Mage? Spell Engineer!.

Chapter 596: The Old Baron with a New Theory

Empire, a small town somewhere.

Since the war had conscripted a group of young men - some were honest little farmers, some were idle vagrants who made a living by stealing and extortion. In any case, the town had been quiet for a long time.

Then since the beginning of spring, the young people have returned, leading their retired officers to gather the residents of the town in the square, where they will give important speeches.

He pulled out the speech from his clothes, squinted his eyes and stared at it for a long time, and finally put it away and shouted at the residents at the top of his voice:

"Quiet, please, quiet!
"I am Captain Cohen of the Imperial Army's Second Regiment of Marin. Now, everyone, please listen carefully:

"The great and benevolent Emperor William II said that the soldiers had a hard time fighting, and you, the people who did not go to the battlefield, had to produce food, ammunition, and cloth. It was also hard work. Your Majesty was also worried about the country and the people, and it was also hard work.

"The damned Valois people are already scared, they have already rolled out of our territory with bruised faces and noses!"

There were sparse cheers and applause from below, while more people looked at the officer in confusion.

The captain cleared his throat and continued, "Spring is here. His Majesty the Emperor wants the army to return your children and your husbands to you. Spring plowing will begin soon. Work hard. This year's taxes will be lower, and your life will get better in the future."

After saying this, he ordered the military band to start playing.

The brass instruments produced discordant tunes. The skinny monkey playing the brass pipe puffed out his cheeks, looking as if he was short of oxygen. He had no time to pay attention to notes and rhythm. The unshaven old soldier beat the dull drum beats, which matched perfectly with the speechless people.

The soldiers belonging to this land stepped out. Some of them looked around for their loved ones, some numbly followed the troops and quickly merged into the crowd, and some limped away on one leg.

The crowd finally came alive and began to get restless.

"Shut up! I mean quiet. You haven't finished your sentence yet." Captain Cohen was impatient and almost pulled out his gun to tell these people to obey. Finally, he miraculously accumulated some patience and waited for the crowd to calm down before speaking:
"One more thing, you are not allowed to worship any gods randomly! The town hall will post a list of cults in a moment. If anyone believes it, report it to me and I will personally shoot them.

"If there is any abnormal situation, I mean 'abnormal', you know what it means, report it to the town hall honestly and quickly."

Some people understood what the officer meant and asked, "What about the resident wizard? Why didn't he report to the Wizard Tower?"

"There will be no more mages in the future!"

"Is the Empire victorious?"

The officer stared at the questioner deeply, did not answer, turned around, mounted his horse and rode away.

After the army left, another group of people transporting goods came.

"Hey, slow down, if you break it, the whole town can't afford to pay for it!" A team of people carefully carried the equipment down, and then slowly moved it. The equipment was installed at the original site of the town's magician tower.

The cold metal and crystals reflecting the psychedelic arc light attracted many townspeople to watch.

"Ah my, what's the use of such an expensive thing? Why is it installed here?"

The engineer in charge of the installation thought for a moment and said, "It's just to keep all the mess out. Your town is big enough and close to the capital, so you can get one. Otherwise, only big cities have it now."

The installation and debugging took almost a day. When it was about to get dark, the core made of oscillating crystal finally began to rotate. A few old men and women insisted on watching to the end. Seeing this, they couldn't help but say, "Is it done?" "It's done."

"I don't feel it."

"Are you a mage? You still have feelings. Unless you sleep in the tower every day, you might feel dizzy and nauseous."

"What?"

"Because it's so bright and noisy here, you can't sleep."

What is used now is transmutation dust, and it is said that it will be changed to a coal-driven magic generator in the future.

In the first phase of the project, the Empire chose to deploy thousands of anti-magic devices around the borders of the Kingdom of Marin, the imperial capital and its surrounding areas to ensure that major cities no longer have a normal magical environment and are separated from other countries and regions.

There is a "stagnation theory" that can theoretically create dead magic zones on a large scale. When the magic-banning device in an area reaches a certain value, the flow of magic power in the entire area will be restricted, and the magic power that is no longer moving will gradually disappear.

The originator of the theory was a crazy old man who called himself the Baron. William II ordered his court secretary to search through the archives and the books, but could not find any clues to prove the old man's identity. But this was not important. What was important was that his technical officers and researchers all went crazy when they heard that the "Baron" was coming, and they all wanted to meet him first.

This finally piqued the emperor's interest. Today the palace gates were opened and the old man was welcomed in.

The baron placed a piece of parchment on the table with a smile: "Your Majesty, this piece of paper is the real world."

"Ok?"

"It is the world we see and perceive." He took out another piece of paper. "This is the symbolic world, a world that we can only reach through our thoughts, imagination, and soul."

The Baron sprinkled buttons on the first sheet of paper: "This is your magic prohibition device." He fiddled with it: "If arranged properly, it will be enough to expand the symbolic realm." Then he covered it with the second sheet of paper.

"I see. They are pillars."

"Yes and no. I prefer to call it a blower, constantly blowing the symbolic world away from the real world. Of course, this is not a rigorous statement. We are just changing the gradient of the potential field between the real and the symbolic. When a critical value is reached, the form of magic will change. It will lose the ability to carry information and transform into dark energy and dark matter. It cannot be detected by anyone in either world."

The old man's rambling nonsense gave the emperor a headache. William waved his hand and said, "Alright, alright, I get it. Just make enough, right?"

"Your Majesty is wise and decisive, that is true, but I would like to add that a reasonable deployment location is also important, and we cannot only consider places where the population is concentrated."

He would also flatter with difficult-to-read ancient words. No one would say that in my grandfather's time! William II's headache worsened. In line with the royal education of respecting the character of the elderly, he rubbed his temple while listening to the old man's chatter.

"Your Majesty, I have something to advise you."

".You've been talking non-stop, haven't you? Go on."

"No, no, these are two different things." The old man said seriously, "I see Your Majesty has been rubbing the left side of your head. Do you have a migraine? Your Majesty must be deeply concerned about the country and the people, otherwise how could you have a migraine at such a young age? I have a good friend who was also troubled by this stubborn disease. I have a prescription I have studied from ancient books, which is very effective."

"."

(End of this chapter)