WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 628: The Arcane Federation

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The reason to believe in God is not to rely on His omnipotence, but so that, knowing He is always watching me, I do not live a shameless life.

As I reflected on that philosopher's words, I rose from the sofa where I had been lying.

"Yaaawn. Senior. Water."

"Y-Yeah!"

Avant-garde brought me a water crystal in both hands, and I bit straight into it without bothering with a cup. It had the texture of ice and a faint sweetness.

"This water crystal is sweet. Just like a nap. What did you put in it?"

"Yeah! I sprinkled sugar on it in case your mouth got bored!"

"So your kindness was in it. No wonder."

"Hehe."

With the Cyan Tower Master, who had been managing and supervising me, gone, I had become lax with my studies as well. Instead of poring over books, I read my senior's thoughts and investigated the floating castle.

A life of long naps and water crystals prepared by someone else. Nice. Very nice. It would be wonderful if I could live like this forever.

My leisure did not last long. Groaning with effort, Avant-garde set a mountain of grimoire crystals in front of me.

...Ah.

"By the way, which grimoire do you want to read today? The Five Elements? Or spell-circle geometry?"

"...The Descent isn't far away. Wouldn't it be difficult to start a new book now? Let's take it easy."

"No! If the Descent isn't far away, that means you need to study harder and cram!"

Avant-garde spoke firmly.

"You need to ascend through the Dragon Gate and earn the right to remain in the floating castle so you can stay with me! ...Hah! No, I didn't mean it like that! I meant you could become a junior at the Crystal Tower!"

"Everyone's busy talking about the King of Humanity right now. Aren't you interested in the King of Humanity, Senior Avant-garde?"

"To me, you... Your Dragon Gate is more important!"

Tsk. Stubborn. I had already come up with a rough plan, and there was nothing more for me to learn at the Crystal Tower. How was I supposed to get out of this?

Ah, right. How about this?

"I've studied enough about mana amplification and improving spell circles. Since there isn't much time left, I think it'd be better to study something a little different now."

"Do you have something in mind?"

"Not magic, but the floating castle and the Arcane Federation. The history of the Arcane Federation, how the floating castle was made, and what the Descent is."

I wanted to hear an interesting story because I did not want to study. It was the sort of request a lazy student would make, but Avant-garde accepted it without question.

"Ah! That's a good idea too. The Dragon Gate is an event that displays your magical ability, but knowing its purpose and format will make things easier! Just wait a moment. The history of magic..."

"Rather than a history book, I want to hear you tell me yourself, Senior."

"Um... I've forgotten a lot about history too."

"But you know all the major events, don't you? I wouldn't remember it even if you explained every detail. I'd rather hear it in your own voice."

"Okay! I'll give it a try! Let's see... Where should I start?"

Good. Having switched my senior into explanation mode, I leaned back on the sofa and prepared to listen. Avant-garde took out a map crystal, projected it onto the screen, and began.

"The Arcane Federation is an alliance of countless mage houses. Other regions of the lower world, aside from this floating castle, are ruled by mage houses."

"Mage houses? Are they like magic towers?"

"They're a little different. Any chosen person who wants to gain the knowledge accumulated by a magic tower can qualify to enter it, but mage houses consist of direct and collateral blood relatives. Rather than white magic, they focus on innate arcane passed down through their bloodlines."

"Innate arcane passed down through bloodlines? Does innate arcane emerge from generation to generation?"

"Yeah. It's already been proven that when direct descendants grow up in similar environments, they're more likely to awaken similar kinds of innate arcane. The innate arcane awakened by the heirs of mage houses is proof of that."

I had heard something like this before. When was it? In the military state? I thought the communications officers' innate arcane had awakened in a similar way.

"The Cyan Tower Master's innate arcane is said to be so similar that people call her the reincarnation of the first Celsius. They say the first Celsius trapped boiling steam inside water droplets."

"Celsius was one of the great mages who developed white magic that moved between crystals and steam, right? If the Cyan Tower Master resembles someone like that, she must be incredible too."

"Right... She's powerful, smart, and even cool... Someone like me..."

Avant-garde suddenly became depressed. Ah, why? I had been listening so well. To keep her talking, I subtly changed the subject.

"I don't know much about the Arcane Federation, but I can already feel the wall just from hearing about it. She seems like a flower on a cliff, too far beyond my reach to even dare covet."

Avant-garde recovered when she heard my mutter.

"...Yeah! That's right! She's so incredible! That's what makes it a little difficult!"

"Are all the other Tower Masters from mage houses too?"

"Not all of them. One of them. The White Tower Master came through the Dragon Gate."

"You can become a Tower Master even if you ascend through the Dragon Gate?"

"Of course, even that is only possible with tremendous talent. The White Tower Master Ruel's innate arcane is... It isn't an expression a mage would use, but it truly possesses godlike authority. That was enough to make her the master of the Ivory Tower."

I had thought the Cyan Tower Master's innate arcane was incredible, but from Avant-garde's words, Ruel's seemed to far surpass it.

"I'm curious. I'd like to meet Ruel someday."

"You'll be able to if you ascend through the Dragon Gate! The five Tower Masters come to evaluate the candidates too!"

The Tower Masters I had not seen yet were the Red Tower Master and the White Tower Master. I had not had the chance until now, but if I ascended through the Dragon Gate, I would probably see the Demon King and all five Tower Masters.

"There are countless mage houses in the Federation, but the houses that produce Tower Masters are especially wealthy and powerful. Their territories prosper more than others too. The destination for this Descent is the territory of the Celsius house, so you'll be able to see the difference for yourself."

"The stories you tell about the Arcane Federation are interesting too, Senior. I almost regret not listening before."

"Hehe. No matter how outstanding you are, you can't ignore a senior's experience!"

'I've already lost to Hughes when it comes to magical knowledge... But I can teach him things like this as much as I want!'

Avant-garde was pleased, and I was having fun. A win-win situation.

"Ah! The Descent should be underway by now. Do you want to go see what the lower world looks like?"

"We can see the lower world from here?"

"Yeah. The tower is a passage that lets us go outside the floating castle. You can see the lower world right now."

A walk would be nice for a change of pace. I quickly followed Avant-garde out.

I had only ever gone up the tower until now, so I had not known there were stairs leading farther down from the Crystal Tower's first floor. Avant-garde and I stepped onto those stairs.

The floating castle had an underground too. Unlike the surface, which was lit by the artificial sun, the underground was a residential area for the chosen people who lived in the floating castle. The surface was used for facilities and the underground for accommodations, making use of the limited space.

Below the residential area was the management area. It was where they detected and repaired damage or abnormalities in the floating castle, as well as observed the lower world.

And one level below that.

Only magic towers had paths that extended beyond the floating castle.

The stairs leading underground looked as though someone had played with them like an accordion. Stairs that should have been straight and evenly arranged were twisted as though someone had curled them into a circle, while the floor became a wall and then continued into the ceiling. I looked away from the unreal sight and focused on the stairs before me.

One step at a time. As I concentrated on placing my foot on the next step, I found myself in the middle of those unreal stairs before I knew it.

After passing through a long corridor where I could not tell up from down, Avant-garde and I arrived in a room with windows on every side.

"Look down there. That's the Arcane Federation. It's much closer than before, right?"

Avant-garde pointed at the transparent window above our heads. I had the rare experience of looking down at the ground above me.

In a land of bitter cold, water took many forms. It froze on its own, melted away, evaporated upward, then fell again to cover the earth. The land itself was swept along by the endlessly changing forms of water.

Avalanches shaped the rises and falls of the terrain, crumbling glaciers formed the coastline, and melting ice seeped in and blurred the ground. From up here, the boundaries between snow, ice, and water became vague, making time and space themselves feel blurred.

For a moment, the wondrous sight of nature held my gaze. Then I looked in another direction and was left speechless by what I saw.

"Senior."

"Yeah?"

"That. What's that grid pattern on the ground over there?"

A clearly artificial grid had been carved into land that should have been obscured by snow and ice.

Were they fields? But fields were only a few hundred square meters at most. They should not even have been visible from as high as the floating castle.

Yet this looked as though a god had held a ruler to the earth and drawn lines across it.

The colors changed along the straight boundaries. If it had been a map with borders drawn and colored to make them easy to recognize, that would have been a reasonable explanation.

The problem was that the sight before me was the real ground.

As I sank into confusion, Avant-garde's voice reached my ears.

"The floating castle is high in the sky, right? The Demon King divided it like that to make it easier to see from the floating castle."

"Divided?"

"Yeah. It makes things easier when we descend too. Also, clearly defining territory borders like that reduces pointless disputes. Mage houses each have their own rules, so it becomes troublesome if their territories overlap."

"I understand that, but how do you divide territories like that?"

Drawing straight borders between territories might have been easy in itself. If you had enough power, you could probably do it. It was even a policy worth trying.

But I had asked because of the unnaturalness I felt from that land.

There was something strange about it, as though someone had pulled it while ignoring the mountains and terrain. It felt less like they had drawn boundaries across the land and more like they had distorted the land to fit those boundaries.

Avant-garde cleared up my question at once.

"He pulled it with innate arcane!"

Footnotes:

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