Chapter 15

The need for science

Who knew apprentices were such a boon? Whatever time I lose teaching them, they more than make up for with their work. No need to do manual labor, to painstakingly observe experimental results: I only need to read their reports.

Furthermore, teaching others and seeing them progress is gratifying, and the fact they are all fast learners makes it even more satisfying. At a time when not even half the staff can inscribe properly with the easier pattern, my students are already capable of inscribing short spells with the helix pattern.

Even if I would love to make it my accomplishment, it is not true. All I can do is guide them and teach them the concepts; the actual methods are something they must come up with on their own. Both ways have their own benefits and drawbacks; theirs is a lot faster for small spells but become prone to errors as the length increases, while mine is steady and reliable no matter the length or the difficulty.

When I think about it, their youthful adaptability is probably the reason why they overcame the staff… whatever the case, thanks to them, I am free to focus entirely on the dragon/calamity.

That said, making the dragon-slaying spell into an Enchant poses a certain number of challenges.

Firstly, I need to find a method to synchronize multiple spells within the twelfth of a second or less.

Secondly, a person-sized exclusion barrier is neither a long nor a difficult spell to cast, but one big enough to capture a dragon/calamity becomes a different matter altogether. The bigger the size, the more parameters there are, and in this case, it is even worse since as an enchant there is very little room for user input. My current estimation, accounting for the double helix method, is a crystal of about half a ton... and that is only to house the spell, it is nowhere near enough to power it in one go. There is no way a crystal this big exists.

Thirdly, I need to cast the spell while avoiding detection, which comes with its own setback since consumption increases linearly with distance.

Last and not least, the precision needs to be under five meters, any more and the beast might escape. I assume it might also be possible to kill the target without capturing it first, but that is only theoretical as I have never seen the spell at work nor a dragon/calamity for that matter.

Until a few days ago, I would have deemed the whole thing impossible and looked into a method to create a circle with modern mages… but then came the bag of holding. Just like the vault, the artifact defies all logic by constantly generating an exclusion barrier – without visible mana usage I must add – but even more fantastical is the fact it does all that in the form of a small rucksack!

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Ah, if only the barrier did not make it impossible to look inside. Before it came into my hands, there have been countless attempts to study the wondrous item, but all of them fell flat, in fact, even the name is an assumption: for all we know it could be a magic incinerator burning its content for fuel.

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How long has it been since I last set foot in my room? Three days? A week? Even more?

“I am going to burn out if I continue like that… maybe I should take some time off and do some reading or something.”

During my previous reading session, I only looked into what I thought necessary to understand my new environment, but there are a lot of subjects I was told I needed to read up on.

Having finally convinced myself I am not about to slack off, I open the archive with my own key – a gift from the Queen – to look at the bookshelves. There are quite the choices; science and mathematics, engineering, business, medicine, education, and literature.

I have a slight understanding of what each of them entails, but literature is by far the most mysterious. I was told by both the Queen and the curator that it was a window to understanding the people, but I cannot help but feel that works of fiction are not worth my precious time… yet.

The same goes for business and medicine, albeit important to the current world, they are irrelevant to my needs. Education? There is no denying that I am lacking as a teacher, but my apprentices have been making good progress even with my flawed method. Engineering? There might be something to it, modern people have achieved construction considered impossible without magical reinforcement in my time among the living.

I read a few introductory books, but it quickly becomes apparent that the subject is heavily reliant on scientific knowledge I do not possess.

It only leaves science, but which subject? There is a plethora of topics, and each of them seems important enough to deserve entire books. Do they have something like a magic lexicon? A book that broaches every subject without going in detail?

Twenty minutes later, I have set my choices on two tomes: science’s greatest discoveries and a science a manikin would understand. Neither of them goes in great details but that is what is good about them, I only want to pass time in a useful way, and maybe find a source of inspiration.

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How astute of them! Despite their lack of magic – or more likely because of – they came up with laws to explain and predict many aspects of the natural world! Although I often disagree with their views as they fail to acknowledge some minor or even major influences from mana in the phenomenon, at times I am forced to admit that we were wrong and magic never part of the equation.

Take teleportation, my people were never able to make good use of it due to some unpredictable factors. Turns out there was nothing arbitrary but all had to do with the strange quirks of circular motion.

How to explain? It has long been proven that the planet is a sphere rotating on a single axis, right? Well, depending on where one stands, their rotational speed changes and depending on the distance from said axis and the difference can be massive! They even came up with approximation and method of calculation… which sadly are reliant on the decimal system as well as all sorts of weird things involving triangles and circles that I do not get them either.

Anyway, I now understand the basis as to why speed is gained – or lost – when teleporting north and south, or up and down.

“Eh? Dawn already?” I did not see the time pass.

Maybe I should take care of the remaining Children, after all, the activation itself does not take that long and I do not want to see ‘It’ in pain… it saddens me for some reason I have yet to determine.