Millennium Witch

Book 3: Chapter 290: Engine Technology and the Abyss

After completely devouring the entire antigravity engine and reproducing a new one in a one-to-one restoration, Yvette had Tertia take the Sky Realm back out of the divine realm. Since it was already late at night, the citizens of the City of Truth never noticed that the enormous shadow that always hung above their heads had briefly vanished; life went on as peacefully as ever.Inside the dark gray engine chamber, Yvette stood on the floating observation platform, her silver hair catching a faint sheen in the dim light. She turned toward Tertia at her side and said calmly, “I’ve more or less figured out its underlying principles.”

Then, before Tertia could ask, she continued, “But unfortunately, this technology can’t be used directly, and it doesn’t do much to help a mage’s cultivation. On top of that, it’s too complex, too far ahead of its time… I don’t recommend you learn it right now. Can you accept that?”

Tertia froze for a moment. If anyone else had said that here, she would have thought they were lying. But the one saying it was her grandmaster. She pushed her glasses up and said seriously, “I understand. But I still hope you can at least explain it to me a little.”

As the owner of the Knowledge Divine Realm, there was no way she wouldn’t be curious about the technology behind an antigravity engine.

And as one of the most knowledgeable people in the world, she felt her understanding of magic and the world was already quite unique. Yet her grandmaster was saying this technology was too complex and too far ahead—between the lines, it made her feel like the mighty dean of the Academy of Truth was being underestimated… How could that be okay?

“Alright.” Yvette said, “The great Dao is simple. The technological direction of the antigravity engine is very clear. It mainly comes from a special type of element used inside it. Those elements are the real key to the engine working. I call that kind of element ‘anti-element.’”

As she spoke, an extremely tiny black vortex appeared in her hand—an anti-element sample she’d created through mimicry. “Its magical properties look the same as normal elements, but if it comes into contact with normal elements, it triggers a massive chain annihilation. Anti-elements also have a rune siphon effect, but for a non–anti-element world made of normal matter and elements, what it manifests as is a repulsion field, which just happens to cancel out a gravity field.”

“What the antigravity engine is really doing is figuring out how to stabilize and control these anti-elements. Mm, that’s the simple principle. The rest goes deeper and gets pretty complicated. Do you still want to hear it?”

“Yes!” Tertia said firmly.

Yvette nodded, then pulled a whiteboard out of one of the small divine realms she used as a storage pouch and started writing on it. “Next, I’ll lay out a few formulas. These formulas are the foundation of the control algorithms. Memorize them carefully…”

After glancing at Tertia, who was earnestly trying to commit the formulas to memory, Yvette went on, “As for how to collect anti-elements, I only have the most basic methods here. They involve some rarely used logic runes as well. They’re all written here…”

“It’s worth noting that anti-element is extremely dangerous. Its destructive impact on the rune siphon effect can even lead to planet-level disintegration. It’s a material for world-ending weapons. Here are a few chain-reaction formulas—pay close attention…”

“Oh, right, I’ve got a few classic example problems. Once you take a look, you’ll get it. These are the most common scenarios…”

“And this section is prerequisite material in higher mathematics. It’s very necessary for deeper study…”

“…Uh, hm? Tertia? Are you still with me?”

“Hey?”

“Moshi moshi?”

“…”

No one knew how much time had passed. Watching that pale little hand waving back and forth in front of her eyes until it left afterimages, Tertia finally snapped out of her dazed state—only to be shocked to discover that the whiteboard beside her grandmaster, which had clearly been blank just a moment ago, was now densely covered in all kinds of unfamiliar and terrifying symbols. It was as if some mysterious being had quietly stolen a chunk of her time.

A few seconds later, she lowered her head in embarrassment and stared at the tips of her shoes. “Grandmaster, I’m… not very familiar with this material yet, so…”

For the peerless dean of the Academy of Truth to show this kind of attitude was, of course, something incredibly rare. Yvette herself didn’t think anything of it. She said, “Which is why I said I don’t recommend you learn it now. Once you’ve mastered all the earlier material, come find me again.”

Tertia hurriedly nodded. As she let out a breath of relief, her respect for her grandmaster grew another notch. Right then she suddenly felt that being underestimated by her grandmaster didn’t seem so unacceptable after all—in fact, it felt… perfectly natural?

After all, who on earth could understand this sort of unfathomable, indescribably abstract knowledge? Even True Gods might not be able to, right?

No, no, I can’t have such defeatist thoughts… She shook her head guiltily, as if trying to shake the urge to give up right out of her mind.

…

It had to be said, when it came to high-level magitech courses, there was just no getting around mathematics. If Tertia wanted to obtain more of the Origin Civilization’s technological legacy from Yvette in the future, she’d have to cram a massive amount of math, and by any measure that was going to be a long road—especially when Yvette herself had things to take care of.

Hm? You’re asking what she has to do?

Of course it wasn’t slacking off, sleeping, and eating her fill. She had to mold new divine realms, interface them with the Central Divine Realm, and open spatial corridors leading to Ish Island and the Snowfields.

And Tertia had also decided she would represent the Academy of Truth in publicly aligning with the Silver Witch Church on the continent. As the Silver Throne, there were bound to be occasions where she’d have to show her face.

After ending Tertia’s lesson early, Yvette followed the corridor up to the first floor.

She walked to the entrance of the dean’s residence and gazed at the garden, shrouded in moonlight beneath the pitch-black night sky. Moonlight poured down like mercury, plating every plant in silver. The distant peaks were etched into the darkness in deep silhouettes, and farther still stretched a surging sea of clouds, and above that, the vast river of stars.

She spaced out quietly for a while, then noticed several enormous silver scissors automatically trimming the garden. Each pair of scissors was half a person tall, its whole body forged from mithril, and the blades glinted coldly under the moonlight. When they sensed her gaze, the scissors actually bowed to her like living things, and then moved away, disappearing into the depths of the flowerbeds.

“What are those?” Yvette asked. She didn’t use her mental power to inspect them closely, just took a distant look. They felt like some kind of alchemical construct equipped with AI, like those AI skeletons or mechanical automatons on Ish Island, yet somehow they didn’t feel quite the same—because as far as she knew, the Academy of Truth hadn’t unlocked anything like a mind-core on its tech tree yet.

“Those are magical creatures Teacher once created with divine arts,” Tertia said. “During the War of Divine Judgment, Teacher took almost all of the magical creatures she’d created with her into battle. Only the ones responsible for maintaining the Sky Realm escaped and survived until now.”

Yvette understood, then swept them with her mental power. She found that besides those silver scissors, there were other magical creatures moving through the garden as well—watering cans, brooms, dustpans, and the like. The level of life in these magical creatures was extremely low, about equivalent to single-celled organisms in nature, and the spirits within them were so small as to be almost negligible. But thanks to their special life form, they came with some built-in adjustments related to rune compilation—just enough for them to carry out simple daily chores.

She studied them for a while, and when she discovered she couldn’t see through the mysteries of these magical creatures in a short time, she put the matter aside for now and asked, “Have you met Lucia yet?”

Tertia’s face flushed a little. “Not yet,” she said.

She paused. “But I’ve already reminded the rest of the academy council—if Little… Little Shishu’s blood pit gets exposed, they’ll all help cover for it as soon as it happens.”

Listening to how hard she worked to force out that form of address, Yvette soothed her, “Don’t be nervous. At least before I come back from the Western Continent, I don’t plan on telling Lucia who I really am. And even if she does find out, it won’t stop you from dealing with her according to your respective seniority.”

“That wouldn’t be right.” Tertia said softly, then shifted the topic a bit stiffly. “Um… when are you planning to go to the Western Continent?”

“Next spring. That way I can leave anchor points in both the Academy of Truth and Adelock,” Yvette said. “By the way, how much have you found out about Lant?”

“I’ve found a bit,” Tertia said. “Lant Quinn first rose to prominence over three hundred years ago, during the era of the Two Kings on the Abyssal Continent.”

“At that time, after Teacher fell, the demons split into a northern and a southern throne. The northern throne, held by abyssal demons, proclaimed itself the Chaos Demon King, and the southern throne, dominated by demonfolk, proclaimed itself the Arcane Demon King. For a long time, the northern throne had the upper hand—until Lant Quinn suddenly appeared as the First Demon General, reversed the southern throne’s losing streak, defeated the Chaos Demon King head-on, and helped the Arcane Demon King unify the Abyssal Continent. He’s considered the single most powerful demon of the Two Kings era, said to surpass both Demon Kings and the Demon Marshal.”

“But after the Arcane Demon King became the legitimate third Demon King, Lant Quinn, as the First Demon General, retired from the stage. No one knew where he went. Some rumors said he went into seclusion in the Abyssal Continent’s most mysterious place, the ‘Abyss.’ Others believed he was simply too powerful, and coupled with the fact that demonfolk weren’t well-liked by the Demon Gods to begin with, he was assassinated. In short, his exact whereabouts are unknown.”

Yvette asked, “The Abyss? What’s that?”

“It’s a legendary, mysterious place on the Abyssal Continent. Supposedly, it hides the ultimate secrets of the whole Western Continent and even the Mortal Realm, and holds endless treasure. Only a Demon King can open it. But that place only appeared after the War of Divine Judgment ended, so Teacher never went there,” Tertia said. “Of course, that’s just an exaggerated legend. After all, it’s a core secret of the demons. Most demons themselves know very little about it, let alone us over on the Eastern Continent.”

Ultimate secrets… only a Demon King can open it… Yvette silently rolled this information around in her mind and suddenly came up with a rather unique idea.

If only a Demon King can open it, then couldn’t she just become the Demon King?

Might be worth a try—she just wasn’t sure whether the Demon Gods would mind…