There was bad news.
No, it was more like inconvenient news.
“Aren’t you studying for the midterms that’s happening in a month?”
“I am studying.”
Flare, that is.
“No, I an.... You need to study for the test, too....”
We were entering the beginning of April but I was still wholly concentrating on Flare.
[Like professor, like slave, this obsession with magic research.......]
Shut up, why don’t you.
I had resolved to complete Flare in two months so it was going to scratch my pride if I didn’t do it by next month. It’d be like a prick to my conscience if I didn’t make the deadline I had set for myself. No matter how badly I did, I was going to submit one more paper before the midterms.
So in many ways, I made preparations so I wouldn’t drown in sha.
The most important thing was the target to test Flare’s power.
A while ago, I visited the museum as a club mber and t separately with the museum curator, asking if I could borrow the external layer of a Calamity.
“Would it be possible to get the whole armor of a Gargantua?”
“What are you planning to use it for?”
“Our club is researching a new penetration magic and we wanted to find a target it could be compared to.”
The Academy’s museum couldn’t really be called one as it only displayed about forty percent of the entire collection. Most of the beast corpses brought to the museum were released for research purposes.
I joined the academic club for this reason. Being associated with an academic club allowed you to rent from the museum for a small fee or even for nothing at all.
─ We have them stocked up because it’s such a big guy. You can take one if you need it.
─ Thank you very much!
That was lucky. I didn’t think it’d be for free.
The armor of the Calamity Gargantua was too heavy to carry with just two hands. It also had significant thickness, like the size of an outer concrete wall. I couldn’t divide it up so I had to transport it using a carrier bag.
When I returned with the full armor of Gargantua, Freyr stood from where she had been working diligently within the clubroom. The kid ca running with mana grass between her lips. Her eyes that had been half-dead from all the transmutation she’d been doing started to co alive again.
“W-whoa! This is Gargantua’s armor!”
“How did you tell from just this?”
“I saw it in a book!”
Freyr patted the armor while letting out strange noises.
These were the monts that reminded that she was actually good at this. Usually, she was just a loud-mouthed brat but ask her any question about beasts or Earth Magic and she’d be able to answer it.
“Gargantua’s armor is really thick and hard. I heard that it took a constant barrage of Ultimate Magic from the combined forces of many tactical-class mages for six days to just penetrate through it!”
As Lotte listened from next to us, she joined in with a solemn face.
“A beast like this is only considered to be a Calamity.... Then how much stronger is a Cataclysm?”
“That’s why we’re trying to create Flare. We need to do what we can.”
And fill out my index while we’re at it.
“We can talk about the rest later! Now, co and see this! I just finished what you asked for!”
As Freyr moved out of the way, it revealed so kind of iron donut.
A conversion iron core was wrapped with high electric conductivity wires. But it was only a ter in diater, much smaller than what I had initially planned.
This iron donut was a toroidal device called a tokamak which used magnetic fields to confine plasma. I had just managed to get it by giving the blueprint to Freyr and incessantly asked her to make it.
So, why did we suddenly make a tokamak?
[Here lies the path to the Fourth State and the Fifth State of the Sun.]Because they gave plasma as the hint for Flare. There was a high probability that ‘the Fourth State’ was the fourth state of matter which was plasma.
Of course, the current tokamak device was for testing only. It wasn’t large enough to confine enormous amounts of plasma or be used for the actual nuclear fusion process. That would require an even bigger tokamak and testing equipnt.
This was only a prototype to see how Flare turned out.
“So you did it sohow.”
“See, what did I tell you! I can transmute anything as long as I have the blueprint and materials!”
It was crazy hi-tech to have created a tokamak within a fantasy world in the first place.
Sure. Freyr’s transmutation skills were beyond logical but let’s say that it could still be taken into account.
But even without that, it made no sense. Although I was soone who had long been in this field, that didn’t an I knew the detailed schematics about the tokamak or other necessary equipnt.
Yet as soon as I thought ‘How about I make a tokamak?’, the relevant blueprints ca up in my mind.
Seriously, what was that?
I felt like I’d beco a supercomp. Was it because I’d been patched as a Golden-Eyed?
The Golden-Eyed were a species with superb calculation skills and mory so that might have synergized with my own knowledge. Or the Goddess took pity on and granted a special advantage.
I didn’t think any more about that.
“Gargantua armor obtained, and the tokamak finished.”
The third set of ingredients had been easier to get than I thought. I took out several things from a basket including a lens, a few collimators, and so thin films.
“What’s all this?”
“I borrowed it from the Earth Magic lab. They’re going to help collimate and polarize Flare.”
It was an optical device.
For example, like a ‘Fabry–Pérot interferoter’ that filters out specific mana wavelengths or a ‘polarizer’ that makes mana waves vibrate in one direction.
They were items that I’d easily acquired since I was an intern for Miss Heerlein. It had been a stroke of genius that I’d situated myself in the Earth Magic lab at the beginning of the sester.
“We won’t know for sure until we test it, but I’m guessing correctly, then Flare might not be just a Fire Magic.”
“What? Then you an it could also be Earth or Air Realm?”
“The two properties might be part of it. Or it could be an Elent Magic with a completely different property that hasn’t been discovered yet.”
Though that might be a bit of a stretch.
“Anyway, I’m saying that these optical equipnt might be needed in order to make Flare hit the target.”
The scroll that was used to build Flare. When one closely observed the magic circle on it, there didn’t seem to be any chanism that would create a magic elental nuclear fusion.
The theory should be right. But maybe the na was different from the actual thing, because I wasn’t certain that this scroll would be producing any kind of fla.
[Are you thinking about that?]
“I don’t know. We’ll know when we try.”
The three of us set up the testing device as we had previously discussed. It took half a day more to get that ready.
**
And we failed miserably.
“Yo, what’s with this output?”
Freyr tsked as she shook her head. Lotte and I had no energy to answer that.
We all took a sip of mana grass pretty much at the sa ti and sighed deeply. Thick white smog floated into the air. It felt like my mind was ascending with it.
“How many sticks are we using to activate this one Flare....”
“This is my eighth one.”
I leaned against the wall. From this position, I could see the hollowed-out Gargantua armor all at once.
The center of the armor where Flare had struck was bright red with heat, the surrounding air wavering to the point that it was creating severe distortions. If there hadn’t been protective asures in place, then it could have been dangerous for the whole clubroom.
[Significant levels of plasma were observed according to the Saha ionization equation.]
Plasma. Yeah, we did make plasma. For a tiny mont.
We were lacking the technology and equipnt to imdiately contain that plasma inside the tokamak. It also wasn’t enough to maintain high temperatures and pressure in many ways. This was basically a half-failed test. Not surprising, since it had only been in planning for a few days.
However.
“I know what Flare is, now.”
“I saw it! So beam thing passed by like ‘shshk’!”
“The Golden-Eyed call that a laser.”
Laser.
Flare was none other than a pulse-shaped laser with high peak power.
Why is this magic called Flare if it’s a laser?
My original goal had been to see for myself what kind of magic Flare was. If I was wanting to be satisfied from the first bite, that would be too greedy of . From the start, I hadn’t even been expecting the test to succeed on the first try.
“You said you saw Flare’s line of movent, right?”
“Yup.”
“That’s why it was weak. Assuming that the total energy was the sa, the output ti needed to pass by in an instant in order for the penetrative force and such to be stronger.”
If Flare had been visible to the naked eye, that ant it had been continuously releasing for that much longer. Because the amount of mana that Lotte and I poured to activate the scroll had been consistent.
The elents within the mana would have changed into energy, and most of that would have been lost when passing through the optical device. The scroll hadn’t been damaged or anything but the problem was that it was much weaker compared to how much mana was being injected.
To put it simply, it was inefficient.
“Still, isn’t this a considerable result? It might not have been everything but it damaged about half of the Gargantua armor.”
“It’s true. One more shot should be able to pierce through it completely. But it’s best if it can be done with a single fire because it won’t be easy hitting the sa place twice in a row on a moving beast.”
My body ached from all the mana that was forced through it. The Golden-Eyed were inherently more susceptible to mana overload compared to other species.
I spent the next while taking a breather. Once the temperature in the clubroom cooled a bit, I closed the window and picked up the pen. Lotte, who had been on the floor resting, went and moved the testing equipnt to the side to clean up.
It was dark outside the window. The ti had already beco like this from all the research we’d been doing. I should just finish organizing the test records from today and go back to the dorms and rest.
“... What are you guys doing?”
“Waaaah!”
A male voice ca out of the blue and sent flying forward. Unfortunately, there was a desk right in front and I smashed my baby toe into the leg, then did a sorsault. Freyr choked on the water that she had been drinking when she saw it happen.
“Ah, fff, auhhhh....”
What was that? I hadn’t heard anyone open the door and co in.
Lotte and Freyr were also shocked.
Because the one standing behind was none other than Verl.
“How did you co in without opening the door...?”
“Using Teleportation.”
Teleportation? Wasn’t that an Ultimate Air Magic?‘
“Anyway, I asked what you were doing.
“Sfff....... I was testing sothing with the mbers.”
“What kind of test?”
“Why are you asking that all of a sudden?”
“I’m a mber of the club, too, so I was curious.”
How should I answer this? Should I just say that I was researching a new Fire Magic?
But there was a good chance that Verl would already know whatever magic I told him since he was a transmigrator. I was sure of that so I didn’t explain anything from before and only said one thing.
“So uh, do you know what Flare is?”
“.......”
A mont of silence.
And I just realized sothing.
This transmigrator was crap at controlling his expressions.
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