Chapter 203: What the Magical Cataclysm Brought

When both High Lord Gawain and Lady Hetty questioned her in unison, Rebecca’s neck visibly shrank to a third of its original length—Gawain even wondered if, had he spoken any more sternly, the girl might have performed some kind of disappearing head trick on the spot.

But no matter how much her neck shrank, the truth had to come out. Rebecca glanced nervously at the two elders who had every right to scold her, then obediently explained, “It’s not my fault… I was testing some new explosive rune plates over at the Rune Research Institute when Aunt Hetty suddenly called me over to help with an experiment. I just slipped the plates into my pocket casually—and then when I got here, I just set them down on the lab table without thinking…”

“…Don’t you have any safety protocols when conducting magical experiments?” Gawain’s eye twitched as he looked at Hetty. “You just put something that dangerous right on the lab table?”

To him, Rebecca’s careless handling was about as reckless as trying to weld a blasting cap onto a light bulb.

“Of course we have safety regulations!” Hetty quickly defended the mages, but then awkwardly looked away. “But Rebecca… I’ve always kept her away from the lab since she was little, so she lacks some basic knowledge in this area. That’s on me as her guardian.”

“Safety procedures really need to be enforced down to every detail, especially in magical labs. No one should participate in experiments without proper safety training,” Gawain sighed, shaking his head. “Luckily, it was just an explosive rune plate—the power itself isn’t that great…”

“But it really shouldn’t have been dangerous,” Rebecca said, a little hurt. “Even though it’s an explosive rune plate, before it’s connected to a mana source, it’s just a static rune cluster—basically no different from a piece of metal with some patterns on it. How could it have exploded?”

Gawain frowned at her words—he knew she was right.

Explosive runes aren’t like blasting caps on Earth, which inherently carry some risk of detonation. The rune plates themselves don’t explode.

They contain no energy storage structure. For one to detonate, it must be combined with a carrier that stores mana—that’s why, in Gawain’s eyes, they’re far safer than Earth’s explosives.

So if it exploded, there was only one explanation: a high concentration of pure mana near it triggered the blast.

“It’s probably related to that new kind of ore,” Gawain said, glancing at the untested ore samples piled in the corner of the lab. The chunks were about fist-sized, each shimmering faintly with magical material. “Hetty, have you tested whether they can store mana?”

“No, they don’t have that property. Although they conduct mana well, they can’t store it. Their mana dissipation rate is similar to that of purple steel or red copper,” Hetty shook her head. “Could it be that strange mana field?”

This new ore had many odd traits. For example, when mana is rapidly injected, it ‘evaporates’ mana into the air at nearly the same rate. If two ore pieces are close together and both ‘evaporate’ mana simultaneously, the mana doesn’t immediately dissipate but forms a peculiar, persistent field. Both Gawain and Hetty suspected this mysterious mana field had some unknown effect.

Maybe… the mana field activated the explosive rune.

“That’s very likely,” Gawain nodded. “Hetty, try to recreate that mana field. Rebecca, do you have any extra explosive rune plates?”

“Yes, yes!” Rebecca eagerly nodded, then reached into her mage’s robe and pulled out a long cloth bag. She dumped a pile of rune plates onto the table with a clatter, sorting through them. “Let me see… scorching ray, small fireball, explosive, explosive, explosive… these are all explosive ones!”

Gawain stared dumbfounded at the reckless girl casually pulling out a pile of explosives, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. “You carry all these around with you?!”

“Not all the time. I’ve been working with Jenny these past few days organizing and simplifying magic circles, so I brought some plates with me.”

“…From now on, you’d better search her before she enters the lab,” Gawain’s eye twitched again as he gave Hetty a stern look. “Hasn’t this girl ever accidentally blown herself up?”

Hetty’s expression was a bit awkward. “Strangely enough, she’s only ever blown up other people’s stuff. She’s always dealing with big fireballs but has never accidentally exploded herself—at worst, she’s gotten her face a little singed. That’s rare among apprentices who often injure themselves.”

Gawain wiped his cold sweat and gave the go-ahead to continue the experiment—but before starting, he ordered Rebecca to move all the extra explosive rune plates far away from the lab table.

Although a single explosive plate detonating in that mana field seemed to produce only a small effect—mostly just some fireworks—who knew if this scatterbrained girl carried some kind of explosive catalyst aura? If she blew up the lab, she’d be lucky to avoid being tied to a flagpole and whipped…

Once everything was ready, Hetty placed an explosive rune plate inside a protective magic circle, then set two pieces of the new ore a short distance away. She placed her hands on the ores and began infusing them with mana.

The two ores glowed faintly. Gawain could sense a mana field forming.

Through his magical vision, he saw a distinct “environment” rapidly taking shape around the ores, its intensity far above the ambient mana radiation, filling the entire lab—and possibly extending far beyond. The mana shimmered within this area, flickering and unstable, just as Hetty had described.

Closing his magical sight, Gawain looked at the explosive rune plate inside the protective circle.

It showed no change.

“No reaction?” Rebecca scratched her head. “Maybe this plate is broken?”

Hetty stopped releasing mana, and the three of them huddled together, puzzling over why the “blasting cap” wouldn’t explode.

Gawain recalled a detail Rebecca had mentioned earlier. “Didn’t you say you had another ore piece in your hand, ready to infuse mana into it before the plate exploded?”

“Yes, and it even lit up for a moment.”

“That’s probably the key,” Gawain nodded. “That extra ore must have played a special role. Put one ore piece together with the explosive plate, close together.”

After setting everything up again, Hetty reactivated the strange mana field.

Almost instantly, the explosive rune plate inside the protective circle, along with the nearby ore, burst into a bright ball of fire.

“So it really is this!” Rebecca jumped up excitedly. “Resonance! It has to be resonance!”

“When two of these ores are infused with mana simultaneously, they create a mana field. And a third ore within that field resonates in sync…” Hetty frowned, analyzing the ores’ behavior, then glanced at the remaining samples piled in the corner. “But those ores are also inside the mana field—why don’t they change?”

“Maybe it’s not resonance, but some kind of… mana transfer,” Gawain took a breath, restraining his excitement as he shared his theory. “Only ores connected to the rune plate or magic circle change because they have an ‘energy-consuming unit.’ Energy flows inside them. The other ores lack this next-level structure, so they don’t change.”

“Mana transfer? You mean transmission?” Hetty stared at the otherwise ordinary stones in surprise. “That’s… fascinating.”

“The potential applications are vast,” Gawain met Hetty’s eyes. “If this can be purified and mass-produced, our mana network system could expand to an incredible scale! The range of mana transmission could greatly increase—even beyond our territories!”

Hetty frowned slightly. “But the current mana field is too unstable. Detonating a rune plate doesn’t require stability, but powering mana machines is a different matter.”

“So we need to keep researching, find ways to stabilize it,” Gawain said seriously. “Not only stable but controllable. By the way, how abundant is this ore?”

“According to the survey team’s estimates, there’s quite a lot. The eastern extension of the Dark Mountains has a large weathered zone, and beneath those loose, fragile layers lies a vast deposit of this strange new ore.”

“New ore…” Gawain stroked his chin. “Like the special limestone from the Dark Mountains used to forge Rebecca’s crystals, and the unique medicinal herbs Pittman found there…”

“I remember, ancestor, you said the magical cataclysm corrupted the natural environment, causing many ordinary minerals and plants to change properties,” Hetty said. “And you guessed there might be even more new resources along the southern foothills of the Dark Mountains…”

“This isn’t corruption from the cataclysm—it’s nature’s gift,” Gawain corrected solemnly, then looked out the window. From this angle, he could see a small part of the Dark Mountains. “I’ll visit the new ore excavation site. It seems that the so-called Cataclysm of Destruction has brought more to this world than we imagined.”

While Gawain, Hetty, and Rebecca studied the new Dark Mountain ore, another team was active deep within the mountains.

Strictly speaking, they were exploring the depths of an ancient ruin.

Sir Byron and his exploration team had been operating in this newly discovered area for over a week. They had drawn detailed new maps and recorded various new findings. Twice, they sent messengers to report progress and received replies. Byron felt the expedition had been quite successful. Considering the stress of spending so long underground, he decided it was time to leave.

But just as he was organizing the accumulated data and preparing to return, two soldiers sent ahead suddenly rushed back to the temporary base.

“Sir, we found a… strange place up ahead!”

“A strange place?” Byron frowned. Both soldiers were veterans who had been with him for a long time. They rarely reported so vaguely, which made him take notice.

“Yes. It’s… a circular hall, but in the center there’s a strange stone ring…”

(End of chapter)