Chapter 277 — Worth Studying

Camille proposed a solution involving a high-power long-range weapon. In Gao Yang's view, this solution might not completely solve the "artillery" problem, but at the very least, to a certain extent, it could fill the greatest shortcoming of the current Cecil army.

Cecil's combat soldiers already possessed extremely powerful individual armaments, standing in a position of absolute superiority on the traditional battlefields of this era where soldiers fought to the death. But for Gao Yang, who carried memories of Earth, without heavy weapons that could thoroughly transcend human strength and influence the balance of the battlefield as a whole, a modern army could hardly be called fully formed.

Facing the monsters of the magic tide, the power of "human waves" was ultimately unreliable. Only more powerful artillery fire could bring humanity the hope of survival.

However, even if Camille's solution proved feasible, Gao Yang had not given up on the idea of creating a solid-projectile weapon. This world had far too many magical materials with bizarre properties, and the Gondor wasteland held far too many unpredictable threats. A single type of weapon could hardly cope with the ever-changing battlefield. For the cautious Gao Yang, kinetic weapons still gave him more peace of mind.

After summarizing the various problems that had emerged during this defensive battle, and after finalizing the details of the troops' post-battle adjustments, training, and propaganda guidance, Gao Yang let out a breath and turned to Hetty: "How is Rebecca doing?"

"Nothing serious. She just overexerted her spiritual power, so she'll sleep for half a day," Hetty said, her expression somewhat strange—impossible to tell whether she wanted to cry or laugh. "Since she was little, there have been very few times when she overexerted her spiritual power. That child's spiritual power and mana reserves both far exceed ordinary people's. I've never seen her tired after throwing a hundred fireballs in a day. This time she was truly too reckless."

In this world, spiritual power and mana reserves were two of the important metrics for measuring a person's magical talent, and their functions differed. To put it in the simplest and most direct terms: spiritual power was the ability to control magic and sense mana, determining a person's spellcasting skill and the stability of consecutive casting; while mana reserves were the power consumed when actually casting a spell, determining the total energy expenditure of spells a person could release within a certain period. Generally speaking, these two metrics developed in sync—it was rare for a person's spiritual power to far exceed their mana reserves, or vice versa.

Of course, exceptions did exist. Take that second-rank arcanist Santis on the territory who was currently serving as a teacher—he was an example of mana reserves far below spiritual power.

Although Rebecca was a strange girl, her "development" in these two metrics was quite normal—even considerably stronger than an average mage. It was simply that she was born with few "spell slots," which caused a casting defect—the equivalent of a mage with a screw loose.

So when Rebecca recklessly used the magic net to serve as her own mana reserves, she ran into a situation where her spiritual power was overwhelmed—and severely overwhelmed at that. But this could not be blamed on her. After all, the magic net itself was a completely new thing. When did an ordinary mage ever have the chance to control such a vast energy source? For a normal mage, holding a mana crystal and casting a few over-limit spells was already considered an act of the nouveau riche, while the territory's city-level magic net could overload who knew how many mana crystals...

Fortunately, the silly roe deer's skull was truly hard, and humans also had a self-protective mechanism of "fainting when they can't take it"—otherwise, something serious really would have happened...

"She was a bit reckless this time, but when is she not reckless?" Gao Yang said, somewhat helpless. "And this time, thanks to her recklessness, we've been given an idea for manufacturing a new type of weapon."

"Speaking of Miss Rebecca, there's one thing I've always been curious about," Camille suddenly said. "She only knows one spell—Fireball, is that right?"

Hetty nodded. "Yes, that's the only one she knows, and she can't learn any others."

"But her Fireball has all sorts of forms and... levels," Camille said, his tone carrying confusion and thought. "I've seen her create ordinary small fireballs, large fireballs, fireballs like an Explosive Flame spell, that fireball this time bigger than a city gate, and I've also seen her create two fireballs the size of bird eggs and roll them around in her hands for fun... Did someone teach her all this?"

"She's even developed to the point of using fireballs as wenwan walnuts?!" Gao Yang was astonished, then coughed twice. "Ahem—no one taught her. And with all those crazy fireball-rolling techniques, what normal mage would go research that? She figured it all out herself in her spare time."

After all, the silly roe deer couldn't do anything except roll fireballs—if she didn't ponder that, what would she ponder?

Camille looked even more curious than before. "Was this also an ability she had since childhood?"

After receiving confirmation from Gao Yang and Hetty, this ancient master mage finally voiced his point of confusion: "Do you think Fireball could possibly have so many variants?"

"...Actually, I was curious about this question a long time ago too," Hetty said after a moment of silence. "I even took her to consult a very famous great mage in the southern region, but that master couldn't explain exactly what was wrong with Rebecca's magical talent either. She only knows how to roll fireballs, but she can roll them with all sorts of incredible techniques..."

Gao Yang silently glanced at Hetty, thinking that under his leadership, everyone on the territory had begun to accept by default that fireballs were "rolled"—when not long ago everyone had still been properly saying that Fireball was "cast"...

"In Miss Rebecca's fireballs, I sense a primal and pure mana fluctuation. I strongly suspect that the magic which looks like Fireball is actually just a high-temperature effect she forcibly creates with vast mana. Simply because a sphere is the easiest magical structure to self-stabilize, this high-temperature energy mass takes on the form of a fireball..."

Hetty's tone grew slightly urgent: "Master Camille, have you figured out what's wrong with Rebecca's magical talent?"

Although she frequently knocked on Rebecca's skull, it was obvious that she still cared deeply about the niece she had raised since childhood.

"No, I cannot see the root cause of Rebecca's strange spellcasting talent. But I suspect... she doesn't actually know Fireball at all," Camille said slowly. "Yet I do not consider this a 'casting defect.' If her Fireball is a more fundamental release of mana, then this shows that she has broken through the traditional mage's limitations regarding 'spell levels' and 'skills.' To her, Fireball is not a first-rank spell, nor second or third. If we can understand the principles of her magic, perhaps our research into the essence of magic could advance even further."

Gao Yang finally understood the reason for Camille's obsession with this question. It was because of the string of "whys" he had thrown at the other man after the successful development of the magic energy obelisk last time, which had ignited this ancient master mage's enthusiasm for researching the essence of mana. Now he had developed to the point of wanting to investigate any abnormal magical phenomenon he saw.

But then again... Rebecca's strange fireball talent... really was quite worth studying.