Chapter 196: The Wager
Evan gave a small smile, a note of something deeper beneath his words. "Coffee's a small thing — I've never much cared for refinement in it. Sometimes carrying too many thoughts into your magical training does more harm than good. Simplicity often gets you further, faster."
"As you say, Teacher." Reinhardt's expression stayed perfectly composed.
Evan shook his head privately and shifted the topic. "Magical cultivation and knightly training aren't inherently opposed — done properly, one can strengthen the other. Mishandled, though, they'll just as easily undercut each other."
"How do you make them reinforce one another?" Reinhardt seized on the point at once, pressing further.
"Magic works from within, in a sense, but its application draws on the energy of heaven and earth — meditation helps attune yourself to that energy more fully. A knight's cultivation, by contrast, is genuinely internal, even visualizing something like a centaur still draws on stirring the energy within your own body. The two methods often seem to run in opposite directions, and someone who doesn't understand this tends to favor one over the other, which is exactly where the idea that dual cultivation produces poor results comes from. In truth, both ultimately come down to work done through pure intention. Understand that, and the two paths run parallel without conflict, each free to move as needed," Evan said evenly.
Reinhardt considered this for a moment. "I'm grateful for the lesson. I hadn't thought of it that way — this has weighed on me for a while. It makes sense now why the school has a swordsmanship club at all."
They talked a while longer, and Evan noted that though Reinhardt carried himself with perfect courtesy, an unmistakable hunger for power ran beneath it — a double-edged thing. Pursued with real moral restraint, it might carry him to genuine greatness, someone in the mold of Kaiwang or Charlemagne. Left unchecked, though, that same hunger could consume him entirely and bring real harm to the world.
Of course, this remained Evan's own private judgment. He could see plainly enough that Reinhardt possessed real tenacity — traveling this far to seek out an education at Hollingburton spoke to a man who recognized his own shortcomings. He offered the two of them a few words of encouragement. Compared to her brother, Jenny fell considerably short in raw ability, though fortune had clearly smiled on her all the same.
Once they'd left, Evan stepped outside and wandered without much direction, finding himself before Jessica's house. She and Emma sat beneath the tree, sharing tea. Evan greeted them. "Good day, lovely ladies."
"Good day, Professor Wang. Been a while," Emma said — she'd only just returned from her own break that day.
"Good day, Professor Wang. Has Jenny brought her brother by to meet you yet?" Jessica asked with a smile.
"She has. That Reinhardt is no simple character. Jenny, by comparison, is far more straightforward. I only hope he doesn't wander down some dark road in the future," Evan said.
"I'm not especially fond of Reinhardt myself. He seems almost too perfect — not a single flaw anywhere, which strikes me as rather false. As a mind mage, my instincts run sharp, and something about him feels genuinely dark," Jessica said.
"You're talking about Jenny's brother? His talent for magic outstrips hers by a fair margin. Jessica, why on earth did you take on a student like her?" Emma asked.
"She's connected to Mikoyan somehow. I took her on out of respect for him, honestly, but after spending time with her, she's turned out quite well — pure of heart, at the very least," Jessica said.
"So that's the reason. I did wonder why you'd take on a student who'll likely never rise past fourth or fifth tier," Emma said.
"Let's make a wager, then. I intend to raise her into a senior mage in her own right. If you lose, you owe me a year's subscription to Magic. If I lose, I'll pay for yours instead," Jessica said.
"All right, then — though we need a time limit. Say, twenty years?" Emma said. "Professor Wang's right here — he can witness it for us."
Jessica nodded. "Twenty years is more than fair. Settled, then. Professor Wang can be our witness."
Evan laughed. "You two get all the stakes, and I get nothing at all out of witnessing this. Since two lovely ladies are asking so nicely, I'll do it free of charge."
The three of them settled the wager, Jessica wearing a satisfied smile that left Emma more than a little suspicious.
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The next morning, Jessica brought Jenny along, Xiaoshuang perched on Evan's shoulder, and the group made their way to the floating city's construction site. The city was nearly finished — a colossal structure four hundred cubits long, close to three hundred fifty wide, and nearly a hundred high, rising above them on more than six hundred pillars, the tallest reaching nearly a hundred twenty cubits. Jenny stared up at the inverted-cone shape of it, mouth agape, and even Jessica found herself gazing in silent awe.
Marantel, the legendary lightning mage currently overseeing the project, spotted them and came over. Evan's group offered proper greetings at once. "Good day, honored Legendary Mage Marantel. We've come to see how things are progressing."
"Ah, it's you. Well done — impressive work from the younger generation. Ortlando mentioned you two would be coming. There are two residences up there set aside for you. Go on up and pick which one you'd like," Marantel said with a smile.
"Before we go up — could I see the blueprints first?" Evan asked.
Marantel smacked his forehead. "Look at me, so caught up talking I nearly forgot. Of course, the plans first. Joseon, bring the drawings."
A senior student acknowledged and stepped forward. "Honored Legendary Mage Marantel, which set would you like?"
"The overall layout of the settlement."
Joseon produced a scroll of parchment, and as Marantel unrolled it, a projection of light and shadow bloomed in the air before them — an entire town rendered in miniature, a single main street lined with greenery, water winding past small hills, houses scattered throughout. Along the street front stood a row of two-story buildings, uniform and orderly, marked as the commercial district, each a proper shopfront, with streetlamps lining the road. Behind them, houses stood scattered according to the natural terrain, some already labeled with names.
Evan recognized them at once — names of legendary mages, meaning those homes already had owners. He turned his attention to the unclaimed plots instead, finding two set apart at the edge. He pointed. "This one, then."
Jessica pointed to the house beside it. Marantel watched them make their choices and nodded, clearly pleased by their manner, then tapped the projection, and both their names appeared over the chosen homes.
Joseon rolled up the plans. "Come, let's go up and take a look," Marantel said, rising into the air on Levitation. Evan followed close behind. Jessica pulled out her wand, murmured a few words, and pointed at Jenny, lifting her into the air as well, Jenny trailing after them, visibly nervous.
"No need to be nervous. You'll be learning spells like this soon enough — it's only Levitation," Jessica reassured her.
They rose to over a hundred cubits, and an airborne town came into view, its terrain uneven and natural. Water, driven by magic, wound through the settlement in a continuous loop. At its edge stood a modest wall of massive granite blocks, magical cannons mounted along its length, their barrels aimed skyward, a chilling weight of menace hanging over them. To the northwest, they spotted their own homes, already finished — a two-story standalone building, Jessica's own residence standing just a few cubits away, equally two stories.
The terrain ran higher in the northwest, sloping down toward the southeast, the water originating in the northwest and flowing that direction before sinking underground, resurfacing again where it had started. Five tall towers rose across the city — seven stories each, one at each of the cardinal points and one at the center, all connected below ground, functioning together as the settlement's control hub and doubling as magic towers in their own right.
The whole floating city carried an overwhelming sense of scale, leaving Jenny thoroughly awestruck, while Xiaoshuang had already darted ahead toward the house Evan had chosen.
"Well? The floating city stands as a genuine marvel of modern magic. We're finishing installation of the core now — should be airborne within days. Once all five towers run together, they'll form a thick magical force field around the whole structure. Once properly calibrated, it'll fly above Norse, set at roughly four thousand cubits of altitude for now — large as it is, from the ground it'll look small enough, no bigger than the sun appears, several times over," Marantel said.
"An impressive structure. What sort of speed can it manage?" Evan asked. Reckoning two cubits to roughly a meter of his old world, that put the city at around two thousand meters of altitude — still well within reach of breathable air, nowhere near the tens of thousands of meters where things would grow genuinely dangerous. Fortunate, he thought — this world likely had no idea what changes came with altitude, having never flown higher than two or three cubits' worth, a mere thousand meters or so.
"Its speed is quite slow — barely twenty miles an hour at absolute maximum. Accelerating something this massive isn't easy even for a legendary mage. Ordinarily it cruises below five miles an hour," Marantel said.
"Reaching even that speed is genuinely remarkable. Will the city stay fixed here, or travel between locations?" Evan asked, curious. By then they'd reached the house and were stepping toward it.
"It'll travel — touring across Norse. Headmaster Ortlando's already leased out those shopfronts to magical merchants. Maintaining a structure like this costs a fortune, after all — better to have it earning its keep through trade," Marantel said.
"Won't that pose a security risk?" Evan asked.
"No concern there. The residential area sits over a dense network of detection arrays underground, along with Petrification spells besides. Anyone hoping to cause trouble wouldn't get far at all," Marantel said. Evan nodded and let the matter drop. Xiaoshuang had already gone inside, flying about the interior — modest in size, but fully equipped, even with its own alchemy room.
"My apologies — I've nothing to offer you as a proper host," Evan said, a little sheepish, to Marantel.
"Ha! Make it up to me another time. No one's actually moved in yet anyway. Go on, look around at your leisure — I'll leave you to it." Marantel took his leave, and Evan saw him to the door.
Evan glanced around, and a thought struck him — a real business opportunity, perhaps. He turned to Jessica with a smile. "I've had an idea — developing a small flying vessel, boat-shaped. There'd surely be a market for it."
Jessica blinked. "You mean something like a lifeboat? That's not a bad idea at all." She understood at once exactly what Evan was thinking.