Chapter 81 — Monster, Monster
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
By the time Gao Yang reached the southeastern corner of the camp, a group of soldiers had already gathered there; the Byron knights who had been patrolling nearby heard the commotion and came at once to keep order, dispersing the bolder commoners.
But to be honest, even without the soldiers driving them off, few commoners had gathered: they feared not only the authority of the nobility but the power of magic itself. Hedy's magic laboratory was, in the eyes of those who could not wield supernatural power, an eerie and terrifying place, and the explosion that had rung out from within it was enough to make the heart quail. Curiosity may be human nature, but there are some spectacles that even the boldest dare not go to see.
Gao Yang saw that one wall of the magic laboratory had burst open into a great hole, and thick smoke was pouring out of it, mingled with a pungent stench of scorching, and here and there in the smoke the glint of magic not yet dissipated. Hedy and Rebecca had already rushed out of the building, both smeared with soot and grime. Hedy was at that moment summoning water in a most bedraggled fashion to wash the ash from her hair and face, while Rebecca, catching sight of Gao Yang, came running up in high excitement: "Ancestor! The power of art really is formidable!"
Gao Yang held back Rebecca, who was plainly giddy with excitement, and looked with concern at these two—the chief culprits and victims of the laboratory accident, who seemed to have just been rescued from a coal pit: "Are you two all right? How did the wall get blown apart like this..."
The blast had been more powerful than he had expected. He had thought that with the protective magic in place, and with only some unsealed crystal grains being detonated, there would not be much harm done.
But he had overlooked one thing: this was no gunpowder weapon from Earth but a magical effect, and for explosive magic, whether or not it was sealed inside a hard, airtight container made only a limited difference to its power...
"The effect of detonating a large number of crystal grains at once exceeded expectations somewhat," Hedy said, coming forward to answer Gao Yang's question now that she had finally managed to wash herself back into some semblance of a human being with the water she had summoned, and at the same time she flung a ball of water none too gently into Rebecca's face. "And more importantly, she put the two test samples too close together! Twice the amount of crystal grains detonated at the same time!"
Gao Yang gave Rebecca a silent look, and concluded that the silly doe really would not escape a beating today...
Having confirmed that both of them were unharmed, Gao Yang was more or less relieved, and only then did he turn his mind to property: "Was the damage great?"
Hedy's face twisted in pain: "The magic array I was using for the experiment is destroyed, but fortunately, at the instant of the explosion I diverted most of the force toward the empty wall, so that dreadfully expensive crystal resonator was spared—in exchange, half a wall needs repairing."
Gao Yang gave Rebecca another silent look. Since the most valuable crystal resonator was intact, the silly doe probably would not be beaten to death...
Rebecca noticed nothing at all—though it was also possible she had been stunned by the blast and had not yet come to her senses—and observing that the Xuanmai Sect kept glancing her way, she asked blankly: "Ancestor, why do you keep looking at me?"
Gao Yang thought for a moment: "Can you take a beating?"
Rebecca scratched her hair: "I suppose so... when I was little I was always fighting with wolves."
"Then it's fine," Gao Yang waved a hand. "How many samples did this use up? And how did the rune trigger perform?"