Chapter 204: The Shifting Currents of Magic
Holm was a serf—but he hadn’t been born one. Earlier in his life, he had worked as a miner.
A miner, not a slave.
In the mines, there were two kinds of laborers: free miners and enslaved workers. The free miners were common folk who chose to risk their lives underground to support their families. The slaves, however, were the private property of the mine owners, no different from tools or beasts of burden. Yet in many ways, the difference was only skin-deep—both groups were expendable, likely to die in the mines, and forgotten once they did.
Holm’s fall from freedom was dramatic. He was never a “compliant” miner. Rather than monotonously chipping away at stone, he was drawn to discovery—whether new minerals or strange plants, anything novel caught his curiosity. People often joked that he must have some dwarf blood in his veins, but Holm took such teasing in stride. His mind was always on unearthing some hidden treasure beneath the earth. And one day, he did stumble upon a “treasure” of a different kind.
He caught the mine owner’s wife in an affair with a foreman.
It was no secret that foremen could kill a miner or slave without consequence—just blame a cave-in or accident, and the matter was closed. Holm had witnessed such brutality firsthand. So when he saw the illicit meeting, his first instinct was to run—and he never returned home.
After a year as a wanderer, he settled in the old Cecil domain. The previous viscount didn’t expel him, but Holm had no choice but to sell himself into serfdom to survive.
Under normal circumstances, that would have been the sum of his short, hard life. Bound to the land, serf Holm’s days would pass without change or hope. He would bear the heavy yoke of his lord’s demands, crawling through the dirt for ten or fifteen years. If fortune—or misfortune—granted him a child, that child would inherit the same fate, chained forever to the whip. His youthful curiosity and memories of mining would fade into oblivion.
But everything changed after the disaster.
The old Cecil domain was gone—lords vanished, lands lost. A new lord emerged from legend, leading survivors to build a new home at the foot of the Dark Mountains. Facing unfamiliar lands and the mysteries of the shadowed peaks, the lord issued one astonishing decree after another. Holm, who had helped set traps during the autumn “defense battle,” was rewarded and restored to freedom—more free than even the free folk.
The lord allowed his people to pursue any work matching their talents and rewarded hard work. New job postings appeared almost daily on the town’s bulletin board. Anyone seeking extra income could answer the call. For people who had once starved through winters at home, this bounty of paid work was a miracle. So whenever a new notice went up, crowds surged to find their place.
Most people in the domain were illiterate. They relied on soldiers stationed by the bulletin board to read the postings aloud—but only six hours after the notices appeared. To get a head start, Holm taught himself over a thousand words in just a few months, enough to stumble through reading the announcements on his own.
He wasn’t alone. Many others, driven by the same need, attended night school to learn to read. Literacy meant knowing the details hours before others and getting to the personnel office first to sign up. Those who didn’t learn now regretted it bitterly.
Holm was grateful for his timely education. When the lord announced a new mountain exploration team, he was first to volunteer. The team was small, the risks real, but the pay exceeded that of factory technicians. Besides, a squad of magic infantry would provide protection—how dangerous could it be?
The newly formed exploration team entered the Dark Mountains via a newly discovered mountain path. Along the way, they encountered incredible mutated animals, plants, and stones. Holm’s mining experience, quick mind, and literacy made him the team leader—also helped by the fact that the lord had personally honored him, a rare distinction. Under his guidance, the team uncovered a peculiar raw ore with a faint purple sheen embedded in loose, weathered rock.
As they worked, Holm’s long-dormant curiosity stirred back to life…
Led by soldiers, Gawain and Amber found the exploration team’s base camp—a few simple tents on a small mountain clearing, surrounded by fully armed Cecil soldiers on guard. Gawain met the team leader, a stocky, slightly stooped man with a dark complexion.
Something about him felt familiar. Thanks to his eidetic memory, Gawain recalled who he was: Holm, the serf who had been publicly commended for his bravery during the autumn battle against the mutants. He had been made an example of.
“I remember your name is Holm,” Gawain nodded to the former serf. “You’re part of this exploration team?”
“Yes… yes, sir!” Holm was surprised Gawain remembered him and grew a bit nervous. “You personally awarded me a medal!”
“You’ve put on a bit of weight since then, but good,” Gawain smiled. “You found the ore?”
“Yes, sir,” Holm steadied himself. “The initial discovery site is just a short distance from here. I can show you.”
Near the camp, on an exposed rock face, Gawain saw several excavation points where the team had been digging.
Such valuable ore was buried so close to the surface.
Gawain approached the site. The ore was covered by a thick layer of porous, weathered gray-white rock, with faintly purple or blue-glowing stones embedded like crystallized cores.
“The surface pieces are small,” Holm explained, “but the deeper you dig, the larger and purer the ore gets. The real veins worth mining will be deeper underground. This soft weathered rock isn’t good for tunnels—it collapses easily. Open-pit mining would be better. With Rebecca crystals, blasting through the rock wouldn’t be difficult.”
Gawain nodded. “I’ve read your reports. You’ve found many things never seen outside, and signs of mutation in both plants and animals.”
“Yes, sir,” Holm replied. “But this is the first time we’ve found such a large mineral deposit.”
Gawain hummed thoughtfully, scanning the terrain. Seven centuries ago, Gawain Cecil had led troops through these mountains before the magical tides had altered the land. Back then, none of these strange things existed.
They had all appeared after the magical tides.
Amber pulled out a dagger and pried a shard of the blue-purple glowing rock from one excavation. Holding it up to the sun, she said, “This is so strange… Old Gawain, is this what you meant? That natural materials change under the influence of the magical tides?”
“The magical tide is a surge of immense magical energy,” Gawain said casually. “Though mortals can’t harness it, it profoundly affects the environment. Believe it or not, ruins like the Deep Blue Well hold even more magical materials than this place.”
Amber’s eyes widened. “Who in their right mind would dare mine there?”
Gawain shook his head but didn’t answer.
He looked at the ore before him, but his thoughts went far beyond these stones.
He had long suspected the magical tides hadn’t just happened once.
The satellites still orbiting above were clearly early warning systems for the magical tides or similar phenomena. The disaster in the Cecil domain had shown signs of the tides’ return. And in his past satellite records, he had seen entire civilizations vanish without explanation, ecosystems wiped clean and restarted from scratch.
During the “satellite era,” his observations of the surface were fragmented and inconsistent. He often couldn’t grasp how such sweeping changes occurred—one moment, primitive people built magical cannons; the next, they were back in tree hollows wearing animal skins and dancing around fires. Landscapes and flora shifted dramatically. There might have been decades of devastating wars or floods lasting weeks, but for a satellite that captured only one frame every thousand years, these rapid, fleeting catastrophes were nearly impossible to catch.
But something was causing this “reset.” If there was no other explanation, it had to be the magical tides.
The magical tides altered the very nature of matter in the natural world. The strange creatures and minerals in the Dark Mountains proved this.
And even after the tides receded, these changes didn’t revert. Instead, they solidified into entirely new materials—like the ores found here.
If the magical tides had struck more than once, Gawain had reason to believe that most of the world had been shaped by their influence.
He formed his boldest theory yet:
All magical materials, magical creatures, and even seemingly mundane soil and rock had been gradually forged into their current forms through repeated cycles of the magical tides.
The magical tides were a recurring, ongoing “world-shaping phenomenon”—one that showed no sign of ending even now.
(End of chapter)