Free Web NovelChapter 230: Chapter 201: Zog’s Family Bucket
Zog had thoroughly braced himself for whatever might be inside the egg.
He wouldn’t have even been too surprised by a Tiamat embryo.
And yet, he was surprised.
The contents were, frankly, a little too underwhelming.
’At least that deer from the Northern Domain was a magical AI.’
This egg, however, contained only a massive amount of magical knowledge.
It wasn’t that magical knowledge was bad—it was very useful. But he could get the same thing from the Repin Academy’s library.
Zog casually browsed the contents. His entire understanding of Magic was limited to Dragon Breath, Low Tier Teleportation, and writing programs with Illusion Runes, so it was difficult for him to judge the level of this knowledge.
So, he had no choice but to turn to the walking encyclopedia of Magic at his side.
"Furin, do you know what a Single-Element Base Point Circulation Configuration is?"
"Why are you asking about that? Is that what’s inside?"
"It’s all just magical knowledge. Nothing dangerous."
Hearing Zog’s words, Furin relaxed and dropped her guard.
"Single-Element Base Point..." she thought for a moment. "Isn’t that just the Carl Configuration? One of the most basic configurations in Curse Technique. You don’t even know that?"
"That fool?" Zog had heard the name before.
Carl was likely one of the most famous Mages, having made exceptional contributions to Curse Technique, Alchemy, Contracts, Golems, and Runes.
However, his historical reputation was mixed, as he was also the one who ushered in the "Great Age of Suspicion" in magical dueling.
Mages of earlier eras placed great importance on honor. When Casting, the name of the Magic they called out was the Magic they used—a matter of dueling with integrity.
But then Carl came along and won battle after battle by calling out one spell and using another. Many Mages followed the principle of "if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em," leading to what’s known in Mage history as the "Collapse of Rites and Music."
"What about the Magic Power Release Feedback-Regulation Mechanism, then?" Zog continued.
"That’s also very elementary. It’s something apprentices learn when they still can’t properly control their Magic Power output."
Zog was almost at the end of the knowledge base, and everything he’d seen was similar.
The fact he could understand it proved it wasn’t profound magical knowledge. For anything more advanced, he would have needed a lot of prerequisite lessons to even begin to comprehend it.
He scrolled all the way to the end, where the rest was just garbled code.
’What’s this supposed to mean? Is the rest of the content DLC? Of all the companies to emulate, it had to be Paradox.’
’How do you unlock the DLC? Surely I don’t have to hatch the egg, right?’
But logical deduction suggested that the content was most likely unlocked by an increase in faith, just like how the Deer Spirit Body increased its processing power through faith.
Zog broke the connection.
"How was it? Did you find anything special?" Furin asked.
"It’s all pretty much like what I just asked about," Zog said, handing the egg over. "See for yourself."
’I thought there’d be some incredible revelation, or some divine Treasure Tools or something.’
’What a letdown.’
’I braced myself for anything, and this is what I get?’
’On the bright side, maybe it holds the secret to breaking the limits of Nine Ring Magic.’
Furin took the egg and mentally connected to it as well.
The moment she laid her hand on it, a visibly confused expression crossed her face.
"There’s nothing here at all?"
"Impossible." Zog reconnected, disbelieving.
"Now there is."
"What do you mean, ’now there is’?"
Zog, completely bewildered, let go.
"It’s gone again."
"So this egg is just a reader!"
Zog finally got it. What she was seeing was the stuff that had just been transmitted into his head; the egg was just converting the garbled code into a readable format.
"What do you mean?"
"The Divine Remains transmitted a pile of magical knowledge into my memory, but it’s all garbled when I try to recall it. This egg just displays what’s in my brain. It’s like taking off your pants just to fart—an utterly pointless extra step."
"Maybe it’s meant to bind to you," Furin mused. "The knowledge can only be shared with others through your consent."
"That... actually makes some sense."
"Hurry up and connect. I want to see the details," Furin urged.
"What’s so great about it? Isn’t it all just basic knowledge? Even I can understand it."
Despite his words, Zog obediently reconnected with the egg.
"It’s different. The content here is very different," Furin marveled as she read.
"How is it different?" Zog, for his part, found it just as capable of putting a Dragon to sleep as any other Spellbook.
"It’s hard to say... It’s just... even though this is all knowledge I’ve already mastered, the descriptions here feel more rigorous. More... elegant." Furin struggled for a moment to find the right words.
"Our previous research into Magic was filled with errors, speculation, and empirically accumulated knowledge that was never rigorously proven. But this, even though it’s only basic knowledge, is so systematic. It has the same feel as the Magic Language you’re trying to promote—like something a research academy would produce, not a Mage."
Zog was starting to understand.
The native Mages of Feilin were like students studying trigonometry by rote-memorizing a table of formulas.
But the content from the Divine Remains was the same subject, except it had been distilled into the elegant, underlying principles from which all those formulas were derived.
’Could it be that the Divine Remains actually come from an advanced civilization that researched Magic more thoroughly? A civilization that went extinct for some unknown reason, and what we’re seeing now is the legacy of that lost world?’
’Just as I thought. Magical research and development depends on archaeology too.’
"Maybe this could end the disputes between the various Schools and achieve a unified theory of Magic," Furin said, her voice filled with excitement.
"By patching the holes in our fundamentals and integrating the different theoretical systems, we can definitely accelerate the development of Magic!"
Her academic spirit was remarkably pure; all she wanted was to pursue higher realms of Magic.
"To end the disputes among the Schools, you first need all the Schools to agree. This isn’t just an academic issue; it’s a matter of politics and vested interests." Zog was not optimistic about the plan.
