Advent of the Archmage

In the Creation Hall

Gretel did not join in the discussion on the magic seal with the other Dragon Magicians. She sat in one corner of the great hall, her eyes fixated on a book before her.

The Dragon Magicians seated around the long table of the great hall seemed to be stuck on a problem. Amid their frustrated grunts and sighs as they struggled to solve the problem in hand, the magic seal etched on the scroll before them had yet to make any noticeable progress.

It seemed as though the magic seal's construction was not going smoothly.

When Link arrived at the entrance, Gretel was still so focused on her book that she did not notice him in the doorway. She seemed to have come across a stumbling block herself. She had one hand pressed against her forehead, while her sleeve had slid down from her elbow, revealing the pristine white skin of her shoulder. Her brows were knitted together tightly, and the pair of brilliant red eyes below them, purer than even the world's most pristine agate, never once strayed from the book before her. Not far from her, a magic pencil skated about on a sheet of paper. Link narrowed his gaze and saw that the paper was filled with meaningless scribbles.

It would seem that Gretel was at her wit's end.

As Link entered the hall, a few of the Dragon Magicians noticed him and rose to bow before him. Link waved them off and made his way towards the Red Dragon Queen as quietly as possible, his eyes still fixed on the book that she had been reading.

A few seconds later, Link realized that it was a book on extremely advanced magical principles.

Link had read the book before. He knew that the book was titled Advanced Magical Theory, and it contained descriptions and predictions of what would happen in an environment with a high Mana concentration. It was a must-read on the subject of high-level magical enchantment.

Recalling the hurdles he had come across while reading the book, and looking at which page Gretel was stuck at and the few symbols the magical pencil had written on the piece of paper, Link was able to deduce what problems she was struggling with at the moment.

With a nudge of his will, Link activated the Magician's Hand and took control of Gretel's magic pencil. He then began making his own calculations on the paper with the pencil.

Gretel was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not react to Link's spell in time. She let out a soft gasp, before realizing that Link was now standing before her. She immediately relinquished her grip on the magical pencil and began looking at Link's calculations.

Magical formulas flowed out from the pencil tip across the paper. The pencil danced on agilely, piecing together Link's thoughts on the paper bit by bit until finally, his solution was given form on it.

Gretel's eyes lit up brighter and brighter throughout the process. She heaved a deep sigh when Link finished writing. "So that's how it is. I've been working on this the whole day."

As she spoke, she gently twitched her finger, and a chair slid noiselessly to her side. "So what brings you here?"

Link sat down and smiled. "Thought I might come by to take a look at the spatial barrier, since I've got the time to spare. And there really is a problem with it."

A satisfied look came across Gretel's face. She got up and said, "You've come back just in time. Come, take a look at the magic seal here."

Saying this, Gretel walked towards the middle of the great hall, with Link following behind her. After taking a few steps, Link sensed that something was off.

Gretel was wearing a rather casual dress today. The almost transparent fabric was form-fitting, revealing an awkward number of details around her body.

As Link walked behind her, he noticed that as she ambled forward, her waist was sweeping out an arc in the air with such fluidity that anyone watching this would want to reach out and feel her waist in their fingers.

The circular motion of her waist seemed almost unreal, mesmerizing even.

Link felt a sudden jolt in his heart, and he immediately shifted his line of sight. He now found himself looking at the long curtain of red hair falling across Gretel's back, and beneath her hair was the dazzlingly white skin of her neck, which stirred his heart even more.

Anyone looking at the Red Dragon Queen's beauty may accidentally blind themselves. If one were to give her a closer look, the effect would be similar to a knockout pill, as they may not want to wake up from such a beautiful dream as her beauty.

In the game, the Red Dragon Queen was described as being "as sweet as the illusion of one's first love." Every day, countless players struggled to complete her quests for three months just to raise their reputations among the dragon race and obtain the right to enter the Dragon Hall.

One could always find almost a thousand players close to her. Wherever she went, there would always be a group of players following close behind her. Such players were jokingly called "the flies hovering around the queen's royal dress."

Link had never noticed it before, but he now had the opportunity to personally experience the Red Dragon Queen's charm.

In order to prevent himself from losing focus, Link shifted his line of sight to the scroll spread out across the table.

Seemingly oblivious to the subtle changes in Link's behavior behind her, she finally reached the table and said, "After cracks had appeared on the rune barrier, I thought it would be best to build an offensive magic seal so that we could immediately eliminate any threats that might come through it, even if the barrier was compromised. At first, I had wanted to begin making a prototype of the seal by myself and have you perfect it later on, but the difficulty of the situation had far exceeded my expectations."

"Let me take a look." Link was now focused on the magic seal that was spread across the long table.

Before long, he was completely immersed in it. He began walking slowly around the table, closely observing the scroll on it. After completing a full circle around the table, he was able to fully grasp the scroll's contents.

He shook his head. "Your Highness, to build a magic seal on such a shaky foundation, no matter how perfect it may be, the seal's power will not reach more than Level-15. Even though it's already at a high enough level, there is no shortage of entities beyond Level-19 in the limitless Sea of Void. To them, a Level-15 attack is nothing more than a mosquito's sting."

As he said this, the Dragon Magicians around took a deep breath and stared in bewilderment at Link. There was no way their measly Level-15 barrier would have deterred these godlike beings from entering their dimension. Such naivety would have spelled the end for the entire dragon race.

Gretel did not seem the least bit disconcerted by this. She raised her brows and gazed at Link, waiting eagerly to hear his thoughts.

With the Magician's Hand, Link rolled up the scroll on the table, and pulled open a new blank scroll. He then willed a magic pencil nearby to start scribbling out his thoughts on the scroll's surface.

He began giving his explanation as he wrote. "I had come up with this concept recently. I'm basically using the singularity phenomenon that would occur in any instance of spatial distortion as its basis."

"Is it a spatial singularity?" asked Gretel curiously.

Link nodded. "That's right. I've been studying the phenomenon closely. It's so small that it defies all conventional methods of measurement, but I theorize that it is capable of containing an unlimited volume of matter inside itself. In theory, if I were to throw a mountain into a singularity, the mountain would be completely contained by it. At that point, the singularity would have the mass of the entire mountain in it."

The singularity he was talking about was in some respects identical to the black holes of his home world, but due to the differences in the physical laws governing the two worlds, there were some stark differences between them. One such difference was that the singularity could be manipulated and was less powerful than the black holes in Link's home world.

Gretel was mesmerized by Link's description. She then asked, "So is there a way to safely release the power contained within a singularity?"

"I'll need to start by explaining the state of the singularity. In a singularity, all matter that exists in Firuman will be transformed into a pure energy state. It's like a cloud of gas being compressed continuously into an infinitesimal point in space. Under such conditions, when the distorted space returns to normal, all the matter compressed within the singularity will burst forth instantaneously in an explosion of limitless energy... Your Highness, if we're to release the energy contained within a 10,000-ton rock, I guarantee you the resulting explosion would decimate half of Firuman!"

Link's words elicited gasps of shock around him.

"My god, that's horrifying!"

"Is that true, my lord?"

The Dragon Magicians were all staring at Link incredulously.

"Yes, it is." Link nodded and continued, "Of course, to subject a huge rock to a singularity's compression has its own difficulties. One might say it's impossible to do such a thing, and for the sake of all of Firuman, let's hope we never need to take such risks. However, it is possible to compress a ton of energy, or maybe even ten, and then set up a couple of runes to regulate the energy output. The explosion would then be directed into the spatial crack. Anything behind the crack would think twice before coming through it into our world."

In this world, destruction was always easier than creation.

Link's current power level was at Level-11. This was due to the fact that the power within him was pure life energy and all life energy could be wielded to create. Though his power was growing at a somewhat slow rate, this did not mean that he was incapable of using anything beyond Level-11.

One of the many advantages all intelligent life had at their disposal is the ability to make and use tools to accomplish something. An example of such a tool would be a magic wand.

As he explained his theories to everyone in the room, Link had finally finished a complicated sketch of his spatial design on the scroll. At a glance, the whole thing seemed like a work of art, but with a closer look, it was so intricately designed that if anyone had risked looking at it any longer, he or she would probably feel the urge to tear out their eyes.

Some of the Magicians around the table stared at Link's work, trying to grasp the underlying principle behind the whole thing, while others simply gave up.

The only person who was able to comprehend it was the Red Dragon Queen herself.

As she finished looking it over, her eyes flashed in excitement. "This is the nucleus of the singularity. How do you intend to control its energy?"

The singularity was not enough by itself. The energy within would explode in a sphere. The farther it traveled, its impact would be greatly lessened. Still, the resulting shockwave would affect the Dragon Magicians around the magic seal.

Though the singularity may be a powerful source of energy, the regulating seals around it would play an even more critical role later on.

It would require an extremely refined technique to keep such a violent output of energy under control.

Link spread his hands and said ruefully, "I have a general outline of how to go about solving the energy regulation problem, but I still haven't figured out how to actually carry out the solution."

Gretel said consolingly, "A general outline is all we need now. Alright, we're done for today. I'll finish up everything with Duke Link later on."

Though there were 20 Dragon Magicians in the great hall, from the queen's point of view, none of them held a candle to Link.