Chapter 24

Chapter 24: It Was a Fun Time (1)

“As expected, you have a keen eye. The reagent’s reaction is also very good, so it’ll be the perfect sample.”

“Hmm. Then this moonroot and the conwell berries would be good. Let’s see…”

While the two men talked about the materials, my gaze was fixed on that featureless stone. After much thought, I approached it and placed a hand on it.

A strong vibration shook it as if it was resonating with my magic power. When I experimentally suppressed my magic power, the resonance miraculously disappeared.

I asked the shop owner, “What is this?”

The shop owner tilted his head when he saw the ‘stone’ I was holding.

“Where did you find… oh. It’s just a decoration.”

“A decoration?”

For a mere decoration, its resonance was quite strong.

I heard the shop owner sigh, “Fuu, just thinking about it annoys me.”

“Did you get scammed or something?”

“A few years ago, while on my way to the capital, a peddler approached me and asked if he could buy some food. He handed me a pouch he said was filled with money, but when I opened it, what I found inside was that stone.”

“Oh my.”

“Although it looks like that, it’s worth five loaves of bread.”

Five loaves of bread. For an item that resonated with my magic power, it was pretty cheap.

“Still, I thought it might be worth something, so I asked a mage I know to analyze it and asked around here and there, and the conclusion was that it was a stone. A stone. Ugh, I put it up there because I felt bad about it.”

The shop owner spoke with a look of frustration on his face and then spoke to me.

“Young master, if you’re looking for something that looks interesting, please come this way. There are a few magical artifacts here. I might not have as many as the capital, but there are quite a few.”

I glanced at the artifacts at his words. It definitely wasn’t as good as the ones my older sister used to give me on my birthdays or whenever she thought of me, but I had plenty of space in my subspace.

“I’ll buy a few. Can you recommend some? And while I’m at it, I’ll buy this, too.”

“Huh? You want to buy a useless piece of stone…? Well, then I’ll just give it to you.”

The shop owner didn’t seem to know what the stone was. Of course, I didn’t know either. However, if he had known that it reacted to magic, he wouldn’t have left it like that.

“Let’s see… Hmmm. This looks good. This is a business card holder. These days, you know that everyone in the capital carries around something called a ‘business card’, right? If you put a business card in here, it automatically reads the information and saves it. Once it’s saved, all you have to do is say the person’s name and it will display that person’s business card like this! Also…”

I took the artifacts that the shopkeeper recommended. I didn’t know when I would use them, but I guessed it couldn’t hurt to take them.

After picking three that seemed somewhat useful, I asked, “How much is it all?”

“All together, it’s worth one gold crown, but honestly, I don’t want to ask for money.”

“No. I still have to pay the price.”

One gold crown.

It was expensive. However, it was reasonably priced considering they were magic artifacts, and above all…

I would own the stone.

“Here.”

“Hahaha. I guess I can close shop for the day.”

The shop owner’s hands shook in excitement as he took the gold crown.

“Young master, come by anytime. I’ll make sure to save the best for you every time you come from now on!”

I just smiled.

And so, Cidrane got the materials needed for his magic reagent lessons and I got some artifacts and a seemingly useless ‘stone’.

“I didn’t think you had any interest in collecting art pieces or decorations… did you suddenly gain an interest?” Cidrane asked.

I answered with a grin, “You noticed?”

“Hmm. I thought it was strange that someone your age would buy useless decorations while pretending to buy artifacts.”

Well, I didn’t intend to hide it. Rather, I was thinking of how to bring it up and ask about it as soon as I got back. When I told him about how the stone had reacted to my magic, Cidrane stroked his beard in interest.

“If that thing really only responds to your magic power… Depending on what that thing is, your magic power may be different from what I thought.”

What the item was… I took out the stone and injected magic into it.

It resonated, and then there was a vibration. It seemed like something was going to change.

“This won’t work here.”

I needed to go back to the castle first. Cidrane nodded in agreement.

“I guess I’ll have to postpone the magic reagent lesson for a bit.”

Cidrane returned and cleaned one side of his room magically, then began taking out various tools from his subspace. They was closer to mechanisms than tools.

“These are experimental tools. I didn’t expect that I’d have to bring these out.”

I handed Cidrane the stone and he placed it in the center of some device. He said it was a device that projected magical power.

“Didn’t the shop owner say that even though he had it analyzed, nothing special was found?”

“Hmph. Whatever it was, how could it be the same as this? This is a device that I custom-made with almost all of my savings. It’s state-of-the-art. It’s something that can analyze hidden substances just by projecting magic power into it.”

“Oh, I see.”

Cidrane sighed at my weak reaction and said, “Others get excited the moment they see something like this, but this is how you react… What is talent?”

Well, that was because I didn’t really get surprised by most things.

Anyway, Cidrane placed the ‘stone’ I bought with two silver crowns on the device and injected his magic power into it. Then, his magical power shot out like needles in eight directions, covering the stone. It was quite the sight.

Vrrrrr…

About twenty minutes, Cidrane pressed a button, the device stopped working, and letters made of magical power appeared above the device.

“Hmmm…”

Cidrane read the words, sighed, and motioned to me.

“Come this way.”

Then he pointed to the letters. They were runes that formed some kind of…

“It’s a code.”

“Yes. It’s a code. But it’s not an ordinary code.”

The array, rules, and structure of this code were all things I’d never seen before. Even the number was incredibly large.

Of course, it was incomparable to the 2-chain magic I digested that day, and the code was so numerous and complex that it was almost comparable to 6-chain or 7-chain magic.

“So, that code is the magic that’s hiding what this stone is.”

“Correct. And your magic is the key to unlocking this code, as it only responds to your magic.”

My magic was the key,

What on earth was it?

What was the seal surrounding the stone that made it respond only to my magic?

“Hmm… Magic seals aren’t my specialty… But I guess I should at least try it to save my face as the master of a magic tower.”

It was a magic seal. I heard about them from my older sister. It was a separate specialized field like artifacts and magic reagents, but with fewer specialists than the latter.

“Once we break the seal and find out what this thing is… then we can draw a conclusion.”

I nodded. What would be revealed once the seal was broken? No, more than that—

“We can figure out how my magic power is different from others.” Sёarch* The NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

I was more curious about that.

* * *

The one with the highest score in the history of the Imperial Academy’s magic department.

Having reached the realm of 6-chains at a young age, getting recruitment calls from every magic tower in existence, and possessing beauty that was no less than her talent.

Countless people sought out Arabella Sogres, a mage who possessed everything and reached a level no one had ever reached before.

“Have you decided which tower you’re going to? If you haven’t decided yet, our tower master is coming today. How about meeting him?”

“Arabella! This experiment is weird! Can you help me with it?”

“Damn it, Arabella, there’s no one else but you. Please, come with me to the dig, okay?”

Magic Tower.

Professor.

Alumni.

Many people came looking for Arabella.

She possessed insight that rivaled that of many professors and experience that was hard to believe someone only twenty-six years old possessed.

She also had the magical power that formed the basis of all of that.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t make it today.”

However, Arabella refused that day. The reason was simple.

‘I think the analysis will be finished by today.’

It was the analysis of her little brother Dane’s magical power. No matter how busy Arabella was, her family came first—especially if it concerned her beautiful and precious little brother.

Arabella hurried and returned to ‘her’ laboratory. It was a private laboratory, something that was difficult for anyone other than a professor to utilize. She had been given permission to use it by a professor she was close to while he was on a sabbatical.

That alone showed just how high the professors’ expectations were of Arabella.

“Alright. Shall we take another look?”

Arabella recalled what Dane had said. She had already guessed to some extent that Dane’s magic power was special, but considering what he had told her the last time they spoke, it seemed it was more special than she had thought.

That was the reason she had asked Dane to imbue his magic power into a mana stone and send it to her.

Whooooooong…

Arabella looked at the codes printed out by the device analyzing the mana stone. It wasn’t much different from the day before, but once the overall analysis was over and it went into the detailed analysis, the differences started to appear little by little.

Certainly一

“As expected, it’s different.”

It was certainly different from ‘ordinary’ magic power. Dane’s unique magic code had something different, something that even she didn’t have.

Every now and then, special magic power was discovered.

Magic codes could be said to be suitable for a specific magic. That was why mages were divided by their specialties.

However, Arabella had yet to figure out what the Dane’s magic code was suitable for.

Magic reagents, magic gates, magic engineering, magic seals, siege magic… she tried to compare it to the codes of numerous fields but still hadn’t reached a conclusion.

“Then let’s try this.”

Arabella finally decided to compare it to some codes she hadn’t tried before. It was unlikely, but in a situation without a conclusion, one should try everything.

“Alchemy, divination, spiritualism… is that going too far? I should still put it in. There’s necromancy… there’s also primitive magic code.”

It could be said to be a lost field of magic, magic that was rarely used these days.

As Arabella was inputting and substituting around ten magic codes, she recalled a magic field that she hadn’t thought of.

“Ancient magic…is this going too far? After all, it’s been 2,000 years since it disappeared.”

Ancient Magic.

The traditional magic of ‘Archana’, which was once known as the ‘Kingdom of Magic’.

It was from 2,000 years ago, so naturally, no one remembered or knew about it, much less knew how to activate it. Only a single line of unknown magic code passed down as a legend, along with numerous oral tales and a few artifacts, proved Archana’s existence.

Simply put, it was the least likely code.

“Well, so what?”

Figuring there was nothing to lose, Arabella entered the code for Ancient Magic and started the analysis device.

Whooooong!

Arabella decided that if no matching or similar code was found in this analysis, then her experiment should be put on hold for the time being.

But just as she was thinking so一

Beep一 beep一

Less than five minutes later, the device beeped, indicating that there was a result.

Arabella ran over expectantly.

‘What could it be? Alchemy? Divination? Or… necromancy? I hope it’s not necromancy.’

But the moment she checked the results…

“Oh my god.”

Arabella’s face was filled with shock.