s gaze was on, she explained, “That is a magic circle to control a crystal’s spontaneous explosion. You know it. The last function when these manufactured crystals are close to disintegrating is spontaneous explosion. This layer of magic circle was branded in a location independent of other rune groups, and it was unusually simple, so it was fairly easier to restore. But I wasn’t able to restore the friend-or-foe identification portion related to this detonating magic circle. Till now, I have not found out which runes were the ones to achieve this unbelievable function. I truly lack talent in this aspect…”

“Hold on. Set aside how those identification runes were made.” Gawain interrupted Heidi’s self-criticism. All was good about this granddaughter. Except, once she felt that her Ancestor was upset, she would immediately sink into a state of self-criticism and self-reflection, and this was really troubling. She was a character who could easily be a domineering lady or a queen, yet she always seemed as if she was being bullied in front of him. “I saw the annotations you wrote here… You said that this magic circle is different from a conventional magic circle. It wasn’t that the explosion was generated after the energy in the crystal had been released to the outside world but that an ignition of energy had occurred within the crystal and took the crystal itself as an explosive too?”

Heidi faltered for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. The usual or similar magic circles would lead the energy of the storage crystal out and create an effect externally. But because the function of this magic circle is spontaneous explosion, it skips the leading step and directly ignites the energy within the crystal. At the same time, the broken crystal fragments would also have massive lethality. To be honest, I’ve never come into contact with such magic circles before. Although they aren’t complicated, any mage with a sound mind would not use them. This thing will completely destroy a precious storage crystal…”

Heidi trailed off. Clearly, she was no fool and had swiftly become aware of the uses this had.

Their gazes unanimously shot towards the ruby dish on the laboratory bench. It was as if the small amount of crystal dust in the ruby dish was sparkling once more.

This was the glow of art (convinced emoji here).

“The magical power extracted from those crystals would instantly become waste energy, but they are in a stable state when stored inside the crystal…,” Gawain summarized slowly. “Then we’ll simply not extract them. How great would it be to directly ignite them inside the crystal?”

Heidi concurred unhurriedly, “Yeah, such ‘crystals’ are produced from rocks anyway. They aren’t costly…”

Mages with a sound mind would not use an explosive magic circle that would destroy a storage crystal with it. That was because storage crystals were expensive, and they only needed to add a structure to lead the energy out of the explosive magic circle, releasing explosive magic while keeping the crystal. Since the effect was exactly the same, why the need to ruin a piece of crystal?

However, if there existed a type of crystal whose stored magical power had no way of being extracted, would it continue to be worthless?

Then, this thing would literally be made for spontaneous explosions; its properties were as straightforward and iron-headed as the person who invented it.

Countless bold ideas that made one jump for joy emerged in Gawain’s mind. These thoughts were accompanied by bright flames and stirring whistles. They were the future; they were hope; they were the sword and shield to protect the people and land; they were the rays of light that broke up all the clouds gathered from the failures of creating gunpowder…

It was art!

So utterly artistic! On the same level as the Louvre…

Gawain repressed those agitated thoughts and suddenly asked a very practical question with an odd look, “How are we going to carve an explosive magic circle on a crystal the size of a rice grain?”

Heidi had also calmed down and seriously considered this question. Following that, she said in a rather unsure tone. “Perhaps… we don’t necessarily have to carve it on the crystal because this is a magic circle with an ‘interference model’.”