Under the questioning of Gawain and Hetty, Jenny finally stopped being silent. The story about this notebook and its several owners was completely presented to people for the first time, and Gawain also knew more. About that wild mage.
The first owner of the notebook was indeed the wild mage, but he still did not leave his name in this notebook. Jenny only knew that he was a down-and-out, eccentric and succumbing man. The ostracized senior, the wild mage came from the Violet Kingdom in the north of the mainland. He was once a member of the largest human mage organization, the "Secret Society", but as Gawain knew, he was low in strength and was ostracized. His research was in In the eyes of the orthodox mage, he was a deviant, so his life was extremely miserable. In order to heal his daughter, he finally left the secret society and entered the territory of Ansu. The notebook that Jenny got was the one that the wild mage had wandered away in his early years. One of the manuscripts - if he is right, he sold it to a mage from the Kingdom of Anzu at a low price to raise travel expenses.
Maybe it was only sold for three copper coins, maybe it was worthless, and it was just a giveaway for a lot of books and notes.
The situation of its second owner was not much better. It can be seen from the lines of the notes that the mage was conducting the same "deviant" research, and he conducted such research, the reason is also that personal strength is low and there is no hope of improvement.
A mage who is having a hard time with magic and runes, hopes that logic and mathematics can help him explore the reality of this world, while the wild mage's research on the universality and potential laws of runes It lit a guiding light for him, allowing him to vaguely grasp the path of exploring the mysteries of magic even without the help of powerful magic and personal strength. However, the second researcher failed to follow this path. Go as far as you can.
Perhaps in order to raise funds for research, or perhaps in order to verify certain data obtained from notes, the unknown mage died during an expedition, and the few things he left behind The property was quickly divided up, and this precious notebook fell into the hands of Jenny's mentor.
But Jenny’s mentor did not become the owner of this notebook, because the “orthodox mentor” had an unusual disdain for this notebook. He did not think that the two low-level mages on the paper What truth can be revealed by writing a lot of calculations, and it is believed that the second owner of the notebook lost his life in an adventure because he believed the nonsense on these scraps of paper - the poor guy who died in the ruins It just proves the fallacy of the theory in the notes.
So the instructor threw the notes away and threw them into the trash outside the mage tower - and was picked up by his "apprentice" Ravencase.
And this so-called "apprentice" is actually the slave of the great magician.
This phenomenon is very common among orthodox magicians. Their apprentices are usually divided into two types: real apprentices and non-human apprentices. The former are people with higher magical talent, or The one with noble birth and pure blood, while the latter is only in the mage towerHe was given the name of an apprentice, but he was actually used as a slave and experimental material. Ravencrest falls into the latter category.
Because of his poor magic talent and not being a famous family, Ravencrest was never taken seriously in the Mage Tower. Although he has extremely high talents in mathematics and logic, because of his spellcasting level and His rune sensing ability was poor, and he was called an "imbecile" and a "freak" by everyone in the wizard tower. The great magician reluctantly taught Ravencrest some basic knowledge, and then used cheap potions and The ceremony forced him to become an official mage, and then he was trained in the same way as a rune master, with the intention of letting him do the work of drawing magic circles and making props.
It was at that time that Ravencase picked up the note and became its third owner.
It took a few years after that for Jenny to get acquainted with Ravencase.
Unlike the vast majority of "gifted people" who can enter the Mage Tower, Jenny's origin is more humble. She was not even selected to enter the tower as a "Mage Servant": this thin girl He comes from a poor countryside far away from the royal capital. His family has never had any experience with extraordinary beings for generations, let alone possessing the "noble bloodline of a mage."
She was able to enter the Mage Tower because her hometown suffered a famine and her family was about to starve to death. At that time, her "mentor" happened to be passing by her hometown village and wanted to "be kind and use his hands to The food was exchanged for some food with the hungry local people.”
Jenny clearly remembers that it was a windless but cold night. Her parents gathered the children together, drew lots, and she, who was only fourteen years old, was chosen.
The next morning, she was pushed into the "Master Magician"'s caravan and got enough food for her family to survive: two bags of wheat.
She still remembers that there were many things piled in the caravan at that time: unknown herbs, animal specimens, stones, metals, tree barks, several numb-looking children about her own age...
p>The car is filled with experimental materials.
What the magician exchanged for food was materials for experiments, and she was brought to the Mage Tower as experimental materials.
After that, she met Ravencase in the mage tower, an "apprentice" who was a servant of the mage but had a higher status than her.
Ravencase is responsible for "feeding" the experimental materials.
The children who were brought together from the countryside were quickly put to use by the magician. Almost every two or three days, a child would be taken out, and some of them could survive. Some could not come back, and even those who came back alive soon became crazy and extremely weak. Jenny had realized her fate, but she did not run away.
Because Ravencase reminds her every day: Never run, it will be more terrifying than death.
In this way, it was finally Jenny’s turn to be “put to use”. She could no longer remember the specific events of that day because she was almost completely immersed in it.In fear and chaos, luck favored her: when she was sent to the experimental magic circle, she was suddenly detected with a very weak magic affinity.
She is actually gifted with magic.
Due to her magical talent and her previous honesty, Jenny saved her life and became one of the magician’s apprentices, with the same status as Ravencase. "Servant Apprentice", and she also got her own surname: the magician gave her the name "Perot" very casually. In common human language, this word means "wheat" - because she was bought back by the magician with two bags of wheat.
Being free from the threat of death is already a huge blessing for Jenny, who is an experimental material, but in fact her situation is still not bright: she just started from the same " "thing" becomes just a "slave", and in many cases, there is not much difference between the two.
But Jenny didn’t have much time to think about this at the time. She was extremely lucky to be alive, and she was even more lucky to be able to read, read, and learn magic as a mage apprentice (albeit a slave apprentice). It was a good thing that she had never thought of. She began to learn that knowledge eagerly, reading, literacy, identifying runes, and memorizing spells almost day and night. And soon, she discovered that Ravencase had similar hobbies to her own. And the way of thinking...
They became good friends, and after years of friendship, Ravencase excitedly showed Jenny his treasured notebook, and told about the incredible and grounded things in the notebook. Regarding mathematics and logic, the two "apprentices" who have low magical power and have not received formal mage education at all absorb the knowledge in the notes and build their own worldview based on it.
They are completely unaware of how deviant this research method that relies on formulas and calculations to approach the truth is in the eyes of orthodox mages who believe in pursuing the truth through personal strength.
On the other side, Jenny's "mentor", the powerful magician, soon discovered that Jenny's magical talent was actually low and pitiful. This sick young man who crawled out of the experimental materials had And she only has a little ability to sense magic. With her mental talent, she may only be able to master a few apprentice-level spells in her lifetime, and will never be able to become a formal mage.
So he quickly stopped investing in Jenny and was eager to recover the cost. He gave Jenny a bottle of magic potion and a drawing of the magic circle, and asked Jenny to make the magic Drink the medicine, forcibly transforming into a first-level mage, and then start practicing as a rune master.
Ravencase, who had already drank the potion, stopped Jenny in private and gave a bold suggestion: Why not believe in the knowledge in the notes and the things that are deduced and summarized based on the knowledge in the notes? Formulas, trying to control those runes without the help of magic, but only with mathematics and logic?
Jenny followed Ravencase's advice and completed the reconstruction of the magic circle as an apprentice.
That bigIt is probably the first "calculated" magic circle in the world.
But her "mentor" did not reward her for this. Instead, he became furious and quickly found out that it was Ravencase who was "performing small tricks". Then, he followed the clues and found out that The existence of this notebook - this act of "betrayal" made him even more angry. He thought that a research notebook full of nonsense and from a weak mage could confuse him in his mage tower. Servant, this is a great insult to him.
The great magician was furious, ready to destroy the notes and severely punish his two "apprentices", but at this time Ravencase bravely stood up for the first time and took the initiative to face The anger of his own "mentor".
He accepted the punishment alone and kept the notebook and Jenny at the cost of an eye, a quarter of his soul and two tendons. He tried to let the tyrannical great magician I believe that there is value in keeping notes and letting stupid apprentices study them - there may be a little something worth investing in the notes. He and Jenny can become such guinea pigs and follow the methods recorded in the notes. To make the magic circle and runes, so that if it succeeds, all the results belong to the great magician. If it fails, the magician will only lose two experimental materials.
Jenny’s mentor accepted this statement and asked two bold apprentices to continue this research, but he never gave up ridiculing and attacking them all the time - he believed that there was no way for those who The research on runes by those who control high-level runes must be ridiculous, just like a serf guessing the king's menu. He has no ability to understand and control the runes, but guesses the power of those runes out of thin air based on a few calculations. , isn’t this ridiculous?
But no matter what, Ravencase and Jenny were finally able to continue studying the contents of the note, and they soon discovered that different magic-guiding materials had obvious differences in their properties such as magic transmission. The problem of "fault", this fault seems to divide all magic-guiding materials into two intervals: "positive" and "negative", and a mysterious constant affects the actual performance of the magic-guiding materials in these two intervals in the magic circle. It turns out that Various magic-guiding materials only affect the "output power" of the magic array, while the anti-interference stability of the magic array itself mainly depends on the arrangement logic of the runes, and the relationship between the magic-guiding materials is only affected by its positive and negative polarities. Nature and the influence of a constant...
They began to deduce this constant and gradually approached the final result. However, on the eve of success, their mentor suddenly gave them a task.
Go to an out-of-control magic well and reset the rune array there.
This is completely beyond their runecaster skills, and resetting the magic well's rune array is not a runecaster's expertise: that is the job of a formal mage.
But the instructor’s order is absolute, and along with the order comes another sentence:
“You don’t mean that all the runes can be applied to you.Is it in the formula? Then go for it. "
Ravencase accepted this order. He knew very well that the great magician had lost his patience, because the latter was not a person who could tolerate his slaves acting freely, so he had no choice at all. , and going to the magic well to adjust the runes would also allow him to verify one of the most critical issues.
As Jenny's memory came to an end, her tone was very calm, and it was not as if she was talking about something related. Own business: "Mr. Ravencase told me before he left that he would adjust the runes according to the first guess. If he came back alive, E would be equal to 1.29. If he did not come back, E would be equal to 1.66—— He failed to come back. ”
Gawain lowered his head and looked at the notebook. The record about the constant E was written in brand new and elegant handwriting, written by Jenny.