Chapter 633: The Mage Federation
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 633: The Mage Federation
The purpose of faith is not to rely on a god's omnipotence, but to live a life free of shame under their constant watch. Musing on the words of that philosopher, I pushed myself up from the sofa where I had been lying.
“Haaahm. Sunbae. Water.”
“Oh, right!”
Avant-garde brought over a water crystal with both hands. I took it and, forgoing a cup, bit right into it. It had the texture of ice and a slightly sweet taste.
“This water crystal is sweet. As sweet as a good nap. What’s in it?”
“Oh! I sprinkled some sugar on it in case you found it bland!”
“So it contains your kindness, Sunbae. No wonder.”
“Hehe.”
With the Blue Tower Master who had been managing and supervising me gone, I, too, grew lax in my studies. Instead of burying my head in books, I spent my time reading my sunbae’s thoughts and investigating the Floating Castle.
A life of long naps and chewing on water crystals someone else prepared for me. This is the life. It would be great if I could live like this forever.
But my leisure was short-lived. Grunting with effort, Avant-garde placed a mountain of grimoire crystals in front of me.
…Ah.
“Anyway. Which grimoire do you want to read today? The Five Elements? Or Magic Circle Geometry?”
“…Well, the Descent isn’t far off. Don’t you think it’s a bit difficult to start a new book now? Let’s take it easy.”
“No way! If the Descent is just around the corner, you should be cramming even harder!” Avant-garde said firmly.
“You have to pass the Ascension Gate and earn the right to stay in the Floating Castle to be with me! …Ah! No, that’s not what I meant! I meant so you can become my junior in the Crystal Tower!”
“Everyone’s busy talking about the King of Humans right now. Aren’t you interested in him, Sunbae?”
“To me, you… your Ascension Gate is more important!”
Tch. So stubborn. I’ve already got a rough plan anyway, and there’s nothing more for me to study in the Crystal Tower. How do I get out of this?
Ah, right. Maybe I can try this?
“I’ve studied enough about mana amplification and magic circle improvement. Since we don’t have much time left, I think it would be better to study something a little different now.”
“Do you have something in mind?”
“Not magic, but the Floating Castle and the Mage Federation. The history of the Federation, how the Floating Castle was made. What the Descent is.”
It was a request typical of a lazy student who didn’t want to study and would rather hear an interesting story, but Avant-garde took it at face value.
“Ahh! That’s a good idea. The Ascension Gate is an event to show off your magical skills, but it’ll be easier if you know its purpose and format! Wait a moment. The history of magic…”
“I’d rather hear the story directly from you, Sunbae, than read a history book.”
“Well… I’ve forgotten a lot about history.”
“But you know all the major events, right? I won’t remember the fine details even if you explain them anyway. I’d much rather hear it in your voice.”
“Okay! I’ll try! Let’s see… Where should I start?”
Perfect. Having switched my sunbae into explanation mode, I leaned back on the sofa, ready to listen. He took out a map crystal, projected it onto a screen, and began.
“The Mage Federation is a union of numerous prominent magic families. They rule all the other regions in the world below, except for this Floating Castle.”
“Prominent magic families? Are they like Magic Towers?”
“A little different. A Magic Tower grants entry to any elite who seeks the knowledge it has accumulated, but a prominent magic family consists of direct or collateral blood relatives. They focus less on White Magic and more on the Unique Magic passed down through their bloodline.”
“Unique Magic passed down through bloodline? Unique Magic can be inherited?”
“Yes. It’s a proven fact that direct descendants are highly likely to awaken a similar type of Unique Magic when they grow up in a similar environment. The Unique Magic awakened by the heirs of the prominent magic families is proof of that.”
I’d heard something like this before. When was it? In the Military State? I think the Signallers’ Unique Magic awakened in a similar way.
“They say the Blue Tower Master’s Unique Magic is so similar to the first Celsius’s that she’s called her second coming. I heard she could trap boiling steam inside a single drop of water.”
“Celsius, as in one of the great mages who developed the White Magic that shifts between crystal and steam? To be compared to someone like that, the Blue Tower Master must be incredible.”
“She is… Plus, she’s powerful, smart, and so cool… Someone like me…”
Avant-garde suddenly grew gloomy. Aw, why? I was enjoying the story. I subtly changed the subject to get her to continue.
“I don’t know much about the Mage Federation, but just hearing about it, I can feel the distance. They seem like flowers on a cliff, completely out of reach.”
Hearing my murmur, Avant-garde’s spirits lifted.
“…Yeah! That’s right! She’s just so amazing! That’s what makes it a little difficult!”
“Are the other Tower Masters also from prominent magic families?”
“Not all of them. One of them, the White Tower Master, came through the Ascension Gate.”
“So you can become a Tower Master even if you pass through the Ascension Gate?”
“Of course, even that requires immense talent. The Unique Magic of the White Tower Master, Ruel… it’s not a term a mage would use, but it’s truly a god-like power. It was more than enough for her to become the master of the Ivory Tower.”
I thought the Blue Tower Master’s Unique Magic was amazing, but from what Avant-garde was saying, Ruel’s seemed to far surpass it.
“I’m curious. I’d like to meet him.”
“You’ll be able to if you make it to the Ascension Gate! The five Tower Masters will be there to evaluate the participants!”
So the Tower Masters I haven’t seen yet are the Red and White Tower Masters. I haven’t had a chance to see them until now, but if I get to the Ascension Gate, I’ll be able to see all five, including the Mage King.
“There are many prominent magic families in the Federation, but the ones that produce Tower Masters are especially wealthy and powerful. Their territories are also more prosperous than others. As it happens, the site for the upcoming Descent is in the territory of the Celsius family, so you’ll be able to see the difference for yourself.”
“Your stories about the Mage Federation are fascinating, Sunbae. I regret not asking sooner.”
“Huhu. No matter how brilliant you are, you can’t ignore a sunbae’s experience!”
Even though Hughes has already surpassed me in magical knowledge… I can still teach him things like this!
Avant-garde was proud, and I was entertained. A win-win.
“Ah! The Descent should be underway by now. Want to go take a look at the world below?”
“We can see the world below from here?”
“Yep. The towers are passages to and from the outside of the Floating Castle. We should be able to see the world below right now.”
A walk would be a nice change of pace. I readily followed Avant-garde.
I’d only ever gone up the tower, so I hadn’t realized there was a staircase leading down from the first floor of the Crystal Tower. Avant-garde and I headed for it.
The Floating Castle had a basement. Unlike the surface, which was bathed in the light of the artificial sun, the underground was a residential area for the elites living in the castle. The surface was for facilities, the underground for residences—a way to make use of the limited space.
Below the residential area was the management area, a place to detect and repair any damage or abnormalities in the Floating Castle and to observe the world below.
And one level further down.
The only paths leading outside the Floating Castle were in the Magic Towers.
The staircase leading down looked as if someone had played with it like an accordion. The steps, which should have been straight and orderly, were twisted as if someone had rolled them into a ball, and the floor became a wall that then connected to the ceiling. I tore my gaze away from the surreal scene and focused on the steps before me.
One step, then another. Concentrating on placing my feet on the next step, I soon found myself in the middle of that surreal staircase.
After passing through a long corridor where up and down were indistinguishable, Avant-garde and I arrived in a room with windows on all sides.
“Look down there. That’s the Mage Federation. It’s much closer than before, isn’t it?”
Avant-garde pointed to a transparent window above her head. I was having the rare experience of looking down at the ground above me.
In this land of extreme cold, water took many forms. It froze on its own, melted, evaporated and rose, then fell again to cover the land. The land itself was swept away by the ever-changing forms of water.
Cascading avalanches altered the elevation, shattering glaciers redrew the coastlines, and melting ice blurred the landscape. From up here, the boundaries between snow, ice, and water were indistinct, giving the impression that time and space themselves had blurred.
The marvels of nature held my attention for a moment, but when I looked in another direction, I was struck speechless by the strangeness of it all.
“Sunbae.”
“Hm?”
“Over there. What’s that grid pattern on the ground?”
On the land that should have been a blur of snow and ice, a grid pattern, clearly artificial, was etched into the earth.
Was it farmland? But farmland was at most a few hundred square meters. From the dizzying heights of the Floating Castle, it should have been barely visible.
But this… it was as if a god had taken a ruler to the earth and drawn lines upon it.
The hue of the land changed along the straight lines. If it were a map, with borders drawn and colored for clarity, it might have been a plausible explanation. The problem was that I was looking at the actual ground.
As I puzzled over it, Avant-garde’s voice reached me.
“The Floating Castle is way up in the sky, right? The Mage King decided it would be easier to see from here if it was divided up like that, so he tailored it.”
“Tailored it?”
“Yep. It’s more convenient when we descend, too. Besides that, clearly defining the borders of the territories like this reduces pointless disputes. The prominent magic families each have their own rules, so it gets complicated if their domains overlap.”
“I get that, but how do you tailor a territory?”
Drawing straight borders on a territory might be easy enough. Someone with immense power could probably do it. It was a policy worth trying.
But I was asking because of the unnaturalness I felt from the land below.
A strangeness, as if someone had pulled the land taut, ignoring the natural contours of mountains and terrain. It wasn't that a border had been drawn on the land, but rather that the land itself had been distorted to fit the border. I could feel that sense of wrongness from down below.
Avant-garde resolved my question in one fell swoop.
“They say he pulled it with his Unique Magic!”