Chapter 202: 138. Leia Lu
“I completely forgot to ask your name. I was just so eager for the knowledge you possess that I occasionally forget the proper etiquette. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Fisher Benavides.”
“Oh, no problem, Fisher. It’s a good name that always reminds me of the Dragon Race in the Dragon Court.”
Fisher and Jasmine walked down the stairs from the second floor. After answering Sir Book’s words, he nodded beside Fisher and walked in a circle.
Xiatu and Anna both looked at Fisher, particularly Anna, who was clearly impatient; she had just heard Sir Book’s words and slightly frowned,
“We can’t wait until morning to go in. If we wait any longer, Blake is likely to catch up with us!”
“There’s nothing we can do. If there’s a Concealment Magic set up here, we can only wait for a specific activation time. There are three ways to activate Concealment Magic—the other two require the designer to operate them, and the mage who designed this magic decades ago might not even be alive anymore.”
Based on Sir Book’s reminder, Fisher, who had knowledge stored in his mind, quickly thought of the means Blake used to embed magic here. He likely employed a time-based Concealment Magic.
As is well known, magic works by leveraging the echoes of the world. So let’s consider the following two questions:
Does the world respond anytime magic is used throughout the day?
If it does respond, does the effect have to be the same every time?
The answer is, although the world responds to manipulations at any time, the strength of each echo varies from subtle to significant.
The world’s responses change sensitively with time, geographical location, and other factors. Some echoes may be strengthened or weakened under particular conditions; for instance, magic related to the “moon” and “light” is enhanced at night, and some magic is even boosted during the day.
Extending this theory, if we design magic that only triggers when its standards barely reach a specific strength at a certain time, it would not manifest below that specific echo strength. This constitutes the most basic form of Concealment Magic.
However, even this most fundamental Concealment Magic requires very advanced engraving techniques, as the engraver needs to have a keen perception of the echo strength.
Among the certified members of the entire Magic Society, only one-third can engrave such magic.
If one’s magical skills are even higher, akin to those of Teacher Heilson, one can lead Concealment Magic to be even more “concealed,” such as requiring specific people and specific phrases to activate this magic.
This kind of Concealment Magic is typically engraved in the crevices of the world. This is why Fisher can’t detect the engraved magical fluctuations on-site; however, it should be said that if Blake had buried his treasure simply, the royal family wouldn’t have failed to discover that there’s magic here over the years.
According to Sir Book, Fisher speculated that this library has two nested Concealment Magics.
The first is the simplest form of Concealment Magic, which can only be awakened during the daytime, according to specific physical arrangements and mechanisms. This magic will reveal a “passphrase” to open the inner layer of magic; then, the entrants need to use this passphrase to awaken the second Concealment Magic that can only be activated during the day.
This design is very clever, involving many prerequisites; otherwise, one wouldn’t even discover the existence of the Magic Rune.
After hearing Fisher’s explanation of this magic, Anna, who still didn’t fully understand the principles, bit her lip but had no rebuttal, suffering from a cultural shortcoming. She could only sit there reluctantly, hugging her knees and thighs.
Nearby, Sir Book sighed after listening; he didn’t know much about magic,
“Are you also a magician who studies magic? That’s really impressive. There are many people like that among humans. I basically can’t understand books on magic, so I haven’t memorized any of their content. It seems that I won’t need to be asked about magic matters anymore, to avoid embarrassment.”
In fact, most of the time, there wasn’t much to ask; Fisher understood a lot, but he wasn’t omniscient. Sometimes he also had questions, and in those moments, asking this relic that recorded a wealth of knowledge was the most cost-effective.
Fisher ignored him and glanced at the clock hanging on the wall of the library. There were about three hours left until sunrise. Unfortunately, it was already autumn now; if it were still summer, the sun would rise a bit earlier.
“Since we have no way to change it, let’s take this time to rest well and adjust our condition. Is anyone hungry?”
Anna and Xiatu both shook their heads. Sir Book didn’t need to eat, and Jasmine actually felt a bit hungry, but she looked eagerly at everyone else not eating and tightly closed her mouth to indicate she wasn’t hungry.
In fact, there wasn’t really much restful time in these three hours; everyone’s emotions were tense, afraid to relax.
Jasmine sat down on the reading chair nearby, picked up a book to read, and occasionally glanced worriedly at Fisher, talking to him about her aunt.
Jasmine was actually a girl with very delicate thoughts, and sometimes, even though she had many ideas, she wouldn’t express them for the sake of others’ feelings.
Even though she knew about the lifespan differences of the Whale Folk and that her aunt might be approaching the end of her life, and that her aunt might have been kidnapped by Blake, she wouldn’t say anything to prevent Fisher from being distracted from focusing on the present situation.
In her heart, she was also feeling very sad and burdened, but such emotions would only quietly blossom at night when she went to sleep. When she woke up, she always appeared optimistic in front of Fisher, wearing a smile every time he turned to look at her.
Xiatu appeared a bit bored; she had initially wanted to learn from Jasmine and read as well, but found she couldn’t focus at all and barely recognized any characters, so she had to take out her quiver behind her and hang the wet-feathered arrows out to dry.
As for Sir Book, after Fisher finished his self-introduction, he noticed Fisher completely ignored him, so he floated next to Jasmine to explain the “History of Shivali” she was reading.
He silently vowed that if Fisher didn’t actively ask him a question, he would also remain silent and not reveal the knowledge recorded within him.
Emhart would never do anything for free; that was his bottom line. Unless this human named Fisher begged him!
Anna sat on the ground, staring down with her head lowered without speaking. Fisher keenly noticed that her legs, which were exposed beneath her skirt, were slightly trembling, not because of the cold but due to the unease of
