When I arrived in the library, the first thing that I noticed wasn’t the area that they had cleared for their experiment, but rather the goddess that was standing next to that area. Ryone sent a small wave towards my direction as I entered the room, greeting me. “Hey, Dale.”
I blinked in surprise when I saw the Goddess of Magic herself seeming so interested in a mortal experiment, before she quickly explained. “The two of them don’t have enough mana themselves for an enchantment of this level, so they asked me if I could help out for this.” While saying that, she motioned towards the enchantment area itself, letting me realize immediately that what they were attempting was an enchantment of the third tier.
Their enchantment circle was carved into a large table, one no doubt constructed by the new dwarven representative. That, or Anna has some hidden talents. Unlike the standard eight pointed star, this one had far more corners. It took me a few moments to count them, realizing that there were sixty four points on the table.
Like with a normal enchantment, each point ended with a circle, in which they had placed stone spheres. These spheres had intricate patterns carved into their surface, reminiscent of third tier magic components. However, this wasn’t all.
Above the table, supported by four metal spirals was another carved stone disc. This one appeared to be an intricate spell diagram all on its own, with several components that I simply didn’t recognize. Shaking my head, I glanced towards Ryone. “So, what is this enchantment supposed to create?”
The elven goddess let out a light laugh, motioning towards Bracken, who had prepared two crystal spheres. If I wasn’t mistaken, those should be monster cores. Seeing that the attention had been drawn towards him, he hurriedly explained with an excited tone. “You see, sir, current enchantments already allow for people to communicate over wide distances. With the proper relay towers in place, it is possible to even speak from one continent to the other, or even other worlds, much like the communication room in this facility.”
“If this enchantment works as Anna and myself suspect, we can strengthen that even further. We will be able to designate a receiver and a sender, and the sender will transmit to all receivers attuned to it.” As he said that, he placed the first of the two cores gently inside the center of the enchantment table. “First, the receiver…”
Once he stepped back, he gave a nod towards Ryone, who simply smiled. Reaching out, she placed her hand in front of the table, causing the sixty-four stone spheres to begin to light up. These lights then began to travel up the supporting spirals, and caused the disc above to emit the same glow.
This was my first time seeing a third tier enchantment in action, so I opted to simply stand by and watch. Soon, the center of the stone disc began to emit a faint blue light, which shot down and into the monster core that had been placed beneath it. This lasted for less than a minute before the entire table began to dim.
While Bracken stepped forward, carefully retrieving the core, he gave a nod towards Anna next. She started to pull out the stone spheres one by one, carrying them off to the side where I saw another pile of similar stones. After inspecting each one, she then carried the new stones to the table, placing them in a very particular order.
Next, the two of them took the stone disc off, and replaced it as well. With this, they had essentially replaced every component of the enchantment. And while they proceeded on with the next one, I took a brief glance at the first monster core that they had tested it on.
Sure enough, they did it… I thought inwardly, which Leowynn seemed to notice.
They did what, Father?
They’ve made their first television. I answered as I looked to the enchantment listed in the information window. The core had a number of different functions, but the primary one was to project a scene onto a solid surface, one transmitted by another source. Udona is going to love this.
Once the second enchantment was done, Bracken excitedly held the second core, before suddenly turning and bolting out the door. I just stared in surprise, wondering what he could be doing, while Anna explained. “We’ve actually been preparing for this experiment for a while. Bracken has the transmission platform set up in his room, but we can watch here with this.”
As she said that, she grabbed the receiver, and placed it back on the table again. “Goddess, would you mind staying around for just a few more moments? If the core runs out of mana, all of this would have been for naught.”
“Oh, I don’t think you could get me to leave right now if you tried.” Ryone responded playfully. “Shall you turn it on, though?”
“Of course.” Anna said with a small nod of her hair, reaching forward to place her hand on the object. I felt just a trace of mana being injected into it before beams of light shot out in all directions. The beams hit myself, Ryone, the bookshelves, the ceiling, and even the far walls. Ultimately, they honed in on the walls, establishing a square frame roughly four feet on each side.
“We’re working on a better power source for these now. But for the time being, any mage above level thirty should be able to keep the receiver active for an hour before they start to suffer mana fatigue. According to our calculations, at least. This is our first test with the real thing.”
As Anna explained that, she lifted her hand off of the sphere. Suddenly, Bracken’s voice spoke up from the wall where the lights had previously gathered. “Hello, hello? Is this thing working? Anna, my dear, if you are receiving this, please respond.” As he spoke, Bracken’s face appeared on the wall, a close-up projection that showed he had placed himself far too near whatever recording device they had set up.
However, Anna didn’t seem to mind that. With every bit the same excited tone as he had, she closed her eyes and spoke. “Bracken, it’s working. But back up just a little bit. You’re standing too close to the display.”
The image of Bracken on the wall paused for a moment as he seemed to receive her message, before quickly backing up. “Ah, terribly sorry.” He apologized quickly. “But it works, yes? Have you tested the transmission swapping functions, yet?”
“Of course not.” Anna replied with a huff. “We only have one transmitter, so how am I going to swap between it and something else? It auto-attuned to the one in your room, since it was the nearest transmission. Anyways, go ahead and cut it off. We need to get the designs sent off towards the kingdoms by the end of the day, right?”
“Huh? Oh! Right!” Bracken’s eyes widened for a moment before he nodded his head. He briefly ran off-screen before the image faded, replaced by the blue beams of light that had been anchored to the wall before the transmission began. Taking a step forward, Anna sighed and placed her hand on the orb, turning it off.
Just how much preparation have they done for this? I mentally asked Ryone, who glanced towards me from the corner of her eye while Anna carefully retrieved the core.
A fair amount, I must say. Their first ambition was to create a recording device where one could use their mana to craft an illusion, and then replay that illusion on command, similar to a movie. They couldn’t get it to work in three dimensions, but it was easy to make it project onto a flat surface like this. That got them started on the idea of video communication similar to our own communication room, which they then expanded into this.
They really have created television. I thought back to her, staring once again at the sphere nestled in Anna’s hands. Has Udona found out yet?
You’re not serious, right? Ryone asked in a teasing tone. She’s been wanting to curse at you for weeks for not fast forwarding again so that she could get one of these herself sooner. Now that they’re complete, though, I imagine she’ll forget all about that.
I’m honestly not surprised. I responded with a slight chuckle, drawing a brief confused look from Anna. “How are you going to send the designs down to the kingdoms, though? I do not believe that is a function of the communication room.”
Anna quickly shook her head. “No, we were honestly going to rely on Goddess Aurivy for this. Once she discovered what we were doing, she was quite insistent that she be allowed to help out in some way. And seeing as how we won’t be able to transmit the designs down without the help of these very objects we are creating now, we asked if she would be willing to send the plans for them to the lords of the land.”
After her explanation, I heard Aurivy groan in my mind. And I wanted to, too! But Udona insisted that this was more her Education domain’s area of expertise. She won’t even let me give her the credit. She said she’d let us be sisters in our next incarnations if I didn’t let everyone know it was her doing.
But why though? I couldn’t help but ask, and I could almost feel the mental shrug shrug from Aurivy.
I think it’s just her social quirks. She doesn’t like to take credit for things if she doesn’t have to. According to her, too much attention from the masses all at once still makes her nervous, even over prayers. Kinda weird for a goddess, I think, but to each their own. The last time I got to be a family with Udona’s incarnations was over five hundred years ago, I was stuck playing her mother. I want to be her sister!
I felt my eyes roll a bit when I heard Aurivy’s remark. Turning to look at Anna once again, I motioned towards the table. “I take it that this is the work of our resident dwarf?”
However, Anna quickly shook her head. “Nope, this was all made by Tsubaki. When we explained what it was we wanted to make, she asked for a copy of the plans and began to create the entire thing, all on her own. Honestly, I’m not sure where she got the materials, but nothing seems to be missing and she hasn’t gotten in trouble.”
Glancing back, I saw Tsubaki’s ears twitching. Her eyes were still facing downwards, but she explained as soon as I turned to face her. “The stone was pulled from the front garden, the stone platform that you had created when you brought Anna to the Citadel. Nobody ever visits the front garden, so it had been left neglected. As for the metal, I melted down some of my old tools so that I could repurpose them, now that I do not require them any longer.”
By ‘tools’, I had the feeling she meant the hidden weapons she used to conceal all over her body. However, when she heard this, Anna cried out in shock, rushing over towards Tsubaki. “You didn’t have to do that! We could have asked Lord Tubrock to supply us some metal! There was no need to give up your things for this.”
Tsubaki only laughed when she heard that, perhaps the first true laugh I had heard from her. “Anna, I gave up nothing of value. As I said, those tools are no longer necessary to me. The only purpose that they served was to occupy space.”
Anna had a rather difficult expression on her face as she heard that, but still nodded her head. “Okay… if you’re sure. Thank you, though. This would have taken a lot longer to complete without you here.”
“You would have been able to complete it, with or without my help. It was Dale’s wish to help the masses, and this invention does exactly that. As such, it is naturally my duty to assist in its completion.”
Shaking my head, I felt a soft smile play upon my lips. It seemed like people here were getting along so far. Though, I still needed to see how the other new representatives were doing later.
