Going away to meet with the demoness took a few days total from William’s busy schedule. This meant he had to work harder to catch back up on the time he’d missed. In addition to that, William was debating whether he should teach his magic-through-science viewpoint to others. He also was debating internally whether it would help. Different ways of thinking didn’t work for everyone. Certainly, it wouldn’t be better to just replace the way things were done with a new way. Even if that perspective helped him significantly, William knew it wouldn’t help much for people like Lila. On the other hand, Marius was just the right type to get some kind of benefit from it. William started an outline for a description of the thought process. He would also have to scrounge up the details of things that people thought about differently, so that he could clearly state his points.

For example, when creating a fireball, a mage would gather mana. With the image of the fireball, they would also gather fuel to burn. They understood that, but didn’t necessarily have an understanding of it being oxygen. There was also the breakdown of other gasses in the air, and their proportions. William wasn’t sure if it was the same here, but it was similar to that of Earth. He couldn’t discount the possibility that Earth even had mana, but nobody and nothing to interact with it. Thus, if it existed there, it would be pretty much irrelevant, having about as much effect as neutrinos. William had already discounted the idea that mana was made of neutrinos or anything like them, because it was certainly closer to a gas, lingering in an area and not dashing through at the speed of light.

In short, there was a lot of background information that magic-based thoughts wouldn’t discover, but that also may not be relevant to the effectiveness of magic, both the ability to learn it and practical applications of it. William thought that knowledge about computers would likely help somewhat in the development of magic formations, but unfortunately he wasn’t extremely knowledgeable in that area. However, he decided to start writing down everything he knew that might possibly be helpful to future generations. Even if the information went to people who misused it, William thought the chances of it helping against the Demon King would be higher, and worth more in the end. Though, there would be no way for him to actually know, since he would be long dead by then.

As for the chance of becoming Archmage, William didn’t want to belittle the position, but he felt certain about obtaining it. Among the subject tested were alchemy. William just thought about that as a form of chemistry, except mixing impure ingredients instead of pure ones. In a way, it was less advanced because of that, but the addition of magical ingredients made it somewhat special. In terms of crafting magical items, William was short only in the area of understanding what materials would help attract what types of mana. Since he could not directly detect mana, he just had to learn all of the various materials and what properties they had. He knew there must be some underlying connection, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. That said, his understanding was adequate enough. As for combat magic, William had great understanding of how such things worked. Lightning- electricity, flowed along a path of least resistance. Fire required fuel to burn. Earth walls were just a movement of various materials, or sometimes a temporary representation of them made partly out of mana. William also had a good understanding of “water” and of course the various liquids that were like water.

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There were other fields in which Williams skills were sometimes more proficient, sometimes less, but he was sufficient in all categories. In the end, he received the necessary votes of support. About two-thirds voted in his favor, but that did not mean one-third was against him. Many of those who didn’t vote for him had just chosen to abstain, so it was closer to a sixth of the people that didn’t support him, either because of personal reasons, or more complicated politics. Thus, William was officially appointed Archmage, at the age of forty-one. He was certainly not young, but neither could he be considered old.

After his official appointment, William prepared his “public” announcement of the forthcoming invasion by a demon lord. It wouldn’t be wise to just announce it to the general population, as that would cause panic. Of course, it would likely be announced eventually, but William couldn’t make that decision alone. He had to meet with the leaders of Ostana, and now he had an authority that he could accomplish this with. Though he could get such information to them through contacts, everything would go more smoothly with him holding an official position.

Fortunately, William had gotten the chance to go over the information about the demon army with the demoness, though he had to admit he had almost forgotten about it among the more interesting discussion. He now just had to convince people of the accuracy of his source. He was at least confident that the numbers described would be approximately correct. It would be fine to prepare for worse, because it probably would be. In addition, the time frame was now about four years out. That, too, could only be an approximate. The route that the enemies would take, what tactics they would deploy, that William had very little idea about. However, he wouldn’t have to handle everything alone. There were, after all, military commanders among the knights. In addition, Ostana could raise recruits, which would likely be necessary. The number of knights that could be in existence wasn’t a full armies worth, since that would take money to sustain. Though they weren’t inactive, since they fought magical beasts, they also couldn’t afford to be too large.

There was only so much William could do, though. He could provide the information, and coordinate the wizard’s guild with the knights and the army. If possible, he would also obtain additional information, but he couldn’t guarantee anything helpful. Beyond that, the raising of the troops and their organization, both in quantity and timeframe, were out of his hands. At most, he could encourage sufficient caution, and make it so they don’t underestimate the enemy because they were “just” a demon lord and not the Demon King. In addition, William would work with Ostana to gather any allies. There was another wizard’s guild in a country to the east that William had good relations with, but he didn’t know whether they would be willing to contribute any support or not. Still, William was going to try all the options he could think of. Hopefully, when the actual Demon King was reborn, there would be people of similar thought around to do the same.