Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 631 The Secret of Fusion

Starfire City in the North, a magical laboratory located beneath the royal palace.

Reiner and Asdaren stood guard at the entrance to the hall, constantly blocking high-ranking officials who came to inquire about the situation.

"How long has His Majesty been in the laboratory? Why hasn't he come out yet?"

"There should be some danger in fusing with the magic core, so why did His Majesty order the area to be cleared out, and not even the bloodline warriors of the personal guard were allowed to stay inside?"

"At least having two legendary chiefs assisting would be good!"

The two alchemical creatures stood silently before the heavy steel doors of the laboratory, like two towering metal statues, completely unmoved and leaving everyone at a loss.

Dawson and Salas exchanged a glance and waved their hands, saying, "Go sit in the hall and wait. In terms of pure magical application theory... and research in the realm of the soul, we really don't have as much authority as His Majesty Harvey."

Arturo, who had rushed over, nodded in agreement, saying, "The chief is right. As the founder of the soul spellcasting school, His Majesty's research on magic and spiritual energy far surpasses ours. Moreover, he has the experience of successfully merging last time, so there shouldn't be any major problems."

Although most of the spellcasters present were high-level, they were completely unfamiliar with this new school of soul spellcasting. After hearing the triple assurances from the legendary chief and the dean of the academy, they could only temporarily put aside their worries and turn back to the hall on the ground to wait.

The other officials, who were of ordinary backgrounds, knew nothing about magic and could only grit their teeth and keep asking their spellcaster colleagues for advice, their worry evident in their words... Compared to the high-level spellcasters present, they were clearly the group more afraid of Harvey's accident.

……

Little did they know, Harvey, who was alone in the laboratory at that moment, fusing the church's magical core, was in the midst of a tug-of-war that was giving him a terrible headache.

When he first obtained this core fragment, he learned from Pope Calvin that it was a fragment of inheritance called "Rebirth." The power of the rules attached to it was the foundation for the construction of a large number of high-level healing spells that the Church had always relied on. The transformation of the powerful combat force of the Demon Slayer and the Holy Prayer Guard, which the Church relied on, was also accomplished entirely by the characteristics of this fragment.

From these facts, Harvey could easily deduce that the core fragment discovered in the ruins of the Divine Ridge Mountains possessed the power of "communication and manipulation"—the core itself was like the "queen bee" in a giant beehive, controlling all alchemical creations with soul characteristics around it and communicating with them without any obstacles.

When merging with the [Control] core, Harvey did not encounter too many difficulties or obstacles... Thanks to the strange characteristics of his own magic runes and mental anchor, the core fragments were completely suppressed almost without resistance, and the entire absorption process proceeded exceptionally smoothly.

But the newly acquired fragment of [Rebirth] is quite different from the previous situation.

If the [Control] core possesses advanced intelligence, independent consciousness, and the ability to communicate seamlessly with Harvey...

【Newborn】is like an “artificial intelligence disorder” that only possesses primitive instincts and continues to operate by following inertia.

Harvey tried every method he could think of, but found it impossible to communicate with it. After struggling for a while, he finally gave up and instead tried to forcibly merge and devour it... only to discover that the power of rules contained within this core was extremely vast. Harvey pushed his mental energy to its limit, but the speed of merging still couldn't keep up with the speed at which the core regenerated after being damaged. It was practically like a living tumor that was multiplying and growing indefinitely!

Harvey floated in mid-air within the virtual space created by the magic core. Beneath his feet, on an endless parallel scroll, countless metal particles that constantly changed shape and combination moved at a constant speed according to his thoughts, condensing into several large and small silver rings, layer upon layer, surrounding Harvey in the center, like an asteroid belt orbiting a star.

These tens of millions of tiny particles, each representing an alchemical creation and energy-absorbing beetle that exists around Harvey in the real world, allow Harvey's consciousness to freely travel into any body and achieve resonance with it at the soul level.

He used this power of rules to transform the energy-absorbing beetles into miniature alchemical beasts, creating a massive war insect swarm that achieved a surprising victory in the Battle of Great Bear Lake, delivering a targeted and fatal blow to the Demon Lizardmen.

Unfortunately, this powerful and terrifying force of rules cannot be applied to [Newborn], which is also a core fragment.

No matter how many times he forced the [Newborn] core to shatter directly and quickly manipulated the mental tendrils to carry out deep fusion... this deep red spindle crystal, which looked no different from [Control], would always reassemble at a faster speed than him. The parts that were missing after Harvey devoured them would instantly proliferate and grow back to complete itself.

Harvey couldn't help but recall the knowledge he had gained from the [Control] Core—[Each core possesses a portion of the origin of rules, and the origin is the law, predetermined from the very beginning of the split… fusion is the inevitable result.]

"Since mutual attraction and fusion are inevitable, why does the [Newborn] refuse to merge with me, who has already devoured [Control]? Is the order of merging between different fragments of inheritance fixed and cannot be arbitrarily disrupted?"

This line of thinking isn't entirely without basis...

According to Pope Calvin, after the humans stole the core of inheritance from the demon lizardmen, they broke it into twelve pieces. Each core fragment has its own independent rules and characteristics, but at its core, it tends to eventually merge together.

This means that aggregation may not be completely chaotic and disordered, just like numbers need to be arranged in a predetermined sequence, and the order cannot be reversed or skipped out of thin air.

"From this perspective, fragments like [Newborn], which have not yet developed a higher-level consciousness and are unable to communicate, should be ranked at a lower position in the fusion sequence... On the contrary, [Control], which is easier to deal with, is ranked at a higher position."

Thinking about this, a chilling thought suddenly flashed through Harvey's mind.

Back then... when it was devouring the [Control] core, the other party stated that it, like itself, possessed a portion of the origin!

That's what caused Harvey's magical runes to mutate, and the strange soul beach to appear in the planet-sized spiritual anchor... In the past, Harvey thought it was due to the special nature of the transmigrator's soul, until he encountered the magic core and communicated with it, he realized that it was also a concrete manifestation of the power of the rules in the origin.

But where does this unique essence of Harvey come from?
The twelve fragments of the inheritance were originally given to twelve leaders of human tribes who migrated to the Southern Continent and were secretly preserved and passed down from generation to generation... Harvey, who came from a small landowning family after his transmigration, could not possibly have a family background that could be traced back to ancient times.

"Right now, we can only take it one step at a time. At least we've got the [Newborn] core, even though we can't successfully fuse with it... But if we continue searching for more lost fragments of the inheritance, we'll eventually uncover the ultimate truth!"

(End of this chapter)