Chapter 149: Ahead is humanity, behind is divinity! (33)

Having been on White Sturgeon Island for over half a year, Kawendi had been under pressure all along, and the pressure kept growing.

Although the Baron had never demanded results from Kawendi, and often comforted and guided him during daily discussions of arcane arts, Kawendi himself knew he had to produce achievements!

One massive investment after another, with manpower and material support given without expectation of return, in less than half a year the total investment already exceeded the combined two‑year income of his former employer, Marquis Henry! The support was truly enormous—even his father, who had always supported him, felt ashamed before the Baron and was embarrassed to ask the Baron for money again.

But Kawendi had to speak up.

Because the experimental equipment was still imperfect and needed improvement.

It was like climbing halfway up a rock face—if Kawendi didn't grit his teeth and persevere, the strength he'd already expended would be wasted.

Every time Kawendi applied for funding, he mustered his courage, but the Baron never said more than a word; just one glance at the experiment's content, and he would approve it immediately.

Sometimes Kawendi didn't even need to apply; extra funds would be allocated directly.

As a mage seeking the world's truth, encountering such a lord was truly a blessing from the Creator.

If possible, Kawendi even felt he could devote everything to the Baron.

But Kawendi knew what the Baron wanted, and he also knew what he himself wanted.

Kawendi also knew very well that only by presenting the Creator's truth to the Baron would be the best repaying him.

Thus, Kawendi studied day after day, forgetting sleep and food, even passing out from exhaustion several times.

If the Baron had not promptly sent healing potions, Kawendi's body might have already collapsed.

And thanks to the effect of those miraculous potions, Kawendi could always face challenges in peak physical condition.

Now, after half a year of effort, Kawendi finally lifted a corner of the Creator's veil and caught a glimpse of the truth beneath.

This made Kawendi wildly excited! In the enormous laboratory, after sending out a communication, Kawendi paced back and forth repeatedly, over and over organizing what he would say, the experiment to demonstrate, and his outlook for the future.

The assistants and apprentices beside him remained silent, each face showing a restrained excitement and anxiety.

The excitement came from discovering the truth; the anxiety came from worrying that the truth was too insignificant to satisfy the lord.

Everyone in Kawendi's laboratory knew the lord's enormous investment.

The problem was that while the laboratory received the greatest investment, its output was the smallest, so it often faced mockery and sneering from other laboratories' peers.

This left everyone holding back a breath of resentment.

During a wait that felt endless to everyone but actually lasted less than half an hour, the lord finally arrived.

As usual, his attire was simple and even somewhat plain, but his tall stature and distinctive aura made him instantly recognizable in a crowd.

Unlike usual, besides the regular guards, there was an additional young female mage with an unfamiliar face.

At a glance, this female mage seemed anything but ordinary, giving a faint sense that she possessed immensely deep magical power.

But no one paid much attention to the stranger; the mages focused only on the lord.

As usual, the lord spoke in a warm, gentle tone: 'Young people, show me your wisdom.'

Kawendi had been waiting for those words; he waved his hand firmly: 'Come on, guys, let's begin!'

Following those words, over two hundred young, bright research mages hurried to the rear of a massive rune ring with a diameter exceeding 120 meters and a height exceeding 10 meters.

This is the core of Kawendi's laboratory, named the 'Truth Law Ring'.

Its construction cost 320,000 Ogres, and this was only possible because White Sturgeon Island's transmutation alchemy could provide many inexpensive materials.

If placed elsewhere in the Natural Alliance, even 1,000,000 Ogres might not be enough! Without a doubt, this is the most expensive artifact ever made in the Natural Alliance, a purely magical‑research construction not intended for war or displays of power.

Upon seeing this colossus, the accompanying Queen Kao was greatly startled and couldn't help asking, 'This must have cost a lot, right?'

Just from the visible parts alone, she saw countless purple‑copper wires, estimated to total over 100 tons.

Other arcane gold, krypton gold, mithril, and other magical alloys were everywhere, as if they were free.

Ailiya heard this and said softly, 'Madam, this cost more than 300,000 Ogres.'

'300,000 Ogres isn't enough? I think at least 800,000 Ogres are needed.'

Queen Kao had seen everything under the sun, and her eyes were exceptionally sharp.

After careful observation and a rough estimate, she felt that 300,000 Ogres could absolutely not produce such a huge device.

Luosen chuckled and said, 'If placed in Kao, it would probably need 1,100,000 Ogres. But we White Sturgeon Island have some material advantages—many raw materials are cheap—so it's indeed around 300,000 Ogres.'

Queen Kao grew even more astonished: '1,100,000 Ogres? At this juncture, shouldn't you be pouring all that money into building warships instead of throwing it here?'

That amount could build two 3,000‑ton Silver Moon Giant Ships.

She had always thought Luosen was a very rational lord, concerned only with profit and intrigue, an ambitious contender for world domination—but now she felt she might have misjudged him.

She couldn't help asking, 'What is the purpose of this thing?'

'Exploring the world's truth.'

The queen shook her head repeatedly: 'That's too grandiose; I mean, what can it actually do?'

Luosen shook his head: 'It's a research direction concerning the conversion of nobility and commoner status, but exactly what it can do remains unclear for now.'

'Unclear?'

The queen blinked slightly, then turned to survey the pacing, excited arcane master on the field:

'This person seems somewhat familiar to me; what is his name?'

'Kawendi, an arcane master, happens to be a Kao native who once served Count Henry.'

The queen thought carefully, then suddenly recalled: 'I remember now—he was working on a pure power‑conversion magic array, right?'

'Exactly.'

'I have also seen this array; back then I thought it was decent, but the initial investment would be enormous—my preliminary estimate was at least seven or eight hundred thousand Ogres—and when I tried to persuade the cabinet to invest, it was unanimously rejected.'

Kao's annual fiscal revenue is roughly over 60 million Ogres, and the yearly research funding allocated to the Magic Department is about 2 million Ogres.

This is already a relatively high proportion.

If we were to squeeze out seven or eight hundred thousand Ogres from that to support a commoner‑born arcane master, other magical research would be greatly affected.

The key is that this arcane master's research might not yield any results; the seven or eight hundred thousand Ogres are merely a baseline, and nobody knows how much would truly be needed.

Thus the queen could only feel helpless.

She once believed that no lord in this world would ever support such a research plan with a feverish mind.

As it turned out, she was wrong.

In the magically barren Weilan, on a remote little island, there actually was a tiny baron who lived in a shabby little castle, and even the dinner table for his family of five had no more than ten dishes.

Yet he was willing to spend such a huge sum that even the kingdom would balk at, almost like a moth flying into flame, to support magical research.

This is sheer stupidity! Utter stupidity!

But for some unknown reason, a voice deep inside the queen's heart said: "Gazing at the starry sky is not foolish; it is the divine spark within mortal hearts."

These were the words of the Kao Sage Gerard from two hundred years ago, and it was precisely this sage who inaugurated the new era of magic.

The queen could not help but ask: "Baron, in your eyes, is truth more important than royal authority?"

Luosen looked at each young mage about to be ready, at each pair of eyes filled with fervent light, and nodded slightly.

"Royal authority is not eternal, but truth can be."

After filling one's stomach, one always needs some pursuit.

In Luosen's eyes, power is a means to achieve goals, not the goal itself. Exploring truth and changing the world is his goal.

The queen said nothing, but the hand hidden in her sleeve clenched tightly.

These words reminded her of herself over forty years ago, when she was young, when she, like the baron now, had spared no effort in pursuit of higher magical attainment.

Alas, her bedridden king husband ruined it all! At this moment, the young mages were all in place, beginning to charge the various key parts of the Truth Magic Circle with magic.

Kavendi stood aside, holding a newly developed lightning walkie-talkie, constantly coordinating the work of the mages at each section.

It was an extremely tedious job, but this mage carried it out in an orderly manner, showing he was thoroughly familiar with every detail of the Truth Magic Circle down to his bones.

Amid the calm words that suppressed enthusiasm, the queen's tumultuous soul gradually regained tranquility.

"I now know why the first Black Stone warship appeared at White Sturgeon Island."

"Obviously, the Black Stone warship is merely the beginning."

Having said that, the queen turned her head to look at the island lord closely watching the magic circle: "After conquering Weilan, will you continue onward?"

She had no doubt the baron could conquer Weilan; with just those two tricks of Lai De, he'd be jumping about in no time.

Luosen turned his head to the queen: "That question is rather far-reaching; who knows what the future will hold?"

The queen startled, then broke into a laugh: "That's true as well."

After a while, the Truth Magic Circle finished charging; Kavendi ran to Luosen, face alight with excitement: "Lord, look at that test platform in the middle—that is where pure force converges."

Luosen nodded: "I've already seen it; that big bucket on the test platform is the weight to be lifted, right?"

"Not the bucket, but the water inside it—and it holds a full thirty tons of water."

Kavendi nodded excitedly and continued: "Thanks to the lord's procurement of the spirit meteorite, I gained a fresh inspiration and thus found an auxiliary material with astonishing effect."

As he spoke, he raised the walkie-talkie and said: "Now we begin to channel the lightning, entering the final preheat!"

With those words came a sound of "humm~ buzz buzz~ crackle~", and every rune on the Truth Magic Circle lit up, faintly revealing blue arcs of electricity.

"The preheat will take about five minutes; its purpose is to preheat the new material, and its effect is to bring the material into an ignited state."

Luosen asked: "What is the final conversion efficiency?"

"It jumped straight to 0.5%!"

Luosen shuddered: "This is a qualitative leap!"

"It was originally below 0.01%, and now it has surged fiftyfold."

Kavendi also felt very proud: "I have found a completely new direction. The magical formulas tell me that continuing along this path still holds great potential for improvement."

The queen watched, heart pounding, as she gazed at the lightning coiling around the magic circle and asked: "Just how much lightning power has been infused this time?"

She felt that the lightning power poured into the magic circle had reached an inconceivable degree.

In her lifetime, she had never imagined that mortals could simultaneously command such vast lightning power.

By comparison, the lightning she had previously infused into the spirit meteorite was practically child's play.

Kavendi did not know the queen, but since she had been brought by the lord, he patiently explained: "Approximately three hundred thousand degrees of lightning were infused."

He then added: "This is the lord's defined unit of measure; one degree of lightning can raise the temperature of 700 kilograms of water by two tiers."

"In this world, water temperature has a unit called the tier; roughly two tiers per degree."

The queen made a rough estimate, her heart jolted violently: "This power is truly astonishing!"

Luosen thought to himself: "Of course it's astonishing; I even had a dedicated rune-fired power plant built as a supplement."

Five minutes passed, the preheat ended, and Kavendi issued the final command: "Activate the magic circle."

"Hum~~"

The 120-meter-diameter magic circle emitted a dull yet mighty tremor.

Immediately thereafter, at the center of the magic circle, a mass of clear water weighing thirty tons slowly rose, then in the air automatically contracted into an almost perfect sphere, and remained stably suspended at about twenty meters in height.

Beneath the water sphere there was nothing supporting it, and the sphere itself had no attached lightning, wind, or any other perceivable force.

It simply hung there in midair, utterly still, like the most perfect crystal in the world.

Coincidentally, a strand of golden sunlight pierced the clouds and fell upon the crystal-clear water sphere, instantly refracting into brilliant seven-colored radiance.

At that moment, it seemed as if the Creator were crowning mortal wisdom.

At that moment, everyone held their breath, gazing with solemn faces.

Luosen secretly thought: "This utterly surpasses my previous life."

Based on this technology, countless inconceivable magical creations will emerge.

About ten minutes later, the power of the Truth Magic Circle was exhausted, and the perfect water sphere splashed back into the bucket with a 'whoosh', instantly snapping everyone out of their awe.

Luosen smiled: "Master Kavendi, if one day earthly mortals can ascend to become heavenly gods, then one of the hands lifting them up will be yours."

Kavendi's eyes welled with tears: "Lord, I am merely standing upon your hand."

Luosen patted his shoulder and loudly said: "Young people, I clearly see the fruits of your labor."

What I want to say is, your achievements are astonishing.

Today might be a very important temporal node in human history.

In tens of millions of years, our descendants may define today as a dividing line.

Looking back from today, we are mortals; but looking forward from today, it is the beginning of mortals becoming gods!

So, press forward on the path of arcane arts, young lads. Leave the rest to me to handle!

Whoosh~~

The young mages instantly burst into enthusiastic cheers.

Everyone's hearts were filled with burning fire, and thus the applause continued without cease.

After Luosen gave further warm encouragement, he then took the Queen and left the Cavendish Laboratory.

During the return journey, after a long silence, the Queen reclining on the back seat leather chair suddenly said: "Even if the conversion efficiency of pure force is 0.5%, it's still not very useful."

Moreover, this thing is too complex, too big.

Luosen smiled faintly: "There isn't any now, but there will be in the future."

Moreover, on the road to achieving each goal, our mortal understanding of the world will also gradually approach its essence step by step.

Actually, it can already have practical effect now.

As long as he publicizes the Truth Law Ring, he will surely attract a large number of idealistic research mages to join White Sturgeon Island.

In this world, the vast majority of people put profit first, but there is also a kind of person who is a romantic idealist.

The former allows humanity to survive; the latter will make humanity transcend the mundane!

The Queen fell silent again.

After a long while, she suddenly turned her head to look at Luosen, and using Spiritual Whisper, she spoke a startling sentence with utmost seriousness.

"If the Baron can conquer Kao, with Kao's manpower and material resources, it's likely the Truth Law Ring could be expanded tenfold."

(End of chapter)