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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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Chapter 159
"Hoo… Orichalcum is definitely too inefficient to extract like this."
It was just a small lump, barely the size of two fingertips, but I was certain.
"That is…"
"We hit the jackpot."
"No way…"
"Orichalcum. It's only found in extremely unstable mines within mana ore veins."
"The metal of the gods!!"
This might actually be the first-ever discovery of natural orichalcum.
Verus' eyes widened to the point of tearing, and he carefully accepted the lump I handed him as if it were a sacred relic.
Then, after touching it all over and even biting it to test its hardness, he fell to his knees.
"Oh… Ooooh… My god… I never thought I'd live to see and touch natural orichalcum…"
"And you still want to give up? Does that make any sense?"
"Hah… But no matter how valuable the ore is, it's still dangerous…"
"Then we just need to solve the problem. Make it safer than an ordinary mana ore vein."
It's true that unstable mana veins are dangerous.
Especially when the turbulent mana currents on the verge of explosion react with external mana, they create massive detonations.
Then the solution is simple—drain the energy before it reaches the critical point.
Using conventional methods, controlling this would be like trying to tame a hurricane.
But that didn't matter.
If we couldn’t solve this, we wouldn’t even get to touch the orichalcum.
Woooong!!!
As a test, I channeled mana to create a magic circle, inscribing it into the surrounding area.
The wildly unstable mana currents suddenly began flowing in a controlled direction.
Straight into my palm.
Wooooong…
A bluish, compressed mana sphere rapidly began forming in my hand.
"What is that?"
"The turbulent energy currents of an unstable mana vein. This is an incredibly rare phenomenon."
Normally, orichalcum wouldn’t form in such conditions.
This mana vein must have cycled through eruptions and compressions for thousands—maybe even millions—of years, slowly refining orichalcum in the process.
"We need to install magic circles to redirect the energy flow. Since we can’t use the turbulent energy anymore, we'll extract it separately for other uses."
Now that I had a plan, it was time to act.
There was no need to dig too deep.
If I cast a large-scale spell over the entire mountain, I could shape the mana current like a river.
"I'm going to explain this once, so listen carefully."
"Oh… Ooooh…"
"First, I’ll install a magic formation over the entire mountain. But since the spell is both large and complex, I’ll need to place four mana pillars."
"Mana pillars…? You mean those giant columns made of mana stones?"
A magic formation created without a proper catalyst versus one stabilized by mana pillars wasn’t even comparable.
The biggest advantage?
Sustainability.
"A massive magic formation… But, young master, don’t mana pillars require an enormous amount of energy? Maintaining them isn’t exactly cheap…"
"We’ve got plenty right here."
His eyes widened in shock.
"Here? You mean… the mana currents? But how…?"
"We refine it. Ah, don’t tell me you don’t know how to process it?"
"If people knew how to refine that, they wouldn’t have left it alone!"
"The stronger the mana current, the more stable and durable the magic formation will be. And when the current weakens, the formation won’t even be needed anymore."
In short, this would become the ultimate large-scale artifact with built-in durability.
"Hmm…"
"I’ll go find the mana pillars. Verus, you have one job—gather the workers and undead. Also…"
I traced a rough map of the mine on the ground with my finger.
"Dig here, roughly in these four spots."
"How deep?"
"Hmm… I feel bad asking, but at least ten meters."
"That’s easy enough."
* * *
Magic Association, Vergal
The Magic Association Vergal was a public institution entrusted with significant authority by the allied nations.
A mage dispatched from Vergal noticed an anomaly at the Cascadia Mine and immediately reported it to headquarters.
Soon after, two individuals—a man and a woman—arrived at the mine, riding a giant wyvern, and declared it off-limits.
Their names were Raida and Ravena, both holding the title of Administrator.
The two were fraternal twins, both thirty-one years old.
Although young, their reputation within Vergal was already well-established.
Geniuses rarely seen even once in a continent-wide generation.
Fifteen years ago, even the Magic Tower had scrambled to recruit them.
And with both talent and hard work, their abilities were anything but ordinary.
Each had their own specialty—Raida excelled in magic formations, while Ravena specialized in mana control, making her a disaster prevention specialist for mana-related incidents.
Naturally, they were the ones who sealed off Cascadia Mine with their magic.
And frankly, neither of them had expected their spell to break so suddenly.
"It… broke."
Hearing his sister’s shaken voice, Raida closed the book he was reading.
"Already? That fast? These lunatics must be out of their minds."
Without hesitation, he stood up and put on his robe.
"You’re… going?"
"Of course. These idiots clearly have no idea how dangerous this is. I need to go show them and seal it up again."
"But… that means there's a mage strong enough to break our magic. That’s…"
"We set it up in a rush. If it broke so quickly, it was probably weakened by the nearby mana flow, and someone just happened to tamper with it at the right time. If the spell had been stable, there’s no way it would’ve shattered so easily."
"That may be true…"
But Ravena still felt uneasy.
She lowered her head.
"I have… a bad feeling about this."
"Damn bastards."
"Bec... Because the dead can't come back..."
A mana disaster is never a light calamity.
Among disasters, it ranks as one of the most threatening.
Isn't a mana disaster precisely one of the highest-level threats?
She had seen firsthand how people who were caught in the aftermath of a mana disaster suffered, their bodies ruined, living in unbearable pain.
At first, it was just a simple support request, but after seeing the flow of mana veins in the mine, I realized—
This place contained a greater energy flow than any other mana vein she'd ever seen, and it was ready to explode at any moment.
If it were to erupt, not only would the entire mine be vaporized, but no one could predict how far the disaster would spread.
There have been similar cases in the past—after a mana disaster, an area spanning dozens of kilometers remained completely devastated for decades.
Especially the mana mines in Cascadia—aren't they the largest they've ever seen?
They must have been warned about the danger multiple times.
No matter how obsessed with money someone is, there's a limit to what they should and shouldn't do!
The magic broke down in less than a day or two?
Sure, there's a possibility that it happened naturally.
But even if the magic circle had weakened due to natural causes, it wouldn't have broken so easily unless someone had delivered the final blow.
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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In other words, someone took advantage of the weakened state of the magic circle and deliberately destroyed it.
The culprit is obvious.
From the perspective of the mine owners, there’s nothing more unpleasant than this.
She understood it.
But regardless of their reasons, some things just shouldn’t be done.
To the siblings, this was clearly one of those things.
Greedy nobles always act the same way.
At this point, they had no choice but to do what they didn't want to.
"What... what if they refuse?"
At the question from his younger sibling, Laida’s face turned cold.
"What do you mean? We enforce it. If lives are lost and they regret it later, it will already be too late."
Isn't protecting people from those blinded by greed the whole point?
The Magic Tower is full of scholars, so they’re useless.
It’s the association that actually works in the field.
If they refuse to listen and resist, they’ll be subdued by force.
He gripped his staff.
"Let's go."
* * *
The mana obelisk was a massive structure with a pure white glow.
Its size varied.
At a glance, it looked like an art piece, but in reality, a mana obelisk was a giant mechanism that maintained and repaired large-scale magic circles.
Since they took a long time to make, most people simply bought pre-made ones.
But I didn't.
The giant mana obelisk I needed was structured differently from standard ones.
Ordinary mana obelisks might be able to link with my magic circles, but they lacked the high performance required to adjust output and variables.
Creating a mana obelisk requires immense time and effort, even for a skilled mage.
Naturally, it's not something that can be made easily.
But that limitation didn’t really apply to me.
Because although I was a mage, I had other skills beyond just magic.
Wooooong...
A massive flood of information surged in, but I used all of my knowledge to twist and fuse the materials together.
I altered their structure, blended them in precise ratios, and reshaped them—just like forging a new alloy.
Materials weren’t much of a concern.
The stone for the outer shell was readily available in the surroundings, and other essential components, like moonstone and mana crystals, had already been stocked by Verus to manage the mana veins.
Mana obelisks were scattered all over the continent.
They reminded me of telephone poles or transmission towers from my past life.
But standard mana obelisks, with their normal efficiency, were of no use in this situation.
Perfection is a rare thing in this world.
"For now, I have to give up something to gain something."
I deliberately discarded a few advantages of standard mana obelisks and crafted a new structure.
Then, I embedded moonstones in a specific pattern and installed a data algorithm.
Like programming an energy flow—if condition 1 is met, direct the energy to condition 2.
Something like that.
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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