Volume 7, Chapter 27 – Fia’s Faith

“It’s not just about melting magic crystals; the key is how to utilize the mana afterward, driving it through fixed magic circuits… No wonder no one has successfully researched a device like this before.”

Inside the magic research facility beneath the Twilight Palace, Fia was using [Telekinesis] to dismantle a mana furnace while simultaneously holding the fiery-red staff from the workbench up to the light of a magical lamp.

This level of multitasking was a daily routine for Fia, but in the eyes of the nearby Anastasia, it was a terrifyingly dangerous act that left her body tense with worry. Fia had intentionally detonated a mana furnace once before, and the resulting explosion had been comparable to a third-tier spell. Had they been in a normal palace, the roof would have been blown off; only the basement of the Twilight Palace, reinforced with magical barriers, could safely withstand such a blast.

“Your Highness… I think it would be better if you focused a bit more.”

“Focused?”

Hearing Anastasia’s remark, Fia turned her head to look at her, standing there in the dim light. The movement caused Anastasia’s heart to leap into her throat, and she hurriedly corrected herself.

“Your Highness, your hands! Watch your hands!”

“Hmm?”

Fia tilted her head and quickly understood what Anastasia meant. Just as Anastasia could easily see through Fia’s thoughts, their long time together allowed Fia to grasp Anastasia’s mind just as fast. Anastasia was likely worried that her multitasking would lead to a misstep and detonate the miniaturized mana furnace. Fia smiled and gave the staff in her hand a playful wave.

“Don’t worry. This level of multitasking is nothing. You’ve seen me deal with Chaos, haven’t you? You should have a basic understanding of my strength by now.”

“Even so…”

It was like watching an acrobat on a tightrope; even if the performer had a safety rope, the audience couldn’t help but break into a cold sweat.

However, since doubting her master’s strength would be an insult to her pride, Anastasia wisely changed the subject.

“Have you come to understand this ‘new magic system’ yet?”

“I’d say I have a handle on it.”

Fia turned back, set down the fiery-red staff, and began to lay out the dismantled parts of the mana furnace on the table one by one.

The exterior of the mana furnace was crude, but the interior was remarkably sophisticated. Setting aside the magic crystals and circles, it featured a design to push the crystals into the combustion chamber and a cooling system to prevent the furnace from melting down. The sight of the countless interlocking gears possessed its own artistic beauty; with a few modifications, it could even be adapted for use in carriages.

“I was always curious. The World Tree Continent has ten thousand years of history and has seen many Holy Sons. There must have been people from that blue planet like Laplace or Calista, yet firearms never appeared here. Although Laplace’s attempts showed that the rules of this world restrict mechanical creations, since the mana furnace was inspired by the steam engine, all you have to do is replace the energy source with mana and balance the proportions. Mechanical creations can be applied; therefore, similar things should have existed on this continent before.”

“Isn’t it only because you already know the structure of the furnace that you find it simple, Your Highness? Before it was invented, no one could have imagined such a thing existed in this world.”

Anastasia, dressed in her purple dress, offered a wry smile.

“It’s like developing magic. Once people know that a few lines of an incantation can summon fire, they think it’s no big deal. But before the predecessors explored those chants, they couldn’t have imagined such a thing in their entire lives.”

Rеаd οո КаtRеadіngСafе

“I understand your point, Anastasia, but the mana furnace is different. The barrier to manufacturing it is too high. Without the accumulation of knowledge from someone like Laplace or the Witches, one could spend a lifetime trying and never figure it out.”

As she spoke, Fia counted the components within the mana furnace. Between the magic circles and the crystal acting as the activation core, there were over twenty parts. Among them, only one was an attack spell engraved on the staff; the rest were all functional magic circles. A magic caster would surely master several attack circles, but functional ones were only studied by magical scholars.

Categorizing these functional circles by their roles, there were circles to melt the magic crystals, circles to collect the mana from the melted crystals, circles to force the mana to flow in a fixed direction, and circles to “soften” the mana—changing its properties to match the mana used by a human.

Finally, there was a circle that merged this mana with the user’s own, allowing them to control the magic as naturally as their own limbs.

Only after this series of processes did the mana finally output as the [Red Flame Dragon-Snake] on the staff, becoming a visible attack spell. These actions couldn’t be completed by a single magic circle; they required the combination of multiple circles. The complexity was enough to make anyone dizzy just listening to it, let alone manufacturing it.

Only with a massive accumulation of magical knowledge and sufficiently advanced concepts and manufacturing techniques could one reach this stage. This wasn’t a magical item that a few casters could create just by putting their heads together on a whim.

“And as long as we break through the material limitations, there is practically no upper limit to this new magic. Using it to release seventh or even eighth-tier spells wouldn’t be a problem. Once we take this first step, it’s much more cost-effective than training high-tier magic casters from scratch.”

“Well… I admit this new magic, similar to Aetherology, is powerful, but it’s still far inferior to high-tier magic casters. It has too many restrictions.”

“That’s for now. As technology develops, this new magic will surely overturn public perception. I’ve actually thought of some ideas that could be put to use immediately. Even in the Twilight Palace, we have to light fires to cook, don’t we? The bathhouse also consumes a massive amount of firewood every night to prepare hot water. With this, it wouldn’t be so troublesome anymore. Just throw some magic crystals into a mana furnace, and the water in the bathhouse could heat itself.”

The downside was that if it weren’t manufactured with enough precision, the entire bathhouse would be sent into the sky.

Fia wisely didn’t mention that point, or else Anastasia would become the first hurdle to implementing the technology. Of course, for safety’s sake, she would have to handle the large-scale boilers herself to ensure everything was foolproof.

“Are you going to use a mana furnace to boil water? But it’s the duty of the servants to do their jobs. While using a furnace to boil water would save them a lot of trouble, it would leave them with nothing to do until they are transferred to other positions or dismissed for being redundant.”

So that’s a thing too.

She was already facing the problem of machines stealing jobs from workers before the technology had even been implemented. It was a real headache.

Whatever, I’ll deal with future problems in the future. For now, I should focus on how to lower the cost of the mana furnace and equip the army as soon as possible.

Fia quickly threw the difficult problem to her future self.

The Sovereign claimed that because of the arrival of outsiders like herself and Claire, the Chaos that should have descended decades later would soon make a move. Without knowing the exact date the Chaos would strike, she had to improve their strength as early as possible.

Furthermore, to make the nobles and Yelido realize how troublesome the Chaos was, she had to find a way to record the scenes of the Sea of Chaos. Recording crystals couldn’t be used in places with sparse elements like the Sea of Chaos, but if she took the amulets used during Prince Schain’s rebellion into the Abyss—breaking one of those amulets could artificially create an element-rich area, making it possible to record the Sea of Chaos for a short period.

Thinking of the future, Fia used [Telekinesis] to reassemble the mana furnace. Next, she only needed to follow the formula Lianne had provided to prepare the mana liquid and then sketch the magic circles into reality; [Hyper-computation] would automatically optimize and perfect the circles in her mind.

Having gone through this process before when making the stone shooting staff for Tilulu, Fia wasn’t worried. She allowed her mind to wander to the matter of Anastasia from earlier that day.

According to Laplace, assuming the original Anastasia was still within the body, as long as the current Anastasia continued to hunt monsters, it would accelerate the original soul’s recovery.

Reаԁ оn КаtRеadingCαfе

The principle was complex. Since the original owner of the body was still within it, if the body’s mana increased, the soul that enjoyed that increase should be the original owner, not the parasitic one.

Meaning, no matter how many monsters the current Anastasia killed, the one who truly improved in strength would be the original Anastasia. For example, if the current Anastasia hunted enough monsters to raise her mana from the fifth tier to the sixth, then the original Anastasia’s soul would be elevated to the sixth tier. This would significantly increase the recovery speed of the original soul; once it overwhelmed the current one, the original Anastasia would wake up.

Hunting monsters was as easy as could be. She could take Anastasia to the Far North, which was teeming with dangerous monsters. Whether it was frost golems or frost dragons, as long as she found weak monsters of a tier suitable for Anastasia and let them fight one-on-one, she wouldn’t have to worry about Anastasia’s safety.

After all, fighting on a home field she had prepared meant she didn’t have to worry about monsters calling for allies, fleeing when losing, or using underhanded sneak attacks. It was hard to imagine Anastasia losing.

Therefore, the pressure was on her. She had to hurry and learn the faith-attribute spell [Sacred Relic Analysis] to pave the way for creating a body to hold Anastasia’s soul.

But how on earth do I even get started with faith magic?

Fia groaned in her mind. To have her hold a devout faith in a god was harder than just killing one. Given the level of the Elf God, it would be more appropriate for the god to believe in her. Educated in the Radiant World, Fia possessed an innate discrimination against the existence of gods.

Noticing Fia’s movements slow down, Anastasia—standing by the wall with her golden hair loose—took a few steps forward and came up behind Fia in the light of the lamp.

“What’s wrong, Your Highness?”

“I’ve run into a bit of trouble. Anastasia, do you know how to use faith magic?”

“Uh…”

The question caught Anastasia off guard. Elves specialized in natural magic, which was categorized as elemental magic. Furthermore, since most Elves no longer believed in gods, there were very few people in all of Silvar who knew faith magic.

But since her master had asked, she had to fulfill her duty as an older sister.

Anastasia braced herself and answered.

“I… I don’t know. However, I do know that using faith-based magic consumes something called ‘Faith Power’ in addition to mana. Faith-based magic consumes very little mana; it mainly relies on Faith Power. As long as you have enough of it, you can use faith magic indefinitely.”

“Faith Power? What kind of power is that? Isn’t it just something fabricated by the Church? If using magic consumed very little mana, wouldn’t faith magic have suppressed elemental magic and become the mainstream long ago?”

The fact was that elemental magic was currently mainstream. Fia turned back in surprise; she had heard of Faith Power but had never researched it deeply.

Seeing Fia’s confusion, Anastasia breathed a silent sigh of relief; her value as a servant and an older sister was preserved. She continued softly.

“According to the Church, Faith Power is a special ability that a believer can only possess after developing a devout faith in a god and being recognized by that deity. The more devout the believer’s faith, the stronger the Faith Power.”

“However, like mana, Faith Power decreases with the use of magic. In my view, it’s more like concentration or mental energy. People who exhaust their Faith Power experience symptoms similar to mana depletion. But the Church forbids believers from exhausting it, considering it an act of blasphemy. Thus, I’ve only seen a priest with exhausted Faith Power once, while I was fleeing with refugees.”

“Furthermore, faith magic doesn’t require incantations. You only need to imagine the magic you need in your mind, and it will manifest. However, it isn’t so convenient that you can just wish for anything. In a place like the Holy Kingdom that worships the Goddess of Life, they can essentially only use holy and light-attribute magic. They also can’t imagine broad concepts like ‘I want to kill this person.’ Additionally, beginners consume an extraordinary amount of Faith Power because they lack proficiency. So, faith magic is far less free than elemental magic.”

Rеаd οո KаtRеαԁіոɡCаfе

“Hmm…”

Facing Anastasia, Fia leaned her rather perky bottom against the workbench—which had been custom-made for the Eldest Princess’s height, allowing Fia to sit on it easily. She stroked her chin with her right hand and began to think.

Setting aside Anastasia’s explanation and looking only at the faith magic promoted by the Church, the origin of it was hard to understand. The process of using it could be simplified to Offer prayer -> Receive response from god -> God grants a miracle . But the problem was that the Goddess of Life wouldn’t even grant an oracle when the Holy Kingdom was on the verge of destruction; why would she respond to the prayers of ordinary believers? The reason was intriguing, especially since the Goddess had likely vanished long ago.

If faith magic could still be used even when the god was gone, then a bold hypothesis could be made: there was no fundamental difference between faith magic and elemental magic. The difference was that faith magic consumed mental energy to achieve miracles, while elemental magic consumed mana. Both benefited from the rules that maintained the operation of the world, rather than receiving favor from a god.

Meaning, faith magic was just a beautiful coat put on by believers; its power, like elemental magic, originated from the rules of the world. In reality, it didn’t matter if the object of the believer’s faith was a god or not. This would explain the mana depletion symptoms that occurred after exhausting Faith Power, and why people could still use faith magic even when the gods were absent.

Of course, this was Fia’s wild hypothesis. To verify it, she would have to grab a believer, brainwash them, and force them to worship something else as a god (like herself). If they could still use faith magic, it would prove her hypothesis correct.

…No.

Realizing this, Fia thought of a simpler way to verify it.

Since she didn’t need to believe in a god, why not do it herself? She could just find someone or something she could hold a devout heart toward and then focus her attention intensely. Developing faith in something might take weeks or years for an ordinary person, but with her powerful control over her body and mind, clearing her thoughts and maintaining a “devout” faith temporarily shouldn’t be a problem.

So, she had to find someone she could believe in.

Fia’s expression grew serious.

Who should I use?

Fia immediately thought of Claire. Claire was beautiful, gentle, and incredibly powerful. When she first met Claire, she had thought she was a goddess descended from the moon.

However, when Fia focused her mind and imagined Claire’s form, the Claire that appeared in her mind was always completely naked, turning slightly with her arms covering the vital parts of her body and her face full of bashfulness. As a result, Fia’s brain temperature skyrocketed. After three or four failed attempts, not only did she fail to succeed, but her pointed ears turned pink, and her legs began to fidget uncontrollably. She was forced to quickly abandon this erotic faith that made her body burn.

Being like this in front of another Anastasia is too embarrassing.

With her powerful self-control, she made the naked, seductive, perfect body in her mind vanish.

Then she grew troubled.

Claire was a no-go; who else could she imagine? If a living person didn’t work, perhaps believing in an object would do—she couldn’t exactly believe in herself, could she?

Fia briefly tried believing in herself, but only the image of her hugging a pillow (or Milu and Tilulu) and sleeping soundly appeared in her mind. There wasn’t a hint of divinity to be found.

Sensing something off about Fia, Anastasia’s brow furrowed, and she hesitantly reached out her hand.

“Your face is very red, Your Highness…”

Rеaⅾ оn КatRеаⅾіոɡСаfe

“Ah—ah?”

Seeing the fair back of the hand appearing in her vision, Fia immediately snapped back from her wandering thoughts. She followed Anastasia’s hand and looked up at her; those deep blue eyes were filled with the worry of someone wanting to share her burden.

Fia’s gaze didn’t linger on Anastasia’s face. Following the line of her smooth neck, her eyes landed on Anastasia’s full chest. Adorned by the purple dress, the deep valley there was like a swirling black hole, drawing Fia’s gaze deep within.

Normally, Fia was very disciplined about not letting her eyes wander to Anastasia’s chest. It was an exquisite shape that could easily make one lose themselves; even Claire and Erin Slate were a step behind. Whether it were a fraction more or a fraction less, it would have ruined this perfect work of art. Yet now, Anastasia was right in front of her, and even if she tried not to notice, it was practically pressed against her nose.

To avoid any suspicion, Fia held her breath, afraid her breath would brush against Anastasia’s snowy-white chest and make her feel uncomfortable or think she was a pervert.

Fia hurriedly looked away and awkwardly rubbed the tip of her nose.

“It’s… it’s nothing.”

“But you look very troubled. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Anastasia, you taking two steps back would be the biggest help, Fia groaned internally.

—Until a bizarre idea surfaced in her mind.

Since she liked big sisters like Claire and Anastasia, would it be effective if she made Anastasia’s art-like, perfect chest the object of her faith?

The thought was utterly blasphemous, enough that Anastasia would surely give her a look of disdain that would make her cry, yet Fia couldn’t help but want to try. She felt as though she could no longer control her brain, to the point where two Dofilias appeared in her mind.

The first Dofilia said, “It’s not like trying will hurt anything. Just don’t tell Anastasia.”

As for the second Dofilia, she said, “Stop stalling and join the Sect of the Big Sisters already.”

In an instant, she crumbled before herself.

It’s not like trying will hurt. I’ll just treat it as satisfying my curiosity and my lack of maternal love. I’ll just give it a shameless try.

That’s right. Anastasia is just helping me out. If she knew, she’d definitely be happy for me!

Translator Note

guh fia… anyway, guess im a magic scholar now hmph :<