Chapter 128
Chapter 128
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 128
Chapter Title: The Art of Mystic Gates
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She neither confirmed nor denied it, but I was certain my guess was correct.
Lise herself had just said she was knowledgeable in curses, demonic contracts, and necromancy.
On top of that, Asad had once mentioned it in passing.
- I guard the main estate and the center of the forest. The one who manages the place you’re in now is someone else.
- Who might that be?
- Liseradigos.
- If I am the guardian of the family’s outer face, she is the guardian of its inner face. She is the forest keeper and the librarian of the underground library.
“Thinking back on it now, it was a place with many peculiarities. I suspect, Mage, that you had deployed magic throughout the entire rear garden…”
If not, no matter how late at night it was, an undead creature could not have been roaming near the Bednicker main estate.
If Lise was also a guardian of the family, then that undead creature, given the circumstances at the time, would have been on our side.
Reinforcements she had sent in her own way after noticing the Cult’s intrusion.
Feeling like I was making a high-stakes gamble, I opened my mouth.
“You didn’t use any magic beyond that, did you?”
“Magic beyond that?”
Lise, who had been silent, asked for the first time.
I looked straight past the mage’s hair, at her hidden eyes, and continued cautiously.
“I mean you didn’t set up magic on a scale large enough to cover this entire estate, or the forest. Instead, it was Sir Asad who effectively formed the barrier in the forest.”
*Whoosh…!*
At that moment, a thick book grazed the tip of my ear.
I didn’t dodge, realizing there was no intent to harm, but even so, it was incredibly fast.
So fast that if I hadn’t tensed my body, I wouldn’t have been able to react at all.
“Never again…”
Lise said in a rough voice.
“...utter that disgusting bastard’s name in front of me. Do you understand?”
“…My apologies.”
Are she and Asad on bad terms?
Come to think of it, I think I did hear they didn’t get along.
I just didn’t realize their relationship was this twisted.
- About the barrier in the forest, most of the family thinks it’s to control the monsters, right? It’s not.
- It’s because of Liseradigos. A way to seal and monitor her, you could say.
‘Ah.’
I see.
‘So Lise was sealed here.’
And the one who either performed the sealing or is currently monitoring it is Asad.
At this point, it would be strange if they *did* get along.
“Boy.”
“It’s Ruan.”
I’m over thirty, counting my time on Spirit Mountain. It’s uncomfortable to keep being called a boy.
“Right, Ruan. Do you know anything about magic at all?”
“What do you mean?”
“The reason that disgusting bastard was able to form a barrier in the forest wasn’t because he was particularly skilled. It was thanks to the artifacts hidden throughout the forest. Do you think we mages don’t use the method you described because we don’t know it? You’re spouting nonsense, leaving out the biggest problem with it.”
Of course, I knew the problem Lise was talking about.
“It’s inefficient,”
Lise said.
“Casting a spell over this entire cavern is not a difficult task for me, but it is for most mages. I could, of course, cast a spell over this entire estate. That is, if that irritating hermit doesn’t interfere. But the entire forest? Do you have any idea how vast the ‘Butterfly Forest’ is?”
“…”
“What you’re suggesting is impossible even for a Seven-Colored Mage.”
“I suppose so.”
“…Are you trying to play word games with me?”
Lise said in a low voice, but I spoke without being intimidated.
“Pardon me, Mage, but do you also discuss efficiency in the face of nature?”
“What?”
“When the rain pours or the snow rages, nature doesn’t distinguish between places it should and shouldn’t fall, does it?”
“Are you trying to have a philosophical debate with me, Liseradigos, about the natural order?”
“Of course not. But don’t you think that if one could apply the flow of nature to magic, one could escape the logic of efficiency?”
“…”
Lise seemed to stare at me blankly for a moment, then muttered.
“It seems you don’t simply mean accepting and processing mana.”
“The mana dwelling in mountains and seas is nearly limitless. No matter how great a mage is, they couldn’t hold even a ten-thousandth of it within themselves. If that mana could be used in its entirety, the scale of magic would no longer be an issue.”
“That’s not even worth a response. Your theory is no different from saying you’ll destroy only your enemies with a naturally occurring storm or tsunami.”
“It’s completely different. I’m not talking about praying to a god or leaving it to fate. This is a skill that can be honed, and in fact, it’s closer to a field of study.”
Lise then spoke in a dumbfounded voice.
“A field of study? Didn’t you say you would teach me magic?”
“Isn’t magic also called the study of magical arts?”
I said brazenly, then continued.
“The ignorant say that nature has no laws or rules. In fact, it’s the opposite. There is no place where rules are more strictly prioritized than in nature. It’s just that it’s too vast and complex for human understanding to grasp. The field I’m about to tell you about…”
“…”
“Is about interpreting the cycles of nature and the principles of all things, then using those laws.”
I finished, looking at Lise.
“That is the Art of Mystic Gates.”
- The foundation of the Art of Mystic Gates lies in defense.
My second eldest martial sister, a master of the Art of Mystic Gates, had said while stroking her iron fan.
- That’s because the original goal of its creators was to reach the state of an immortal being through transcendence.
- I see.
- In other words, its starting point was to artificially manipulate the terrain to create an environment undisturbed for training.
In truth, what I was spouting right now wasn’t some grand truth.
But for a mage of this world, it was bound to be quite a shock.
A shock born not from a difference in knowledge, but from a difference in environment.
Naturally, the continent where magic was created and the world where these arts were created are completely different.
There are countless differences that prevent them from being simply equated as places where people live.
The continent is rife with conflict and strife.
Dozens of races swarmed the vast lands, and if you included derivative races, the number was several times that.
Since all of them had their own individual histories and cultures, conflict was inevitable.
It was only now that they had entered a period of stability due to a common enemy, the Cult, and the continent’s only nation.
So, regardless of the starting point of the field of magic, it ultimately developed in a direction that pursued destruction.
Conversely, the starting point of the Art of Mystic Gates is a mindset of avoiding conflict.
I learned the basics of this from my second eldest martial sister, and if I had taught her about this world’s magic system, she would have been quite surprised.
I thought Lise would be the same.
“…”
The silence was longer than I expected.
Her face, let alone her eyes, was still hidden by that unsettling hair.
I wanted to guess what she was thinking, but with her face covered, it was impossible to know.
However, I took this silence as a positive sign.
The fact that she hadn't thrown me into a stone cell yet was proof enough.
After a moment, Lise spoke.
“…You slightly twist the flow of mana distributed in nature to form a rite, manipulating the situation to the caster’s advantage.”
‘Composition’ would be a more accurate word than ‘manipulation’, but considering Lise was a mage, it wasn’t an incorrect turn of phrase.
Amazingly, in that short moment, Lise had interpreted the art from a mage’s perspective.
“That’s correct.”
“Impossible.”
Lise paused for a moment, then repeated as if to convince herself.
“Yes. It’s impossible.”
“In what way?”
“Why do you think we take mana into our bodies? To control it as we will. Mana not stored in the body cannot be processed, and unprocessed mana cannot be controlled. This is an absolute law.”
“It’s not about controlling it. It’s about using it.”
“Is there a difference?”
For some reason, Lise’s tone seemed to have softened somewhat.
I nodded and continued.
“What if you take in mana but don’t process it? You use the body as a conduit through which natural mana passes.”
“Just use it as a conduit? What’s the point of that? If you don’t arrange the mana in a set sequence, no phenomenon will occur. Which means no magic will ever manifest.”
“You arrange it without processing it. And it’s not impossible. For example, if you limit the exit point to your fingertips and then move them, couldn’t you rearrange the mana like painting a picture with a brush?”
In truth, even as I spoke, I was a little confused.
I had to translate the concepts of Ki and formations that I knew into the standards of mana and magic of this world to explain them.
“The mana placed in the air like that would scatter before long.”
“That’s why the environment is the most important factor in using this art. For instance, in a place with thick fog, the spatial density is high, so the scattered mana wouldn’t move easily. The same goes for a dense forest or the sea.”
This was also why the dwellings of ancient sages were usually deep in nature, untouched by human hands.
“In that case, if you destroy the environment itself, that art would naturally unravel.”
“That’s true, but for someone who can destroy a mountain in the first place, what’s the point of trapping them in a maze?”
At some point, my conversation with Lise had taken the form of a debate.
Lise persistently tried to find flaws in the art, tearing at it, while I deflected most of her attacks and occasionally accepted them.
“It doesn’t seem to be without its flaws. First, what you call art cannot cause acts of destruction. Even if it could, the power would be significantly lower. To increase the power, you’d have to artificially process the mana to forcibly raise its purity, so that method is still far from efficient.”
Amazingly, just from that brief explanation, Lise seemed to have grasped the general characteristics of the art.
I was inwardly impressed but didn’t let it show as I retorted.
“A shield can also be wielded like a weapon at times, but can you truly say that’s its proper use? The foundation of the Art of Mystic Gates is defense, to begin with.”
Lise, having nothing to say in response, closed her mouth.
And after a much longer silence than before, she spoke.
“Alright. I admit it was a rather interesting story.”
This seemed like a pretense.
I could faintly see her trying to act nonchalant and composed.
“But I’m curious. From whom did you learn such things?”
“It’s related to my Blessing, so it’s difficult for me to say more.”
I played dumb, using the excuse I had prepared in advance.
“…Hmph.”
Lise hummed once more, then said with a sigh.
“If it’s a Blessing, then it can’t be helped. Well then, now show me this Art of Mystic Gates in person.”
“What? I can’t do that.”
“What? Why not?”
Lise asked back, her voice slightly urgent, but I shook my head.
“I can’t use the Art of Mystic Gates in the first place.”
Everyone has their own aptitudes.
And I had no talent for this kind of art.
Of course, if the conditions were right, I could manage a passable imitation, but moving the air without any preparation like my sister was impossible.
“If you can’t use it, how do you intend to prove what you’ve just said? It could all be something you made up.”
“Do you really think so? That everything I just told you is a product of my imagination?”
“…”
Lise would know better than anyone that it was impossible.
It was too specific to be dismissed as a young boy’s delusion.
I cleared my throat and spoke.
“I have only encountered this knowledge in theory. I never even dared to attempt anything more. But for you, Mage, it will be different.”
I was sincere in this.
The Art of Mystic Gates was different from the Flame Arts of the Greatest, which was manipulated within the human body.
To use this correctly, one would probably first need a deep understanding of the world we stand on.
That was beyond me.
I didn’t have the time, and it wasn’t my path to begin with.
But Lise was, as she herself had said and as I had confirmed, a mage of a remarkable level.
She might be able to find a unique way to use the Art of Mystic Gates even in this world.
“I said I would tell you about a new magic. Not that I would teach it to you. I’ve told you everything I can.”
“…”
After finishing what I had to say, I quietly looked at Lise…
And finally, Lise’s mouth opened.
“The deal is made.”
At Lise’s words, I let out a silent sigh of relief.
To be honest, from the middle of our conversation, I thought there was a high probability of this answer coming.
But I suppose it’s human nature to only feel at ease after hearing a definite confirmation.
Anyway, my opponent was a mage.
‘She could suddenly change her mind.’
Of course, I had judged that she wasn’t that kind of person.
She was clearly an eccentric, but I didn’t sense any madness from this mage. If anything, I sensed an aura of wisdom.
This might be an over-the-top assumption, but her threats about cutting off an arm, or pulling out a tongue…
Looking back, weren’t those somewhat exaggerated threats just a bluff?
Because she’s a mage.
‘Hmm…’
Perhaps because I had been burned by mages so much during my mercenary days.
I had to accept that I had a predisposition to dislike mages.
“I grant you permission to revisit the underground library. Also… as the Black Serpent Dragon, I will form a contract with you.”
“…”
If someone suddenly becomes friendly, you should be suspicious first.
Especially if that person was just talking about cutting off your arm or pulling out your tongue.
I said cautiously.
“I feel like there might be a condition…”
“There is.”
Lise looked at me, then slowly smiled and said something completely unexpected.
“Ruan, become my disciple.”
“Er… I refuse.”
“…”
Lise’s confident smile froze on her face.