The AI Archmage - Chapter 4

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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AI Archmage Episode 4

Sometimes in life, humans encounter extraordinary phenomena beyond their understanding.

This was true even for Lumia, who was called a genius destined to leave her mark in magical history.

That was exactly the expression on Lumia’s face right now. The expression of someone facing something logically incomprehensible.

“…You’re saying that a student knows about Master’s Secret Repository that even I don’t know about?”

“That’s correct.”

Sion shrugged with a relaxed demeanor.

‘I never thought the nonsense you spouted when you came to my Workshop would be helpful in this way.’

He smiled while recalling things about Belusian.

Without a doubt, Belusian Kabala was the most peculiar mage he knew.

Belusian himself was an archmage who had reached the pinnacle of orthodox Magic, yet he didn’t revere that orthodox Magic.

No, he fundamentally didn’t look favorably upon the situation where Magic was monopolized by certain individuals.

– Isn’t it strange, Altair? Magic is open to everyone, yet individual humans arbitrarily monopolize it.

Belusian would visit his Workshop and whenever he had the chance, he would say such things and complain about the current Magic World.

Because of this, his stories would often end with pessimism about the reality that couldn’t be changed.

Having finished his brief thoughts, Sion turned his gaze back toward Lumia. Naturally, she had a confused expression.

But what he had shown was too significant to simply ignore.

Having barely sorted through her complex thoughts, Lumia opened her mouth.

“Let me ask just one thing. Can you make a ‘promise’ to mana about what you’re saying now?”

“I can.”

Along with those words, Sion proved his statement through mana without hesitation.

Mana spread out, indicating that Sion’s words were sincere.

“…Ah.”

“There can be no lies in an oath through mana. Magic is quite convenient at times like this.”

At Sion’s calm attitude, Lumia fell silent for a moment.

Then she opened her mouth after a brief pause.

“Give me time… Honestly, too many things happened today, so deciding here on the spot is a bit…”

“Yes, please do.”

Since it was an expected reaction, Sion nodded without difficulty.

“Oh, and.”

As he got up and was about to leave the room, he offered Lumia some light advice.

“About that theory I mentioned earlier, if you lower the target mana value by about 0.3 points, you should see quite good results.”

“…!”

Lumia’s eyes widened, but Sion left the room without hesitation as if his business was finished.

* * *

Not long after Sion left the room, the Sub-Tower Master, Serentia, entered.

She looked at Lumia with a worried expression and said.

“Lumia, could it be that Sion Rostery has some kind of problem…?”

“Sister Serentia.”

Lumia, as if entranced by something, stared into empty space before asking.

“The ‘Grimoire Recreation’ research we were conducting. We had finished verifying the mana values, right?”

“We did… didn’t we?”

Serentia answered while tilting her head in confusion.

Only Serentia knew that Lumia was struggling to recreate Altair’s grimoire.

That research was being conducted in complete secrecy.

Serentia asked with a hardened expression.

“Lumia, did the information leak somehow? If Sion Rostery noticed our research, could it be that the Rostery family…?”

“No, that can’t be it.”

Lumia immediately denied that hypothesis.

If the Rostery family had noticed in the first place, they wouldn’t have tried to move Sion in such a manner.

They would have persistently pressured Lumia as much as they had dirt on her.

Moreover, she had already confirmed through the Mana Oath that there was no falsehood in Sion’s words.

“For now, I didn’t see any concerning issues with Sion Rostery. No, rather…”

Lumia trailed off.

How exactly should she explain this?

It had been a meeting that lasted less than an hour.

But even that alone was enough to make it clear that all the information about Sion Rostery needed to be completely revised.

“…He’s an unknowable existence.”

In the end, that was the only expression she could manage.

“That Sion Rostery?”

Serentia’s eyes widened as if she couldn’t understand.

The evaluation of Sion Rostery had been uniformly negative.

He had selfishly dragged others into his experiments and caused all sorts of problems, relying on his family name.

If not for the Rostery family name, Sion would have been expelled from the Tower long ago.

How bad must it have been for even the gentle Lumia to openly express her disgust?

“Sister, about student Sion. Do you really think he’s incompetent?”

“Well. It’s been over three years since he entered the Tower, hasn’t it? And he’s consistently shown incompetent behavior. You know it too. Not a single one of the experiments Sion Rostery attempted while causing all that trouble was successful.”

“…That’s right.”

“If he truly had ability, some results would have shown. When someone has talent, fragments of it are bound to show no matter how much they try to hide it.”

But Sion Rostery’s incompetence had truly continued with ‘consistency.’

That’s not something that can be achieved through acting.

However, Lumia had already witnessed Sion’s Dispel. He had effortlessly broken through her magic head-on.

No magic tools were used in that process.

He had truly and thoroughly solved everything with Sion’s personal abilities alone.

“Lumia, what’s wrong? You’ve seemed a bit strange ever since you talked with Sion Rostery…”

“Sigh, I don’t know.”

Lumia let out a deep sigh and reached toward the subspace vault that existed in her room.

And she took out a crudely made box from the safe.

Seeing this, Serentia’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Lumia, this is…”

“Yes, it’s the prototype we created from our ‘Grimoire Recreation Research’ project.”

It was still full of problems.

And Sion had naturally mentioned those problems as if he had seen them firsthand.

Mana leakage, magic deterioration.

Considering that Lumia’s goal was Altair’s grimoire, these were truly fatal problems.

Lumia began adjusting the prototype’s parameters while recalling the advice Sion had left behind.

Seeing this, Serentia was alarmed and tried to stop her.

“W-wait, Lumia! If you mess with that carelessly, it might explode! You know it’s unstable because it’s a prototype!”

“One student’s room already exploded and is in terrible condition, so what’s the problem if something happens to this one here?”

Mages are fundamentally creatures who live by curiosity and die by curiosity. And Lumia was an extremely mage-like existence.

‘…He definitely said 0.3 points.’

When mana reaches decimal points, it becomes a difference as small as a speck of dust.

Lumia wasn’t yet prepared to test such detailed parameters.

In other words, it was essentially gambling.

‘But what can I do about being curious?’

In the end, Lumia was also a mage.

Her eyes gleaming, she placed her hands on the prototype and began adjusting the parameters.

“W-w-wait…!”

Serentia crouched down with a pale face.

But even as time passed, the prototype didn’t explode.

“Huh?”

After a moment, Serentia opened her eyes and carefully turned her head to check the prototype.

It was fine.

No, beyond just being fine.

It was emitting a gentle light and maintaining mana in a systematic form.

“Wait, Lumia. Don’t tell me this is…”

“That’s right. The magic deterioration has been resolved.”

Lumia nodded and picked up the prototype to examine its condition.

Grimoires are magic tools that exist for those who haven’t been chosen by mana.

Therefore, they absorb mana from the atmosphere and store it artificially.

Until now, the problem had been that mana wasn’t being stored properly.

But now…

“It’s functioning perfectly.”

“I-is that really true…?”

“The mana leakage remains, but who would have thought that simply lowering the parameters a bit would solve one of the problems…”

“Lumia, what exactly did you do to make this happen?!”

“…”

Serentia kept pressing Lumia, but Lumia didn’t answer.

Instead, she just stared intently at the prototype while thinking of one person.

‘…Sion Rostery.’

What exactly was his identity?

Though a long-standing problem had been solved, the questions in Lumia’s mind only continued to multiply.

* * *

The next day.

[I have returned, Human.]

“Yeah, let’s do well.”

At those words, Akasha spoke.

[By the way, the functional problems still persist. As you know, Human, the number of mana modules poured into the procedure to improve your physical body was beyond imagination.]

“I know.”

[If we can obtain proper equipment and materials from your workshop, Human, it should be possible to quickly normalize the functions, but please keep in mind that currently, magic up to the 6th Circle is the maximum allowed.]

“Alright.”

Though Sion answered casually, he was calculating carefully in his mind.

‘If I sacrifice Akasha, it means I could go up to the 7th Circle.’

Of course, he wouldn’t use it unless absolutely necessary, but well, if the situation became too urgent, it couldn’t be helped.

[Ah, why do I feel ominous?]

“Ahem.”

At Akasha’s increasingly sharp intuition, Sion quickly got up.

Even though a day had passed, there were no major problems with his body.

Seeing that there were no particular side effects or abnormal situations, it should be safe to judge that there were no problems.

But he wasn’t without complaints.

“But it’s a bit disappointing.”

[What is?]

“There’s no one picking fights with me. This isn’t the kind of Magic Tower life I dreamed of.”

Sion clicked his tongue as he spoke.

“I’m already annoyed because of those old geezers from the Academic World, so isn’t there someone I can take my anger out on?”

[No, Human…]

Akasha couldn’t understand why he was waiting for targets to take his anger out on to come to him naturally.

[If you’re a human with a thorough law-abiding spirit and basic moral sense, you wouldn’t think about beating people up to vent your anger.]

“Why not?”

Sion couldn’t understand.

“If the other party picks a fight first, wouldn’t that establish self-defense?”

[That’s right. But Human…]

If it was a matter that could be justified as self-defense, Akasha wouldn’t have said such things in the first place.

[Aren’t you currently spreading bait and waiting to vent your anger?]

“…”

[Based on my calculations as a high-performance artificial intelligence, Human’s psychology appears closer to self-harm threats than Self-Defense…]

Faced with logically undeniable words, Sion chose a simple answer.

“So what.”

[Ah, yes.]

Since this wasn’t the first or second time experiencing this, Akasha obediently accepted it.

While thinking to herself.

‘Although the Blue Tower is in decline, would there really be anyone who would pick a fight in this situation?’

Moreover, Sion’s current body belonged to the legitimate heir of the Rostery Family.

As a high-performance artificial intelligence, Akasha understood that backgrounds like family lineage were considered very important to humans.

Therefore, Akasha thought to herself.

This time, unlike what Human expected, there wouldn’t be any idiots who would voluntarily take the bait.

However, such thoughts of Akasha’s.

– Come out, Sion Rostery!

Were shattered to pieces by the existence of an ‘idiot’ shouting loudly from beyond the door.

“They’ve come.”

Sion grinned and got up.

“A sacrifice for Self-Defense has voluntarily come to accept this fiery anger of mine.”

[Isn’t the justification on their side?]

“Akasha, remember this.”

Sion gave the artificial intelligence a lesson with a gentle smile.

“Justification is something you create.”

[…]

Since even the energy to respond felt wasteful, Akasha saved her words.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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