Chapter 310
Chapter 310 Strongest Sage, Suggests Advice
"That was a good practice . Is that illusion magic an original work?"
"It is, yes . At first we were using rocks and stuff as targets, but once we started training with discovering targets first . . . I thought that kind of magic would be nice, so I made it . What do you think?"
"Ah . It"s pretty good . . . Is there any reason why the illusions are slower than demons though?"
"That one"s . . . Because of our lack of expertise . We"d like it to be as fast as the real demons, but it"s quite difficult to get right . . . "
Meirad showed me one of the magically augmented lumps of metal .
There are traces of trials and errors from attempts to raise its speed on it .
True, magic that enable high speed long distance, and complex movements are hard .
It"s close to the territory of archers" 『Homing Wired Enchant』 even .
Demons aren"t as fast as an arrow, so that much precise control is unneeded . . . but the ability to activate augment magic remotely means a pretty complex spell formula .
Not that you can"t learn it from the Second Academy textbooks, but you need to be pretty skilled to construct one .
As I was thinking that, Ruli fetched a pen and a piece of paper before drawing a magic circle on it .
"Err . . . How about you do this part, like this? I"m sure it"d at least get as fast as flying demons!"
Ruli presented a revised version of the magic circle augmented on the lump of metal .
The part that governs motion has been rearranged, greatly raising its speed .
That"ll afford a speed rivaling that of a demon"s flight indeed .
"That"s a good formula . . . You"d gain more speed with it yeah . "
"Ah, creating a high speed motion spell formula on the spur of the moment just like that . . . I"ve heard about how great Ruli-san is from augmenters . . . and it really shows . . . "
"It"s Mathi-kun that"s amazing! I was taught by Mathi-kun himself, so, you know!"
Ruli puffed out her chest .
. . . Magic circles aren"t so simple that you could get to this point just from my teaching though .
Ruli uses any free time she has to think up ways to construct magic circles and carry out experiments .
Her efforts have paid off in the form of her ability to make magic circles like this .
But . . . It might be not be practical to employ this magic circle .
"How long should we maintain this magic circle?"
"Umm . . . Cast time is around 40 seconds at most, so 40 seconds it is!"
"I figured it would take that long . "
You don"t have to always beat the demon targets in a practice .
In the battle pattern written on the textbook, what"s most important is to create a situation where you restrain the demon flying in the air where you can shoot at it all you want .
Nevertheless, 40 seconds are needed .
Ruli"s magic circle consumes a lot of mana in exchange for speed .
It"s an inescapable trade off if you want speed with augment magic . . . they"d need some pretty big magic stones to hold 40 seconds with that magic circle .
Even if they"ve been getting a lot of magic stones from dungeon after power up . . . Obtaining valuable large magic stones for training would be tough .
The magic stones embedded in lumps of metal for the illusion magic are quite big themselves . . . but even then, it would last less than 10 seconds at their size .
"Ah . . . Right there"s not enough mana for 40 seconds . . . I guess bigger magic stones aren"t really a feasible option?"
"Yes . We can get our hands on magic stones that are the size we have now from the school dungeon . . . But any bigger than these are strategic resources so . . . "
"Then how about you do it like . . . Let"s add more mana sources!"
Ruli added a new magic circle .
A magic circle to draw power from three magic stones in addition to the main one where the spell formula is .
With this they can maintain 40 seconds operating time even without changing the quality of magic stones .
" . . . This will work right?"
Ruli asked me after uniting the magic circles .
She"s already confident enough when it involves normal magic circles . . . But we rarely ever use magic circles that need more than two magic stones in real combat after all .
Even Ruli isn"t that experienced in that .
"I think it will work no problem . Nice formula . "
Ruli"s formula isn"t that efficient in term of mana consumption .
It can probably be squeezed down a bit more by revising the formula .
But this formula has been made to be really easy to create in exchange for better efficiency .
It would turn out more complex otherwise .
Even Second Academy would have only been able to create and maintain one or two at most if that were the case .
That may be fine for real combat, but for training, magic circles that you can reliably construct are better than the more efficient ones .
I don"t know if she had all those in mind when she made it though .
"Yay! I got Mathi-kun to praise me! . . . Kind of feel like I could make it more efficient and decrease the magic stones though . . . "
"We can easily procure four magic stones no problem! Thank you very much!"
Meirad copied the magic circles as he said that .
After confirming that . . . The time for meeting drew near .
"That"s all the advice I can give you for now . It"s about time we head to the meeting place . "
"Thank you very much! . . . I"ll pull all-nighters to quickly learn these magic circles and the [Spatial Mana Slow]!"
Meirad saluted me and Ruli .
"You better not, staying up all night isn"t actually good efficiency-wise . Occasional sessions got its merits for practicing long expeditions, but it"s gonna have the opposite effect if your goal is to learn new things . "
"I understand!"
Afterward we headed to the meeting place to check the rest of the doc.u.ments .
From what I"ve seen in their training, the Second Academy units are diverging from ordinary army in a good way .
Ordinary army would have uniform weapons and move in unison as determined by common tactics .
However, these Second Academy units achieve unity while employing their own unique tactics .
That"s exactly what"s written on my textbooks .
But executing it in reality is quite difficult .
Meirad and the students are growing at twice the rate I originally antic.i.p.ated .
They will definitely become stronger if they just keep at it .