The Greatest Magicmaster’s Retirement Plan: Volume 14, page 14
Alus was also bothered by the fact that it had supposedly been held by the heirs of the Fable family for generations. I’d love to give it a proper inspection some time, Alus thought.
In the normal AWR market, universal products were put through tests to ensure that they functioned properly before being sold. However, that was the buyer’s own responsibility when it came to custom-made AWRs, and they were either put through a special inspection agency or simply tested themselves. Alus had the devices necessary for that in his laboratory, so he could perform some specialized testing.
Meanwhile, Tesfia got right back to training. Focusing on the advice she’d been given, she constructed her magic, one step at a time. But like Alus had pointed out, she gave up on trying to construct the spell completely, and was doing a simple reproduction instead. Focusing on the coordinates particularly, she abbreviated the other construction elements.
Shortly after she started, the temperature in the room dropped as cold air spread. Alice, who had been holding her breath while watching, shuddered. She was hit with the cold air at close range and was rubbing her arms for warmth. While the control left much to be desired, to Alus, it was a good first attempt.
“That’s the spirit. Now you just have to precisely manifest the cold air within the block and then shift over to the coordinates of the next block and slowly expand the area where the cold air is generated. But don’t let up on your mana control,” said Alus.
“Of course. If anything, I couldn’t do this without mana control,” said Tesfia.
“From what I can tell, you are not doing much different from repeatedly casting the same magic, and if you don’t put some mana into it, it won’t last for long,” Loki added a plausible explanation. She seemed to have gotten flustered from Tesfia’s rapid growth and wanted to flaunt her knowledge.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Alus nodded. Loki looked at him with a small, expectant smile, waiting for him to praise her.
Alus felt compelled to commend Loki in some way. However, Loki was a Magicmaster who had fought on the front lines. Unlike a student like Tesfia, more was expected from her.
Hmm, should I tell her not to get full of herself over something like that? No, that’d be no different than some drill instructor. Alus simulated saying a couple of theatrical lines in his mind, but couldn’t help but feel self-conscious.
In the end, he decided to wordlessly put his hand on her head. Loki immediately broke out into a big smile, and he pretended not to notice.
“Well, there you have it. Good luck. If you don’t proceed efficiently, you won’t be making any progress,” said Alus.
“Don’t worry! Leave it to me!” Tesfia declared smugly, earning a chop on the top of her head from Alus. “Ow?!”
With that, the cold air in the room dissipated. “That’s what you get for getting full of yourself. Get back to training,” he said.
While they were speaking, Alice’s circle flew off, desiring freedom once more. But this time before it could destroy something, a rodlike object sprang up through its center, stopping it. Alus had done the opposite of a ring toss, creating a rod of mana and passing it through the ring.
“Looks like Alice has some difficulties ahead of her as well,” said Alus with a small sigh. Alice scratched her cheek as if to apologize.
The two girls trained intensely for two hours after that, taking a break in the middle. Once they were done with that and had cleaned up, they returned to the girls’ dorm in time for dinner.
Loki was in the middle of preparing dinner herself when she suddenly stopped and hesitatingly started speaking. “Sir Alus, uhm...I would like to consult with you about something.”
“Hmm? What?” Alus wanted to ask why she’d waited for the other two to leave, but seeing Loki’s expression, he swallowed those words.
Even if Loki was his partner and they were living together, it didn’t mean he could just say whatever came to mind. It wasn’t like he was looking to be called considerate, but he’d learned some things since they began living together. Alus could sense his own growth. The steady passage of time had been a source of nourishment for him. But Alus put that aside as he looked at Loki’s serious expression and listened to what she had to say.
“It’s about that spell...”
He’d expected it would be related to magic based on her behavior. Alus sat down at the chair of his desk and straightened himself up. It was almost certainly about the vertex of thunder that she was currently learning, which was an ultimate-level lightning attribute spell, and top secret at that. It was a difficult spell to learn, even for Alus. In fact, he had borrowed the magic formula from a top secret database.
Of course, Alus didn’t have much of an affinity for the lightning attribute, so he didn’t have much interest in thunder spells. Black Ikazuchi was among the least efficient spells that Alus had. With mana consumption differing so much between affinities, even if he did learn the spell, he wouldn’t be able to use it outside of special circumstances.
Loki appeared a little impatient. Seeing Tesfia’s and Alice’s growth must have stimulated her sense of rivalry.
“I was thinking about Fire Ikazuchi, but based on the structural elements of the magic formula and the amount of information, uhm, is it even possible for a human to use this?” asked Loki. “I imagine that you are the only one who could learn this, Sir Alus...”
Alus had known Loki for a while, but this was the first time he’d seen her like this. Strangely enough, despite how she was speaking, it didn’t seem like she’d given up. He didn’t think she’d commit a taboo like using a catalyst again, but it seemed she had her thoughts on the matter.
“It’s true. Other spells can’t compare with the amount of information. Frankly, the details are practically a mystery,” said Alus. Being based on an old magic formula, it was difficult to even adjust the spell’s efficiency.
In the modern age, efficiency was key in magic formulas. Simplifications were fine, but old magic was the exception. Coming from an age during which any high-level spells were kept hidden, they were all quite original in their construction.
The balance of the spell being built resembled elaborate stone towers, each with a different design philosophy behind them. Even parts that appeared irrational at first glance often played an important role somewhere. That made it difficult for a third party to make any adjustments, as it might inadvertently ruin the whole thing.
That was especially true for Fire Ikazuchi, as it could have completely unpredictable results. It was not like modern magic, which typically followed the same rules. Because of that, it was possible to understand the effects of a spell just by looking at its magic formula.
But Fire Ikazuchi and other old spells were exceptions. Although with Alus’s ability to decipher Lost Spells through brute force, it might be possible.
“Magic formulas are not entirely set in stone, and there is room for interpretation, depending on the user’s talent and understanding. Well, it’s a mysterious part about magic.” Alus paused and asked Loki, “You didn’t give up out of desperation did you?”
She nodded, “Yes, it’s about this part of the formula. It has some of the fire attribute mixed in, which has a big influence on this and this part.”
Surprisingly, Loki had studied the magic formula thoroughly and deepened her understanding. It was clear that she was making an effort to read and understand each and every part of the formula. But that required a specialist’s level of knowledge, so it was a little difficult for Loki, so she asked Alus for help.
“I don’t believe the attribute formulas on the AWRs I have on hand are enough to complement the formula,” Loki said, pulling out one of her knife AWRs and handing it to Alus. It was clearly meticulously cared for and didn’t have a single smudge on it.
“Well, Fire Ikazuchi is a composite spell, making it particularly difficult. However, there’s a limit to how much this formula can be tinkered with. That said, it would be impossible to fit into a single formula,” said Alus.
All of Loki’s knives were engraved with identical magic formulas, therefore they could be treated like a single AWR. But when it came to handling multiple types of magic or composite spells, they were lacking in versatility.
“And so, uhm.” Loki, seemingly at a loss of what to say, put her shoulders against Alus and pointed at the AWR. “Please wait a minute.”
Suddenly, Loki noticed something and pushed herself away from Alus, smelling her shoulders. That alone was enough to tell what was on her mind.
“I-It’s fine.” Alus wasn’t crude enough to ask what was up. Just cleaning up after Alice’s destruction wouldn’t have been enough for her to work up a sweat. “You smell as good as always,” he said, trying to patch things up.
“What does ‘as always’ mean?!” Loki exclaimed, strangely persistent despite there being nothing to worry about.
“I don’t know. Your shampoo?” asked Alus.
“But you use the same shampoo, Sir Alus,” said Loki.
“Hmm? I guess so. I suppose you can’t tell yourself,” he said.
Even trivial chatter seemed to be necessary communication to Loki, as now she pushed close enough to Alus for their shoulders to almost touch. “Ahem, so anyways, I was thinking of adding this beneath the attribute formula. Only on one of course.”
Loki pulled out a memo out of the desk with ease. Studying magic formulas she was unused to must have been a lot of work. Her trial and error was quite apparent.
But it was his field of expertise, so he thoroughly checked it. It had the typical impractical cherry-picked ideas of an amateur and constructs based on optimistic assumptions. However, it was worth a look, because while faint it had a concrete image of a spell.
“Oh? So you interpreted and gave form to Fire Ikazuchi?” Alus asked. The unpolished string of characters Loki had made showed a clear path for putting together a spell with a proper image of the finished product.
“H-How is it? This was the only method I could think of replicating it but...will a crude magic formula like this work?” asked Loki. She was like a severely self-conscious student coming to a veteran professor to ask rudimentary questions, but Alus gave her idea full marks. The diligent student’s brilliance was almost enough to move one to tears.
The crude magic formula was diligently put together, and it tickled Alus’s scholarly spirit. His brain was already beginning to spin at full speed, jumping between different ideas and logical conclusions. He instantaneously assembled a hypothetical magic formula and then took it apart to see if there was room to fit the formula somewhere.
Repeating that trial-and-error process, Alus was fully invested in resolving the problem that should have been Loki’s assignment. And that led him to say, “It wouldn’t be impossible. If anything, you should forcibly try to incorporate it. This is an interesting point of view, appropriating the core construct of summoning magic. But it won’t work like this. And it will all be for naught if it hinders the attribute formula engraved on the knife.”
Alus stood up and pulled out the books on summoning magic from the bookshelves. They could use them to identify the magic formulas of all the summoning spells, picking out the ones that could be used.
“They’re all formulaic. Is there something that we could use...?” asked Alus.
Alus had reacted much more than Loki had expected, and she tried to get his attention with soft “Uhms” and “Excuse mes” but to little effect, so she boldly hugged Alus’s waist and stopped him from moving. It wasn’t quite so modest, but it couldn’t be helped. Once Alus was like that, there was nothing else she could do.
“Hmm?! What are you doing?” Surprised, Alus stopped flipping through the pages and looked at her with wide-open eyes.
Loki whispered a suggestion into his ear. “Sir Alus, how would Phoenix work?”
“That is my interpretation of the spell...! I see, they would be about as old. Not to mention that I played around with that magic formula quite a lot. All right.”
Alus had perfect memories of the formulas for spells he had devised himself. Phoenix was a fire-attribute summoning spell, but when manifesting it could use the mana of other attributes, so it contained a unique magic formula.
If he’d put it in the Magic Compendium, Alus could probably receive glory and profits, but he’d chosen not to make the formula public. With the creator’s name left blank, some people would inevitably get suspicious and try to investigate the creator, and since he wanted a peaceful life, he chose to pass on that.
Phoenix had also been engraved into one of the rings of his AWR, so a lot of key points had been abbreviated. But right now, that might instead be useful.
Nevertheless, it would no doubt take several days to create a smooth combination of Lost Spells. They needed to be positioned in a way that made them as effective as possible. The formula also couldn’t get in the way of Fire Ikazuchi and would need to be condensed to a size that could be engraved on Loki’s knife.
It would no doubt require an extraordinary number of attempts. To begin, Alus opened a virtual monitor, starting simulation software and inputting data into a virtual blueprint. Then something occurred to him. “Come to think of it, Loki, did you get this idea from seeing the magic formula hidden behind the grip on Tesfia’s Kikuri?”
“The idea of engraving it on the AWR came from there. But I already thought that it would be difficult to construct the magic formula and manifest Fire Ikazuchi in the ordinary way. So I decided to try and break down the magic formula,” she said.
Loki had only consulted with Alus because she felt that it would be impossible for a human to process such a large amount of complicated information all at once, so she had looked for a different approach.
She had abandoned the traditional way of thinking and looked over it with a flexible perspective, coming up with an approach that nobody had seen before. In a sense, it was the ultimate imagination and creation.
“That’s correct. Currently, there are some ultimate-level spells that don’t even have anyone that can use them. In other words, reproducing them is essentially equivalent to creating them from scratch. There are plenty of cases of spells that are strictly confidential and the magic formula is only demonstrated.” As the software was in the process of going through tens of thousands of patterns, Alus began talking. “Are you planning on reproducing Fire Ikazuchi as a pure summoning spell?”
“No, I don’t think the original spell was summoning magic. But I thought that it would need some parts from summoning magic,” said Loki.
“I think you’re on the right track. I honestly don’t know who created the vertex magic formulas. The only thing that’s clear is that they are from an old time. It’s a famous collection of lightning attribute spells, but their development and how they were handed down is wrapped in mystery,” said Alus.
As he thought about it, he realized they must have been from the height of magical research, when even taboo spells were being created. And because the spells were created during that chaotic period, much was left unclear. Later, when the spells started being treated as taboo, details were hidden, leaving only the spell names behind, stored in military or national databases.
But no matter how dangerous they might have been, such vast power couldn’t be abandoned. It was proof that people were aware of reality and that an ideal world without weapons wasn’t going to happen, especially not when nations were fighting each other and new threats such as Fiends could be born at any time. Not thinking about any of that, Alus and Loki exchanged technical terms as they worked through the challenges throughout the night.
There was an enormous amount of work to be done, including analyzing a vast number of patterns. It definitely could not be done in a day or two. After narrowing it down as much as possible, the verification process would begin. If they couldn’t get any results from that, they would need to start from square one.
Normally, they could just expand the formulas on her AWR, but Loki’s knives were very small so the space was finite. They would need to compress the formula to make it fit.
It was a high hurdle, but that only motivated Alus more. He’d overcome challenges like these time and time again in the past. He saw meaning in challenges that everyone else gave up on. Plus he just found it enjoyable.
But even the aforementioned work was only theoretical constructions. Certainty was necessary when creating a real AWR. Once a magic formula was drawn up, it was engraved on mana conductive materials used to make AWRs and put through testing to ensure the formula functioned properly and that there weren’t any inadequacies or blockages in the flow of mana. If that failed, they would need to go back to the drawing board, having wasted a large amount of time.
That was why Alus had taken to calling them an exam. Because if it failed the exam, it would create a bottomless pit of despair. Sometimes it could take years to seek out all of the problems.
Alus and Loki struggled through the night to improve the formula, and before they knew it, they had fallen asleep and didn’t wake up until the evening of the following day. Loki reflected on the fulfilling night and found herself glad they were past exam period and that lectures were not going on now.
She hurriedly got to work on preparing food, but considering the time they had woken up, it was already time for dinner. It was after they’d eaten that the ringtone sounded, sending ripples through the room.
It frustrated Alus, but it was inescapable as long as he was inside. As the ringtone was so unique, it was clear who was calling. Picking up on Alus’s bitter expression and his hesitation, Loki sipped her tea in silence. Meanwhile, the ringtone continued unceasingly.
