Volume 7, Chapter 161: The Devil’s Crucible
Volume 7, Chapter 161: The Devil’s Crucible
The city itself was a vessel of magical power. Like the good worker bees, many gifted people came to give magical power.
At an early age, Filaret’s father told her that the great wizard who once left such words was the founder of the Volgograd family. However, at that time, she did not pay much attention to her father’s words. Until now.
To be precise, it was easier to understand if one said that the city was the cradle of people’s magical power.
According to the great wizard, magical power was the heartbeat of life. Every eye blink, every beat of one’s heart, every palpitation, and every movement from one’s fingers and arms, were a consumption of magical power. The great wizard said that senility and death was the cause of the magical power’s hunger.
Without the influence of magical power, the existence of a person would become just a lump of meat. None of one’s fingers would be able to move. Therefore, all human beings had magical power as living organisms. These people, without knowing it, absorbed magical power and unleashed it unconsciously. Most of these people lived every day without knowing such details. Those who could wield magical power at will were wizards and sorcerers. Of course, these words were the words of the great wizard. However.
Filaret’s black eyes winked when she reminded herself of the words she once heard in the past. Her gaze slowly pierced through the dimly lit library. Her black eyes were growing in size, as if she was looking for something.
What she was looking for must be in this particular place. Belfein was a city-state, so to speak, and Belfein, as a city itself, was the capital of this nation. That was why this library should be full of Belfein’s history books.
The library was covered with dust it seemed that this place was rarely cleaned. And most probably, not even used.
Although the Lords of Belfein were obliged to collect books, it seemed that Mordeaux himself, the current Lord, did not make much use of the library. Filaret thought, “What a shame”. It felt like giving a gold coin to a demon beast. This treasure was rotting away.
Filaret snorted involuntarily upon seeing many books covered with dust. If possible, she wanted to read all the books in here. Living in a cradle of books and a play with knowledge was one of Filaret’s pleasures. When she was in her school days, she was often alone in the school’s library. She felt strangely nostalgic on this very moment. Yet, she did not feel like going back to that time.
Suddenly, the fingers that were swaying in the darkness stopped. Her big black eyes moved up and shuddered intensely.
“…There it is. I cannot believe it. The knowledge that my fingertips want to accumulate is right in front of my eyes, quite accessible.”
The sensation that touched her spine felt a slight surge of magical power.
The book looked more than old-fashioned and seemed difficult to preserve it any longer. This book used to be held by magic itself, but perhaps its effectiveness had weakened. The parchment seemed to have hardened due to aging deterioration.
Filaret wondered if someone once tried to repair it since it had remains of lard or wax. The moment Filaret picked it up; an indescribable scent struck her nostrils. Her eyebrows raised without knowing it. Filaret looked terrified as she slowly touched the parchment.
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The reason why a city became a vessel of magical power was nothing but a gathering of human beings who had magical power.
As people gathered in the city to live, their magical powers unleashed out of their bodies every day. The small amount of magical power gradually accumulated in the earth. Without knowing it, the city itself transformed into a mass of magical power, an enormous crucible.
The Volgograd ancestor described people as working bees. Indeed, Filaret clearly understood such meaning. People came to the city one after another to seek work. These people devoted themselves to give magical power to the city. Eventually, each one of them would lose their magical power and run out of magic energy.
Now, what would happen to the magical power accumulated in said city? The magical power did not accumulate evenly throughout the city. It concentrated on one point where magical power could easily flow. Such place was called the “magical force field” or the “end point”.
Now, Filaret was looking for that “magical force field”. In other words, the “devil’s crucible”.
When she opened the cover of the book, the parchments overlapped by telling the history of Belfein and describing its land pattern. Then, there was a map in one of the parchments. However, not just any map. A map that, at the first glance, gave her all the details of what the King of the time had made when Belfein was once a city, not a city-state.
However, in fact, this type of map was not that valuable for the current times.
Over the years, the city of Belfein had expanded considerably, and its topography and urban structure had undergone major changes. Having an old map like this would not help the enemies invade the current Belfein.
However, Filaret flashed her eyelashes, and her legs began to tremble. “This is very useful for me right now. After all, this map draw everything of the former Belfein. That’s perfect. This map can tell me where the magical force field is. The map that the King made is not that useless.”
Filaret’s head moved up and down. Her fingertips firmly touched the parchment and turned the pages with much vigor. With her black eyes wide open, Filaret memorized from an end to an end of the map, as she did not need to see anything else.
Everything infiltrated the skull of Filaret’s head toward her brain. Then, after a short moment, her thin fingers slowly closed the book.
The “devil’s crucible”, or the so-called “end point”. If it were something relevant, many wizards and sorcerers would tilt their heads. After all, no matter how much magical power it had accumulated, the power could end up being just a collection of things the common people had wasted little by little in their daily lives. A flock of magical powers that had no will or direction.
Wizards and sorcerers could handle magical power freely because it could be either their own magical powers or the magical powers of those whom they received. Otherwise, control would be lost and it would be difficult to use magic itself.
The magical power gathered in the “magical force field” was a mass of magical power accumulated by many humans who lived in the city. It was the chaos itself, with all kinds of intentions chained down.
If one treated such a thing as his or her own magical power, there was a high probability it would disappear in the sky in a blink of an eye.
Therefore, wizards and sorcerers believed that the “magical force field” had a great useful value but impossible to attain. Nowadays, the Lord could only use it to pray for good luck for the sake of the land or wealth.
“…That’s the reason why. Only two people seriously advocated the theory in an attempt to use the magical power accumulated in the “magical force field”.”
One was the founder of the Volgograd family. He advocated the existence of the “magical force field”, and how to use it, but in the end, he died without knowing whether his theory was right or not. There were no records left.
Nowadays, advocating that theory was a subject of ridicule. When someone talked about it seriously, everyone would say that this someone did not know the essence of magical power. An impossible magic theory made it a myth or even a joke.
Filaret pondered deeply.
There was another person who insisted that the magical power accumulated in the “magical force field” should be used. A paper whom someone once wrote. It still lingered in the depths of the school this person once attended.
People told this person that it was just a ridiculous and strange theory. Teachers and students alike overlooked this person’s idea, and the paper did not get to see the light of day. The paper remained in the paper graveyard without being neatly organized.
The author’s name, written in a flowing black pen, was…Filaret. Yes, Filaret La Volgograd.