Chapter 61 — The Pride of the Cecil Family
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
"And I have a suggestion," Gao Yang said. He glanced at the plans Rebecca had sketched and pointed at the junctions of those redundant systems. "Make the rune connections in these sections easy to sever and re-solder. Once some of the runes are damaged, you can just cut the connections during repairs and reconnect them afterward—that way, even during repairs, the entire circle doesn't have to be shut down."
Rebecca's eyes lit up. "Right! Why didn't I think of that... Ancestral Ink, you really are so clever!"
Gao Yang's eye twitched again. He knew Rebecca meant it from the bottom of her heart, and yet he suddenly felt terribly inadequate...
Girl, you're the clever one here!
After a moment of daze, Gao Yang could not help turning to look at Hetty. "Has no one ever noticed Rebecca's talent before?"
"She has always been... rather outstanding when it comes to calculation and wild ideas," Hetty said, choosing her words with care. "But those abilities were never put to any use. The standard for a mage's strength is spellcasting ability, and in that regard she has almost always been at the very bottom..."
"A waste of God-given talent," Gao Yang said bluntly, frowning. "Spellcasting ability as the sole standard? Why not compare arm-wrestling with a gorilla instead?"
Even as he said this, Gao Yang well understood that this state of affairs had its reasons and its logic.
In an age when technology could not yet drive civilization to leap forward, it was only natural for personal prowess to become the measure of an individual's worth. And especially in this world of extraordinary powers and all manner of monsters and fierce beasts, outstanding individual combat ability was all the more a precondition for survival. Without survival guaranteed, what was the point of talking about technological innovation?
And once individual strength became the standard, and was passed down generation after generation without major disruption—while groups that lacked strength but possessed wisdom had no way to convert their wisdom into strength (or could not convert it into enough strength)—then this standard of judgment was likely to persist forever.
You can't prove that your wisdom will one day bring prosperity, but I have already proven that my strength can guarantee survival. That is simply how it is.
But that was no reason to make humanity forever arm-wrestle gorillas.
Rebecca truly did possess extraordinary talent. Gao Yang had finally confirmed it.
This destitute viscount's daughter whom everyone looked down on—she was shunned in noble circles because she was a descendant of the Cecil family; she was despised in mage circles because she couldn't even cast a light spell; she was even whispered about by the merchants and townsfolk of other territories, because she was simply the worst lord in history, enacting a pile of fanciful decrees that had not made her territory or herself any richer at all.
Because her talents lay where others could not see, where they could not even understand.
In the poor, backward lower strata, where people lived at the mercy of the heavens, no one could understand her calculations; and in the upper strata—those rich enough to hire mages, or who were themselves mid- to high-tier spellcasters—no one needed her calculations. Convenient magic could indeed solve everything. And if it couldn't, then one simply used a more powerful spell.
With the Eye of the Eagle and the Eye of the Mage at one's disposal, why would anyone need to calculate coordinates out on the open ground? A trained mage can directly sense and control a great formation—so why bother with sensors? And besides... a third-rate spellcaster who can do nothing but fling fireballs would never in a thousand years be given the chance to preside over the construction of a magical installation.