Mage? Magic Engineer!-Chapter 117 - 114: Otherworld "Petroleum" in the Sky

On a beautiful spring afternoon, Rorschach arrived at the lab to find Pascal wasn’t there.

"Where’s Pascal?" Rorschach asked Paulina, who was organizing materials.

She was clearly in a good mood. "Starting today, you’re the senior in our research group. As for the *head* senior brother..."

’Hold on, I don’t want to be second fiddle!’

Kano walked in, leading two new recruits who were cautiously peeking around. "First, Pascal is at a critical stage, preparing for his promotion exam. I’ve arranged special training for him to solve the lab’s long-standing headache. Second, we have new people in the lab!"

’Alright, alright, we’ve finally got some new blood.’ The two of them looked to be about Rorschach’s age, a young man and a young woman.

"This is Paulina, a Tier Three Mage, and Rorschach, a Tier Four Mage."

"Hello, senior sister. Hello, senior brother." Hearing that everyone in the group was an Official Mage—and Tier Three and Tier Four at that—the clueless apprentices were full of admiration, not yet realizing what this "gap" in ranks implied. Seeing how young Rorschach was, they thought to themselves, ’As expected, the chief professor’s students are all geniuses! I’m so lucky to have joined!’

The female apprentice performed a curtsy common in court. "Fatima, a Valuvanan." ’You don’t have to emphasize that you’re from the Royal Capital, miss. Do you have a Heaven-Reaching Pattern or something?’ For some reason, Rorschach felt a slight dislike for the new apprentice.

Not to be outdone, the other student puffed out his chest. "Paul. I’m from Jasikone, a place famous for its fine wine, black pork, and heroes."

"What’s with all that? Here, you are all apprentices of the Tower of Stars!" Kano suddenly questioned his own judgment. ’What kind of people have I recruited?!’ 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

According to the traditions of the Tower of Stars, senior apprentices were required to join their advisor’s research group to "work," while also preparing for their Official Mage promotion exam under their teacher’s guidance. However, Kano’s group had been unable to accept new members because of Pascal’s presence, which was one of the reasons Kano had been so quick to accept Rorschach when he arrived.

Fortunately, Master Lionel Kano had been promoted to chief professor last year, and his brilliant new title had finally been enough to lure in these two clueless newcomers.

"If you two work hard, you can become Official Mages soon, just like your seniors. Paulina, go to the new lab and get Paul and Fatima familiar with the environment and procedures. Rorschach, you come with me."

After settling in the newbies, Kano led Rorschach to the old lab. "Let’s discuss your upcoming work here."

The furnishings in the old lab had changed slightly, but most of the large equipment remained. In the center, a Teleportation Array was now inscribed on the Metal Disc.

"The previous series of experiments didn’t require much technical skill; it was just endless repetition. Having you continue with that would be a waste of your talent." Kano removed the Crystal Cover, took out the Metal Disc, and explained to Rorschach, "What you said at that group meeting—about making good use of the energy within ’Transmuting Dust’—I think that’s quite interesting."

Going forward, on one hand, I’ll work on improving the stability and duration of the channel, controlling the output of Transmuting Dust to a reasonable level. On the other hand, I need you to find a way to utilize the energy it contains. This is no small project; it could become your long-term research topic."

"If you accept, I’ll guide you in writing a research proposal to request funding from the Elder Council. If you produce results, you’ll be more than qualified to graduate. Whether you stay or leave after that will be up to you."

’Time to choose a specialization already?’ Rorschach thought about the previous topic of Array-to-Spell-Manifestation. He felt his own skills weren’t yet sufficient to tackle such a broad and grand domain. This new topic was also based on Magic Arrays, and with Master Kano’s guidance, it would be a perfect learning opportunity.

Of course, there were risks. This field had no established framework yet. Transmuting Dust itself had only begun accumulating in the sky after the collapse of the Old Empire, so there was very little accumulated research literature.

Normal research was like standing on the shoulders of giants—innovative, but not to the point of backing yourself into a corner. This current development, however, felt somewhat unprecedented.

But Rorschach was still young, and youth was an advantage. A Middle Tier Mage who was about to turn seventeen would be called a genius. A twenty-seven-year-old Middle Tier Mage would still be considered talented, far ahead of most people, with a promising future.

With that thought, Rorschach nodded in agreement. "Alright, thank you. But, about Paulina..." Rorschach was confused. His senior sister had been doing repetitive research all this time; shouldn’t Kano have considered her for this project first?

"Don’t worry about your senior sister. She has her own research. Besides, she could have graduated long ago if she wanted to. She’s just waiting for a certain bastard."

’Sigh. Pascal really is a bastard.’

Once everything was ready, the Magic Array was activated. Just as Rorschach had seen before, a spray of multicolored Transmuting Dust erupted forth, then settled as fine ash.

"This is the current stable configuration for the Magic Array. It can sustain an eruption for about three seconds. After clearing out the ash, we can immediately run it again."

"In that case, could we flip the array? We could suspend an inverted array and let the decayed ash fall downwards. That way, we wouldn’t need to clean it so frequently."

"Also, the Crystal Cover needs to be improved. The decay time is too short. If we want to utilize this, we have to analyze the properties of the Transmuting Dust as much as possible. And to analyze its properties, we need it to remain stable for a period of time, and we need to find a way to characterize it."

Based on observations from the experiment, the Transmuting Dust was indeed concentrated with Ether, and its energy density was likely quite high. However, it was unstable. For unknown reasons, upon contact with other matter, it would rapidly release its energy and trigger an irreversible mutation in the contacted substance.

The second, and most critical, problem was that besides Ether, it was also mixed with various forms of Divine Power. This Divine Power was likely the trigger for the mutations. To make use of the dust, this power had to be removed or rendered harmless.

Rorschach now had two initial ideas. The first was to improve upon Kano’s device, using a Magic Circuit to directly collect the energy released during decay, creating a controllable Magic Power output device. The second was to find a way to remove the mixed Divine Power and achieve Dulling of this miraculous substance before it decayed, then reactivate it when needed.

The first path seemed to be the simplest. The key would be designing and improving an energy-gathering Magic Array. The second path was far more difficult and complex, but its potential was much greater.

Currently, there were no high-density storage materials for Ether. The only option was to construct an Energy Storage Circuit based on Alchemy Potions, but the current limit was only enough to support the instant casting of a spell. The solution on Airships was to compensate for low density with high volume, using three Alchemy Ink Pools to store Ether supplied by mages.

If they could produce dulled and purified Transmuting Dust that was stable on the Main Plane and could be transported safely, then many high-energy Magic spells would no longer require gathering Ether from the environment first. Mages could cast continuously or maintain spell effects without restriction.

Combined with the miraculous properties of Transmuting Dust, it might even be a multi-purpose Alchemy Material.

’If I could really develop this, it would be this world’s fantasy version of "oil"!’ ’Except this "oil" floats in the sky. Okay, that’s pretty magical.’ Rorschach was filled with emotion at the thought of his own idea.

"Not bad. I’ll give you all the manufacturing specifications for the Crystal Protection Shell and the data on the Magic Arrays on it." Master Kano was pleased that Rorschach had found a line of thinking so quickly.

"One step at a time. For now, set your short-term goal as researching the properties of Transmuting Dust. You can also find an archived research proposal in the records room on the second floor. Use the format from previous ones as a template."

"Oh, right, one more thing..." Kano handed Rorschach a letter of appointment. "There’s no rush on the research proposal. In previous years, the old-timers didn’t start reviewing them until the middle of summer. You can work on it in the meantime."

"Then, starting next month, you’ll be teaching at the High Master on the morning of the second, fourth, and sixth day of every ten-day period. I’ve clipped the schedule inside the letter. You can pick the textbooks or even write your own; just send your choice to the High Master’s school committee."

"It’s starting already?" ’This level of efficiency doesn’t seem like the Holy Kingdom or the Valuvanan people I know.’

"They have money, they have a ready-made building, and the great Cardinal is personally supervising. How could it not be fast?" Kano shrugged. "The Cardinal’s spotlight at court was temporarily stolen by the Minister of Finance, so he’s seized the chance to focus on founding the school."