Chapter 109 : Chapter 109
Chapter 109: Gravity Compression
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Windclaw Month, 3rd Day.
I have to admit, my thoughts last night were a bit heretical.
I hope Lady "Mystra" doesn't find out, and even if she does, please do not hold it against me.
You know, I have always been the most devout believer in the "Goddess of Magic," and I have never slandered or belittled the great role of the "Weave" for spellcasters. The radiance of magic is more dazzling than the sun.
May the Arcane live forever.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Windclaw Month, 6th Day.
Greengrass is coming soon. Leah specially brought over some sweet flower cakes for me to share with the other apprentices.
They were indeed very sweet.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Windclaw Month, 18th Day.
The recent experiments have not been going well. Even Burgess was reprimanded by our mentor for an entire afternoon for a common and harmless little mistake.
He is the mentor's closest apprentice!
I was not caught in the mentor's wrath, but I don't feel lucky because of it.
After all, only those who truly participate in the experiments have the opportunity to make mistakes.
And I, who can only stand by and do chores and observe, don't even have the right to make a mistake.
Next year is the last entrance assessment for Hawthorne Royal Academy.
At this rate, can I really make it?
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Windclaw Month, 21st Day.
Heavens!
I only found out during dinner today that Burgess was also one of the failures from the last assessment.
How is that possible!?
Hasn't he already mastered third-circle spells?
If even he couldn't pass, then I...
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Melting Snow Month, 5th Day.
After the experiment ended today, my landlord, that Calimshan, came to the mage tower.
He said the rent hasn't been paid for two months.
Burgess helped me cover the gold.
I plan to take some leave and go back to check on things.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Melting Snow Month, 7th Day.
It turns out Leah was fired from the workshop a few months ago, the reason being that she misjudged the price of a magical item.
She said she was absolutely sure she didn't make a mistake, that the customer, in order to raise the price with the appraisal certificate, had bribed the old appraiser in the workshop beforehand.
When it was discovered, they threw her out as a scapegoat.
Leah grew up in Nyum, and even after following me all the way to Huancai City, she had never suffered much.
I know she was afraid of making me worry, so even though she was wronged, she never said anything.
I have to do something.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Melting Snow Month, 12th Day.
Through Burgess's channels, I got information on the bastard who caused Leah to lose her job.
He is an apprentice teacher at Hawthorne Royal Academy.
I wanted to go and reason with him, but Leah stopped me at the door, crying.
She begged me not to go, saying that he was a big shot and it would affect my entrance exam next year.
I agreed, pretending to be very angry.
But I actually knew that even if Leah didn't stop me, I wouldn't be able to see him.
A wild mage from the countryside, living a slave-like life as an apprentice in a mage tower.
I can't even get through the gates of Hawthorne Academy, so who would I go to reason with?
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Flowering Season Month, 9th Day.
It's been almost a month since I came back from the rented house that day.
Leah has come to the mage tower a few times, as if nothing had happened.
But the pretty little dress she used to wear has been replaced with coarse sackcloth.
The jewelry and necklace she never used to take off are also gone.
She smiled and said it was more comfortable to dress this way.
This can't go on.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Flowering Season Month, 12th Day.
There's still more than a year until the entrance assessment, but I feel that my hopes are growing dimmer.
In the mage tower, what I'm learning is simply not enough for me to get into the Royal Academy.
To pass the assessment, I must find another way.
Find some other path.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Flowering Season Month, 20th Day.
Today is a rest day, and it's my turn to clean the laboratory. I suddenly remembered that experience from two months ago.
Using the rune array in the laboratory, without spell components, I tried again.
It still succeeded.
What does this mean?
If I can uncover the principle behind it, can I pass the assessment and become a member of the academy with this?
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Flowering Season Month, 21st Day.
There's only one rest day a month, the laboratory is simply not enough.
Since it's all gravity magic, maybe my only mastered first-circle spell, "Gravity Compression," can replace the rune array as my experimental subject.
After all, it also requires spell components, and the steps of constructing a spell model and connecting to the Weave are no different.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Flowering Season Month, 28th Day.
First, I tried to change the spell components for "Gravity Compression," using washing powder and small crushed stones to replace the original iron filings, and also tried casting without any spell components.
They all worked.
But except for the iron filings, the casting effects with all other materials were very unstable.
It makes sense, after all, the role of "spell components" is to maintain the stability of magic operating within a spell model.
Then I went a step further, thinking that without the aid of any materials, I could even omit the spell model and directly guide the magic itself through the Weave.
The experiment failed.
Without a spell model as a terminal, no matter how much magic is filtered from the Weave, it is just simple magic particles, with no additional effects.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Summer Tide Month, 15th Day.
I began to think about the relationship between spell components, spell models, the Weave, and the spellcaster.
What is the principle of a spell, specifically?
Is it just following the experience left by predecessors in spellbooks, conventionally holding spell components measured to the gram, outlining a complex and incomprehensible model with magic, and drawing magic from the invisible and untouchable Weave? Is that all there to it?
If spell components can be replaced, and spell models can be omitted, then what about the Weave?
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Summer Tide Month, 27th Day.
I tried to think about the essence of gravity magic.
Is it by adjusting the density of earth elements in the air to increase or decrease the pressure effect on an object;
Or by regulating the flow rate of the aether to weaken or enhance the gravitational constraints of the material world;
Or is it both?
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Blazing Sun Month, 10th Day.
Success!
No need for any spell components, no need to simulate a spell model, and no need to connect to the Weave.
I omitted all the superfluous steps in "Gravity Compression," leaving only the simplest parts that touched upon its essence, purely using my mental power to stir the magic particles in the air.
It still works!
If so, what is the meaning of the Weave's existence?
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Blazing Sun Month, 21st Day.
Strange.
Although the spell succeeded, the laboratory did not detect any changes in earth element density or aether turbulence.
Then what is this so-called "gravity," or "gravitation"?
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Withered Month, 13th Day.
Today, during a break from work, I told my mentor about my confusion.
A strange expression appeared on his face, one I had never seen in the year I had been at the mage tower.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 713, Withered Month, 15th Day.
I was dismissed.
Burgess helped me pack my things and stuffed a few more gold coins into my bundle, which I only discovered after returning to the rented house.
He's a good person, I will remember him.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 714, Deep Winter Month, 2nd Day.
Leah now works two jobs every day, leaving before dawn and coming back late at night. It's very hard for her.
I thought about doing some work within my ability to help with the household expenses.
But she told me to focus on my research and not get distracted.
I will definitely treat her well.
I swear!
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 714, Winterclaw Month, 13th Day.
Even without the professional equipment in the mage tower, the most basic experiments can still be conducted.
I have not given up.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 714, Winterclaw Month, 30th Day.
The quill, floating under the effect of gravity, suddenly reminded me of fallen leaves floating uncertainly on the surface of the water.
It has nothing to do with the aether, nor is it the earth element.
Magic in it only plays a catalytic role.
Is it something that exists in the air, invisible and flowing?
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 714, Duskclaw Month, 25th Day.
Making a quill and an ink bottle float at the same height, with other conditions remaining unchanged, the latter requires more concentration and magic.
Is it the difference in weight?
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 714, Melting Snow Month, 21st Day.
"Gravity" itself does not exist because of magic.
The so-called gravity magic is just using magic particles as a catalyst to change the magnitude of gravity an object is subjected to.
It is like an invisible river, and all a spellcaster can do is temporarily change or slow its flow.
I seem to have discovered the pattern within it.
But whenever I want to use what I have summarized and concluded, to create magic like the legendary mages in bards' tales, to divert a tributary from the river.
Just like the few sorcerers I've seen in Huancai City, when they bypass the "Weave" and purely control magic itself.
I'm always just a little bit short.
Whether it's the frequency of particle fluctuation, or the stability of the energy flow...
The reasons are bizarre and varied.
But it always, just before the moment I am about to succeed, makes all my efforts go to waste.
As if there is an invisible hand, preventing me from taking that crucial final step.
Is it the effect of differences in air humidity, or is it due to the continuous aftershocks from the ley lines?
Or perhaps, the dice cast by the gods in the Sea of Aether?
Is it "Her"?
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 714, Summer Tide Month, 6th Day.
Leah said that during this time, I seem like a different person, no longer talking about those incomprehensible terms and theorems, nor often mentioning the Royal Magic Academy I once dreamed of.
Only I know the reason why.
Like an ant crawling out of its narrow nest for the first time, the vast and boundless material world, just by revealing its outermost and yet fascinating corner, is enough to shake my body and soul.
In comparison, my former dreams and wishes seem like the ramblings of a child, naive and pointless.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 714, Withered Month, 7th Day.
I still went to take the assessment, just to put a period on my two years of hard work.
The result was as expected.
My findings were repeatedly criticized by several examiners, and one of them even called it trash.
I did not refute.
The future will prove who is right and who is wrong.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 714, Falling Leaf Month, 1st Day.
Leah is pregnant.
We plan to return to Nyum for a period of rest before making further plans.
...
Arcane Calendar, Year 714, Year's End Month, 30th Day.
Gravity exists objectively in every object.
Magic is the means to leverage it.
But as long as that otherworldly "Holy Mother," "The Lady," still sits high in her divine kingdom.
The outer planes, the astral plane... nowhere can escape Her gaze.
It doesn't matter.
If the world is Her sandbox, I am willing to be the flea that leaps out of the box.
...
My gaze swept to the end of the page.
A look of wanting more appeared on my face.
A diary.
From a wild mage three hundred years ago.
Although I didn't know the diary owner's name, nor the reason why it ended up in a goblin nest.
But this wonderful feeling of peeking into another life through words made me unable to help but immerse myself in it.
I even ignored the filthy and pungent stench in the air, and the viscous, muddy soil under my feet.
Just like that, I stood in the cave filled with the fragmented corpses of goblins, and finished reading the entire thing page by page.
I recalled the "Huancai City" and "gravity magic" mentioned inside.
Speaking of which, since I transmigrated, I don't think I've ever seen a proper spellcaster.
Oh, perhaps that priest of the sun god in Karanfor counts as one.
Watching the wild mage in the diary gradually shed his ignorance and become resolute and calm after accidentally realizing the existence of "gravity."
As a bystander, I felt as if I had experienced it all myself.
It was just a pity that, even coming from a technologically advanced modern society and having struggled in the workplace for many years, my entire understanding of "gravity" was limited to that apple falling on a head and the surging tides at the seaside.
But it was quite interesting to see him reinterpret it from a magical perspective, in the way of a fantasy world.
Treating it as a small interlude during a "thrilling" mission, I closed the thin book, intending to put it back in the book box and take it back to River Valley Town.
But my fingertips, pinching the page, couldn't help but pause.
It was the back cover, at the end of the diary, which was thicker than the other pages.
As if thinking of something, a glint of light flashed in my dark eyes.
I pinched the back cover of the diary with my forefinger and thumb and gently rubbed it.
Shala—
A yellowed sheet of paper, half a page covered with densely packed characters that had been glued into the book's interlayer, fluttered down.
I quickly caught it.
My eyes subconsciously swept over the text recorded on it.
“As expected!”
This piece of paper, hidden in the back cover's interlayer, recorded in detail the method the wild mage in the diary used to manipulate "gravity" purely with mental power, without the aid of the Weave or spell models.
“I didn't expect such an unexpected gain!”
I happily folded the paper and carefully stored it close to my body.
I thought about studying it slowly in the inn after I got back.
Accompanied by the crisp metallic clang of the chainmail links colliding, the sound of footsteps gradually disappeared into the depths of the passage at the nest's exit.
On the dome of the stone wall, a crystalline liquid flowed silently, gathering at the tip of a stalactite, condensing into a single drop of water.
Wobbling.
Finally, under the effect of an invisible gravity, it quietly dripped.