Until Episode 222. (1)
I got more than I wanted from the capital and even solved Piote’s problem.
I wish things would always go smoothly like this, but not everything went according to Ghislaine’s plan.
“Still not done?”
“Yes, it seems it’s not that easy.”
Claude answered Ghislaine’s question with a nonchalant tone.
The development of new materials entrusted to the Dwarves and the construction of the large incubator assigned to the Mages took longer than expected.
I wasn’t particularly worried about the new material development. I had provided all the necessary ingredients, so it would definitely be successful if they just took their time.
In my past life, Galbarik managed to find a way and succeed despite not knowing anything.
However, the humidity magic used in the large incubator was a problem Ghislaine couldn’t solve.
“So… the incubator design hasn’t even properly started?”
“Exactly! We need to create a humidity control magic, but making a magic spell is no easy task. Unless you’re a Dragon who can manipulate magic. Do Humans even have any magic that was made from scratch?”
“Hmm…”
Well, even high-level Mages at the 7th or 8th Circle couldn’t easily create new magic. Most of them were merely applying and combining existing spells.
As Ghislaine fell into deep thought, Claude cautiously suggested.
“How about we stop for a moment and have them work on something else? It’d be a shame to let the Dwarves and Mages just fool around.”
Other retainers supported Claude’s suggestion.
“That’s right. You value efficiency the most, my Lord, don’t you?”
“If we assign the Dwarves and Mages to different tasks, their work speed will increase significantly.”
“Since we’re making quick progress, is it really necessary to have those two things right now?”
Ghislaine shook his head. To advance more rapidly, those two were absolutely essential.
He tapped the table with his fingers while maintaining a serious expression and suddenly brought up an unexpected topic.
“If those Northern Barbarians cast a curse, the target definitely dies.”
Claude was taken aback by that statement.
“Whoa, seriously? Is that even possible? Is there an incredible shaman among them?”
“They keep it up until the target dies.”
“…….”
“Even if the target dies of old age, they’ll believe it was due to the curse. I’ve heard there’s one who’s cursed someone for 30 years.”
“…….”
“That mindset is definitely worth learning. We’ll keep going until it works. Tell them to focus on developing the humidity magic and make sure they succeed.”
Everyone shook their heads at the Lord’s determination. Once he got fired up like that, there was no stopping him.
Since he had a history of succeeding through sheer stubbornness, there was no way to stop him. The retainers resigned themselves, thinking things would somehow work out this time too.
The Mages were the ones suffering under Ghislaine’s relentless drive. They were researching day in and day out, but how could these average Mages create new magic?
Ultimately, the research was left solely to Vanessa, while Alfoy and the other Mages were too busy just watching from the sidelines.
“Uh… this is impossible… We can’t create magic.”
“Right, the Lord has given us an impossible task this time.”
“Even the Tower Lord can’t make magic, how can we?”
While the Mages were uttering their defeated remarks from the sidelines, Vanessa silently dedicated herself to her research.
Alfoy and the Mages secretly enjoyed this situation. They could keep lounging around, using research as an excuse.
Hwang secretly liked it. It meant he could lay around and play under the guise of research.
“Hehe, vacation time, vacation time!”
“Our Vanessa works too hard. Vanessa is the best! I trust you!”
“Ah, I wish they’d just let me do research all the time.”
After a few days of lounging, the mages had completely zonked out.
But they overlooked one thing: Vanessa would naturally conduct experiments while researching.
“Hmm, I guess I should give it a try.”
With a pile of books stacked beside her, Vanessa suddenly stood up after sitting like a glued statue for days.
Alfoy, who was craning his neck to see what was up, was surprised when she approached him quickly.
“Why? Why? Did you figure something out?”
“I’m going to try an experiment.”
“How?”
“Just a moment.”
With dark circles under her eyes, Vanessa suddenly grabbed Alfoy’s wrist. His face turned slightly red at her sudden advance.
“W-wait… this is too sudden! I mean, we’ve grown a bit close but coming on this strong… I’m still not mentally prepared… Uggghhh!”
Before he could finish his nonsense, Alfoy instantly had his magic drained and fainted.
Vanessa and the mages always wore bracelets engraved with the word ‘Sharnel’ to transfer magic.
They were always ready to have their magic sucked by Vanessa.
As Alfoy collapsed, the nearby mages scrambled back, but Vanessa didn’t care and immediately began casting the magic she had been planning.
Ziiiiiing!
A magic circle appeared in the air. Vanessa stared at the slowly rotating magic circle for a while, then shook her head.
“Failure.”
She showed a brief expression of disappointment but soon bit her lip and reignited her enthusiasm.
Even a genius finds it tough to create new magic. It’s actually strange to succeed at the first try.
Vanessa revised a few formulas in her mind and approached another mage.
The mage, sensing his doom, pleaded with a trembling voice.
“W-wait! I have a fiancée I haven’t mentioned until now! So don’t just grab my hand recklessly!”
The mage got his magic drained and collapsed next to Alfoy. It looked like two mummies lying down.
Ziiing!
A new magic circle was generated and began to spin in the air. Vanessa shook her head again.
With her eyes darkened and her expression gone, the mages stepped back as she approached.
By the looks of her, one could see that madness was gripping her.
Feeling a sense of madness emanating from Vanessa, the mages either fled or tried to break their bracelets.
But sadly, even after devouring two mages, Vanessa still had a bit of magic left.
“HOLD.”
With that one word, all the mages froze in place. She had bound dozens of them with just a little magic.
Even for a 6th Circle mage, this was no easy feat. Her magic-casting skills were truly remarkable.
“Don’t come any closer! I’ve only held my mom’s hand, never a girl’s hand!”
“Kahhh! Don’t do this!”
“Help meee!”
One by one, the mages got their magic drained and collapsed. In the meantime, Vanessa meticulously cast spells dozens of times to find and fix the issues.
But the desired effect didn’t come out. After continuous failures, the mages eventually fainted, completely drained of magic.
“Tch…”
Vanessa bit her lip and clenched her fist.
There were no mages left to absorb magic from. She would have to wait several days to replenish her reserves.
Frustrated, she wanted to succeed quickly so the Territory Residents could enjoy all the meat they wanted.
But with her current abilities, it was simply inadequate. It seemed she needed to be at the level of a dragon to create magic.
“What to do? I need more magic to continue the experiments.”
She wanted to conserve the Runestones as much as possible, knowing they were vital resources for the Territory’s development.
With so many facilities that needed Runestones, it was burdensome to spend them on magic experiments. With each failure, enormous amounts of Runestones would vanish.
“Well then.
Still, making the Large Incubator is an important project for the development of the territory.
While Vanessa was pondering what to do, Ghislaine came by.
“Whoa, what happened to you? Is your research not going well?”
“Y-Your Lordship…”
As soon as Vanessa saw Ghislaine, her eyes lit up, and she stumbled forward towards him.
Just looking at her messy hair and gaunt face made it clear how much she was pouring her spirit into her research and experiments.
Seeing her approach like a zombie, Ghislaine whispered to Gillian beside him.
“Uh, no dark magician showed up while I was gone, right? Like, did they perform a resurrection ritual or something?”
“……”
Vanessa’s appearance was indeed that bad.
She stood in front of Ghislaine, reaching out her hand, and said, “My Lord, could I borrow a bit of mana…?”
The magic power used by mages is refined differently than the mana of knights, so their properties are a bit different. However, since the source is the same, it wasn’t completely unusable.
Sure, compared to a mage’s magic power, the efficiency would definitely drop, but since Vanessa was skilled in controlling magic power, she could use it to some extent.
Feeling the madness flickering in her eyes, Ghislaine took a step back.
“Um… I could lend it to you if you really need it, but I think it’d be better to rest a bit?”
“No… I need to hurry… If you’re struggling, just call the knights.”
“No way, if they drain mana too quickly, they’ll just drop dead. Poor things.”
Those who used up all their mana would end up coughing up blood and collapsing. Forcing it would definitely result in a high chance of death.
Still, Vanessa didn’t give up. If left like this, she was clearly going to forcibly take Ghislaine’s mana to continue her experiments.
Ghislaine patted Vanessa on the shoulder and said, “You don’t actually need to create a humidity control spell.”
“Eh?”
Vanessa couldn’t understand and questioned him.
To make the much larger incubator work properly compared to the existing ones, temperature control and humidity control spells were absolutely necessary.
But Ghislaine shrugged and continued, “In the end, the goal is to keep the humidity steady, right? Once you confirm the humidity level, you can adjust it manually. For instance, wood absorbs moisture, so you could put sawdust down and check for weight changes… Water evaporates, so you could put it in a cup and check its weight… There are many methods.”
Of course, Ghislaine didn’t know detailed methods for verifying humidity. He was just recalling a commonly heard phrase from his mercenary days.
“Hey! It’s dry, so sprinkle some water on the ground!”
Because of the nature of mercenaries, they had to endure various climates while traveling through different regions. While staying in dry areas, they often sprinkled a lot of water on the floor and kept a big water jug in their tents.
It was the same even now. In the barracks where soldiers stayed, they would hang laundry and sprinkle water on the floor.
Ghislaine himself couldn’t think of anything regarding evaporation and materials that absorb moisture.
But if he told the smart mages, they would surely find a way to solve it somehow.
Sure enough, hearing Ghislaine’s words, Vanessa’s eyes lit up as if she had been struck by lightning.
What Ghislaine said was something she naturally knew as common sense. However, until now, she had been trapped in a preconceived notion about magic and thought she had to solve everything through spells.
Breaking free from that mindset, countless inspirations flooded into her head.
“Ah…”
Magic wasn’t all-powerful. More often than not, problems in the Penris Territory had been solved through technology rather than magic.
There were also outstanding technicians among the dwarves here. It was just a matter of filling in the parts that were difficult to solve with technology or were absolutely necessary with magic.
The order was wrong. Right now, it was more important to accumulate knowledge necessary for hatching than to focus on magic.
“Ah, I get it! I think I can resolve this!”
With a big smile on her face, she dashed out of the research room. Left behind, Ghislaine shrugged at Gillian.
*
Vanessa immediately went to meet the farmers. Although everyone was initially shocked by Vanessa’s haggard appearance, they were more than willing to answer her questions once they knew she was the territory’s mage.”
She walked around. Everyone was shocked at Vanessa’s haggard appearance at first, but since she was known as the territory’s mage, they willingly answered her questions.
“How do you check the internal condition of the incubator? Of course, you do it by hand.”
“By hand?”
“Yeah, like you just put your hand in… um, it feels something like this? And then you’re good to go.”
“……”
Vanessa facepalmed.
The technology not using magic in this age was alarmingly abstract.
It was all about passing down experiential knowledge without understanding the exact figures and principles.
It was the same with other farmers.
“The temperature? My father told me. Just stick your hand in and if it feels about this warm, it’s good.”
“Make a small hole in the brick and just sprinkle this much water in there.”
“You have to check it often next to the stove. If you forget, it’ll fail to hatch.”
Everyone was going by ‘feelings,’ so every time they did it, the conditions were slightly different, which naturally lowered the hatching rate.
It was still better than leaving things completely unattended, so they just kept doing it.
“First, we need to figure out exactly what they mean by ‘this much’ for the farmers. That way, we can set a standard.”
She stayed with the farmers for a few days to track down what temperature and humidity were appropriate for hatching.
Since each farmer had slightly different methods, it was hard to get a grip at first.
She continuously recorded data to quantify the senses of the farmer with the highest hatching rate.
But that was still not enough. She was only using it as a standard because it was the best among the farmers.
Vanessa was different from the farmers. She meticulously recorded all the conditions she manipulated with precise numbers and kept experimenting.
“Everyone, please take turns recording what I say.”
The mages, having recovered their mana, began the experiments under Vanessa’s orders.
The mages each took a small incubator used by the farmers and started repeating experiments to find the right temperature and humidity, just like Vanessa.
After days of experimentation, they found the highest hatching rate.
They figured out what temperature to maintain and how much water to sprinkle and moved on to the final confirmation experiment.
“Please, please!”
Alfoy closed his eyes and prayed. It was somewhat comical to see a mage praying, but nobody dared to laugh; they were that exhausted.
Just finding the optimal conditions had been hard work. To check and maintain the exact temperature and humidity, the mages had to get their hands dirty.
Keeping a consistent environment was something only the mages, who could uniformly use fire and water magic, could do.
‘I’m so tired… I haven’t slept properly in days.’
‘Please let it succeed… I feel like I’m going to die.’
‘If all goes as expected, today all the eggs should hatch.’
The mages huddled together, gazing at the incubator containing 30 eggs.
They all looked disheveled in their outfits and faces.
How long had they been waiting?
Crack.
On the oiled cloth, one egg shook slightly before the top shell broke and a chick began to emerge.
“Oh, oh oh! It’s coming out! Come out!”
The mages held their breaths in anticipation and kept watching.
A few more eggs cracked open. As more chicks emerged one by one, the mages’ expressions brightened.
They watched the incubator all day long.
And the next afternoon.
“It’s a success! We did it!”
Alfoy and the mages raised their hands high and shouted. Although there was about a day’s delay, all 30 eggs hatched without missing a single one.
The results were far better compared to the farmers, who had over half of their eggs fail to hatch.
Vanessa couldn’t hide her joy either. She had finally taken a step forward.
But this wasn’t the end.
She spoke to the servants who were helping out beside her.
“Call the dwarves. Now that we’ve found the optimal conditions, it’s time to move on to the next task.”
Now it was time to create a large incubator that could automatically adjust temperature and humidity.
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