Chapter 61: The Pride of the Cecil Family

Rebecca didn’t understand why Gawain was so interested in this question, but at least the ancestor didn’t seem like he was about to criticize her. She let out a breath of relief. “I just calculated and drew at the same time… It’s much easier if you think of the whole courtyard as a single sheet of paper.”

That answer was too vague. Gawain frowned slightly. “More specifically?”

“One edge of the courtyard is a line, and the adjacent edge is another line,” Rebecca waved her arms energetically, illustrating her point. “Then, using those two lines as a reference, I treat the entire courtyard like a sheet of paper. Every line in the magic circle is broken down into many key points, and the distance from each key point to the two edges of the courtyard can be calculated—just by scaling up the numbers from the manuscript. Calculations are a mage’s strong suit, after all!”

Calculations were indeed a mage’s strength, but most mages wouldn’t calculate like this!

Gawain stared at Rebecca in disbelief—her way of explaining was all over the place, and even Hetty probably didn’t fully understand what she meant. Yet Gawain did: she had established a coordinate system within the courtyard and, based on that, proportionally enlarged the magic circle from the manuscript.

This meant there was no need to stand on a high platform. Once the position of each key point was calculated, she just had to connect them according to the manuscript’s instructions.

But coming up with the idea alone wasn’t enough. Rebecca also needed strong spatial imagination and mental arithmetic skills—because this world lacked a fully developed system of mathematics and geometry. She either had to brute-force it with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, or invent her own formulas!

Of course, Rebecca’s method wasn’t the best. Gawain knew there were many drafting techniques from Earth that could be applied here, but so what?

In this world, in this era, Rebecca managing to get this far was already a miracle!

“Did you come up with this method yourself?” Gawain’s eyes lit up as if he’d discovered a rare treasure.

Rebecca scratched her head. “Not entirely. Part of it I saw in the notes of a wild mage, and the rest I figured out myself…”

That made sense.

Gawain understood now: he had read through the wild mage’s notes himself, and they did contain a lot of rudimentary geometry and math knowledge. Though not systematized, they were almost foundational. If Rebecca was naturally gifted in this area, it wasn’t surprising she could achieve what she had with some inspiration.

And even if inspired by the wild mage’s notes, her results were still incredible.

“Very good, very good method,” Gawain nodded approvingly. “Now tell me—why did you choose to bury the magic circle underground?”

“Oh, that’s because, ancestor, you said this magic circle was for the blacksmith’s workshop,” Rebecca nodded. “I figured blacksmiths and apprentices are different from mages, and their work is different too. Moving materials and making iron goods between the furnaces, they could easily damage the magic circle’s structure by accident. Also, burying the circle underground doesn’t affect its charging, and it won’t interfere with future construction on the surface. As long as everything stays on the circle’s radiation points, whether adding new furnaces or removing and rebuilding existing ones, it’ll be very convenient. How to put it… it’s just really convenient.”

Functional zoning, separation of energy supply and consumption, key systems encapsulated, scalability… a flood of technical terms flashed through Gawain’s mind, all fitting Rebecca’s approach. But the thought that struck him most was something else:

Rebecca realized this magic circle was meant for “ordinary people” like blacksmiths, and designed it so that “ordinary people could use it safely and conveniently”—even if it was as simple as burying it underground, the idea was spot on.

A mainstream mage would never consider that their magic circle might be used by commoners, but Rebecca… luckily, she was a non-mainstream mage who had spent five years only mastering a single fireball spell. Her thinking didn’t follow conventional mage logic at all!

“Did you think of all these ideas yourself?” Gawain snapped out of his brief astonishment and noticed the thoughtful look on Hetty’s face beside him. He couldn’t help but ask with a smile.

“I… never really thought about it,” Hetty said with a complicated expression. Rebecca’s ideas broke so many rules, but at the same time, Hetty could see their rationality, and even vaguely sensed the importance of “ordinary people being able to use it.” That seemed to be exactly what their ancestor had been obsessed with. “It’s impressive, but if the circle is buried, how do you monitor it? Although this circle, made of basic runes, isn’t as delicate as high-level circles, basic monitoring is still necessary. And if it really breaks, how do you repair it?”

“I left a lot of stakes like that,” Rebecca pointed to the wooden stakes scattered around the courtyard. “The ones with ropes tied to them are monitoring points. Later, I’ll replace them with iron rods plated in mithril. The rods will contact the most critical runes in the circle. If the circle has a problem, the corresponding rune will go dark. Since the mithril is charged long-term, it will quickly turn black and heat up when it loses power. That way, you can immediately tell which part of the circle is malfunctioning. When repairing, just dig up the ground in that area… It’s a bit more troublesome than traditional circles, but at least you don’t have to dig up the entire courtyard.”

As she spoke, Rebecca smiled proudly, shaking a stack of papers filled with dense symbols and lines—clearly her own drawings. “Also, this circle isn’t that easy to break. Ancestor, look, I rearranged the rune structure a bit—of course, the basic principles didn’t change. Based on the wild mage’s design, I connected runes that can have overlapping functions, then expanded layer by layer…”

Redundant systems…

Gawain’s eye twitched slightly as he glanced at the stakes Rebecca had set up as monitoring points—the original sensors.

Once Rebecca started babbling, it was hard to stop, especially when showing off her work. She continued, “…This way, the efficiency of the self-charging circle is slightly improved. Even if some runes get damaged, at worst the energy supply efficiency drops a bit. The energy-consuming parts connected to the circle won’t be affected much—because the whole circle was built with a surplus capacity…”

Rebecca excitedly rattled on until she finally stopped, realizing she’d been talking nonstop. She looked at Gawain a little anxiously. “Ancestor… are my ideas too crazy?”

Gawain didn’t know what expression to make. After a moment’s thought, he reached out and ruffled the girl’s hair. “No, you’re a genius.”

Rebecca blinked. “Huh?”

“And I have a suggestion,” Gawain said, glancing at her drawings and pointing at the connections in the redundant systems. “Make those rune connections easy to cut and re-fuse. If some runes get damaged, you can just cut the connection during repairs, then reconnect them afterward. That way, you don’t have to shut down the entire circle during maintenance.”

Rebecca’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah! Why didn’t I think of that… Ancestor, you really are so smart!”

Gawain’s eye twitched again. He knew Rebecca meant it sincerely, but suddenly he felt a bit hollow inside…

Girl, you’re the smartest one here!

After a moment’s pause, Gawain turned to Hetty. “Has no one ever noticed Rebecca’s talent before?”

“She’s always been outstanding in calculations and creative ideas,” Hetty chose her words carefully, “but those skills never came into play. A mage’s strength is judged by their spellcasting ability, and she’s almost always been at the bottom in that regard…”

“A waste of talent,” Gawain said bluntly, frowning. “Judging solely by spellcasting? Why not just compare strength with gorillas?”

Despite his harsh words, Gawain understood the logic behind this situation.

In an era when technology couldn’t drive a leap in civilization, personal combat prowess naturally became the standard for judging individual worth. Especially in a world filled with supernatural powers and fierce monsters, outstanding combat ability was essential for survival—without survival, how could there be technological innovation?

And as long as individual strength remained the standard, passed down generation after generation without major issues, while groups with wisdom but lacking power couldn’t convert their intelligence into strength (or at least not enough strength), this standard would likely persist forever.

“You can’t prove your wisdom will one day bring prosperity, but I’ve already proven my strength guarantees survival—that’s the reality.”

But that’s no reason for humanity to forever compete with gorillas in arm wrestling.

Rebecca truly had extraordinary talent, Gawain finally confirmed.

This fallen young lady, despised by everyone—the disgraced viscountess, shunned in noble circles because she was a Cecil descendant; scorned among mages because she couldn’t even cast a simple light spell; whispered about by merchants and commoners in other territories as the worst lord ever, issuing all sorts of wild decrees that never brought wealth to her lands or herself.

Because her talents lay in places no one could see or understand.

In the impoverished lower classes, no one could grasp her calculations. In the wealthy upper classes, who could afford mages or were mid-to-high level spellcasters themselves, no one needed her calculations—convenient magic solved everything, and if it couldn’t, stronger spells would.

With Eagle Eye and Mage’s Sight, why bother calculating coordinates on the ground? Professional mages could directly sense and control large magic circles. Why use sensors? Besides… a mediocre mage who only knew fireball would never get the chance to oversee building magical facilities.

That’s why Rebecca was so happy when she got permission from Gawain—it was the first time in her life she was allowed to fully use her talents.

“Ancestor…” Rebecca looked at Gawain nervously. “Do you think I…”

Gawain laughed and placed his large hand on her head. “You are the pride of the Cecil family.”

(End of chapter)