Volume 8, Chapter 40 – Trigger-Activated Magic Weapons and Magitech

Translator Note

oh.. its time skipped

“The quality of a trigger-activated magic item lies not in the strength of the weapon itself, but in the sensitivity of its trigger point. Before you reach the level of a third-tier smith, the quality of a magic weapon can be improved by the materials and a more flexible ratio of magic liquid. But if the control of the trigger point is not precise enough, you’ll have a situation where even ordinary contact will activate the magic. Such a trigger-activated magic item is a failure.”

After dealing with the people who had attacked Duke Herbis’s convoy, Yisi immediately took Tiffany to Master Avis’s workshop. Although the rescued Duke Herbis had wanted to stop her and say something before she left, Yisi had been worried about missing her chance, so she had ignored him.

Now, with the Crimson Gold-grade magic item that Cynthia had lent her, Yisi became the first person to be received by Avis. Perhaps because they thought she was too young, when the others who had been waiting outside the workshop with her saw that it was Yisi who had been summoned in the end, they all showed looks of disbelief and contempt. Similarly, Yisi ignored them.

They’re all forty or fifty years old, yet their jealousy is like that of a child. Sitting in the apprentice’s seat, Yisi couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. As for why she was sitting in the apprentice’s seat, it was because Avis often met with smiths who came to learn from him. In order to gain inspiration from his interactions with newcomers, Avis had specially set aside a small area in his workshop as a classroom, complete with a simple blackboard, desks, and a foundry platform.

As if he had remembered something, Avis, who had been pacing in front of Yisi, stopped, a strange look in his eyes.

“Wait a minute. Although forging trigger-activated magic items is a relatively high-level skill, it’s not something you absolutely have to ask me about. The people who usually come to see me are old guys over forty who have been troubled by a single problem for several years. If you just want to understand the theoretical knowledge, you can just find anyone in the Blacksmiths’ Association to solve it.”

That’s because I was recommended by Dominic.

“Er… because a friend of mine recommended Master Avis to me.”

“Was it Cynthia? I never thought she would steal the Wozwahl family’s treasure for you. When I asked to borrow it from her before, she refused to give it to me no matter what. With the Wozwahl family’s treasure, you could have asked for more from me—if what happened last night hadn’t occurred, even if you had said you wanted to become my apprentice, I would have agreed. No, the divine messenger said not to mention last night…”

“Master Avis, what are you talking about?”

“It’s nothing. Do you have any questions about the knowledge I just shared?”

Avis, who had shaved off his beard, asked with a serious expression.

Glancing at his clean-shaven face, Yisi couldn’t help but feel a mixture of amusement and exasperation.

Unlike the old man she had seen last night, Avis had shaved off his long beard and even cut his graying hair into a buzz cut. He looked much more energetic, only the heavy dark circles and bags under his eyes remained. Needless to say, Yisi could guess that Avis must have been so excited by seeing the limits of magic weapons last night that he hadn’t slept a wink.

Of course, Yisi didn’t let her amusement show on her face. She first checked to make sure Tiffany was sitting properly beside her—it would be bad if she suddenly turned into a slime—before asking.

“What do you mean by a trigger point?”

“It refers to the conditions under which a trigger-activated magic item will activate. For example, this ring,” Avis took a plain silver ring from his ring finger. “This is a trigger-activated magic item that will activate ‘Sacred Aegis’ in times of crisis. In my design, its trigger point is a projectile or magic with a power exceeding that of a second-tier spell. In other words, if a ‘Javelin of Reason’ from second-tier magic, or an arrow with the same power, were to fly at me, the ‘Sacred Aegis’ in the ring would deploy. But if it’s just an ordinary silver needle or the slash of a common soldier, the magic in the ring will not be triggered.”

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“Isn’t that very dangerous? If you encounter an assassin who doesn’t use projectiles and attacks from behind, the ring would be useless.”

Guessing that Yisi would ask this question, a smile appeared on Avis’s slightly wrinkled face.

“It can’t be helped. Weapons themselves have their limits. It’s impossible to inscribe multiple different magic circuits at the same time, otherwise the material would collapse from the strain. Besides, how to judge whether the other party just bumped into you by accident or is intentionally trying to assassinate you is also a problem. If the other party accidentally touches you and it causes the ‘Sacred Aegis’ to pop up, the embarrassment is one thing, but exposing your life-saving measure is the real trouble. Not to mention that after each trigger, you have to refill the magic power of the item. A trigger-activated magic item with its magic depleted is just an ornament.”

During his apprenticeship, Avis had also asked his mentor the same question, so when Yisi brought it up, Avis, who was already in a good mood, became even more enthusiastic.

“However, we can solve this problem in another way. If you wear multiple trigger-activated magic items with different functions at the same time, you can handle all sorts of situations. It is said that in the Age of the Gods, there was a group of people who fought in this way. Their own combat power and level were very low, but because of the countless trigger-activated magic items they carried, they transformed into unstoppable warriors, leveling cities and fortresses. But for some unknown reason, they later disappeared from history.”

“A trigger-activated magic item needs to be refilled with magic after one use. If it’s a low-level person, they shouldn’t be able to fight for a long time… unless the number of items they carry is countless, and they are all used as disposable items.”

“Mmm.”

Avis paused for a moment.

If he hadn’t invested too much effort in trigger-activated magic items, he would probably have answered “that’s right” at this moment. But it was precisely because he had spent a lot of effort on them—Avis had once believed that trigger-activated magic items were the ultimate form of magic weapons—that he realized the incredibility of the so-called ‘trigger-activated magitech warriors.’

Theoretically, a person could indeed carry hundreds or even thousands of trigger-activated magic items at the same time. But from a practical point of view, carrying a hundred such items at the same time was worse than carrying just a few. In his past experiments, Avis had discovered that if multiple trigger-activated magic items were carried at the same time, there was a very high probability that they would trigger each other.

Even a slight jolt of the carriage, if the magic items were to collide, or even if just one of them had a very sensitive trigger point, hundreds of magic items would be triggered one after another like falling dominoes, putting the wearer in danger. Not to mention that to bring so many trigger-activated magic items onto the battlefield was simply not feasible in reality.

In addition, sustained combat capability was also a problem. A magic item that could withstand high-damage magic would certainly not be cheap. Even the royal family would not treat high-value trigger-activated magic items as disposable. Therefore, if the user themselves did not have enough magic power to continuously refill the magic items, they could not become an unstoppable warrior. And this contradicted his description of ‘these warriors themselves not having a high level.’

So, is the information I saw in the historical records all fabricated?

Yisi’s question made Avis frown in thought.

As a seeker of knowledge, he would not easily attribute the cause to ‘the historical records are wrong, they exaggerated the facts’ before deduction and experimentation. It might be a bit neurotic, but this was what distinguished him from other smiths.

Could there be a type of magic weapon that could still cast magic even without the user injecting magic power? But does a magic weapon that can generate its own magic power without being infused with it really exist in this world? If it does, then that must be a characteristic that a magic weapon in its ultimate form must possess.

“Mmm… could it be ‘magitech’?”

“What did you say?” Not missing Yisi’s low murmur, Avis, hearing the new term, suddenly pressed his hands on her desk and stared at her with an exceptionally urgent gaze. Yisi had seen this look before. Yesterday, when she was forging Durandal, Avis had also looked like this. It was just that at that time, because she was a divine messenger, Avis had not been so direct. “What did you just say? Repeat it again.”

“I said ‘ma-gi-tech’.”

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The term ‘magitech’ did not exist in the language of the Hels Kingdom, so Yisi directly used the word from Earth.

“Magitech… What is that? Tell me, quickly.”

“It is a type of magic weapon that even ordinary people can use.”

“Nonsense. How can an ordinary person with no magic power use a magic weapon? A weapon containing magic can only be called a magic weapon, and a magic weapon must be driven by magic power. Ordinary people not only do not have enough magic power, but they also don’t even know how to use magic power, how to infuse it from their body into a weapon. So ordinary people cannot use magic weapons. Anyone who can use a magic weapon must have undergone a period of training. This is a universally acknowledged fact on the continent. If not for the fact that only magic chanters are qualified to use magic weapons, our status as smiths would have long surpassed them.”

Although he denied Yisi’s words, Avis’s face was filled with anticipation and uncontrollable ecstasy. His intuition told him that he had already touched the threshold of a new world. With just one more push, he could truly step into a brand new world. He had never in his life hoped for someone to deny him as much as he did now. He desperately wanted Yisi to slap him across the face, without mercy.

He got the resounding slap he wanted.

After a moment’s thought, Yisi decided to tell Avis the knowledge about magitech from ‘Ragnarøk.’ If it was him, he might really be able to create it. She nodded.

“There is.”

Avis’s breathing immediately became ragged. Like a person who had just been drowning, he greedily gasped for fresh air. But this was just an expression of his joy. In the past, he had not believed in gods, so he had not been blessed by them. But since yesterday, he had become a faithful believer of the goddess. Therefore, to witness two divine miracles in one day was not entirely impossible. He even felt as if his heart was about to jump out of his throat, and he wanted to run a lap around the room in joy.

“H-how so? Without seeing the real thing… without seeing it with my own eyes, it’s hard for me to believe you.”

“Indeed. But you’ve seen the Tower of Alexia, haven’t you, Avis?”

“I have.”

“That can be said to be a product of magitech. Just as you said, ordinary people cannot use magic weapons because they do not know how to use magic power, and their own magic power is not enough to drive a magic weapon. But if there is something else to output magic power for them, to become the power source of the magic weapon, then even ordinary people can use magic weapons that require magic power to be driven.

Take the Tower of Alexia as an example. I have seen several people who can use it. Some of them, because they have put a lot of effort into governing their territories, have a level no different from an ordinary person. Yet they can still operate the Tower, which requires a large amount of magic power. If we consider the Tower of Alexia as a magic weapon, then it should undoubtedly be classified as magitech.”

For example, the lord of the Hermion territory, and the current king of the Hels Kingdom, were both users of the Tower of Alexia, but their levels were frighteningly low.

“This… how can the Tower of Alexia be considered a magic weapon? That is a treasure bestowed upon humanity by the Goddess. Without the Tower of Alexia, humanity would have been defeated by the Blood Clan in the war a thousand years ago.”

“Putting aside the myths and legends, does the Tower of Alexia not perfectly fit the definition of a magic weapon? It requires magic power to operate, can cast spells to strengthen the user, or directly attack the enemy with magic.”

“It does.” Avis had to admit that Yisi was right. But there was also a point he could not concede. “The magic power used by the Tower of Alexia does not come from the user, but is drawn from the magic power in the ley lines. This cannot be called a magic weapon at all.”

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Frowning heavily, Avis stared into Yisi’s blue eyes with a questioning gaze. He was not treating Yisi as a child who knew nothing and wanted to educate her as an elder, but as a seeker of knowledge, pointing out the other’s mistake.

However, Yisi just smiled and looked straight back at him.

The eye contact lasted for less than ten seconds before Avis suddenly froze as if struck by lightning.

If it can’t be called a magic weapon, then what can it be called, a divine miracle?

If, after hearing Yisi’s explanation, he still considered the Tower of Alexia a divine miracle, then it was not ignorance, but foolishness.

It couldn’t be called a magic weapon because it fit the definition of what Yisi had called magitech. It could use another source (the magic power in the ley lines) to output magic power in place of the user, allowing even ordinary people to operate it.

In an instant, Avis’s mind went blank.

It was the light of the sun, the light of truth. Even for him, who had spent more than fifty years of his life on the art of forging, he seemed exceptionally small in the face of this snow-white light that filled his vision. At this moment, he only felt like an insignificant speck of dust, able to do nothing but tremble under this dazzling light. All the experience he had accumulated in the past was insignificant.

Only magic chanters could use magic weapons. This rule itself doomed smiths to never surpass them. But what if ordinary people could also use magic weapons? Imagine a person who had never come into contact with magic using a weapon called magitech to defeat a magic chanter who had painstakingly studied magic for decades from the front. If such a thing were to be created by him, then it would surely be a new thing that could change the fate of a country, and even the future of the entire continent.

Such a thing was not illusory, but right in front of him—the Tower of Alexia, a product of magitech, and also a realm that magic weapons could never reach. No one could possess as much magic power as the Tower of Alexia, so naturally, there was no magic weapon that could compete with it.

No matter how strong a magic weapon was, it still needed a powerful user to exert its full strength. But magitech weapons were different. As long as the weapon itself was strong enough, even if the user was an ordinary person who didn’t understand magic, it could still destroy an army. Magitech shifted the focus from the user to the creator of the weapon. This was a historic leap. No, it was a new world.

Then, what if I join the ranks of those who create magitech weapons? The power of a weapon would no longer be limited by the amount of magic power, but by the person who forged it. If that’s the case, as long as I have enough time, I can also create something as powerful and magnificent as the Tower of Alexia, can’t I?

Every cell in his body was filled with joy and elation. Avis experienced an even more intense excitement than he had last night. If not for the foundation of his level thirty supporting him, he might have died from a sudden cardiac arrest due to the excessive excitement.

Unable to suppress the tsunami-like violent emotions in his heart, Avis endured the dizziness caused by his rapid breathing.

“Who-who are you? Why are you telling me these things?”

“A Cardinal of the Ymir Church, Yisi Enya. I just happened to have seen it in an ancient text and thought Master Avis would be interested, so I said it.”

She couldn’t just say it was a definition from ‘Ragnarøk.’

Of course, she wasn’t deceiving him. Although it was her own guess that the Tower of Alexia was a magitech weapon, she had indeed seen traces of magitech in this world.

Firstly, the magitech fairies from ‘Ragnarøk’ could also be used in this world. Secondly, when she had taken the translation pendant and the core for the Type 10042 power source from the church’s treasury, she had also seen a musket from magitech that needed to be loaded with magic power.

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“The Ymir Church… the Ymir Church…” as if possessed, Avis kept muttering the name of the church. Then, as if he had been woken up by someone, he suddenly stood up straight, took a deep breath, and bowed respectfully and formally to Yisi. “You should be my teacher. If not for your words today, I would have strayed further and further down the wrong path.”

“No, no, I just said some outlandish things. In terms of forging knowledge, Master Avis is much stronger than me.”

For such an old man to call her teacher is really too strange.

“No! You are the one who is truly worthy of being called a teacher. The one who imparts knowledge to me is my teacher. Please, teacher, you must put away your modesty.” Without giving Yisi a chance to change the subject, Avis said without any hesitation, “In the past, I did not believe in gods because I was too arrogant. Yesterday and today, I have witnessed true divine miracles, the messenger of the gods, the teachings of the Cardinal. These are all the graces bestowed upon me by the Goddess. Teacher, please tell me the way to join the Ymir Church. If I must sever my worldly ties, I will go back now and hand over my family property to my wife and daughter. I will follow you to the Church.”

Er… did I go too far?

But at this point, a simple refusal would probably not convince Avis. Yisi gave a feigned cough. She had to take responsibility for the situation she had created. Besides, it wasn’t a bad thing for Avis to join the Church. The requirements for followers were few and would not affect his future life.

“The Church does not have strict requirements for its followers. You can continue your own business, and your relationship with your wife and daughter can remain as it is. I will record your name in the Church. You just need to know that you are a follower. There is no need to publicize it.”

“I understand. I will remember my teacher’s teachings.”

Ah, this title is so embarrassing.

Anyone who didn’t know would think that she and Avis were role-playing.

Yisi carefully glanced at Tiffany, who had been sitting beside her without saying a word. As expected, the latter sneered with an expressionless face.

“Yisi, teacher.”

Tsk.

Pretending not to hear, Yisi stood up in resignation. In Avis’s current state, she probably wouldn’t be able to learn anything.

“Alright, that’s it for today. I will come again later.”

“I will start working on magitech weapons right now. Please, teacher, you must come again. I will present the results to you for your review then.”

“Ah, let’s leave it at that.”

Waving her hand in annoyance, Yisi grabbed Tiffany by the scruff of her neck and led her out of the workshop.