The Duke himself was an apprentice who had come out of Mordo Academy. Because he had never become a formal Mage, he simply gave up on the mage's path, came to this island, and made himself a noble, where he began doing everything in his power to cultivate the younger generation, hoping that one of his own descendants might become a true Mage and fulfill his dream for him.
Having been through the academy himself, he understood better than most how much aptitude mattered at the apprentice stage. It was not that formal Mages thought aptitude useless and knowledge the only thing of value—that was simply because their elevation had changed the angle from which they looked at things.
After the banquet ended, Duke Alfred lectured William earnestly, naming one by one the people the Mages had singled out, and told him that befriending these people would be of enormous help on your path as an apprentice.
The Northlanders did not hurry off to rest. They gathered together in high excitement and studied that ring without pause, their fierce curiosity driving them to test it at once.
"But we haven't even mastered runes yet—can we trigger a spell?" Cristel's eyes were full of little twinkling stars, and hesitation threaded through her excitement.
Adam's interest in the ring was beyond compare, and for once he spoke up unprompted: "It will work. This ring is like a crossbow with the bolt already loaded. We don't need to know how the crossbow works—we just pull the trigger. My guess is the force that pulls the trigger is spiritual power."
Sam Aiden's face was bright red with delight at coming by such a treasure, but he still had enough sense not to let it go to his head. He spoke up of his own accord: "Miss Ophelia, why don't you try it?"
Ophelia shook her head, indicating that Sam should test it himself. Then Adam spoke again: "May I give it a try?"
Probably because that idiot Tom's mockery of Northlanders as a whole today had given Sam a faint sense of belonging to his own Northland identity, he did not refuse Adam, but generously handed him the ring. "Of course."
The ring was cast in gold. Fine as the workmanship was, there was nothing unusual about it; a red gem was set in it, giving off an extremely faint glow in the night.
If William Alfred had not been lying, the ring should contain an array of spell runes. Adam's eagerness had two purposes: first, to peer at the structure of spell runes; second, to verify something—whether spells were driven by spiritual power or by another kind of energy.
Type Two special energy fluctuation detected.
Adam understood at once. So spiritual power existed only as a transmission channel; what actually powered a spell was the Type Two special energy, a higher-order energy produced when spiritual power interacted with some unknown medium in the outside world.
In other words, the spiritual power solidification rune is the equivalent of a meditation method. Its purpose is to strengthen spiritual power until it can freely contact the medium and carry and transport the higher energy produced along with it.
The term "meditation method" came from the fragmented information Adam had obtained after destroying the virus. He had classified most of that information as junk data; he had never expected it to serve as a reference here.
Ophelia and the others had no idea that Adam had reached a preliminary conclusion in the space of a single instant. They only saw him rubbing his fingers over the red gem, and assumed he was pondering how to trigger a magic item.
With the second question tentatively confirmed, Adam tried feeding spiritual power into the gem, hoping to peer at the rune array of that zero-rank spell called "Fireball."
He did not succeed. The instant his spiritual power entered the gem, a terrifying heat appeared before Adam; everyone recoiled in fright, struck by an intense burning sensation—for that moment they even thought they were standing inside volcanic lava.
Adam hastily raised his hand and pointed at the sky. A second later, a basketball-sized ball of orange, blazing fire shot upward and burst apart after traveling more than five hundred meters.
Temperature around a thousand degrees Celsius. That's already lava level.
After releasing the Fireball, the red gem dimmed. Everyone stared at the ring in disbelief, hardly able to imagine that such a searing fireball had come out of that tiny ring—and more frightening still, this was only the lowest grade of magic item, inscribed with nothing but a zero-rank Fireball.
"So this is the power of magic—the power of Mages? Unbelievable!" Some such meaning lay behind everyone's exclamations; this was the first time they had seen magic. Flight had been a dream made real, but the Fireball was power made plain.
"No wonder Mages don't give a damn about knights. That was only the lowest-level spell, and a knight probably couldn't withstand it. If it were stronger, or there were more of them, a Grand Knight—" Mike Gaster murmured, then stopped there; after all, a Grand Knight was sitting right beside him.
Ophelia nodded and admitted without the slightest evasion: "There's no withstanding it. If you were hit, you'd die. No question about it."
Sam Aiden gazed at the dimmed red gem in distress. He was afraid the magic item might be one-use only, and if it was, using it up on an experiment like this would be an awful waste.
The spell rune array is encrypted to a degree. Without the right means, it can't be examined. Thinking his own thoughts, Adam somewhat regretfully took off the ring and handed it back to Sam. Seeing him look like he was at his own funeral, Adam explained, "This ring isn't a one-use item, but it should have a cooldown and recharge period. I'd guess spiritual power can speed that along to some extent."
Leaving aside Sam, who was relieved beyond measure and lovingly turning the ring over and over, and everyone else, who envied him no end, Adam went back to his room alone and started a new round of thinking.
Fire's power lies in its temperature. The function of the spell runes in the ring should be to raise the temperature, but the oxygen content of the air didn't change drastically. So what was the medium being burned?
Adam felt he had seized the key to the problem. After analyzing the data he had, the cause ultimately pointed to the Type Two special energy; mastery of this mysterious energy was perhaps the very reason Mages could accomplish all manner of inconceivable things.
Too few samples.
Adam filed the question away and stopped thinking about it. Without enough data to support it, analysis and judgment were only speculation, of no real use. The only thing he could do now was keep optimizing the spiritual power solidification rune so that it would strengthen spiritual power to the fullest extent.
Progress on that task was decent enough. With his immense computing power behind him, he tested a new structure every second; although none of the forms he had tried so far were stable, he was confident that after some time he would find a stable form matching the output of his spiritual power.
None of the Northland apprentices slept. Having witnessed magic, their already soaring interest burned even hotter, and they spent every usable moment on cultivation. Fortunately, spiritual power training could take the place of sleep; otherwise it was anyone's guess how many of them would have been in any state to function the next morning.
At breakfast the Northland apprentices met with an attitude utterly different from the night before. Everyone except Tom mostly showed goodwill, and William Alfred came over attentively to chat for a while, his main targets being Adam's group of three. Unfortunately for him, apart from Cristel, who was flattered, Adam and Ophelia were ice cold.
"We leave the Southern Seaport today for the Mage Continent, and barring the unexpected, unless you become a formal Mage, you'll find it very hard to ever come home again." William did not take their attitude to heart; having delivered the news, he politely took his leave. He still had two other groups to inform.
"Mr. William really is a man of grace," Cristel said, showing a bit of a fangirl streak.
Afterward they arrived at the Southern Seaport. Ships from the Mage Continent had docks of their own, and everyone along the way turned awe-struck eyes on them, which swelled the pride of some apprentices whose status had changed overnight.
The evening before, seen from the sky, they had not been able to make anything out clearly; now, up close, Adam found that these ships truly did not sail on any primitive power. The ships from Mordo Academy bordered on science fiction in form, and the alloy that made up their hulls was none that Adam knew of. Clearly, magitech built on a transcendent system of knowledge had developed no less than—perhaps even beyond—that of Earth.
Led by the Mages, they boarded the magitech ship called the Mordo Academy. Mage Blake and the others paid the apprentices no further attention, walking straight into the cabins.
After respectfully seeing the Mages off, the captain said, "We will reach the Mage Continent and the harbor where Mordo Academy stands within three months. During that time you may move about the ship freely. However, the innermost section of the first deck is the Mages' quarters. I advise you not to go there and disturb them, or you will get to see a Mage's wrath."
"Also, don't fall into the sea. The magical beasts of these waters will not be polite to you, and the Mordo Academy will not stop for anyone."
"You may find lodgings wherever you like. The voyage isn't especially interesting; if you find it dull, there are some entertainment facilities aboard that you may use free of charge. If you need anything else, ask the sailors—though I can't promise they'll be able to provide it."
The captain finished and left. Several sailors came forward to take over as guides, and in their eyes one could see deep envy of the apprentices. Adam noticed that the captain was a peak Grand Knight, stronger than Count Johnson, and that every one of the sailors was a knight.
Sure enough, knight was no rare profession. Adam even suspected that every ordinary person living on the Mage Continent might be a knight.
Everyone headed excitedly into the cabins, each choosing a room. Apart from the southern apprentices, who looked quite at ease, the apprentices from the other regions were somewhat cautious, afraid of triggering some mechanism or breaking something—after all, for most of them this was their first contact with magitech.
With a low blast of the ship's whistle, the Mordo Academy set sail.