BXBX NOVEL Chapter 53 - The Magic Web
The reason why Rebecca said that it “could not be used” was simple.
Ordinary people did not have the capability to power the magic circle or control it at will.
The professional magic circles made by mages were vastly different from the simple symbols carved on rocks by the commoners. The latter was like using a wooden stick found on the streets as a walking stick while the former was like using skills to make a wheelchair out of the same stick. The difference was in the starting material and products. Although the power of the symbols on the rocks was weak, they could work continuously without external aid, however, the magic circle… was something more complicated.
Running only required two legs but if one wished to reach 70 miles per hour, the bare minimum was to buy a car, pump petrol into the car then get a driving license. It worked the same for magic circles, because even the simplest array needed to be powered and required professional people who knew how to activate and shut it down.
Herti and Rebecca did not mind the task and could go to the smithy to carve simple magic circles on every furnace. However, they could not stay there for the entire day to power the furnaces every single time a new batch of resource came in and control the flow of energy in the arrays either.
“If you want to carve the magic circles on the furnaces, there will be a limit to its efficiency. Even with Aunt Herti’s power, the most she could do was power grade-two magic circles.” Rebecca explained with a serious face and she tried to appear professional. “In addition, it was impossible for such a small magic circle to power itself. For an array to be able to take in magical power drifting in the air, it needs to be at least as big as a tent, hence someone has to power the arrays in the furnace. Even the simplest array needs to be activated or shut down but ordinary people cannot do it…”
From Gawain Cecil’s memory, Gawain knew that there were some very complicated theories behind how magic circles operated. Even without taking the confusing technical knowledge into account, they could be generally classified in the following ways:
In terms of scale, they could be classified into: small, medium, large and mega size. The smallest magic circle could be carved onto armour or weapons. The two largest magic circles in the world were located in the north at the City of Thousand Towers in the Violet Kingdom and in the south at the “Stars Sacred Temple” built by the elves respectively. The two magic circles were the base of the city and they were outlined using the roads in the city. The scale of the two arrays was so huge that it was intimidating.
In terms of the complexity of its functions, arrays could be classified into single or multifunctional arrays.
In terms of ways to power arrays, there were self-powered or externally-powered arrays. The self-powered arrays have complicated “absorption” structures which allow them to take in the drifting magical power from the outside world to power themselves. However, other than at magic focal points, the quantity of natural magical power was quite limited. Therefore, all the self-powered arrays were extremely huge in size and all small scale arrays needed to be powered by external forces.
In addition, in this world, self-powered arrays were hardly used because of their low efficiency.
The component that controlled the intake of a self-powered array usually took up 80% of the total area but the efficiency was less than a branch of a magic focal point. The mages could have squeezed a few complex written charms into the same area, therefore, considering the efficiency, mages would rather power the arrays by themselves and not choose a massive self-powered array.
That was why all large scale magic circles were located near magic focal points: it was more convenient to power the arrays.
Gawain touched his chin and watched the furnace in front of him.
Then he asked two questions.
“Must you carve the symbols on the furnaces in order to power them?”
“Must you put all the functions into one magic circle?”
Rebecca was stunned and blinked in confusion. “Otherwise, what do I do?”
Gawain faintly felt that he grasped the heart of the question: the people in this world seemed to use their magical power by brute forcing their way or simply focused on how it could be used on individual tasks. They never considered how to use this “superpower” in more extensive and quite frankly simpler ways.
“Draw a massive self-powered array and let it take in the magical power in the environment, then create an “outlet” in this array so that it could power smaller arrays. This will solve the problem of powering the arrays. As for activating and shutting down the array… you can control the connection between the furnace and the self-powered array, when the connection is cut off, the smaller arrays would stop working while the larger array could release the magical power naturally without having to worry that it would overflow and burst…”
Rebecca understood Gawain’s idea using her own way of thinking. “Do we split up the magic circle and use it by parts? We can actually do this?”
“This is a possible idea.” Gawain nodded. “I feel that we can discuss this further with Herti after all, she’s the expert.”
Rebecca agreed. Although Aunt Herti’s spell accuracy was low and she could only sketch a person’s silhouette, in terms of theoretical knowledge, she was probably better than an intermediate mage!
Therefore, Gawain brought his men and left the place quickly. Their rapid departure left the old blacksmith, Hummel and his apprentices and workers gazing at each other blankly.
“Master, what do we do next… do we still turn on the furnace?” An apprentice asked carefully, he did not dare to breathe in front of the Grand Duke and Viscount Rebecca but now that they had left, he finally had the courage to speak.
The blacksmith glared at the apprentice and yelled, “Nonsense! Of course we have to turn it on! Don’t think of skiving, whether we get to eat meat tonight depends on this furnace!”
On the other side, Gawain had sent Amber to ask Herti to come to his tent. However, this elegant lady shook her head after listening to his idea.
“It is a good idea to power an array using another one but it would be too difficult to execute the plan… the output of magical power requires great precision, once some problem happens to the “connection”, both arrays would be destroyed. The efficiency of the self-powered array is a big problem. The power supplied by an array with the size of the garden in the smithy would be insufficient for even a few magical furnaces…”
Gawain looked at Herti and he obviously knew that she had such doubts. Therefore, he had the solutions ready.
He smiled and he realised that he finally found the right path they should take after he thought more deeply about the question. Therefore, he pushed the pile of drawings on the table to one side and spread out an exceptionally big piece of paper filled with symbols and lines on the table.
He had completed those drawings a few days ago but he only realised the use of it until today.
“Take a look at this.” Said Gawain.
Herti looked at the magical symbols on the table in shock and her first reaction was to be impressed by how talented and knowledgeable her ancestor was. “Ancestor… you even know how to draw magic circles?!”
“I only know a little and I did not create this magic circle.” Gawain deliberately kept her guessing and continued, “Take a look first and tell me your thoughts.”
Herti lowered her head and analysed every symbol and pattern between the different symbols carefully. She started frowning and said, “All of these are the most basic symbols… the arrangements and combinations are the most fundamental ones as well, it seems like it is at most a grade-two array?”
Gawain nodded. “The person who left this magic circle before could only control grade-two magic circles.”
Herti looked at him in shock, she lowered her head again to look at the drawings again and could not help but feel impressed. “All the designs are completed using the most basic symbols… creating such a large scale magic circle using the most basic symbols… this is an incredible creation… it seems like a structure which can absorb the drifting magical power in the air? Then what is the point of these extra and complicated structures…”
Gawain pointed to the repetitive structures at the centre and said, “Expand.”
“Expand?” Herti widened her eyes and came to a sudden realization. “That’s right! You can expand it in this way… furthermore, the structure here can purify the drifting magical power… in this way, these fundamental symbols can absorb the drifting magical power more efficiently, this is really… really…”
Herti kept repeating the word “really” because she could not find a more suitable word to describe the feeling which this magic circle had given her. Gawain seemed to know what she wanted to say and he said, “Really hard working, right? It’s like a crippled man travelling across the whole world with a walking stick and a defenseless man carving poems onto rocks using a wooden stick. This has transcended the limits of hardwork. It is a miraculous array made up of grade-two symbols and it can impress even an archmage.”
“Those archmages probably won’t be impressed, they would not even bother to look at it.” Herti bitterly smiled and shook her head. “Although this array is very creative, it is still crafted using grade-two symbols. No matter how efficient it is, it would never be as great as the power which the archmages could supply to the arrays…”
“However, it was an original model which could be improved constantly. It only has grade-two symbols, what if you make use of this thought process and change the grade-two symbols to grade-three ones? What if you change the complexity of the combination to grade-three? How much more efficient would it be then?” Gawain said as he pointed to a few special nodes. “Other than the efficiency, look at these components which are even more crucial?”
“This… seems to be a magical power passageway?” Herti frowned. “I saw them just now but I did not see the corresponding power consumption unit, is it because the magic circle is incomplete?”
“No, it does not have a power consumption unit and its only function is to supply magical power, that is to supply magical power to a weaker human. As a result of this, it was different from the internal connection points of other magic circles and the ‘compatibility’ of these passageways is so high that it could connect to any power consumption unit.” Gawain said slowly. “Now, can this magic circle supply energy to the blacksmith store?”
“If all the symbols can work successfully… no, they definitely can work successfully, they have reached the extreme of the theoretical calculations!” Herti became more excited gradually and she finally thought out of the box of a traditional mage and realized how incredible the array was. “A highly efficient self-powered array which has a relatively wide range of ‘frequencies’ to transfer power out and it can even sustain the smithy, it could even… supply power for more things!”
She could not wait to ask, “Ancestor, what is the name of this ingenious magic circle?”
Gawain found a tattered notebook, “I don’t need to name it because it’s creator has already named it.”
He flipped open the notebook and on one of the pages was a short note.
“Annie, I have finally completed the ‘Magic Web’ today. I hope that it’ll bless you with great health.”