Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 462 - 461: Act of Defiance

The hypothesis of the "mental seal" has been confirmed.

The appearance of the Holy Light Rune Baseplate allowed researchers of the Cecil Clan to observe the effects of the mental seal for the first time through experiments.

But this is undoubtedly not good news.

Divine Arts belong to the gods, and mortals can only "pray" for the gods’ blessings through devout faith and adherence to doctrines to borrow the power of Divine Arts. This has always been regarded as an unquestionable truth. However, through analyzing the evolution of Druid theurgy, with the intelligence provided by Kamel, and coupled with Wright being a living example of a "White Knight," Gawain and Pittman put forward the hypothesis of the "mental seal" together and believe that the key to allowing mortals to master Divine Arts is to break this seal — and after seeing Amber’s test, Gawain realized even more profoundly that breaking this seal might not be so easy.

Among the people Gawain knew, probably no one disdained the God of Holy Light more than this disgrace to the elf race, but she still could not break free from the influence of the mental seal. This indicates that the seal does not act on the cognitive level of individuals but is a kind of uncontrollable, unnoticeable instinctual reaction.

As for the situation Wright mentioned just now, where Kamel is also unaffected by the mental seal, Gawain was not too surprised — Kamel was a senior researcher of the "Defied Plan" a thousand years ago and lived through a full millennium of sealed life. His mind and willpower are probably no less than Wright, and the project he studied back then was about stealing the power of gods. His mental seal was likely already shattered when he saw the divine corpse of Amoen, the Giant Stag.

"Actually... this could be considered an unexpected gain," Gawain took the rune baseplate from Wright’s hands, unable to resist sighing, "It has become our ’observation device’ for verifying the mental seal..."

He then placed his finger on the purple copper medium at the edge of the rune baseplate and slowly injected magic power: "Perhaps... I could give it a try."

The pale golden lines on the rune baseplate quickly brightened under the magical infusion, and almost instantly, a mass of pure holy radiance condensed above the baseplate.

"This..." Wright was instantly dumbfounded, "You... You actually broke the mental seal too?!"

Amber also looked at Gawain, who released the Holy Light spell through the rune baseplate as though she’d seen a ghost — the last time she showed this expression was when she saw him crawl out of a coffin: "How can you do that too!"

Gawain merely watched the light sphere floating in front of him quietly, feeling its stable and pure magical reaction, yet he wasn’t too surprised in his heart.

Just as he expected — as an extraterrestrial visitor, himself having practically nothing to do with the local gods, naturally did not have a mental seal.

A small, swift figure flew to Gawain’s side, and Emily reached out towards the Holy Light ball but hesitated halfway.

She looked up at Gawain with big eyes full of expectation: "Can I eat it?"

Though the little girl was simple-minded and her way of thinking slightly differed from ordinary people, she obviously knew that Gawain was a leader and that she couldn’t act recklessly.

Gawain smiled slightly, placing his hand gently on Emily’s head: "Here you go."

The little girl happily took away the light mass, while Amber continued to gaze at Gawain, as though she’d seen a ghost, inspecting him up and down: "Really can’t tell... When did you break the mental seal?"

"A legendary hero from seven hundred years ago who fought against chaotic waves, having such determination is not surprising." Wright said from the side, though he explained this to Amber, he still had some doubts in his heart: The mental seal is an "lock" that cannot be detected by one’s own will, breaking it requires not only strong determination but also some kind of inexplicable "awakening" and "cognitive shift," and the latter two factors actually have nothing to do with a person’s determination or strength of will.

How could a normal person have a cognitive shift under normal circumstances? He broke through the mental seal due to long-term questioning and reflection on the God of Holy Light and the impact of the Emily incident, while Kamel’s was because of the defied plan back then, and the changes in life form and thought patterns during the millennium of sealing, so Gawain...

This legendary hero of the past, could it be that he once defied the gods as well?

Gawain noticed the doubt in Wright’s eyes, but he did not intend to explain everything. Instead, he brought the topic back on track: "The mental seal prevents users from using their own magic power to drive the Holy Light Baseplate, but if I’m not mistaken... this Holy Light Baseplate can actually still be used, right?"

"As you said," Wright nodded, "the mental seal only affects the user’s ability to gather their own magic power, but the Holy Light Baseplate is also a type of rune board. Rune boards do not necessarily need to be driven by human magic power — it can be driven by the energy within the Magic Web, and the Magic Web... has no thoughts."

The Magic Web has no thoughts, so naturally, it is not affected by the so-called "mental seal." Using the automatically operating Magic Web to drive the Holy Light rune is equivalent to bypassing the factor of "human," and this method of casting spells based on the Magic Web and external devices is the foundation of the Cecil magical industry.

The Cecil magical industry inadvertently found a loophole in the mental seal.

But Gawain knows that things aren’t this simple: "Using the Magic Web to power the Holy Light rune array... requires a very critical process in between."

Wright opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Kamel’s voice suddenly came from the direction of the church door: "It’s the Inversion Circle."

Gawain turned his head and saw Kamel, brimming with arcane magic, floating over. As the Arcane Master floated closer, he said, "I was just coming to report to you about the Holy Light Foundation Plate, but I didn’t expect you’d already be at the church. I just heard you discussing the power supply issue of the Holy Light Foundation Plate outside the door."

"Just happened to come by," Gawain nodded, naturally continuing the topic, "The Inversion Circle is a very sensitive thing. I believe if you hadn’t hit a bottleneck, you would have shown me the results of the Holy Light Foundation Plate by now—after all, you’ve already produced the physical item."

"There was a Priest who tried to improve Divine Arts and use magic to directly drive the Holy Light Array, but was burned to ashes by Divine Punishment—previous failed experiences have taught us to be cautious," Kamel said sternly, "We don’t know the essence of gods, but the phenomenon of ’Divine Punishment’ does exist."

At this, he paused and looked at Wright: "Fortunately, Wright broke the Steel Stamp and awakened the ability of the White Knight. By detecting the energy flow during his spellcasting and calculating the spell moulds he sensed, we reconstructed a new Holy Light Magic Array. In it, we completely eliminated the structures that connect with the Holy Light God, blocking the judgment process of ’Divine Punishment.’ Subsequent experiments confirm that this handling is effective, but if we power the Holy Light Foundation Plate through the Inversion Circle... it could very likely re-establish this dangerous connection."

While the pure magical energy flowing in the Magic Web is a convenient and useful universal energy source, its excessive "universality" makes it unsuitable for powering rune systems of Divine Arts. Rune systems of Divine Arts can only accept two types of energy: one is the corresponding divine magic (for example, Holy Light Energy stored in the Holy Light Crystal), and the other is magic attuned by human mental power (magic of Priests and other clergymen, or magic of other Transcendents). The pure chaotic magic in the Magic Web, untouched by the human factor, is clearly unsuited.

Thus, if we want to use the Magic Web to charge rune systems of Divine Arts, we must employ the "Inversion Circle" technology researched by Pittman: the Inversion Circle can replace the role of the "prayer person," processing pure chaotic magic.

The Inversion Circle is a mature technology, already widely used in Alchemy Factories, but it is also a dangerous technology: it is essentially stealing the powers of the God.

Back when the Inversion Circle appeared, Gawain ordered that for now, this technology may only be applied in the realm of Druid spells—because the Druid’s God "Amoen, the Giant Stag" has already been confirmed dead, and its divine corpse is suppressed in the shadow realm. Even if the Inversion Circle steals nature’s divine power, it doesn’t pose the risk of Divine Punishment, but powering other Divine Arts with the Inversion Circle is uncertain.

Other gods are still very much alive, and not only are they alive, they can even "call their followers back" (answer prayers)...

Though Gawain knows all gods have died once, various signs indicate those gods slaughtered by the zenith star people in ancient times have already resurrected, at least something seems to be sitting on the Holy Light God’s throne now. Personally, Gawain really doesn’t want to attract the attention of any god on their throne at this stage...

Amber also realized the danger of this Inversion Circle thing, and she joined Gawain in his dilemma. After a long internal struggle, she rather hesitantly suggested, "Just steal a little... what if the Holy Light God doesn’t notice?"

Gawain immediately glared at her: "Do you have a professional problem—what do you mean steal a little, do you think this is like you picking pockets in the tavern?"

Amber shrank back: "I was just saying, can’t I even talk about it...?"

"The Inversion Circle retains a large amount of rune structures that simulate Divine Arts, and this structure cannot be removed. It is very likely to attract the attention of ’gods’, but on the other hand, throughout this process, the energy-providing Magic Web, energy-converting Inversion Circle, and Divine Arts-releasing rune baseplate—three units—do not involve any ’mind’ participation. What people do is merely to pull the rune trigger, so theoretically this process can still bypass the ’Divine Punishment’ judgment," Kamel spoke of his considerations, "The only uncertainty now is..."

Gawain interrupted Kamel before he could finish: "We are uncertain whether ’Divine Punishment’ will still occur in a spellcasting process that is completely automatic and doesn’t involve mental Steel Stamps, and whether the action of ’pulling the trigger’ also introduces human ’mind factors’ into the spellcasting process. Whether this indirect influence leads to ’Divine Punishment,’ is that right?"

"Exactly as you said," the arcane light on Kamel shimmered slightly, "Humans merely pull the rune trigger to connect this system, but even such a simple action as pulling the trigger... is still a result driven by thought."

Gawain frowned, muttering to himself: "Could it be related to the Observer Effect... the macroscopic Observer Effect?"

Kamel didn’t hear clearly: "What did you say?"

"Nothing," Gawain waved his hand, "I don’t think ’pulling the trigger’ should belong to the spellcasting process, because in the closed-loop system of Magic Web-rune baseplate, during the external control by humans, their mental power does not resonate with any magic—the participation of mental power is a key indicator of the spellcasting process. This is just my personal view, of course, concretely... we must design an experimental procedure to verify it."

Kamel nodded: "It’s not difficult to design such an experimental procedure, the difficult part is how to ensure the safety of the experimentation—we might attract the attention of gods, the cost is too high, we must address its hidden risks."

Gawain looked into Kamel’s eyes—or rather, into the two orbs of arcane light that should be his eyes: "Do you have any thoughts?"

Kamel was silent for a moment, then he slowly and firmly said: "I apply to restart a section of the defied Fortress laboratory."

Gawain did not answer him directly, but asked a question: "Are there any remaining functional ones?"

"The exterior fortress area laboratories are all destroyed, the Defense system completely offline, but inside the defied Fortress... they can still be used!"