Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 374 - 373: Return to the Cecil Clan

Testing combinations that meet the requirements from countless basic spells and materials is a tedious task—although the overall research environment at the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute is delightful, that doesn’t mean the research work itself is also light and pleasant.

Cohen has been conducting these basic tests for dozens of days now. During these days, he has tested nearly a hundred different magic materials using a dozen kinds of different magic effects—including new materials formed by mixing various magic materials. In these tests, he indeed discovered that some substances would change when stimulated by specific categories of spells, such as softening, hardening, expanding, etc. However, completely meeting the project requirements, and having a reversible process, has yet to appear.

Yet he continues performing these tests silently, recording every test result in detail.

He has adapted to this tedious work. In fact, he even somewhat enjoys this tedium, just as he enjoys precision, planning, and taking exactly the right number of steps to walk from the institute’s front gate into the laboratory. Back in the royal capital, a girl he secretly admired commented that his quirks were "eccentric, rigid, and neurotic", but Cohen could never change his habits.

After several detection runes on the magic experiment platform dimmed, Cohen cleared those samples and placed them separately, then reset the experimental environment. He took a thin piece of purple copper-silver alloy from the sample box at hand, clamped it onto a fixed support at the center of the experiment platform, then pressed the support down to make contact with the magic symbol circuit carved on the platform. Then he raised a set of metal devices beside the experiment platform—

This metal apparatus resembled an arm made of several rune-etched iron rods, with a high-quality magic focusing crystal fixed at the "arm’s" front end. This device, known as the "Magic Stimulator," is one of the most indispensable tools in the Magic Technology Laboratory. By adjusting the sequence of several Rune Triggers at the connection point between the rune iron rods and the experiment platform, it can connect with a large rune "Palette" located at the back of the desktop. This disc-shaped rune device, jokingly called the "Palette," has pre-installed over a dozen basic magic circles, making it very convenient to release the spell effects that the experimenter needs.

Ordinary technical personnel in the Magic Laboratory who don’t possess spellcasting abilities rely on such devices to conduct complex magic experiments.

Mages, like Cohen, who inherently possess spellcasting abilities, quickly realize the value of this device upon encountering the "Magic Stimulator" and fall in love with this useful device in just a few days.

In his view, this is simply a great invention—the Magic Stimulator is powered by the Magic Web buried under the laboratory’s floor, so it almost never suffers from mana depletion issues. Furthermore, it can release nearly all types of basic spell effects, whereas ordinary spellcasters would be limited by their talents and unable to cast certain spells. The best part, which pleases Cohen most, is that the Magic Stimulator is a kind of mechanism. Its structure, materials, and parameters are all fixed. Before malfunctioning, this device ensures each spell impact it releases is precisely accurate, having significant meaning for those engaged in magic research!

And such a brilliant creation was invented by the young Lady who is currently standing in the center of the laboratory, enthusiastically discussing with several senior technicians—in fact, more than half of the lab’s new-style devices were invented by her.

It’s said her spellcasting level is only level three.

Everyone is a low-level Mage, so why is she so outstanding... Could it be because of the name "Cecil"?

Cohen collected his wandering thoughts and activated the Magic Stimulator.

The Focusing Crystal quickly lit up, and a moment later, a lightning arc struck the surface of the alloy from the crystal’s tip, leaving shallow marks on the alloy surface as the crystal moved.

Cohen immediately began testing the various changes in the alloy sample afterward, recording the results:

"Year X, Month X, Day X, test number XX, sample number XX, Arcane Lightning applied on the surface of purple copper-silver alloy, leaving a discolored dent, the area affected by magic power displays weak arcane affinity, irreversibility in the process. This property may be used to create a new high-performance Array substrate..."

So far, the tests have not achieved the desired results, but that does not mean these tests are meaningless. During the almost luck-based series of tests, researchers discovered many new properties of magic materials, more than half of them being new properties of mixed materials. All of these properties will be recorded in detail, and someday, perhaps one of them will prove immensely useful—in this ongoing project, some researchers have even begun to see discovering new material properties as their work goal, which indeed is a highly motivating task.

Being a formal royal capital Mage, Cohen knew that, in past times, it wasn’t uncommon for a Mage to discover new material properties from daily experiments or to create new mixed magic materials. However, all old-style research was independent, isolated, and fragmented. Those traditional Mages found them in their own dark, cramped Mage towers, then deemed them treasures, possibly never sharing their discoveries for a lifetime, and once those Mages died, their discoveries would be buried with them in their graves—as with the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute here, where a large group of people conducts large-scale tests in a planned, orderly manner, and then aggregates all discoveries together, while someone oversees the orchestration of experimental rules is unimaginable to traditional Mages.

This is precisely why the experimental efficiency here is astonishingly high.

After completing this batch of data records, Cohen didn’t rest. He sealed the samples and related records, handed them to his colleague beside him, and immediately prepared to test the next sample.

But just as he clamped the sample, aimed the Magic Stimulator’s crystal at the fixed support, and prepared to press the Rune Trigger, a gradually low humming sound suddenly emanated from below the experiment table, and soon after, including his experiment table, the runes flashing on the desks of several surrounding groups dimmed.

"What’s going on, my equipment stopped here..." "The new crystal, right? It can’t be overloaded." "Is the magic power out?" "Who used the heating pad on the experiment table to cook noodles again?" "Check the fuse plug area—who’s near the fuse plug, take a look to see if the fuse blew."

Cohen was stunned for a moment before realizing from the surrounding complaints that the problem wasn’t on the experiment table; it should be an issue with the magic nodes in the laboratory—currently, there are two forms of magic supply in the territory. One is the wireless magical power field provided by the Magic Obelisks scattered across each district, and the other involves traditional direct contact with the magic web for energy extraction. Here in the First Practical Technology Research Institute, there happens to be a laboratory-built magic web (experimental high-performance magic web). Therefore, half of the experiment tables are connected to the magic web in the traditional way.

After coming to this realization, Cohen immediately put down what he was holding and walked behind his experiment table—behind it was a section of an arm-thick hexagonal metal pile extending up from below the floor, known as the "inspection plug."

One of the six silver-white surfaces of the inspection plug was noticeably blackened, and Cohen cautiously placed his hand on it, instantly feeling the heat.

He glanced at the node location represented by the blackened surface and waved his hand, calling out, "The node in zone 6, either the third ring or fourth ring, is burnt out. Other nodes seem fine."

"Let’s shield that node first and fix it after work," Rebecca in the center of the laboratory instructed. "Also, did I hear someone say they’re using a heating pad to cook noodles in the lab? Did someone really do that?"

The laboratory suddenly fell silent...

Cohen instinctively shrank his neck. Though he hadn’t used the heating pad on the experiment table to cook anything, he did toast bread...

But just then, his peripheral vision once again swept over the inspection plug, which had blackened and heated up due to the surge of arcane energy.

Following the retreat of the rushing arcane energy, the Mithril coating on the inspection plug began to gradually return to its original state...

One characteristic of Mithril is that, during the absorption of arcane energy, it accumulates magic power without changing its appearance; once the external arcane energy disappears, it rapidly releases magic power, causing the Mithril to heat up and change color...

The young Mage from the royal capital fell into deep contemplation...

On the north side of the main Cecil City, at the White River pier, a cargo ship bearing the mark of the Cecil Chamber of Commerce docked slowly under the direction of the pier personnel.

The gangway of the cargo ship was placed on the dock, and the captain came down to begin the handover with staff on the pier. Following the captain were a burly figure and a dozen poorly-dressed foreign civilians disembarking from the ship.

"Is this a group of immigrants?" The dock manager saw the people stepping down the gangway and turned to the captain. "Don’t forget to register so these immigrants can’t leave the dock area."

"These immigrants aren’t my responsibility," the captain waved his hand, pointing to a particularly burly figure. "They’re brought here by Priest Wright."

"Mr. Wright?" The dock manager finally recognized the man stepping off the gangway as the local priest—only, the priest wasn’t donning his iconic old priest robe but was clad in rough, tattered burlap akin to the impoverished, making it hard to recognize him initially. Realizing it now, he hurried forward. "Mr. Wright! Weren’t you returning to the Plains of the Holy Spirits? How come you’re back so soon?"

"I’ve seen what I wanted to see, naturally, I should return to where I belong." Rhett Aiviken smiled warmly, pointing at the immigrants he had brought along. "These are victims I helped on the road, all persecuted by the Holy Light Church. The leader agreed to accept them."

"Church persecution... oh, okay, I’ll arrange for their registration right away," the dock manager hadn’t expected the territory’s only priest to return so soon, let alone bring back over a dozen people persecuted by the Holy Light Church. The significant amount of information left him momentarily stunned, but he quickly regained his composure and noted some bloodstains faintly visible on Wright’s clothes. "Mr. Wright, what happened to your clothes...?"

Wright glanced down at the stubborn stains on his clothes that hadn’t been washed out, helplessly shaking his head: "Got them when trying to reason with people."

The dock manager breathed a sigh of relief: "Oh, that’s alright, I feared you tried reasoning with bears again—everyone’s quite fed up with bear meat."

(Here’s a book recommendation, book recommendation! The title is "On the Tip of Hogwarts"—just hearing the name suggests how imaginative this book must be... In one sentence, as long as your heart is big enough, everywhere is full of ingredients, it’s a light-hearted and imaginative read. This one is also an ally, probably also non-perishable.)