A few days before the duel, in the old Department of Elemental Studies laboratory within the Faculty Building.
Professor Gleyton was still gripping both of Lowell’s hands tightly, her face flushed with excitement.
Crushed by the momentum of mainstream academia, she had spent her whole life being mocked as a fringe scholar. To her, Lowell was the first disciple who sincerely affirmed the brilliant future of elemental studies.
She already deeply trusted this boy—as a fellow scholar—who had proven that the passion she had devoted her lifetime to was anything but futile.
“Could you grant me just one request, Professor?”
“A request? Oh, of course! Ask me anything! Once the budget comes in, I’ll set up a personal laboratory for you first, Lowell. Or shall I write you a recommendation letter for a special scholarship?”
Gleyton declared with gusto, as though she would tear out her own liver for him if he asked.
It was the heart of a teacher to want to fulfill any request from a disciple who harbored such passion for her field.
“Anything?”
To Lowell’s calm question, Gleyton nodded brightly.
But the moment she noticed that the look in Lowell’s eyes, dark on his expressionless face, was far from ordinary, her lips began to tremble.
“Y-Yes, Lowell...? Why do you ask so seriously? Surely you aren’t going to ask me to do something terribly difficult, are you?”
She tried to subtly pull her hands away, but Lowell’s gaze was unwavering.
Lowell withdrew a stack of documents he had prepared beforehand from within his coat and placed them on the desk.
Gleyton adjusted her glasses and checked the title of the document, and soon a scream-laced voice shook the laboratory.
“A duel application?! Lowell, are you in your right mind?!”
“Celestia earnestly requested this of me. To help Chloe. To pull that stubborn knight aspirant out, there is no other answer but to shatter that towering pride head-on.”
Gleyton felt dizzy.
The boldness that had offered to help with anything just moments ago vanished without a trace, and her heart sank at her disciple’s reckless choice.
“No matter what, your opponent is Miss Chloe! A duel against a knight who wields Aura, from a student without mana—this is no different from suicide! As a professor, I can never appro—”
“Professor. Have you ever imagined this?”
At Lowell’s sudden question, Professor Gleyton stopped speaking and looked at him.
Lowell lightly tapped an empty reagent bottle on the desk and calmly continued his explanation.
“What if, rather than simply burning the fire element, we compress and confine it in a very narrow space? And if we induce the elements to trigger a chain reaction simultaneously within that enclosed space, wouldn’t that expanding energy become tremendous propulsive force?”
“Confining elements to use as propulsion...?”
Gleyton’s pupils trembled.
Though Lowell did not know professional chemical formulas or compounding methods, he unfolded the principles of gunpowder he knew in the language of elemental studies familiar to Professor Gleyton.
“For example, a device that fills a metal tube with a powdered compound with maximized combustion efficiency, using that pressure to push out an iron ball. Without mana, if its speed and destructive power are sufficient, don’t you think it could even pierce the defense of a knight wrapped in Aura?”
Gleyton listened as if entranced and began listing thousands of formulas in her mind.
The idea of converting the chemical reactions of elemental studies into physical kinetic energy.
Because she had devoted her entire life to elemental studies, she concretized the revolutionary possibilities contained within the crude topic Lowell had thrown out faster than anyone else.
“Wait, Lowell. If what you say is true... if we mix unstable fire element particles with nitrate-based catalysts and solidify them, it might be possible. If we then find an additive that can control the combustion speed, a physical strike that far surpasses the casting speed of magic becomes possible. To think of interpreting elemental studies in such a way!”
Gleyton looked at Lowell with growing astonishment, her face flushed with excitement.
Pure awe and excitement as a scholar enveloped her entire body.
With an expressionless face, Lowell pushed the stack of documents toward her once more.
“If we complete this technology, can’t I stand proudly in the duel as a member of the Department of Elemental Studies? So that no one in the Academy can mock our discipline.”
Gleyton swallowed dryly.
She was not without worry for her disciple’s reckless duel, but the premonition that elemental studies, to which she had devoted her lifetime, might be born anew as a new power called firearms through this boy’s idea seared her heart with heat.
“But Lowell, the idea is excellent, but how do you intend to control that explosive energy? If you simply detonate the elemental compound, the tube itself will shatter into pieces before the projectile even launches.”
At Gleyton’s sharp point, Lowell pulled out an additional blueprint from within his coat as if he had been waiting for just that.
Inside it was drawn the blueprint of a crude yet bizarre device far removed from the refined designs of magical engineering.
Lowell actually knew.
That it was realistically impossible to precisely refine metal right now and produce completed firearms like gun barrels or arquebuses.
And even if Professor Gleyton refined an elemental compound similar to gunpowder, they severely lacked the time to precisely control the power to a level that a metal barrel could withstand.
The answer he had found was the mana-imbued bamboo he had taken note of while running every dawn on the Academy’s outskirts.
“So I intend to utilize this bamboo tube.”
“Bamboo? You think wood weaker than metal will withstand that pressure?”
“It is not ordinary bamboo. The bamboo in the northern forest of the Academy contains ley line mana and elements, making it as hard as ordinary steel. I designed this device based on that.”
Lowell pointed to the detailed sections of the blueprint with his finger.
“First, hollow out a thick, sturdy bamboo, leaving only one node. Then wrap the outside of the bamboo tube tightly and densely with strong cord. It serves as reinforcement that suppresses the wood grain from splitting due to explosive pressure from the outside. And most importantly, the bottom.”
Lowell’s finger rested at the bottom of the blueprint.
“Place a sturdy iron plate at the bottom of the bamboo tube and pack layers of earth on top of it. This way, the earth absorbs the recoil of the explosion while simultaneously preventing the elemental compound’s energy from leaking backward, forcing it to pour entirely forward.”
Gleyton brought her face close to the blueprint as if entranced.
The crude topic Lowell had thrown out was transforming into precise physical laws inside her head.
“Wait, Lowell. If you drill a hole in the side of the bamboo tube to connect a fuse... and fill the front with iron balls? Heavens, this is an approach dimensionally different from magical tools that design mana pathways. Using purely physical critical points and the expansion energy of elements alone... literally a weapon that wields fire... a firearm in and of itself!”
More astonished by the moment, Gleyton traced the blueprint with trembling hands.
There was no time to craft refined metal weapons, but with this bamboo device, combined with Gleyton’s elemental control techniques, they could produce it to a level ready for actual combat in mere days.
“Very well, Lowell. I shall personally complete your bizarre yet fascinating design. Whether this device can truly break a knight’s sword... I too am beginning to be insanely curious!”
*Thud!*
A heavy seal was stamped onto the document.
###
*Boom—!*
With a thunderous roar, the duel arena in Raiden Hall was instantly engulfed in dense sulfurous fumes and white smoke.
A heavy iron ball tore through that chaotic curtain and hurtled toward Chloe’s forehead with terrifying force.
“Ugh...!”
Chloe instinctively twisted her head and raised her sword.
A sharp metallic sound rang out with sparks, and the deflected iron ball embedded itself into the arena floor, creating a deep crater.
The heavy shock that traveled through her sword to her wrist made her brow furrow.
There was neither a mana wave nor any sign of casting.
Chloe felt a chill run down her spine at the sheer physical oppression pouring from a crude bamboo tube.
Without the slightest tremor, Lowell discarded the still-hot bamboo tube onto the floor.
Before the sound of the crude bamboo tube rolling across the stone floor had faded, his hand had already drawn another from within his coat.
“Impossible... Another attack immediately, without even casting?”
Chloe’s face paled.
Against a mage, exploiting the gaps between incantations was common sense, but Lowell had no such gaps.
Lowell brought the slow match wrapped tightly around his forearm—its end burning red—to the fuse protruding from the side of the bamboo tube.
*Sizzle—*
The sound of the short fuse burning.
Chloe let out a shriek-like cry and kicked off the ground, leaping.
With consecutive explosions, the bullet whistled past her shoulder.
A bizarre speed and pressure she had never experienced before.
Her pride was already being devoured by bewilderment.
But Chloe was the Academy’s second-seat and a genius knight who had survived countless real battles.
Even in the chaotic smoke, she tracked Lowell’s every movement with beast-like senses.
*There must be a limit. That tool is a consumable.*
Chloe caught Lowell discarding the used bamboo tube without hesitation.
The number of bamboo tubes hidden in his coat was the number of attacks he had left.
And above all, the starting point of all that destructive power was that small ember wrapped around his arm.
*If I extinguish that ember, it’s nothing more than a heavy bamboo club!*
The instant Lowell adjusted the fuse of the third bamboo tube and gauged the distance, Chloe twisted mid-air and swung her sword.
Blue Aura condensed like frost on her blade, then shot out in a whip-like, sharp arc.
“This ends now!”
A sharp tearing sound split the hall.
The sword energy that brushed past Lowell’s shoulder by a hair’s breadth precisely severed the slow match wrapped around his left forearm before the bullet could even fire.
The rope fragment that fell to the floor with a soft thud flickered a few times before weakly exhaling smoke and dying out.
The moment the ember needed to fire the bullet vanished.
A strange silence dominated the duel arena.
Chloe caught her rough breath and lowered her grip on the sword.
Lowell’s hand, holding the firearm, froze in mid-air, and certain that she had seized the initiative, Chloe declared in a coldly settled voice:
“You cannot use that bizarre weapon anymore, can you?”
Chloe’s longsword once again surged with Aura, shining blue.
The distance was already within her range.
But far from panicking, Lowell briefly glanced at the remains of the slow match on the floor, then looked at Chloe with unwavering eyes.
Chloe kicked off the ground and soared.
Her longsword, flickering with blue Aura, drew a horizontal arc aimed at Lowell’s neck.
The silent firearm, having lost its ember, was no longer a threat to her.
All that remained was to end this reckless duel and teach this impudent failing student the severity of a knight.
But at that moment, Lowell’s body dropped low and slid sideways.
His hand reached for a bizarre bamboo pole with tangled branches sprouting all over it, which had been rolling haphazardly on the floor.
“You think you can block my sword with that mere stick?!”
Chloe’s blade descended upon Lowell’s head.
The steel sword imbued with Aura seemed ready to shatter the bamboo at a single stroke.
*Clang—!*
A sharp metallic sound rang through the duel arena.
By all common sense, the branch should have been cut away without resistance, yet it caught the body of Chloe’s sword head-on.
No—more precisely, dozens of densely sprouted bamboo branches were entangling her blade and dispersing the impact.
“...You blocked my slash?!”
Chloe’s pupils were dyed with shock.
Her Aura had definitely dug into the bamboo’s surface, but the ley line mana condensed at every node stubbornly resisted the blade’s entry.
Moreover, the complexly entangled branches latched onto the blade like gears whenever she tried to withdraw her sword.
This was the second move Lowell had prepared—the Langxian.