Chapter 135
Snap-.
As Franz snapped his fingers, a crisp sound rang out.
Bright light flooded the once-dark space, and his eyes took in the visual information.
Magically imbued shackles and handcuffs were scattered on the floor, and various flasks placed on the table contained uniquely colored liquids.
Likewise, research materials, filled with bizarre drawings, were piled on the table.
The windowless space gave off an almost claustrophobic feeling.
In the center of that space, there was a device with a unique structure.
It looked somewhat like a large, intricate mechanism, though lacking any visible grasping claws.
Of course, its size was much larger than that.
'I didn’t think I’d end up using this place.'
The place Franz had brought the two girls was the basement of the Magic Tower.
The fact that the Magic Tower had a basement was something every mage affiliated with the Magic Tower knew.
It was because the 1st through 4th basement floors were used as storage.
The 1st and 2nd floors were used by the various departments, while the 3rd and 4th floors were under the jurisdiction of the Magic Tower lord.
However, the place Franz was currently in looked more like a laboratory than a storage room.
The 5th basement floor.
It was a secret place unknown to anyone.
Not only the former Magic Tower lord, but even the Magic Tower lord before him had been unaware of this space.
It was only natural, in a way. A considerable level of concealment magic had been placed on it.
Of course, even so, discovering this space wouldn’t have been that difficult, considering the skills of the former Magic Tower lord.
He simply wouldn’t have thought that such a space existed beneath the 4th basement floor.
After all, there was no entrance, as if it had been built with Spatial Movement Magic in mind.
Whirrr-.
As he channeled magic power into the device, it began to operate, emitting a pale green light.
Following that, he lifted the limply drooping Seri-ah and placed her inside the device.
She floated buoyantly inside the device, as if in a state of zero gravity.
With this, her metabolic activity would have drastically slowed down.
It felt rather uncomfortable to receive help from a device created for the horrific purpose of biological experiments, but…
Now was not the time to be picky.
Anyway, all that remained now was to find a way to treat Seri-ah.
It was then.
“Ugh, ah…”
Zeni-ah, who had collapsed on the floor, regained consciousness.
It seemed her severely depleted magic power had recovered to some extent.
Even so, she still lacked the strength to move, merely squirming in place.
“Ugh-! Haa…”
Eventually, after she managed to flip herself over, her gaze turned toward Franz.
“Don’t waste your energy and just stay still.”
“You, why…”
“Didn’t you ask me to save her? You said you’d do anything.”
“But we tried to kill you. We did a lot of bad things too…”
Haa-.
Franz let out a sigh.
His head was already aching because of that anyway.
If only he hadn’t gotten tangled up with the Goddess Church, he wouldn’t be having these worries, but of all things, he had become a saint…
Soon, Franz lightly shook his head, dismissing those worries from his mind.
'Let’s not think too deeply about it.'
Now that things had come this far, wasn’t it irreversible anyway?
It wouldn’t be too late for him to worry after solving the problem right in front of him.
Having made his decision, Franz took out a round candy from his small bag.
And he placed it in Zeni-ah’s mouth.
It was a fruit-flavored candy specially made for magic power recovery.
It was only slightly better than the potions sold on the market, but it would be of sufficient help to her, whose magic power was depleted.
“I’ll be right back, so stay put.”
Snap-.
With those final words, Franz snapped his fingers.
The place he arrived at was the Magic Tower lord’s exclusive research lab.
Roughly clearing away the materials scattered on the table, Franz crossed his arms and narrowed his brow.
“What she needs is a mana core.”
The sealed armament had been taking the place of a mana core, and since he had forcibly torn it out, a void had been left in its place.
However, the problem was that there had been absolutely no precedent for creating a mana core up until now.
It wasn’t that there had been no attempts.
Rather, there had been countless attempts.
Changing the mana core inside one’s body was akin to surpassing the limits of talent.
It was truly like a mage’s dream.
It was just that all those attempts had ended in failure.
“How was that even possible in the first place…?”
He had never heard of or seen a case where something replaced a mana core.
Let alone the fact that she was without any organs.
It was all the more baffling because it had gone beyond the role of a core and was practically a life support system.
If there were only one possibility…
“The divine power contained within the armament.”
Even if it was an item that had fulfilled its role and been sealed, that didn’t mean the divine power contained within it had disappeared.
Right, it was truly a divine miracle.
If not for that, it couldn’t be explained.
And what Franz was trying to make right now was something equivalent to such an item.
“Can I really do that?”
Since it was such a difficult task that no one had succeeded at it so far, perhaps he might not be able to do it.
Then should he just stand there blankly without trying anything?
Merely because success was uncertain?
“No, absolutely not.”
When a mage is discussed, the expression 'calculating' is often used.
Because they pursue practical benefits with firmly held values.
Getting involved in this matter itself would be a reckless endeavor, if he were to think only in that way.
However.
The true essence of a mage lies in exploring the unknown.
The desire to explore the unknown, to delve into its depths, and to master it entirely - that is the true essence of a mage’s ambition.
It was because of such desire that even an old mage whose hair had turned pure white would continue their research.
And that was the same for Franz.
No, rather, it should be said that he was able to rise to this position because he possessed an even more intense desire.
Because it was only when talent and effort interlocked that one could finally ascend to the position of Magic Tower lord.
“I know the general structure.”
In the mind of Franz, who had read countless research materials and papers related to the mana core, a new set of research data compiled from certain information, began to take shape.
The key principles were compression and circulation.
From both of Franz’s hands, a dense concentration of magic power wavered like a blue haze.
Now, it was time for the first compression.
The wavering blue haze gathered into a single stream above each palm.
Soon, as his two hands faced each other, the two streams of magic power collided, and an immense force erupted due to the repulsion.
The sight of the blue magic power scattering in all directions was truly comparable to the Milky Way.
As he imbued the magic power with the property of circulation, a blue sphere formed at the point where the two streams met.
With no magic power being lost, the sphere grew in size the more magic power Franz channeled into it.
'It’s still not enough.'
The sphere, which had been about the size of a marble, grew past the size of a watermelon, eventually becoming as large as a giant boulder.
Then, the second compression.
He reduced the size of the sphere while maintaining the total amount of magic power.
It changed from a boulder to a watermelon, and then back to the size of a marble.
If he made a mistake and that tiny sphere were to cause an explosion, the Magic Tower, not to mention the entirety of ester, would be blown away.
It was such a dangerous task, so he had to be extremely careful.
Huuu-.
A sigh naturally escaped Franz’s lips.
Due to the massive amount of magic power draining out, he felt a sense of exhaustion throughout his entire body.
But it was still woefully insufficient.
If a mana core were something that could be made this easily, someone would have succeeded long ago.
Even after that, Franz repeated the process of infusing and compressing magic power.
The amount of magic power the sphere held gradually increased, but Franz experienced extreme exhaustion.
Rough breaths burst from his mouth, and his whole body was drenched in sweat.
He was so exhausted that he would faint on the spot if he lost consciousness for even a moment.
As time passed, the once-blue sphere gradually turned transparent.
At the center of the Transparent Sphere was a tiny, dark indigo bead.
According to Franz’s theory, the base sphere was now complete.
Now, all that remained was to engrave the role of the mana core into it with a Magic formula.
However, that too was not an easy task.
Because there was no room for error, the formula had to be more precise than ever before.
Furthermore, because the amount of magic power the sphere possessed was so massive, an enormous amount of magic power was required every time a formula was engraved.
For Franz, it was truly a daunting prospect.
Purely based on the amount of magic power used, it was already on the level of having expended the magic power equivalent to repeatedly casting 9th Circle Magic.
But he couldn’t give up here.
It was because he was far too curious about the unknown that lay beyond this.
Life support, natural recovery, magic power substitution…
The roles of the mana core, which he had learned through theory and had realized through actual combat, were engraved into the Transparent Sphere one by one.
Just how much time had passed like that?
In the hands of Franz, whose entire body was drenched in sweat, rested a Transparent Sphere engraved with various magic formulas.
It was the completion of the Artificial Mana Core.