Chapter 62 — Magic Net No. 1 and the Blacksmith Shop

Feeling a large hand rubbing the top of her head, Rebecca was momentarily stunned.

Her first reaction was that she had misheard; her second was that the Ancestral Ink had misspoken; her third... was to take it as a kind of consolation.

Surely it couldn't be sarcasm.

Having never accomplished anything in her life, the viscount's daughter had never imagined she would one day be genuinely praised.

Seeing Rebecca's reaction, Gao Yang repeated what he had just said, then laughed. "Don't just stand there frozen—I'm praising you seriously. You probably don't even realize what an incredible talent you have."

"Really?" Rebecca said blankly, then blinked a little bashfully. "But these are just little tricks of mine... they're useless in everyday life."

Such extraordinary talent, classified as mere little tricks... Gao Yang was genuinely at a loss for words.

Rebecca had been born too early, but fortunately Gao Yang had not arrived too late—there was still a chance for these talents to be put to use.

Gao Yang examined the magic circle structure Rebecca had adjusted more carefully. Though he was a knight, Gao Yang Cecil in his day had been half a polymath, and he had done considerable research into magical theory and the like. On top of that, the Gondor Empire had been a nation with exceptionally advanced magical technology, where basic magical knowledge was fairly well disseminated. So a magic circle assembled from nothing but basic runes was not hard for Gao Yang to understand. After a careful look, he confirmed that Rebecca's adjustments to the runes were all quite reasonable. The magic circle had gone from a crude conceptual product to a "prototype" that fully met his expectations and could serve as the foundation for later applications. If it were to be further refined, only the test of practice could tell.

Gao Yang raised just one question: "Have you considered extending it further?"

"Extending it further?" Rebecca was taken aback. "How? Draw it bigger?"

"No—I mean connecting it to other self-charging magic circles that follow the same framework but differ in scale, or even using certain magic circle units as basic structures that connect and expand without limit, eventually forming a large network capable of covering a much broader area." Looking at the neatly arranged runes, Gao Yang faintly glimpsed in them a shadow of something that could be combined and repeated, and could not help but propose a rather bold idea. "Each magical unit is no longer an independent entity but is linked together—do you understand?"

Though she possessed outstanding mathematical talent and creativity, a concept of this level was still too abstruse for Rebecca. She thought hard, and finally could only frown in distress. "Ancestral Ink, that sort of thing you're describing... could it really exist?"

"Just treat it as one of my whims," Gao Yang said. Seeing Rebecca's troubled expression, he told himself he must not be too eager for quick results, and resolutely set aside this line of extension. "For now, get Magic Net No. 1 built and get the blacksmith shop running. Everything else can wait until later."

"All right!" Rebecca nodded happily. "I was just discussing the blacksmith shop with Hammel..."

"Oh?" Gao Yang raised an eyebrow. He had indeed seen Rebecca talking with Hammel just now, but the surprise of Magic Net No. 1 had nearly made him forget it. "What were you discussing?"

"About the new furnace," Rebecca said, tilting her head up. "I was thinking, if Magic Net No. 1 is running, then we can draw a proper magic circle on the forge instead of using those clumsy runes—so the furnace could be rebuilt, right? But I don't know how to forge iron myself, so I had to come ask Hammel, to see what ideas he has about improving the furnace and the workflow..."

The old blacksmith Hammel stood nearby in considerable trepidation, head lowered, listening to the viscountess and the duke discuss their affairs. He felt both honored and nervous that a commoner like himself could stand here and take part in the conversations of nobles. And when he saw Gao Yang's attention turn to him, the old blacksmith truly broke out in a cold sweat all down his back: he could not begin to imagine what it would be like for a noble lord who had never even pulled a bellows to instruct him in building a blacksmith shop, yet he had no choice but to cooperate. So he had already resigned himself to the prospect of Gao Yang proposing a heap of bizarre demands, and of himself having to lead the apprentices in a desperate, all-out effort to fulfill them...

Such things were not unheard of. It was said that in the north, a viscountess had once taken a sudden whim to instruct a gardener in pruning the nursery, decreeing that every goldenwood chrysanthemum should bear two buds rather than three when it bloomed. A dozen gardeners had been flogged for it, until the viscountess lost interest in the matter.

"Don't be nervous," Gao Yang said in a calm tone, seeing Hammel's tension. "Tell me what you think."

"I... I don't have any ideas," Hammel said humbly, head lowered. "The viscountess is truly learned and extraordinarily wise. The things she designs are beyond the understanding of poor folk like us for our whole lives. I have enough trouble just learning to use them—how could I presume to offer an opinion?"

Gao Yang looked at him and shook his head. "You naturally don't understand magic, but furnaces and anvils are what you know best. In that respect you are the expert, and we will all respect your opinion."

Respect... the opinion of a commoner?

For a moment Hammel thought he had misheard. But seeing the utterly serious expressions on the faces of Gao Yang, Hetty, and Rebecca, he finally confirmed it was true—at least, the duke had certainly said so.

So he could only brace himself. "I think... I think that since the furnace will be heated by real magic from now on, then rather than patching up the old furnace, it might be better to start over completely and build a whole new kind of furnace..."

Gao Yang's eyebrows rose. "A whole new kind?"

Hammel scratched his arm, striving to express his thoughts clearly and understandably. "Since we'll be using real magic, the old limits of those runes are gone. First, the furnace can be bigger, so a single melt will produce a great deal more steel. Then, since the magic circle won't crack, the furnace won't need to be shut down and cooled all the time—maybe it could just keep burning, which would save all the labor and time of reheating the chamber. Of course, that would mean using it nonstop, all the time..."

Gao Yang listened very attentively, interrupting only when he came to a point where he thought he could offer a suggestion, while Hammel poured out all his ideas in one breath.

At first he stammered and stumbled from nervousness, but soon he spoke more and more smoothly, and by the time he was nearly finished, he was utterly astonished.

He had not expected Gao Yang to truly be listening seriously to his account. A grand duke—a true great noble, a figure common folk would not even dare imagine—was actually standing in this messy place, listening to the opinion of a commoner like himself. And it was no pretense of listening, for Gao Yang was nodding along as he listened, and even occasionally raising detailed questions and suggestions!

Those questions and suggestions left Hammel bewildered from time to time: was this really a noble lord who had never touched a bellows or a hammer? How did he know so much about steel smelting?

Though many of the questions sounded rather fanciful to Hammel, there was no doubt that they were all tightly focused on the practical realities of steel smelting—nothing at all like that nonsense about "every goldenwood chrysanthemum should bear two buds rather than three when it blooms"!

When Hammel finally finished, Gao Yang let out a soft breath and looked the old blacksmith in the eye.