“Hmm? I wonder why?”
That day, I was tilting my head in the Emerald Room.
“Excuse me, Lord Asha. I have something to consult you about... Is something the matter?”
Wearle asked upon entering, finding me tilting my head at three flasks arranged before me.
Helkov, who had been in the room with me, gestured with his hands to indicate he had no idea.
Ikt had gone to open the door, so he returned with Wearle and already knew the situation.
“Were you not attempting to recreate Sephira Sephirot? Did some problem occur?”
Since Ikt had watched partway through, Helkov, who had observed the entire process, responded.
“That’s just it—completely failed. One of them is totally empty, haze and all.”
Of the three flasks, one was empty.
In the other two, thin smoke or haze of unknown nature still drifted.
This had started when I decomposed air in a science experiment years ago; the remaining substance began speaking as Sephira four or five years back.
Incidentally, of the two remaining flasks, one was held upside down by apparatus.
Yet the haze remained in the round part of the flask, raising new questions about whether gravity wasn’t working or if it possessed buoyancy.
One thing was certain: unlike the original Sephira, these did not respond when spoken to.
“Lord Asha, why three of them?”
“I thought if Terry and the others had them too, they might be able to detect enemies beforehand.”
There was only one Sephira, and she basically stayed near me; otherwise, she wandered driven by curiosity.
There were times when she watched my younger brothers, but that was because she herself sought to investigate.
So I thought if they had dedicated intelligent entities to protect them, but...
“Is it not dangerous if discovered? They are children, and might let something slip.”
“As for that, I planned to have her stalk them without their knowledge. If it became known I could create invisible, imperceptible entities, I’d be viewed with suspicion.”
Ikt informed Wearle of his unauthorized stalking plan.
Personally, I felt worse about that approach, but everyone I consulted said it would cause problems.
Unlike me, the legitimate sons Terry and the others were heavily protected by multiple layers of security.
If I were to disregard that and send in Sephira—my alchemical creation—it would be tantamount to saying I didn’t trust them.
With the Cathedral incident, enemies had infiltrated posing as allies within their tight defenses.
That’s precisely why they were extra vigilant now; ignoring that to deploy something similar to Sephira would be tantamount to picking a fight.
“In the end, it failed though. No reaction at all when I spoke to them. Maybe it takes time? I tried to reproduce the conditions from back then as closely as possible.”
Sephira, glowing in a spherical form, floated around the flasks and settled atop the one placed normally on the stand.
“If merely observing progress, two are likely unnecessary. Requesting permission to analyze through physical contact.”
“Even you can’t tell from outside, Sephira? Sure, go ahead.”
She had been scanning for a while and was clearly curious.
Yet she still couldn’t figure it out, and her curiosity remained unsatisfied.
I opened the mouth of the flask Sephira had been resting on.
When left open, the haze rose to the mouth as if stirred by wind.
Just when I thought she was waiting for that, Sephira perched on the open flask’s mouth, and in moments, the haze was absorbed into Sephira and vanished.
“...Huh!? She ate it?”
My retainers’ eyes widened at my surprise.
The Sephira in question flickered dimly with no response.
Worried, I watched as her light seemed to fade, so I hurriedly called out.
“Sephira, are you alright?”
“Not having established a self like myself, merely existing as ‘something.’ I assert this cannot even serve as experience value beyond learning with Master.”
“Experience value? So if there were a trigger to establish a self, they might become like you?”
“Unknown variables remain unchanged. Unclear if strong desire to learn like myself would emerge. Unclear if will to obey Master would sprout.”
“So first we don’t know if they’ll become intelligent entities, and even if they do, we don’t know if they’ll be obedient. And the effort to raise them. I hoped they’d protect Terry and the others, but doesn’t look like something that can be resolved immediately.”
Sephira took years to reach her current state.
Moreover, we don’t really understand what triggered her becoming an intelligent entity, and apparently Sephira herself doesn’t know either.
“Well, then I’ll just watch how this develops. For Terry and the others’ safety, I guess I’ll have to ask Marquess Strateg to keep an eye on them after all.”
However, apparently that Marquess Strateg was also having a rough time.
Due to the dismantling of the criminal guild, corrupt officials and their associates who took losses were attacking Marquess Strateg, who led the charge.
Duke Lucaios also supported dismantling the criminal guild, so by coordinating their efforts it hadn’t become a serious wound, but Levan’s information indicated the mental fatigue was heavy.
Yeah, never mind that.
“So, Wearle? You said you had something to consult me about?”
“Ah, yes. Actually, as a result of personal research, I created something like this.”
Wearle set down a box he had been carrying in his arms.
Opening the lid, two crystal orbs were carefully packed in cotton to prevent damage.
Through some technique, magic circles were carved inside the crystals, forming square box shapes.
“Tentatively named: Magic Voice Transmission Device. By passing magical formulas embedded within, while magical power flows through the crystal, it transmits the voice of whoever holds the other crystal.”
Wearle’s explanation—could this be a telephone?
Wait, and wireless right off the bat?
Eyes widening in surprise beside me, Helkov also expressed admiration.
“Amazing, ain’t it? How far does it reach?”
“It is amazing, and it worked as far as Lukiusaria. However, this only exists thanks to Lord Asha’s analysis of the small thunder lamp and the knowledge about sound you taught me. Of course, there are other problems as well.”
Wearle apparently heard me discussing the properties of sound with Sephira during hide-and-seek, thought about it, and materialized it into this form.
The existing problems included heavy magical power consumption, requiring both crystal holders to have identical magical power qualities, needing to use wind attribute magic, poor sound quality, and requiring prior appointment of times to connect, among others.
“I could not improve further than this. I wondered if Lord Asha might have some clue to a solution.”
“Amazing, amazing. Even with problems, just knowing it works is amazing.”
Honestly, I thought telephones would take much more time, but to think they could take this form immediately using magic.
Graham Bell would be shocked.
“Transmission and reception work. So wind attribute is needed for voice and propagation, and identical magical power means the crystals probably need wavelengths that can individually identify each other on the user side as well. We should probably send signals first rather than voice to measure stability. If so, typing text would be more reliable.”
“Requesting details.”
Looks like Sephira took interest too.
But Morse code or mail probably wouldn’t get through.
I thought of something similar I could demonstrate and recalled the Gold Room.
“That’s it, a piano. Like piano keys—if you press here, or activate it, the same sound, or letter? If we limit the functions first like that to stabilize it. I’d rather manually tap on this crystal. Then we can mostly exclude attributes and magical power quality. By focusing the formulas solely on transmission and reception between crystals, we can increase reliability.”
As I explained my idea, Sephira—who had stopped producing voice—began proposing formulas to make my plan possible.
I wrote down Sephira’s proposals on paper.
While at it, I proposed alchemical tools I could think of.
“I’m sure there were records of making something like tuning forks useful for synchronizing magical power. Those were used in a technique to stabilize and double alchemical magical amplification devices. This should probably work for that too. Plus the attribute bestowal using essence I’m thinking of now. If this works, we should be able to use the Magic Voice Transmission Device with wind attribute bestowed from the start.”
Thinking about it was getting fun.
As Wearle said, considering the structure of the small thunder lamp, it seemed achievable by combining magic and alchemy.
Magic lacks sustainability, but alchemy can compensate for that.
“Incorporating all of this would be difficult, but if we balance it and embed formulas into the crystals, even if voice is difficult, we could probably transmit single words reliably?”
It was still far from the convenience of my previous life, and if it couldn’t be called mail, it was inferior to letters too.
This was the extent of a spur-of-the-moment idea.
“Ah, but I have few friends, so even if I make this, I wouldn’t have much use for it.”
“No no no, why would you use it as a letter substitute? Such a great invention?”
“Lord Helkov, that is surely Lord Asha’s purity.”
“No matter how you look at it, demand as military supplies would be huge, right?”
Ikt said something ominous, but apparently the others shared the same opinion.
Apparently more practical than what Wearle had made, and somewhat outrageous, so it was being shelved.
Apparently, I had proposed a weapon that would control information warfare.
Regular Update
Next: Tea Party with Younger Brothers 4