Chapter 60: City of Canals (part seven)
“Well, you don’t know about internal magical power yet.
Then we must start from the very beginning.”
When Gilbert breathed on the blackboard that he took out from the back of the shelf, dust whirled up.
He had a small coughing fit because of that.
The teacher had a comical behavior, but we tried to listen seriously.
Harold even had a chalk and a small blackboard on his hands.
“Unusual power, supernatural power, supernatural ability……do you know this?
They are all blood-dependent power.”
“Is it like the telepathic power of Ignitia?”
“Oh, you’re well-informed, Ojou-san. That’s right, it’s like the power of Ignitia.”
Gilbert drew illustrations of human-like figures on the blackboard using chalk.
They seemed like a knight in armor and a deformed fur-wearing warrior.
Perhaps because he was a craftsman, he could draw a good picture casually.
“One of the famous supernatural abilities on this continent, as Ojou-san said, the telepathic power of the country of dragon knights.
The other one is the country of healers and swordsmen, and the bio-enhancement accompanying them.
It will be rare for you to meet the abilities of other continents, so for the time being, these are the two you will often see.”
After Gilbert erased the illustrations of the knight and the warrior, he drew a simpler human figure.
The round feeling was similar to the ginger cookies I ate earlier.
“The unusual powers that can be used by ethnic groups and individuals are diverse.
The scholars who tried to systematize them had thrown the towel.
What realizes these mysterious abilities is the magical power inside living beings and the biological circuit that we were born with.”
Gilbert drew a spiral pattern like a whirlpool inside the human figure and a lightning bolt mark on the outside.
He added notes that the whirlpool pattern was the biological circuit and the lightning bolt mark was the unusual power.
“The unusual power that human beings can perform usually manifested by using the internal magical power.
To determine its degree of strength, we have to see the amount of internal magical power and the quality of the biological circuit.
This is greatly affected by the bloodline.”
A line like a staircase was drawn at the foot of the human figure.
He added an unlabeled human figure who was hanging his head dejectedly below the staircase which had the human figure with the whirlpool mark attached.
“Therefore, humans who are inferior in the amount of internal magical power generation and quality of biological circuit absolutely couldn’t win against superior people.
It’s absolutely frustrating.
Efforts, wisdom, and ingenuity are in vain in the face of people naturally blessed.”
Next to the human figure with the whirlpool inside, Gilbert added two new human figures.
“There are two ways to eliminate this inequality. Hafan’s magic and Aurelia’s alchemy.”
Gilbert had one of the new human figures to hold a staff.
It was the same mage-style as the one Klaus and Actorius-sensei had.
“Hafan’s people were generally inferior in internal magical power generation and biological circuit’s quality.
However, to make up for being weak, these guys are excellent in creative power.
Instead of touching the finite internal magical power inside their body, they turned their gaze toward the infinite force drifting in the physical world—the external magical power.”
That said, Gilbert drew an arrow from above the head of the mage over to his abdomen.
Furthermore, he drew a whirlpool around the tip of the arrow.
“Hafan’s mages first capture external magical power and convert it into easy-to-process internal magical power.
But this alone merely taking infinite magical power into poor biological circuits.
That’s why the mages made a small twist.
This is just a sample that mimics it, but have you seen it?”
Gilbert spread a vellum paper with complex figures and characters on the table.
Ah, I had seen this.
Klaus was holding lots of it.
“Spell cards, huh.”
“That’s right, it’s a spell card. Spell cards, chants, or both are used as components and a magic circle is built to make their magical power performs unusual power outside their body.
Hafan’s mages can combine a number of components to freely generate the desired dynamics.”
“So the magic circle is equivalent to the biological circuit mentioned in the capabilities of other ethnics.”
“Yeah, you understand the gist of it with no problem. Such excellent pupils, teacher is happy.”
Gilbert drew a few small squares around staff on the illustration and put a big lightning bolt mark on it.
“With the development of magic, people are not affected by their birthplace, and they can use unusual power as long as they make efforts for it.
However, this external magical power is a tricky thing, unless it is converted into internal magical power, it cannot be used in biological circuit.
Moreover, the magical power conversion ability that human beings inherently have is insignificant.”
Gilbert poked around the mage figure’s stomach with the tip of the chalk.
“Mages train their conversion ability over time to close the gap.
There is no curtain of talent here. It is a world of pure effort and guts.
At the beginning you will only be able to convert truly insignificant amount of external power over hours of training, but over the years and decades it would be possible to convert a lot of magical power.
Therefore, there is a possibility that everyone can use magic, but not just everyone can use it. You need a strong belief.”
Finishing his words, Gilbert made a wand in the hand of the fourth human figure.
Finally, it was the appearance of an alchemist.
“The last one that appeared was the Visitor’s Clan who came from the other side of the sea.
They took a totally different approach to external magical power.
……Or more precisely, in the first place, only the circumstances of alchemy were different in the history.”
Gilbert drew a picture like a big pot next to the alchemist figure.
“Aniki. Is that the alchemy furnace, athanor1?”
“Athanor, huh……I haven’t seen the real thing.”
“Well, if you go to some school you may touch something similar in the classroom.
After that, if you are on a battleship campaign like a scholarship teacher, dealing with the athanor will be your main task.
In recent years, it seems like that.
However, it seems that the place where the first alchemical miracle happened was in this athanor.”
Gilbert added speech balloons next to the picture of the athanor.
Inside them were the characters for ingot and gold.
“As you know, the ultimate goal of alchemists is to produce gold, the ideal metal.
Well, as you know the result, producing gold hasn’t been successful at the moment.
Still, alchemists continued the trial and error to make various substances in preparation to produce gold.
But at this time, an unexpected thing happened.”
Gilbert drew several circles above the alchemy furnace and extended the arrow from there to the center of the furnace.
Then he drew a long arrow extending downward from the furnace to the lightning bolt mark.
He added ‘material’ inside the upper circles and ‘magic’ in the lightning bolt mark.
“When external magical power intervened in some combinations of several materials, magic was born as an accidental product.
Alchemists continued studying the miracle that happened in the furnace, leading to one big turning point.
The developed alchemy made it possible to make the same miracle even outside the furnace.
Or, although it may not be known as a reduced furnace……”
Gilbert connected the picture of the alchemy furnace and the wand of the alchemist’s figure with an arrow.
“Aah! The wand, it was originally an alchemy furnace!”
“That’s right. The appearance, the scale and the labor are very different, but the basis was the same.”
“In other words, because it was the external magical power that caused the miracle inside the alchemy furnace, perhaps it was charged into the wand?”
“Correct. It is not the internal magical power that is charged into the wands, but the external magical power.
And this external magical power has a big problem. ……Phew~ finally we got into the main topic.”
Gilbert put the chalk down and wiped his hands with a handkerchief that was wet with water.
He rubbed the area between his eyebrows with his clean finger and relaxed it, and sighed like an old man.
“What do you mean, Aniki.”
“Young Master, I would like to ask you something. Do you think that you need things like alchemists’ gloves when you use a wand?”
“That is a matter of course.
Without gloves, the recoil of the wand………ah!”
Harold stared at the illustrations on the blackboard intently.
I see. I had somehow understood.
“The identity of the reaction is the external magical power, isn’t it?”
“Great answer. When using a wand, there are several holes between the person and the wand.
At that time, the external magical power contained in the wand flowed into the human body.
Although it can be dismissed if it was just external magical power, it would have a harmful effect if it was built as a spell.”
Gilbert flipped the blackboard and drew a picture of a wand and a hand on the opposite side where nothing was written yet.
And then, he drew a line along the shape of the hand.
“With the exception of Young Master, normal human beings are born with power to hinder external magical power.
It is the inhibition value measured by Rainbow Strap a while ago.
Inhibition values have ratings from 1 to 6, and the more the number of rainbows there is, the more difficult it is for the person to get the recoil.
Alchemists’ gloves artificially reproduce the inhibitory effect of the human body.
With this, even humans with low inhibition values can use wands relatively safely.”
“Then, I’m……”
“I don’t know if there are gloves that correspond to people with inhibition value of zero.
Because Young Master is a really rare case, it is uncertain whether there is even a scholar who is researching about that.”
Hearing Gilbert’s words, Harold dropped his shoulders dejectedly.
It had to be pretty painful.
Since he loved to work with wands, it had to feel like a death sentence that he couldn’t use wands in his lifetime.
“Don’t be discouraged, Young Master.
Didn’t I say it? You have a miraculous constitution.
There are some areas that the lower the inhibition values, it will be all the more advantageous.”
“W-what do you mean, Aniki?”
Gilbert drew several arrows from the hand to the wand and drew a few more arrows bounced off the line representing the inhibition value.
“When constructing a spell with external magical power or charging a wand with magic, the existence of the inhibitory value is rather an enemy.
It is an obstructive ability that supposed to protect the user’s hands, but it interferes with the creator.
The feeling when charging a wand with a spell is different for each individual, so it is difficult to put into few words, but it seems that phenomenon such as ‘the convergence of the magical power was disturbed’ or ‘the form of the spell is distorted’ will happen.”
“Then, in the case of me who have zero inhibition value……?”
Gilbert grinned as he looked at Harold.
“Conversely, no matter how difficult it is, you should be able to construct and charge as you like.
If it is done by Young Master’s hands, external magical power will be packed in a wand while being static and stable like a windless lake surface.”
“Such power, in my hands……?”
“It’s a rare talent that only seen one in a hundred of years.
Any complicated and esoteric magic can be built easily.
Magic that an ordinary alchemist takes more than an hour to build will only take you the time it takes to think.
In other words, you have miraculous hands.”
Well, it depends on Young Master’s efforts, Gilbert added to conclude his explanation.
For a while, Harold was staring at Gilbert with a blank face.
Suddenly turning over towards me, he gazed at his hands.
“Even if I am told that it is a miracle, it still hasn’t kicked in.
But……but, somehow I feel very happy right now.”
Harold said while staring at his hands.
Somehow, it seemed that his dark green eyes were becoming teary.
“Yeah. I don’t have to use a wand. Maybe it’s fine like this.
Surely, it is my destiny to live as a wandmaker.”
Harold expressed his determination while holding his palm over his head.
That was good. Harold would surely recover.
On the contrary, he was livelier than before the lecture started.
Gilbert shrugged his shoulders and spoke to me in a loud voice.
“Haha, he won’t be discouraged, that guy.”
“Being positive is a good thing.”
“You have waited for a long time, does Ojou-san want to try the Rainbow Strap too?”
“Yes, that’s right. Can you lend me?”
Gilbert offered me the Rainbow Strap.
I took off my gloves and received the Rainbow Strap.
“Um, was it something like this?”
By the way, I had a constitution that couldn’t make a wand, I wondered what kind of reaction would happen in this case.
I put a lot of effort into the hand that was holding the Rainbow Strap.
At that moment, colors overflowed from the crystal.
(Eehh!? W-what is this?)
It was an eruption of rainbow-colored light.
A flash of light that couldn’t be expressed was emitted by the Rainbow Strap, and I closed my eyes reflexively.
“Oi, oi, are you serious?”
“Uwah……what is this……”
I heard the murmurs of the two people.
After a while, I felt the light settled behind my eyelids and I opened my eyes nervously.
Rainbows like wide ribbons surrounded me, centering on the shining crystal.
One, two, three……I counted as many as seven.
Seven?
Just now, he said that there were only up to six.
While looking at the rainbow confusedly, the seven rainbows ribbons suddenly started moving.
Those seven rainbows stood upright and pointed upwards.
The light around the tip star crystal strengthened even further, and the internal star steel also began to shine like gold.
There was an illusion as if someone in the sky gripped the ribbon-like rainbows and was pulling them.
I felt goose bumps appearing all over my body.
Beautiful, but somewhat horrifying.
I let go the Rainbow Strap in my hand unintentionally.
At that moment, the seven rainbows disappeared and the light residing in the Rainbow Strap also became smaller little by little.
At this time, I noticed that my heart was beating fast.
“That surprised me……”
“W-what was that just now? What does it mean, Aniki?”
“Wait, wait, I’m confused too. Give me some time to settle down.
Really, what’s with today. To think there are two singularities at once……”
Gilbert gulped down the cider as he muttered.
I asked while looking at the Rainbow Strap which was rolling on the floor and Gilbert alternately.
“U-um, I wonder if I should also call you Gilbert-aniki—”
“Gofuhh!? No, no, Ojou-san, you don’t have to call me that!
As long as I know about it, I will teach you what I know, because I will have an uneasy conscience if I made you call me that.”
Then, with a light break in between, Gilbert’s additional lecture began.
1 Athanor is a furnace used to provide a uniform and constant heat fir alchemical digestion. (source)
So, basically:
Hafan: external magical power –> converted into internal –> add chant and/or spell cards –> magic circle –> magic (unusual power)
Aurelia: combinations of materials –> made into wands –> charged with external magical power –> magic circle –> magic (unusual power)
Also, what do you think the seven rainbows mean?