Chapter 80 — The Nature of Magic and the Ringing of Art

Amber instantly puffed out her cheeks: "Is eating the only thing you think I'm good for?!"

"Damn right. I use you as a clock for my three meals now. Seeing you means it's almost time to eat," Gao Yang said with profound grief. "Anyway—what exactly do you want?"

"Hmph, old man, you're no fun as expected... Fine, I just wanted to tell you something. I meant to say it two days ago but forgot. I've found that lately it's gotten much easier to enter the Shadow Realm than before."

Gao Yang had assumed this half-elf had merely been idling outside too long and had come to tease him out of boredom, but to his surprise, the moment she opened her mouth it was truly a serious matter. He was momentarily stunned.

Amber grew a little displeased: "Hey, show some reaction, will you? I'm reporting to you very seriously here. What's with the gaping?"

Gao Yang cleared his throat twice and quickly suppressed the look of "I just never expected a creature like you to actually do something useful," replacing it with a grave expression: "I remember what you said the first time you took me into the Shadow Realm—that it was also 'your first time going that deep'..."

"Actually, I told a little fib back then... I was afraid it would sound too outrageous, so I played it down," Amber said, sticking out her tongue. "The truth is, I've fully entered the Shadow Realm more than once before. But honestly, entering it used to be nowhere near this easy. It took prolonged meditation, or the aid of rituals and incense—at the very least you'd have to down half a bottle of shadow potion to get in..."

Gao Yang raised an eyebrow: Down half a bottle?! You'd have drunk yourself to death!

Yet amid his astonishment, he realized something: Amber was probably telling the truth. Which meant the barrier between the Shadow Realm and the material world was growing fragile?

To be honest, making a conjecture at the level of the world's fundamental laws based solely on the one-sided words of an utterly shameless half-elf did seem rather unreliable. Under normal circumstances, such a matter would require at least half a division of experts and scholars poring over it for half a year or a full year before any conclusion could be reached. But then again... Gao Yang strongly suspected that even half a division of experts and scholars combined would be less useful than Amber's utterly unreasonable talent.

It was like how hiring ten thousand psychologists to study why your wife is angry is less useful than one glance at her shopping cart: that's what specialization means...

So he nodded gravely: "You're saying the Shadow Realm is gradually 'approaching' the material world? Apart from you sensing it, do you think those scholars who study the Shadow Realm will notice?"

"Honestly, I think this 'approach' should still be at a fairly early stage. Probably only someone like me can perceive it accurately. As for those scholars... well, they're not all fools, so the true masters should be able to sense some traces. But they likely can't see the changes as directly as I can."

Gao Qi frowned. He did not know whether what Amber reported was good or ill, for no one in history had ever measured the "distance" or "gulf" between the Shadow Realm and the material world, nor did anyone know exactly how that chasm changed. It was even possible that throughout history the Shadow Realm had drawn near the material world more than once—only that no one could perceive it, and the process produced no consequences whatsoever.

He rubbed the space between his brows and looked at Amber: "What do you think will happen if the Shadow Realm and the material world come into contact?"

"How would I know... But it's probably nothing good," Amber said, rolling her eyes. "Shadow magic is almost entirely destructive, after all. Shadow itself is a thoroughly negative force. Normal people absolutely should not come into contact with it."

Gao Yang sighed: "Fine. That was as good as saying nothing. By the way, why did you come all this way to tell me this? I'm not a scholar, nor a witch or mage specializing in shadow magic. And I expect that even if I wrote a letter to the scholars of the Arcane Society in the name of Gao Yang Cecil, they wouldn't take it very seriously..."

"Then that's not my problem," Amber said, pursing her lips. "I just wanted someone to tell. Now that I've told you, I feel much better. As for what you do about it afterward—that's your business."

The veins on Gao Yang's forehead began to throb.

But just as he was hesitating over whether to give the creature before him a good thrashing, a sudden explosion startled both people in the tent.

"BOOM!"

Amber dove under the table on the spot: "Waaah! What's going on, what's going on!?"

Gao Yang paid no mind to this abject coward, and instead strode out of the tent, looking toward the direction the sound had come from.

He saw a great many startled soldiers running toward the southeast corner of the camp—and that was precisely the direction of Hedy's magic laboratory!

Mother of god, art blew up, Rebecca really is terrifyingly quick to act.

Gao Yang sprinted toward that direction.

True, the magic laboratory had its own protective array, Hedy had her defensive magic, and Gao Yang had previously reminded Hedy to pay attention to experiment safety, so no one should be in any real danger—but judging by the force of that explosion, who knew how much of the laboratory's precision instruments could be saved.

He had to get there and save the day before Rebecca got strung up and beaten by Hedy...

(Good heavens, I actually updated another chapter!)