Chapter 203: Natural Feedback
Shulman's heart sank. He let out a wild roar, countless fireballs filling the air in an instant, streaking toward Marantel.
Lightning flickered around Marantel, and the space around him cleared in an instant, a crash of thunder following as a bolt of lightning shot straight for Shulman. He'd barely drawn his sword, sword-force just beginning to flare, when it was already too late. There was a deafening boom, a wash of thunder-fire, and a charred, blackened figure collapsed where he'd stood.
At the sound of the blast, the other three legendary mages arrived, and seeing Shulman already dead, made their way together toward the core chamber.
There, they found Heathermere and Evan talking, and everyone exchanged proper greetings. Heathermere said, "We're heading up. Cole, take some men and search this room thoroughly — don't overlook the smallest detail. Professor Wang, come with us."
Evan nodded. The floating city had hung suspended over two hundred cubits in the air for more than an hour by then. The guests below showed no sign of anxiety at all — outwardly sympathetic, though privately, no doubt, thoroughly delighted. Only the Church's delegation looked genuinely uneasy, hemmed in by Hollingburton's strike team. The others appeared free enough on the surface, though everyone understood full well how many hidden watchers surrounded them.
Ortlando waited anxiously below. With the floating city sealed off entirely, word had still reached him — Tony Shulman, ranked forty-second on the Church's heretics list, had teleported inside and seized the core chamber. Worse still, they held a Ptolemy Ring.
Clearly, the floating city had been hijacked, and both sides now stood locked in a standoff. Give in to the hijackers' demands, and Hollingburton's reputation would be ruined entirely.
He'd heard faint word that the Church had a hand in this, and fury rose in him — though he forced it back down. Without solid proof, he could afford to bend the rules dealing with lesser powers, but not against the Church itself.
Just then, good news arrived — the intruders had all been killed, everything back to normal. He finally allowed himself a smile as the floating city shuddered and its outer barrier began to fade.
The Hollingburton mages still airborne swarmed inside at once, quickly confirming the situation for themselves, though most stayed up there rather than descending — Evan alone came back down.
Standing beside Lagrov, she asked with a playful laugh, "Wang, what happened up there?"
Her laugh alone sent a ripple of distraction through the people nearby, several of them nearly stumbling, quickly ducking their heads to cover it. Ortlando noticed the scene and shook his head. Even Evan felt the pull for a moment before steadying himself, answering with a smile. "Nothing serious. Just a group of reckless fools who slipped in while Hollingburton's guard was briefly down, hoping to seize the floating city. Their luck ran out — every last one of them's been dealt with."
"To think someone would dare lay a hand on a colossus like Hollingburton. I admire the nerve," Lagrov said.
"Probably lost their senses, egged on by someone else. Otherwise they'd never have found the courage," Evan said, glancing pointedly toward the Church's delegation.
Lagrov followed his gaze. Though she looked no older than twenty, her true age ran past a century, and a century's worth of experience wasn't wasted on her — understanding settled over her at once, a knowing smile crossing her lips, the kind that could turn heads without half trying.
The floating city continued its climb, finally settling among the clouds. Once it steadied, everyone boarded the airships once more, the Church's delegation included.
Evan couldn't help a private sigh at the sheer reach of the Church's power — even knowing full well who'd orchestrated this, Hollingburton preferred not to confront them directly, even now. Something in Evan sat uneasy with that, though he kept it well hidden. Privately, though, he found himself thinking further ahead — sooner or later, he'd need to leave this place. Where, though? He'd heard the continent of Eyan was thoroughly chaotic, with both the Xia empire and the various Tyrenese nations scrambling for colonies there, its many faiths scattered without any single one dominant. Going there might suit him well enough. Still, he'd already struck an agreement with Ortlando — Hollingburton would help him reach legendary rank — though he remained some distance yet from even completing his mastery as an Arcanist.
Magical cultivation wasn't something haste alone could hurry along. Evan had already advanced remarkably quickly by any measure, but the higher he climbed, the harder each step became — not something a year or two alone could finish. Evan let out a private sigh, though his face kept its warm, easy smile throughout.
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The airships settled onto the floating city, and everyone disembarked, marveling openly at the sight before them — this entire floating expanse of land. The various Tyrenese envoys peppered Ortlando with questions, most of them concerned whether Hollingburton meant to help Norse contend for regional dominance. Ortlando assured them it would not. Still uneasy, they eyed the magic-crystal cannons lining the walls — nothing about them suggested a mission of peace.
Ortlando's answer — that the weapons served purely defensive purposes, never to be deployed beyond Norse's own borders — eased their minds somewhat, though the other supernatural factions present cared more about the city's raw power and any weaknesses it might carry. Should a floating fortress like this one day hang directly over their own territory, what recourse would they have?
Evan noticed, suddenly, that one of his charges had gone missing — Cynthia, Lagrov's handmaiden. Puzzled, he asked, "Honored Lady Lagrov, it seems one of your handmaidens has slipped away?"
Lagrov laughed. "She's over there. Young people, falling in love — perfectly natural." She pointed off into the distance, and Evan followed her gesture to find two figures hidden behind a building — the man unmistakably Casten, the Church's own knight.
Evan glanced back toward the rest of the Church delegation, who clearly had no idea their own man had wandered off. "Aren't you and the Church sworn enemies?" he asked.
"Sworn enemies, yes — but young people falling in love is another matter entirely. Don't worry, our position on that is quite clear. We won't stand in the way. If he wishes to marry one of our dark elf women, he'll simply have to give up his faith. We're an open people, unlike that lot at the Church. We'd even offer them our blessing," Lagrov said with a laugh.
Understanding settled over Evan. Well now — a honey trap, deployed with real finesse. He felt no distaste at all, actually rather pleased by it — this outcome suited his own purposes perfectly well.
"You're quite open-minded, your people," Evan said.
"Naturally. And if Professor Wang were ever inclined, I have several handmaidens who've spoken quite fondly of you. You're a mage, aren't you — do you hold faith in the Creator?" Lagrov said, eyes glinting as she studied him.
Evan smiled. "My faith lies with the god of death, not any angel. But truthfully, my only real passion is magic. As for matters between men and women, I'm afraid I must respectfully decline."
"Don't be so quick to refuse. These handmaidens of mine were handpicked from among the finest — I guarantee you'd be satisfied. What do you say?" Lagrov said, playing the matchmaker outright, her handmaidens all wearing looks of wounded longing, as though Evan had already broken every one of their hearts.
Evan shook his head with a smile, declining without further comment. Just then, Cynthia returned, offering Evan a small smile, which he returned with a nod. She murmured something to Lagrov — her lips moving without a sound reaching Evan at all, some manner of secret art at work. He had no wish to pry, guessing she'd delivered some piece of intelligence.
Once the tour concluded, the airships carried everyone back down, and Evan's own duties were finished. He spent a while afterward with Emma, mostly discussing the business arrangement — the airship now officially belonging to Lagrov, though the matter wasn't fully settled yet, still requiring handover and crew training, all of which Emma would arrange through her own people.
Back at the school, a different atmosphere had taken hold. Rewards were being handed out — Evan had earned real credit, receiving not only a wealth of rare materials but also a string of eighteen beads, each one holding a distinct legendary-tier spell, effectively granting him eighteen uses of legendary magic.
At the same time, an informant had been rooted out — a student, it turned out, coerced through threats against his family, left with no real choice but to become an inside man. Whatever punishment followed, Evan never learned; he simply never saw the student again after that.
His paper was published around the same time as well, earning him two new abilities. One was, oddly, an alchemical skill — a technique for briefly boosting flame temperature, an odd gift that let ordinary fire, normally burning at a few hundred degrees, spike suddenly into the thousands, though limited to thirty seconds at a stretch. The second proved far more useful — Evan found he could now decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen through pure will, directing the resulting gases as he pleased, mixing them or keeping them separate. His first thought, naturally, ran straight to building a gas bomb.
His work with Jessica had also entered its critical phase, yielding a solid conclusion: at constant volume, a gas's pressure is directly proportional to its temperature; at constant pressure, its volume scales directly with temperature; and at constant temperature, pressure and volume scale inversely with each other. From this, they derived that the product of pressure and volume, divided by temperature, held constant.
Evan called this the Ideal Gas Law, and defined an ideal gas as one whose particles could be treated as point masses — establishing that a gas's volume, at fixed temperature and pressure, depended only on the number of particles present.
Jessica wrote the paper up, credited to all three of them, Jenny included. Evan reviewed it and found nothing amiss. "Jenny, do you understand all of this?"
Jenny said, "Professor Wang, I do understand it. Running these experiments, I felt just how endless nature's mysteries truly are. I've come to see that magic isn't only a tool for combat, for fighting others — it's a way of uncovering nature itself, of building our understanding of the world."
Evan smiled, and Jessica smiled with him. "That you've grasped this much, you owe to your teacher's guidance," Evan said. "You're right — magic isn't merely a weapon. It's a means of understanding nature, and that natural knowledge plays a genuine role within magic itself. Once this paper reaches enough readers, you may well feel a touch of natural feedback yourself."
As he spoke, something clicked suddenly into place in Evan's own mind, understanding blooming all at once. So this was how natural feedback truly worked. It carried a real connection to faith itself — requiring, on one hand, genuine intellectual understanding within oneself, a truth one had to arrive at personally; but more importantly, requiring the recognition of a sufficient number of other minds as well, much like belief in a god. The two combined, together, formed what people called natural feedback.