Exploring Technology in a Wizard World-Chapter 684 - 682: The Triumph of Mathematics, The Roar of Anger

Casol, watching from a distance, couldn’t help but narrow his eyes when he saw the anomaly in Pandora’s blood. He twitched his nose as if smelling something and then slowly widened his eyes.

"Um—" Casol uttered, inhaling deeply, somewhat intoxicated, "This sweet scent! This pure blood! This marvelous sensation! Ugh, this must be top-quality Blood Food. Compared to the rubbish I’ve had before, it’s like heaven and earth!

I never expected that I’d come across such an unexpected gain while pursuing someone here! Haha, in that case, I shan’t be polite and let it slip away easily. As long as I absorb this exquisite Blood Food, my strength will certainly progress. By then, I might not be Muse’s match still, but I can close some distance."

With that, Casol’s gaze toward Pandora was filled with immense greed, like a person starved for three days and nights eyeing a lavish feast.

Licking his lips lightly, Casol called out to Pandora, "My lovely little girl, come, come, let me taste you, let you and I become one!"

The moment the last word left his mouth, with a "swoosh," Casol erupted in a cloud of blood mist from his body. Roars of fierce beasts emerged from the depths of the blood mist as it enveloped Pandora.

Pandora retreated cautiously, but the spread of the blood mist was too fast and soon caught up with her, looming over.

The blood mist touched Pandora’s body.

"Roar!"

An earth-shattering Dragon Roar resounded from the depths of the blood mist, causing Pandora’s body to tremble.

"Slush!"

The next moment, under the gaze of two pairs of eyes, the blood mist instantly dispersed, blending into the air and vanishing without a trace.

"Uh?"

Pandora blinked in slight surprise, her eyes flickering.

"What’s going on?!"

On the other side, Casol was stunned. He couldn’t help but rub his eyes to ensure what he saw was correct—the blood mist really had dissipated.

"How can this be? Why did it dissipate?" Casol glared at Pandora, utterly perplexed, taking a deep breath as he steeled his expression to try again with disbelief.

"Slush!"

Instantly, another massive cloud of blood mist surged from Casol’s body, engulfing Pandora. But just like before, the moment it touched her, the mist instantly collapsed, disappearing cleanly in the blink of an eye.

"Gulp!" Casol swallowed hard, looking at Pandora. His gaze was as if he had seen a ghost, his face pale as he repeatedly muttered, "Impossible, impossible, completely impossible. Unless..."

Suddenly, something occurred to Casol, his eyes bulging wide as he stared at Pandora for a long while, laughing somewhat neurotically.

"Hahaha, hahaha, I know, I know!" Casol pointed at Pandora and laughed, "I know what’s happening, I know why my blood mist doesn’t affect you! Because, little girl, you are a Strange Species, yes, a top-tier Strange Species, just in a juvenile state!

Your Bloodline Level is higher than all the bloodlines fused in my blood mist, which means using my blood mist against you is like throwing a clump of Flames into a Volcano. It’s not the blood mist devouring you; you devoured the blood mist."

"Hahaha, hahaha!" Casol continued to laugh, his laughter growing louder while his gaze upon Pandora turned increasingly crazed. "I’ve struck it rich! I never imagined that here on the East Coast, in a place that has been cleared several times, I’d encounter a top-tier Strange Species. If I devour your bloodline, my strength will skyrocket, and I might even be able to contend with that madwoman Muse! I must have you!"

"Since my best Blood Food mist doesn’t work on you, let’s see how you deal with other spells, like using Earth Magic to trap you first and then personally suck your blood dry. It’s all the same, all the same!"

With his voice reaching a high pitch, Casol swung his arm toward Pandora and unleashed Earth Magic at her.

"Boom!" The ground explosively burst open as clods of earth flew into the air, hardening into Stone Balls each one meter in diameter and raining down on Pandora like a Meteor shower.

"Bang bang bang!"

The ground trembled non-stop. Pandora’s eyes widened as she dodged swiftly. Some Stone Balls fell close to her body, shattering into thousands of fragments, hurtling in all directions, some hitting her. Fortunately, her defensive strength was sufficient. As long as she wasn’t struck head-on by a Stone Ball, she didn’t worry—the mere fragments only caused her a bit of pain and stoked her anger.

With furrowed brows, Pandora dodged a series of Stone Balls, standing on the stone fragments as she looked toward Casol, breathing heavily, her anger intensifying.

Casol, however, sneered and declared, "Little girl, it’s not over yet, that was just the beginning."

With that, Casol waved his hand again.

"Boom!"

Another rumble, the ground blasted open once more, dirt took flight, and this time it morphed into Stone Cones raining from the sky, targeting Pandora.

Pandora dodged swiftly, changing positions under the onslaught of the Stone Cones, and with forceful punches she shattered three of the cones, finally blocking this wave of attack.

"Huff—puff—"

"Huff—puff—"

After the intense action in a brief period, Pandora couldn’t help but let out heavy breaths, glaring at Casol, fuming to the extreme.

But she didn’t lose her reason. Perhaps it was due to her time with Richard, but at this moment, in her anger, she was seriously contemplating some matters.

Like...

Richard had always been teaching her mathematics, telling her it was the most useful thing in the world, that with mastery over math, many of the world’s difficulties could be easily resolved.

Really?

Can mathematics solve my current troubles?

Can math enable me to defeat the man in front of me?

With such thoughts, Pandora cast her gaze into the distance, toward a place that was not the entrance to the passageway—she had realized that the man called Casol, shameless though he may be, would never let her enter the passage. Even if she did, he could easily catch up and stop her.

So, the direction she cast her gaze was the spot where she had previously tossed away the hand cannon.

Previously, the hand cannon was covered in a sticky and unknown liquid, which she had discarded there out of disgust for not wanting to touch it. Now, she had to retrieve the hand cannon to stand any chance of defeating Casol.

But Casol was faster than her, much faster, nearly twice her speed. What if she went for the hand cannon and Casol intercepted her?

Pandora continued to think, looking at Casol, then at the hand cannon, her eyes flickering, feeling a sense of déjà vu.

Yes, déjà vu.

The position she was in, the position Casol was in, and the position of the hand cannon made up three points.

The lines connecting these three points formed a triangle.

Richard had once told her that the sum of the angles in a triangle was one hundred and eighty degrees, although this wasn’t particularly useful in her current situation.

However... Richard had also told her many other things.

For example... the triangle that was formed now, the distance from her to the hand cannon and the distance to Casol were about the same, which meant these were two sides of equal length.

Additionally, the hand cannon was directly to her west and Casol directly to her north. Two sides of equal length formed a... right angle?

Yes, a right angle.

That meant the triangle they formed was an isosceles right triangle.

But knowing it was an isosceles right triangle wasn’t useful, was it? It wouldn’t offer any help, would it?

No, she had to think further.

Yes, think further.

Now that it was established as an isosceles right triangle, she remembered Richard saying that in a right triangle on a plane, the sum of the squares of the two legs is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. This theorem was called something like the ’Dog Bone Theorem’ or also known as the ’White Cow Theorem.’

She never understood why triangles were related to dog bones or white cows. Why not horse bones or black cows?

But since Richard had told her so, she had memorized it that way.

With that logic, if she considered the distance to the hand cannon as one length unit, her distance to Casol would also be one length unit. The distance from Casol to the hand cannon would be the square root of the sum of the squares of one length unit... which is... the square root of two length units.

The square root of two, Richard had said, could be approximated as 1.414; thus, the distance from Casol to the hand cannon was 1.414 length units.

Furthermore, according to the previous battle situation, she could be fairly certain that Casol’s speed was about twice hers; if her speed was 1, then Casol’s would be 2.

Richard had said that length divided by speed would yield time.

So, 1 divided by 1 is 1. 1.414 divided by 2 is 0.707.

is more than... no, less than 0.707, which means the time it took her to run towards the hand cannon exceeded that of Casol. In other words, she couldn’t outrun Casol; she would surely be intercepted if she tried to fetch the hand cannon.

Really then, math is useless, and Richard is a big liar!

Pandora bit her lip, her already injured self causing a hot drip of fresh blood to slide down, coursing down her cheek and into her neck, where it touched something.

"Buzz!"

A strong mana fluctuation emerged, and upon closer examination, Pandora saw it was the silver pendant that Richard had given her a long time ago.

The Silver Pendant!

She remembered Richard had instructed her to test it; if activated, it would increase her speed by nearly half.

Half her speed?

That meant her speed would now be one and a half times what it was, while Casol’s speed remained twice the original.

Recalculating.

divided by 1.5 is approximately 0.667.

1.414 divided by 2 is 0.707.

0.667 is less than 0.707, meaning the time it took her to reach the hand cannon was shorter than Casol’s, she could grab the hand cannon faster.

Pandora’s eyes widened!

It appeared that Richard was right after all, mathematics was useful!

A myriad of thoughts dashed through Pandora’s mind, not taking long, as she had practiced calculations extensively and had become adept at them.

It took just a few breaths to sort things out mathematically. As Casol looked over from the distance, just about to say something, Pandora didn’t waste words; she shouted out loud, activating the pendant around her neck, boosting her speed significantly, and dashed towards the hand cannon at high velocity.

Casol was initially stunned, then he realized what was happening and prepared to intercept, but he was already too late.

Thus, when he was almost upon Pandora, she threw herself forward, accurately seizing the hand cannon that lay on the ground in her hand.

The very next moment, Pandora aimed the hand cannon at Casol, who was only an arm’s length away. She didn’t even need to take aim, and without any courtesy, she pulled the trigger.

"Bang!"

A resonating roar as the heated projectile burst forth from the barrel, unleashing an angry bellow!