Chapter 81: Monster, Monster

By the time Gawain arrived at the southeast corner of the camp, a group of soldiers had already gathered there. The Byron knights patrolling nearby had rushed over as soon as they heard the commotion, quickly restoring order and dispersing the braver civilians.

To be honest, even without the soldiers’ intervention, there wouldn’t have been many civilians gathered. Not only were they intimidated by the nobles’ authority, but they also feared magic itself. Heddy’s magical laboratory was, to those who couldn’t wield supernatural powers, a strange and terrifying place. The explosions coming from inside only heightened their dread. While curiosity is human nature, some spectacles are too frightening even for the boldest to watch.

Gawain saw a large hole blasted open in one wall of the lab, thick black smoke billowing out. The smoke carried a sharp, acrid stench of burning, and faint glimmers of residual magical energy flickered within the haze. Heddy and Rebecca had just burst out of the building, both covered in soot and grime. Heddy was struggling to summon water to wash the smoke and ash from her hair and face, while Rebecca, spotting Gawain, rushed over excitedly. “Ancestor! The power of art really is incredible!”

Gawain gently held back the clearly overexcited Rebecca, his face full of concern as he looked at the two who looked like they’d just been rescued from a coal mine disaster—the culprits and victims of the experiment gone wrong. “Are you two alright? How did the wall get blown apart like this…?”

The explosion was more powerful than he had anticipated. He had assumed that with protective magic in place, and the fact that only some unsealed crystal shards had detonated, the damage wouldn’t be severe.

But he had overlooked one thing: this wasn’t gunpowder from Earth, but a magical blast. For explosive magic, whether the crystals were sealed in a sturdy container or not made little difference to the force of the explosion…

“A large number of crystal shards detonated simultaneously, which exceeded expectations,” Heddy finally managed to rinse herself off with the summoned water, then stepped forward to answer Gawain’s question. She flicked a water orb at Rebecca’s face with a scolding tone. “And more importantly, she placed two samples too close together! Double the amount of crystals exploded at once!”

Gawain shot Rebecca a silent look—today, that silly girl was definitely going to get a scolding…

After confirming they were both unharmed, Gawain finally relaxed a little. Then he turned his attention to the damage. “How bad is it?”

Heddy winced. “The magic circle I was using for the experiment was destroyed, but luckily, at the moment of the explosion, I diverted most of the energy toward an empty wall. The expensive crystal resonator wasn’t damaged—though half the wall will need repairs.”

Gawain glanced at Rebecca again. Since the most valuable crystal resonator was intact, the silly girl probably wouldn’t get beaten to death after all…

Rebecca, still oblivious—perhaps still dazed—noticed Gawain’s gaze and asked blankly, “Ancestor, why are you looking at me like that?”

Gawain thought for a moment. “Can you take a hit?”

Rebecca scratched her head. “I guess so… I used to fight wolves a lot when I was little.”

“Then you’re fine,” Gawain waved his hand dismissively. “How many samples did you use this time? How’s the rune trigger working?”

“Just… two small piles,” Rebecca gestured roughly at the amount. When she mentioned the rune trigger, her face lit up with pride. “And I have to tell you, the rune trigger really works! Connecting it to the explosion circle as the ignition energy is more than enough. Once the circle has that initial energy, the rest of the explosion can be sustained by the crystals themselves. Next time, I want to see if the rune trigger’s magic can activate other types of rune groups… Ah, if only we had a more precise measurement of magic power—so we could know exactly how much magic the rune trigger produces when it closes, and calculate how much magic an initial rune group consumes to operate…”

Rebecca’s thoughts began to wander as she spoke, but halfway through, she snapped back and started reporting to Gawain. “Ancestor, you know, Aunt Heddy didn’t believe me at first. She didn’t think the rune trigger would produce a magic shock when it closed—she said it doesn’t have a structure to concentrate energy…”

Speaking of the rune trigger, Heddy actually praised Rebecca. “That thing really is a clever invention. Although some mages have tried cutting a complete magic circle into parts and recombining them to control magical devices, no one thought to make this splitting and recombining into a fixed pattern. Rebecca’s rune trigger uses a pair of fixed runes as a ‘connection key,’ which fits perfectly with what you often tell us about ‘universality’ and ‘standardization.’”

That’s because Rebecca designed the rune trigger from the start as something “ordinary people could use.” She even considered that if the rune trigger broke, blacksmiths and apprentices at the steelworks could repair it themselves. So she simplified the structure to the extreme—even down to just one set of runes.

Who among the mainstream mages in this world would have thought of that?

As for Rebecca’s offhand mention of a “standard magic value,” Gawain made a mental note.

Although modern human technology can’t precisely measure or standardize magic, seven hundred years ago during the Gondor era, there were already early attempts. Some magisters, faced with the nearly limitless magic from the Deep Blue Well, pondered how to harness that vast energy more accurately and systematically. Unfortunately, before they could finalize their findings, the Deep Blue Well exploded.

But since Gawain planned to develop based on this world’s magic, standardization was inevitable.

“First, fix the magic lab,” Gawain said, snapping out of his thoughts as he looked at Heddy and Rebecca. “Then, the crystal explosion experiments must continue—but the method needs adjusting. The crystals’ power exceeded expectations, so testing indoors is too dangerous. I’m designating the gentle slope near the river on the east side of the camp as your new testing ground. It’s open terrain, perfect for this kind of work. Also, think about how to make a container to serve as the ‘shell’ for Rebecca’s crystals, turning them into a truly usable weapon.”

Rebecca and Heddy nodded eagerly, taking down his instructions. Then Gawain suddenly remembered something crucial. “Wait—have you thought about how to delay the explosion timing of the circle?”

“Delay the explosion?” Heddy was momentarily confused, then realized: not everyone could use a telekinetic hand to press the rune trigger from a distance like she could.

With the current rune trigger and explosion circle setup, it’s basically a “press and explode” device. That means it’s a suicide weapon—you press the button, and whether the enemy dies or not, you’re probably dead too…

The ancient Gondor crystals relied on a near-black-tech “friend-or-foe recognition” function to ensure safety, plus a complex automatic detonation mechanism that kicked in if the crystals lost their owner’s control. But these rune groups are so alien to today’s mages that even drawing them on paper is difficult, let alone recreating them.

Heddy’s mind raced through countless runes and circles, trying to meet Gawain’s “delayed detonation” requirement. She thought of adding a slow-charging structure within the rune groups—once the rune trigger is pressed, it would start charging, and only when fully charged would it activate the next stage of the explosion circle. But clearly, the instantaneous magic from the rune trigger wasn’t enough for that.

Rebecca’s mind was also spinning fast, but besides runes and circles, she was imagining springs and linkages…

She was trying to meet the ancestor’s demand through mechanical means, not just magic.

That’s the difference between a mage who knows a dozen spells and one who only knows a fireball.

The two great-great-great… great-granddaughters, full of ideas and carrying Gawain’s tasks, left the scene. Gawain stood there, watching the lab still emitting wisps of smoke, feeling a surge of emotion.

A world with magic…

Indeed, even the first notes of its art were completely different from Earth’s.

As an explosive requiring a specific magic circle to detonate, Rebecca’s crystals posed no problem in power or safety—but delaying the explosion was a huge challenge.

On Earth, gunpowder only needs a fuse.

In the blink of an eye, the Cecil Pioneer Camp had been rooted in this land for a month. King Francis II’s promised personnel and supplies hadn’t arrived yet, but clear news said they were on their way—this year, the Dolgon River’s high water season was about half a month later than usual, delaying aid from the kingdom’s interior.

Gawain had long expected such delays. In this slow, backward world, he couldn’t rely on the precise, efficient social systems of Earth. So his camp construction plans remained unaffected, proceeding at the planned pace.

Many tents had been replaced by sturdy wooden houses suitable for long-term use. Since cement was still out of reach, Gawain planned next to open a new area on the camp’s west side to build brick kilns for firing clay bricks—while cement had failed, brickmaking was a known technology here.

However, traditional brickmaking relied on manual labor, with very low efficiency and high costs. In places like Tansang Town, only the bourgeoisie could afford brick houses.

Before he could implement this plan, an unexpected event disrupted the camp’s rhythm.

Several serfs sent to the mountains to gather quartz sand returned in terror. Two were seriously injured, and one had been lost forever in the mountains.

They had been attacked by a “mutant.”

(End of chapter)