Chapter Ninety-Eight: Connections

The servants, finally released from their suffering, clung to one another and wept. The steward wiped away his tears, sent several servants outside to inform those waiting to prepare the evening banquet, then quietly took his place beside his master.

The earl was still staring blankly at the dome above, lost in thought.

On the other side, after speaking with Louis for a while, Bishop John also resumed his duties, soothing the servants. He sprinkled holy water, led everyone in prayer, and worked them over with a deft hand; little by little, the emotions of the many who had survived the catastrophe began to settle.

Seeing that things were more or less under control, Louis and Helen went over to the three magicians.

The three magicians looked at Louis as though they had much they wished to say, but Louis did not linger on pleasantries. He simply handed back the heavy book they had all written together, returning it to Ron and the others.

The three magicians exchanged bewildered glances, then opened the book and began searching for the true answer.

Just as they had guessed, the spells in the book were no longer the same as the ones they had written before.

The handwriting was still theirs, and the runes were still the ones they had drawn, but the incantations had been shortened to barely a tenth of their original length. More than that, every spell now contained a few additional runes, while several others had been altered.

A few passages of runes had been removed, a few more revised, and the spell would be transformed beyond recognition.

What excited the three of them even more was that even the spells Louis had not recited today had all been changed as well. The entire thick volume of the "Book of the Magic Enthusiast" had now become a true grimoire.

In that instant, the three magicians understood something. They lifted their heads abruptly and, in a shock that bordered on awe, looked at Louis. He was a true master of magic.

"All three of you, thank you for letting me witness real magic today. I had believed that in this world, magic no longer existed." Louis gave a solemn nod. "Today, you showed me otherwise."

He meant every word. He had originally believed that all the magic in this world had already been gathered back into the wizards' little circles.

Yet he had not expected that this small society of magic enthusiasts in the city of Britannia, working with so little and so much missing, had still managed through their own research to create genuine magic. It was wrong in nearly every way, so wrong that it was almost unusable, but their path had been the right one.

After some revision, each spell became a true spell in its own right. Among them were as many as eighteen powerful banishment spells alone.

What had more than two hundred thousand wizards in the Academy City of the Sacred Icon Tree created over the past nearly ten years?

They were simply two hundred thousand pigs ignorant of innovation.

The difference between valuing innovation and exploration, and despising them, was truly staggering.

These men were the real magicians.

The three did not understand Louis's meaning and exchanged uncertain looks.

Louis patted Ron on the shoulder and said no more. He turned toward the earl, the steward, Kate, John, and the others who had already come over.

Earl Crowley first offered his sincere apologies and gratitude to Louis and the three magicians.

His words were earnest. He felt that both in all the years before and in much of what he had done today, he had wronged his wife and fallen short of the dignity expected of a nobleman.

The steward also bowed to Louis with an apology, then formally apologized to the three magicians as well.

This whole household still knew how to carry itself with a nobleman's composure.

Louis did not take such trifles to heart at all, and neither did the three magicians. They had heard the word liar too many times. They had also heard praise and slander too often.

They were moving forward for the sake of their ideals and cared nothing for others' eyes or words. So they accepted the apology with grace.

After that, the earl finally let go of the knot in his heart. With a genuine smile, he warmly invited everyone to dinner.

Just before leaving the hall, Louis glanced at the sealing array. A violet flame-mist that ordinary eyes could not perceive had already appeared over it, devouring the shadow trapped within the seal, helpless and without any means of resistance.

"Sir Louis, will this Dawn-Sealing Array remain here permanently?" the steward asked cautiously.

"Seal off this hall for now," Louis said with a look of easy confidence. "The demon has been sent to hell, but some negative energy still lingers here. Don't be nervous; the sealing array will purify it. Just keep the doors locked. When you can see a soft light coming from outside the doors, then you may open them."

This source of calamity could not be devoured by Stuart in three or five days. It had to be drawn into the dream world little by little, which meant they would need to come often.

Besides, Louis himself would have to help digest it, because Stuart alone could not absorb all that power.

Once it had been digested, Louis's mana should rise to around eighty.

In a sense, he really was raising a demon.

As for Stuart, the amount of mana it could absorb might not even be as much as Louis's. It could digest less than its master to begin with, partly because of its physical constitution. On top of that, a large portion of the power Stuart absorbed would be converted into agility. For that reason, its mana would not rise as much as Louis's.

After it grew again, its mana should return to around ninety, its agility to about sixty, and its strength to roughly twenty.

That would probably provide Louis with an extra six agility and nine mana, since both were based on ten percent.

It seemed his agility would soon be close to twenty.

If Louis were to drag Stuart onto himself and perform a demonic possession, then his three attributes would all shoot past three digits. By then, if he activated a heavenly armament and let mana bolster his strength, striking people would no longer be nearly as simple as it was today.

"Oh, right," Louis said. "Put a full-length mirror in the hall. It should face the sealing array directly."

The steward, hearing this, immediately grew solemn and hurried off to issue the order.

After giving his instructions, Louis went with the others to the banquet hall.

The banquet hall was enormous. At the high platform at the far end stood a long table, and most of the day's principal figures were seated there, arranged in a single row facing the hall below.

There were also several long tables below, with seats for the bishop and others, as well as knights, scholars from the castle, and the like. They were all there as companions.

As the chief guest among the guests of honor, Miss Kate sat beside him, keeping company with her father, who did not drink.

At the long banquet table, the earl, using water in place of wine, spoke at length.

The shrewd earl had in fact already seen the shape of things. He understood that the one who truly knew magic was this priest Louis. Some of the rumors concerning Her Highness Ocylis might also have been true. The Sacred Icon Tree was not merely a theological academy, but a holy place of learning devoted to the study of the occult.

At the same time, Crowley also expressed his respect toward the three magicians.

This respect was different from the superstition and worship he had shown at the beginning. It was sincere esteem. The earl understood clearly that, although Louis had solved the problem today, the three magicians had also been great heroes who stepped forward at the critical moment. Their abilities may have been lacking, but for that effort alone, he was deeply grateful.

They had, after all, gambled their lives in support of the Crowley family.

During the banquet, Louis truly came to understand the backgrounds of the three magicians. They were renowned grand magicians who had long been famous in the Kingdom of Sorondo. Before kings and ministers in the royal court, they were the sort who spoke with their heads held high while everyone else had to tread carefully.

Their standing came not only from the title of magician, nor merely from their families, their connections, or the title of Royal Learned Men of Sorondo above their heads.

It came because they had in fact solved problems that ordinary people, and even priests, had been unable to handle. They had even resolved terrible plagues and floods.

It could be said that, apart from magic, these three were extraordinary in medicine, flood control, knowledge, occult studies, martial skill, history, and more.

Their rank and status were thus fully deserved, placing them among the very small handful of people standing atop the pyramid of this age.

Bishop John and the other priests were also people atop that pyramid, the kind whom great nobles befriended and flattered, and whom kings took seriously.

Count Crowley was even more so, for he possessed real power and command over troops. In the kingdom, his words carried enormous weight, and His Majesty paid close attention to many of his opinions.

In the United Kingdom of Sorondo, an overseas colonial governor was practically a king in his own right. Many small overseas states had to treat such a man like an elder they dared not slight. Though Crowley had already stepped down and returned to that somewhat special post as captain of the Seventh Fleet, the territory of the Three Provinces was still his domain.

By the logic of a storybook, it was as if, after today, Louis's circle of connections had expanded greatly once more. His presence had already reached nine hundred. With the power and influence he now wielded, even Rufield and Teres tied together could not hope to compare.

He could already be counted among the sort of people who moved in the same social world as Rufield's father.

Although Rufield's family was not among the most exalted houses, it was still a distinguished lineage with many relatives. Before long, if the branches of the family tree ever became tangled just a little, Rufield might have to call Louis "Uncle" ...