Chapter 1174 — Myrmina's Speculation

Myrmina spoke without intent, but Gao Yang listened with intent. His gaze froze in an instant, and it was as though lightning flashed through his mind—a clue no one had ever thought of surfaced in his heart.

Myrmina keenly noticed the change in Gao Song's expression. "Have you thought of something?"

"...For six hundred years, countless people have sought to discover what the Kingdom of Violet's standard for selecting apprentices is. They looked for clues among the apprentices' talent, place of residence, race, age, temperament, bloodline, and a whole series of possible conditions, but no one ever imagined that the true common factor lay here...

"This mage-nation of Violet—its standard for selecting apprentices is that one must not believe in the Goddess of Magic..."

Amorn had been listening quietly all along without interjecting, but now he could not help saying: "Is it not a little early to draw that conclusion?"

"...True, we cannot draw that conclusion yet," Gao Che was silent for a moment, then nodded gently and said. "But at the very least the existing clues can converge on this point: from six hundred years ago to this day, all mage apprentices ever permitted to enter the City of Emberfall to study share at least one thing in common—they did not believe in the Goddess of Magic. On this point, I believe Lady Myrmina's judgment is absolutely accurate."

"What could the reason behind this be?" Amorn seemed at last to have been drawn into the topic; he spoke again. "A nation with a great many people, blocking the spread of a certain faith within its borders with such strictness—no nation on the Loren Continent has ever managed that. That is no easy thing in this world. There must be some reason for them to do it?"

"And they have done it so successfully..." Myrmina added from the side. "'Not a single glimmer'—though I do not care about this matter, the sheer abnormality of it deserves attention. I do not know how many people the Kingdom of Violet has, but the mortals have a saying that rings true—wherever mortals gather, there is soil for faith. Mortals always meet with suffering, and among mortals who meet with suffering there are always those who pray. With countless spellcasters throughout the Kingdom of Violet, have they not in thousands upon thousands of years encountered even one grand problem they could not solve? Even cursing ought to mention my name..."

The latter half of Myrmina's sentence trailed off noticeably lower. Gao Heng could not help glancing at her once more, while Amorn's voice came from beside them: "Tell the truth—do you really not care?"

Myrmina said casually: "Does my carefree attitude look like that of someone who cares?"

"...Whatever you say."

Gao Yang paid no mind to this daily back-and-forth of needling between Myrmina and Amorn; he had already sunk deep into thought.

The Goddess of Magic was right—for a kingdom so vast, and a kingdom whose主体 was mages, to manage that not a single member within it believed in the Goddess of Magic—that fact alone was the greatest strangeness, a strangeness that even surpassed the reason behind the Kingdom of Violet's standard for selecting "apprentices"...

The most crucial question was: how had they done it?

Amorn and Myrmina noticed that Gao You had fallen silent in thought and stopped speaking as if by tacit agreement. How long passed, no one could say, before Myrmina suddenly spoke: "You mentioned earlier that certain actions of the Kingdom of Violet seemed 'very suspicious' to you—what exactly was the situation?"

There was no need to conceal such matters. Gao Yang organized his thoughts briefly, then told the former goddess before him of what he had just discovered: "It is technological black boxes—across the board, over a long period, black boxes that are very hard to explain away as coincidence. These include a great many in the traditional fields..."

After a detailed account, Gao Song's voice fell silent, and Amorn, after a moment's thought, spoke: "This can be considered from the angle of secrecy needs and national interest—and frankly, before you people established something like runic logic, this black-box style of technological transmission was the norm in this world. Things that could be parsed and broken down were rare, and were even despised by the mainstream academic community."

Gao Yan nodded. "That is not wrong to say, but considering all the abnormalities the Kingdom of Violet is now displaying, the 'black boxes' they have let out... are hard not to take notice of."

Myrmina had not spoken since hearing Gao Song's account; she had been silent for a long time, which at last drew Amorn's attention. The God of Nature's gaze swept toward her: "Have you thought of something?"

"I am guessing... what those Violet mages are actually trying to do," Myrmina said softly, without lifting her head, as though speaking to herself. "'Black-box magic'—encapsulation at the level of technique and knowledge does not affect the transmission and efficacy of spells; to a certain extent, even with black boxes present, mages can still conduct 'research' and 'personal refinement.' This is determined by the special nature of magic.

"So the black-box spells the Violet mages spread outward will not affect the establishment of the Loren magic system or the growth of Loren spellcasters. Thus, at least to a certain extent, the 'obstacles' they set up are not for the sake of their own national security or to retard the development of competitors—I mean, if they do regard the Loren Continent as a competitor.

"What they want to achieve must be some other purpose—if they truly have such a 'purpose' at all."

"Say whatever is on your mind," Amorn urged. "There are no outsiders here."

"Let me offer a hint," Myrmina said, paying Amorn no mind and fixing her gaze on Gaoyang instead. "If the number of 'black boxes' within a magical system keeps growing, until eventually every one of its most fundamental theories is itself composed of black boxes; if all the power wielded by spellcasters exists in a state beyond explanation, so that people can only recite inherited incantations the way one recites prayers from a scripture, and no one knows the mathematical logic or the energy rules behind those symbols; if rational analysis and research are thoroughly suppressed, and scholars no longer pursue the knowledge behind the techniques but merely worship the miraculous effects produced by encapsulated spell models—if such a state of affairs is maintained over the long term, what will it lead to?"

Gaoyang finally grasped the deeper meaning in Myrmina's words, and the answer they pointed toward made his expression turn cold in an instant. "...Magic will become a divine miracle."

"This is only my conjecture," Myrmina said, her tone calm and mild.

(Mother of mercy!)