Chapter 320 — Master and Disciple
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
The shelves that had held animal specimens and magical reagents had all been moved elsewhere, and the original stone alchemy tables were gone as well. In their place stood a large experimental table at the center of the room, along with several long tables and cabinets for storing magical materials along both sides. The new laboratory looked utterly different from the gloomy, terrifying place it had been before—it seemed more like a rather ordinary magic laboratory.
The young female apprentice came to the experiment table and was just about to ask what her master required of her when she saw many sheets of diagrams spread out on the table, along with a great deal of scratch paper covered in calculations.
"You—you have the best mathematical ability of all my apprentices. I have chosen you to complete the task the master assigned, together with me!" The old mage glanced at Mary and spoke in a tone that brooked no doubt. "Take these first, and work out these problems!"
Work out problems?
Mary was utterly baffled, but not daring to defy her master's command, she took the papers and began to read carefully what was on them.
She found it rather hard to grasp. Although everything on those papers was a mathematical problem solvable with mathematical ability alone, the wording and phrasing differed greatly from the magical concepts she had encountered before. Be that as it may, she gritted her teeth and read on.
Then she began trying, with her own understanding, to solve that difficult problem of calculating the range of a rune domain.
Halfway through solving it, a withered finger suddenly thrust over from the side. Mary gave a start, and then heard her master's voice from beside her: "Idiot! Where's your square symbol?!"
A layer of cold sweat broke out on Mary's forehead, but the electric shock or whipping she had anticipated did not come. Her master only said coldly: "What are you standing there dazed for? Correct it! Do you want to get the problem wrong?!"
Mary hurriedly corrected the place she had written wrong and continued working.
But she still found it very difficult. She understood the mathematics, but those definitions and formulas were simply too new and too abstract for her.
Understanding the problems added extra difficulty for her, so that even things she originally knew how to do would go wrong. Soon she heard her master bellow beside her ear: "Have you no brain?! The theoretical value is 277! The actual interference value has already exceeded it! And you're still going on?!"
"Have you ever seen a magic array whose rune knots don't come in pairs? That extra initial rune—do you plan to wire it into your own head?!"
"Quartz sand is negative, negative! Do you think it's mithril or adamantite? Let you design a magic array, and sooner or later you'll blow yourself to bits!"
Her master's reprimands and roars rang out almost every few moments, and each time Mary could not help but flinch. But gradually, she discovered something—her master really was teaching her something.
Ever since her master had become wholly obsessed with conducting the "connection" ritual several years ago, this was the first time he had taught an apprentice any practical content again!
In the instant she was dazed, her master's voice rang out again: "What are you standing there dazed for? You still have two big problems unwritten! You don't eat until the paper is finished!"
Mary hastily lowered her head and earnestly began reading the last two problems. But a strange feeling surfaced in her heart: could it be... that her master had not gone completely mad recently, but had truly made a tremendous breakthrough in magical research, and so was wholly immersed in his studies?