emperor of steel
Chapter 19: The Black Knight Appears 2
Once Luke managed to get the attention of the people, he reached out to Victor, who was on the side, staring at the boy holding the magic stone.
“Would you please lend me a sword?”
“Sword? I don’t get it, where would you use it?”
Victor wondered while pulling out his sword.
Luke took the sword and grabbed the blade with his left hand and pulled it.
Swak-!
Blood flowed out from his hands, causing the sword to turn red.
“Young, young lord?”
“No, why would you do that?!”
As if that wasn’t surprising enough, Luke squeezed the blood out of his hand.
His blood began to drip onto the magic stone, which he placed on the floor.
‘The magic stone has to be this wet…’
After burying the magic stone with his blood, Luke began to draw a series of magic circles around the stone.
All the Iron Mages had their mouth’s opened as they saw him drawing magic figures and characters on the floor without a shred of uncertainty.
At first, they thought that he was just another noble kid.
However, the shapes and the formulas that filled the circle were exactly the same as the mana wave numbers on the core magic stone.
‘No, this can’t be!’
‘He’s not even a wizard. How is he doing this?’
Luke continued to work while they were all in astonishment.
After a while, a magic circle with a 3-meter diameter was completed.
After returning the sword to Victor, Luke took a breath and began to cast a spell in a loud voice.
“Lha Kantar Eli Re Perato…”
‘Don’t, no way! That is a magic spell!’
The Iron Mages opened their mouths at the same time remembering their promises.
Magic spells were like a secondary magic, memorizing specific spells would help stimulate the flow of mana and help build the magic.
It had the advantage of not needing a magic circle, but on the other hand, the spells were extremely long, and the pitch with the rhythm of the spell must be exactly the same.
If it didn’t work well, its effects wouldn’t be that big.
A magic spell could only do one or two basic circles.
And to go for 3 circles, there was a need to place magic circles.
This was why the wizards never laid eyes on the spells, and the non-wizards, scholars, and nobles were interested in magic and would sometimes try to learn it.
This boy definitely knew how to do magic already!
‘Just to imitate the spells…’
As the spell of Luke progressed, the magic circle drawn with blood began to shine.
Along with him and the mana gathered by the magic circle, it penetrated into the center of the magic stone.
Woong! Wooong! Woong!
The magic circle shined with huge resonating sounds coming from the magic stone.
“What? What the hell are you doing?”
“What is it with the mana?”
Iron Mages of the other clans were now starting to be curious at the peculiar phenomenon that was happening.
They also wanted to see what was happening
The core magic stone, which was at the end of its life, began to glow and its color began to change.
The eyes of the people around Luke widened.
“That… that!”
“The deposited mana is disappearing!”
In the midst of the confusion, Luke was completely dedicated to memorizing the spells.
After about 30 minutes of magic rituals, the blood circle around it began to evaporate.
Finally, the central magic stone retained its transparent color, the initial stage.
“It’s over now. Go on, check it.”
Luke placed the revitalized stone back into the core engine.
As a result, the output of the Mir increased exponentially. It looked like it was a new Gigant that was just taken down from the workshop.
Iron Mages, especially the one who challenged Luke to a bet, were completely frozen.
“Nonsense!”
“How did this happen…”
Luke rarely learned any magic spells.
But with the magic circle, and the mana deposition of the magic stone, it just couldn’t be understood.
‘Huh, nonsense? You guys, who haven’t studied properly, would probably not understand this.’
When Luke was still the warlock Saymon, there were no artificial magic stones, and it was very hard to even find the ore of the magic stones.
Luke also took a lead in creating the Golem corps. He couldn’t stand the fact that the golems that he made couldn’t bring out their best because of the lack of magic stones.
‘It would have been nice to be able to recycle the abandoned rubble at the end of its life…’
Which was why Luke began his research and dug deeper into the mana deposition.
That was when he found one.
‘Why does a human body have no mana deposition like a magic stone?’
The mana that piled up in one’s body never stopped flowing and such a concept was never heard of.
It was then that Luke had thought about the presence of something in the human body. He then realized that what he was looking for was blood, the primal vitality, it had an effect on the mana activity.
In addition, he researched how to revive the magic stone based on blood, and completed the magic circle.
“I must be tired and are seeing things.”
“Ri, right. He’s trying to make us hallucinate by doing dark magic!”
Luke just stared at the Iron Mages as they spew nonsense.
In fact, their talk about dark magic was true. Though the magic was based on a magic spell, the magic spell was based on dark magic knowledge.
However, they wouldn’t be able to find any evidence to prove that, so Luke didn’t care much.
“Dark Magic? Did I summon any demons? Or have I sacrificed anyone?”
“That was obviously a magic circle made of blood…!”
“Shut up, this bastard! How dare you make fun of our family secret!”
When Luke raised his voice as if he was angry, the notary Reina took his side.
“Luke is the descendent of the great knight Rakan. Would he really use dark magic?”
Rakan was renowned for being the Sword Emperor, but he was much more famous for being the Holy Knight.
Would his descendants even consider using dark magic?
And the technique of using blood as a medium of magic rarely existed in white magic.
The crowd, who heard her question, began to shake their heads.
“It was a little weird, but it wasn’t dark magic.”
“Who would like to use dark magic in daylight?”
“I never knew such a secret existed in the Rakan family.”
Regardless of the bet, the other wizards took Luke’s side.
The three Iron Mages, who wagered the bet, had said that they would not only burn their robes but be Luke’s slaves as well.
“Kuah, for such a thing…”
“Aren’t you all showing off an unusual behavior for wizards? Didn’t you ever know that lack of belief is acceptable, but the unconditional assurance is not forgiven?”
At the question of Luke, the Iron Mages were so embarrassed that they couldn’t even lift their heads.
Princess Reina, on the other hand, was looking at Luke with admiration in her eyes.
Luke, who had never been disturbed by her eyes, laughed.
“You are really amazing Young Lord. But when did you even learn that magic spell?”
Philip, whose mouth was wide opened along with the princess and the servants, spoke after regaining their composure.
Luke gave the appropriate response.
“It is nothing special. It is just a remnant of our mastery that needs to be revived.”
“Who did you learn that from? The only wizard in our estate is Mute, the Iron Mage…”
“I learned it by myself after reading some books.”
“I see. But wasn’t the family of Rakan, a family of Knights? To perform magic circles is like having a non-existent dream…”
As Philip kept on asking questions, telling him lies was turning out to be difficult. Luke was slowly starting to get annoyed.
“Sir Philip!”
“Yes, Young Lord!”
“I have fixed the Gigant. Don’t you have to move it to know if you can handle it?”
“Ah, yes! It is my first time, but I’ll try to steer it in advance…”
Philip climbed up the ladder to open the hatch on the breastplate to board Mir.
He began by moving its fingers and then its ankles, doing basic sword movements and trying to adapt to the strangely new Gigant.
Luke watched him from behind.
As Luke was doing that, Princess Reina looked at him.
‘He is an amazing person. Unlike his looks, he is quite a mature man.’
By age, Philip, the brother type of person, was rather light and bubbly, which made Luke seem much more mature. Luke was looking at Mir, which made him suddenly think.
‘Can I really bet on this game? The dividends will be higher because the power on the side of the princess is significantly lower than the Count Lippi clan…’
Reina, seeing Luke step up with a bag of money asked,
“Mr. Luke, where are you going?”
“Oh, I’m going to see what the Gigant of the Count looks like.”
There was no way Luke could confidently say ‘Oh! I’m going to buy the dividend!’.
What would the princess think if she realized that he bet on a game where her life was at stake?
Of course, after buying the dividends, he planned on spying on the Count’s clan.
Reina glanced at Luke, who moved out in a hurry.
‘Why are you taking money to go spying?’
She had thought of numerous ways to try and understand Luke, but she still couldn’t figure him out.