Chapter 76: The First Step of Art

The crystal inside the ruby vessel shattered into a puddle. Gawain and Hetty stood there, staring at each other in stunned silence.

After a long pause, Gawain twitched the corner of his mouth and forced out, “So… this means the star upgrade failed, right?”

Hetty blinked. “Huh?”

“Ahem, I mean, what’s going on here?” Gawain quickly cleared his throat, trying to cover up the slip of the tongue he’d just blurted out. “Did the magic circle draw energy too forcefully and just pulverize the crystal?”

A faint arcane glow shimmered in Hetty’s eyes as she carefully examined the residual magical traces inside the ruby vessel. The excitement on her face slowly faded. “No… I’m afraid it’s an inherent flaw in this type of crystal.”

“A flaw?” Gawain frowned, a sinking feeling creeping in—like when you pull a glowing card in a gacha game only to get the guaranteed consolation prize. “You mean it’s one-time use? Once charged and released, it’s guaranteed to break?”

If that were true, the value of these “man-made crystals” would plummet. But Gawain thought he could live with that. In this world, crystals capable of storing magic are extremely valuable materials. Mages classify them into two grades: high-quality crystals are pure and stable enough to have magic circles etched into them, allowing for stable operation. These serve as the core of many magical items, like the gems embedded in staves. Lower-grade crystals, less stable, can’t hold magic circles but can store magical energy, making them important strategic resources for spellcasters.

However, until now, energy-storing crystals could only be harvested from nature. Artificial crystals couldn’t replace them because they suffered from severe “natural dissipation”—the magic stored inside would leak away at an alarming rate, vanishing entirely within days, rendering them useless. As a result, man-made crystals have only ever been used as auxiliary materials or even just decorative pieces in noble castles.

If Rebecca’s haphazardly made crystals only had the “one-time use” flaw, Gawain didn’t see it as a big problem. Hetty had confirmed these crystals were stable, so at worst, they could be used to make disposable magical tools. For someone used to the industrial age like Gawain, “disposable” didn’t mean worthless—it meant cheap, fast, and mass-producible.

But Hetty shook her head. “No, it’s not one-time use. The magic stored inside simply can’t be extracted for use.”

Gawain was completely dumbfounded. “How is that possible?”

“The magic loses its ‘coherence’—probably the moment it’s extracted. The once orderly magic becomes chaotic ‘waste energy.’ The instant it’s drawn out, it dissipates. Even if you collect it before it vanishes, it’s useless… because it’s ‘waste energy.’”

Waste energy—a term only mages use, also called disordered magic. It’s magic that can’t participate in any spell reaction or be used to cast spells, like a note that’s gone out of tune and lost all value. Disordered magic is a byproduct of many spells, the “residue” left after a mage finishes casting. The most infamous event involving disordered magic that Gawain knew of was the Deep Blue Well explosion a year before the fall of the Gondor Empire—massive amounts of disordered magic appeared inside the “Deep Blue,” causing it to run at full power but output no energy, eventually melting down and exploding.

So, magic goes in the crystal, but what comes out is just scrap. It was like some shady game from his past life where you put in equipment and gems but got worthless ore and a server-wide taunt horn in return.

The truth was clear: Rebecca had accidentally created a little white crystal block that would drive any power-gamer mad.

Gawain looked at the powdery crystal dust with disappointment and shook his head. “Maybe someday Rebecca will figure out how to make usable energy-storing crystals… For now, let’s just hope. Enough about that—earlier I saw you fiddling with those antique crystals. Any progress?”

Hetty perked up but sounded apologetic. “Sorry, ancestor. Many of the magic circles and rune patterns in those crystals have been lost to time, and they’re combined in ways that are hard to understand. With the limited precision of today’s crystal resonators, I’ve only been able to identify and reconstruct a small portion of them into magic circles… Please come over here.”

Gawain followed her to the desk, where she pulled out some carefully organized magic circle diagrams. Besides various symbols and lines, neat handwritten notes were scrawled alongside—her annotations.

As Gawain studied the diagrams, Hetty shared her thoughts. “The magic system of the ancient Gondor Empire was very different from today’s. Their magic circles were ‘layered,’ with each layer connected by key nodes. Those nodes themselves formed another magic circle, like a set of nested layers. With current technology, it’s impossible to build such a structure. I can’t even imagine how ancient Gondor mages managed to cram such a complex set of runes into a tiny crystal…”

Gawain looked up and smiled. “They probably started by preparing a room almost free of dust and floating particles. Then, inside that room, they built a huge magic circle model using magic-conductive materials. Next, they evacuated the air from the room. Finally, they shone powerful magic from the Deep Blue Well onto the model, placing a blank crystal to be processed at the focal point. Using special polarization techniques, the magic would imprint the layered circles into the crystal, layer by layer—one exposure, one magic circle set burned in. They could make twenty-seven crystals a minute.”

With a clatter, a dip pen fell from Hetty’s hand, snapping in two.

“Wow, the ancients were really something!”

“So this is where I differ most from people of this era,” Gawain continued. “You think many things are precious and rare, and that masters painstakingly craft and pass them down through generations. But to me, these things should be cheap and mass-produced. It’s a shame—losing the Deep Blue Well and the first generation dying out meant you had no choice but to develop this way.”

Hetty’s expression twisted oddly, feeling like a disappointing descendant.

Just then, Gawain’s gaze was suddenly drawn to one of the diagrams. “Hmm?”

Hetty hurried over and, seeing where he was looking, explained, “That’s the magic circle for controlling crystal self-destruction. You know, these standard crystals have a last function when they’re about to collapse—they self-destruct. So this layer of the magic circle is imprinted separately from the other runes, and it’s unusually simple, making it easier to reconstruct. But the friend-or-foe recognition part related to the detonation hasn’t been restored—I still haven’t figured out which runes make that incredible function work. I’m just not talented in that area…”

“Wait, forget about those recognition runes for now,” Gawain interrupted her self-criticism—this granddaughter was great in every way except that whenever she thought her ancestor was unhappy, she’d immediately spiral into self-doubt and reflection, which was exhausting. She was supposed to be a confident queen-type, yet acted like a perpetual victim around him. “I saw your note here… You said this magic circle differs from conventional ones. Instead of releasing the energy stored in the crystal to the outside to cause an explosion, it detonates the energy inside the crystal itself, using the crystal as the explosive?”

Hetty blinked and nodded. “Yes. Usually, similar magic circles guide energy out of the storage crystal to produce effects externally. But since this one’s for self-destruction, it skips the guiding step and directly detonates the energy inside the crystal. The exploding crystal shards themselves are highly destructive. Honestly, I’ve never encountered this kind of magic circle before. It’s simple, but any sane mage wouldn’t use it—it completely destroys the precious storage crystal…”

She trailed off, clearly not stupid and already realizing the potential of this thing.

Their eyes both turned to the ruby vessel on the lab table. The tiny crystal dust inside seemed to glow anew in their gaze.

That was the light of art. (No doubt.)

“The magic extracted from those crystals instantly becomes waste energy, but when stored inside, it’s stable…” Gawain said slowly. “So why don’t we just skip extracting it and detonate it directly inside the crystal?”

Hetty nodded slowly. “Yeah, and since these ‘crystals’ are refined from stone and worthless anyway…”

Normal mages wouldn’t use a detonation magic circle that destroys the storage crystal because those crystals are valuable. They’d just add a structure to guide the energy out, releasing the explosion while preserving the crystal. If the effect is the same, why destroy the crystal?

But if there’s a crystal whose stored magic can’t be extracted, and it’s basically worthless?

Then this thing is practically made for self-destruction—its nature as straightforward and stubborn as its inventor.

Suddenly, Gawain’s mind filled with countless bold, thrilling ideas, each accompanied by dazzling sparks and earth-shaking sounds. They were the future, hope, the sword and shield to protect people and land, the light that would dispel the dark clouds left by failed gunpowder experiments…

This was art.

Art on a level that could rival the Louvre.

Gawain suppressed his excitement and suddenly asked a very practical question with a strange expression: “How do we even etch a detonation magic circle onto a crystal the size of a grain of rice?”

Hetty calmed down and thought seriously before answering uncertainly, “Maybe… it doesn’t have to be etched onto the crystal itself, because this is an ‘interference-type’ magic circle.”

(Mind blown. Coming the day after tomorrow!)

(End of chapter)