End of the Magic Era

“I really don’t understand…” Suyass answered after a minute of silence.

“Haha…” Karon got up in the dark tent and cast a Light spell. “Take out your Tenebrous Field scroll and take a look, you should understand…”

“Tenebrous Field?” Suyass was puzzled, but he took out the scroll as instructed and carefully studied it under the light.

He read through it very carefully, to the point of analyzing every circuit and node, but after half an hour, Suyass still didn’t notice anything odd with his Tenebrous Field.

“Karon, there is no issue with the Tenebrous Field…” Suyass didn’t understand and doubtfully asked, “Moreover, the last part of the Tenebrous Field had been completed by Teacher and yourself, how could there be any flaw?”

“I’m not talking about the Tenebrous Field itself…” Karon shook his head helplessly before walking over to Suyass and pointing at the formula written in Melting Snow Ink. “See this formula?”

“You mean this Azkara Formula? Haha, that Mafa Merlin is truly interesting, he actually thought of using this kind of brute force method to break the Tenebrous Field…” As a Master Alchemist, how could Suyass not know the meaning of that formula?

The brute force method of the Azkara Formula was also known as solving via exhaustion. As long as there was enough time, the Azkara Formula would be able to break all alchemy arrays.

But there would never be enough time.

Suyass was confident in his computing ability, but if he wanted to use the Azkara Formula to break an array, even the simplest Spiritual level array, he would need a month at the very least. Nothing could be done about that, as the Azkara Formula’s brute force method was the simplest and most brainless way to break arrays.

Usually, the Azkara Formula would only be used when one wanted to save strength at the cost of time.

But a Master Alchemist like Mafa Merlin used a brainless Azkara Formula to try to crack a near True Spirit Array in a day. This could only be described as laughable.

“Do you think that the idea is too simple and brainless?”

“Ahah, I just feel that Mafa Merlin is very naive…”

“Then you are wrong, Suyass, you are the naive one…”

“Ah?” Suyass’ laughing face suddenly froze when he heard that. “Me?”

“Yes…” Karon sighed and pointed at the small Nesser runes on the scrolls which were the calculations of the Azkara Formula. “Take a look at that…”

“Sure.” Karon’s insistence made Suyass have no choice but to take another look.

But after looking over it for a while, he still couldn’t understand.

To be honest, Mafa Merlin’s alchemy skills were quite good, even the near-impossible task of cracking the array with the Azkara Formula was done very methodically, to Suyass’ surprise. This discovery gave him a good impression of Mafa Merlin.

But it wasn’t much…

Because in Suyass’ eyes, this was too simple and too mindless.

The results of those calculations were completely unrelated to the Tenebrous Field. In other words, in the past hour, Mafa Merlin had completed useless calculations, basically wasting the hour in vain.

He felt that if not for Karon’s sudden appearance, Mafa Merlin might have wasted a full day before being forced to pay with his arms.

“Looks like you don’t understand…” Seeing Suyass remaining silent for so long, Karon knew that he hadn’t noticed anything. After thinking, he reminded him, “Look there, how large is the scope of those results?”

“Hmm?” After Karon’s reminder, Suyass finally found some clues.

That’s right, the results of these calculations were large in scope.

It gave the feeling of having no pattern, spreading in multiple directions.

But what was the meaning behind it?

Since Karon made him look very carefully, it wouldn’t be that simple. After thinking of this, Suyass reined in his temper and carefully examined those runes.

‘Hold on, there seems to be a pattern…’

Suyass then noticed that these calculations weren’t random but, were in fact following the trajectory of the Tenebrous Field and were just skipping parts.

Suyass suddenly felt cold sweat trickling down his back.

Although reason told Suyass that this was impossible, completely impossible, the shocking results still made Suyass forget himself as he ferociously grabbed that parchment, his red eyes staring intensely at those calculations.

The more he looked, the paler he became.

Cold sweat started trickling down his forehead as the hands that were holding the scroll were already shivering.

Because Suyass found out that the range of these calculations was becoming smaller and smaller.

Although the answer hadn’t appeared, the calculations of that exhaustion method had already been approaching the correct answer.

If it had been another cracking method, Suyass might have thought that this was guesswork and that he had missed the true answer due to a moment of carelessness.

But this was using the proof exhaustion method of the Azkara Formula. Suyass knew that these calculations were only aiming at narrowing down the answer, and that only the remaining one would be the correct answer.

“Do you understand now?”

“I… I understand.” As he said that, Suyass could clearly feel jitters. His hoarse voice carried some happiness as Suyass knew that he had escaped the worst.

At this time, Suyass truly understand why he had been forced to talk to the other side for so long and slap himself…

“That Mafa Merlin, he… He is truly capable of cracking the Tenebrous Field…”

“It’s more than just being able…” Karon shook his head, sighing. “You were in the Golden Forest Plane before, so you didn’t know. Do you remember that I’ve spent a few years helping Star Sage Jouyi try to crack the Fanrusen Formula?”

“Yeah, I remember. Jouyi even came to the Mercury Tower to thank Teacher, saying that your work on alchemy modules was very beautiful.”

“Haha, very beautiful… I also believed so at the time, but I learnt not long ago that it depended who you compared it to…”

“Ah?”

“If my work was compared with Merlin’s, I’m afraid that my work would amount to nothing…”

“How could this be!?” Suyass was in disbelief.

Karon already had a foot in the Artisan realm. Few alchemists could compare to him in all of Noscent. He was an authority in the field of the magical use of alchemy modules, and even his teacher Nolan praised him. Otherwise, Star Sage Jouyi wouldn’t have paid such a huge sum to ask for his help.

Suyass could understand Mafa Merlin having the potential for breaking the Tenebrous Field, but Karon’s words were too unimaginable, saying his work “would amount to nothing”…

Didn’t these words mean that Mafa Merlin had made a greater contribution than Karon in the cracking of the Fanrusen Formula?

“What did that Mafa Merlin do? Why do you hold him in such high regard?”

“Haha, Mafa Merlin only did one thing, which was cracking spell matrices.”

“Just this?” Suyass froze when he heard that. “Isn’t that Hogg’s work?”

“Just this? Haha, if Hogg heard your words, he wouldn’t be able to stop crying. I shall let you know, on the day he joined the research team, he completed three years of Hogg’s work. What followed was even more frightening. In one day and one night, Mafa Merlin received some unknown stimulation and started frantically breaking spell matrices. In front of the entire research team, in front of the entire Cloud Tower, in one night, he completely cracked a dozen spell matrices…”

“A dozen!” Suyass was very startled. “Isn’t… Isn’t that almost the entire Fanrusen Formula? Doesn’t that mean that Mafa Merlin pretty much cracked the Fanrusen Formula on his own?”

“What do you think?”

“How could this be…” Suyass didn’t know exactly what kind of concept a dozen core spell matrices was, but he knew that Star Sage Jouyi had spent over twenty years working on the Fanrusen Formula and only broke a few core spell matrices…

“The miracle of that night is still spreading in the Cloud Tower. You see, not many people know of Mafa Merlin in Okland as of now, but sooner or later, Mafa Merlin will come to Okland and shock everyone. This is why I rushed back from the Golden Forest Plane, and the true reason I slapped you earlier.”

“This is… This is Teacher’s opinion?”

“Indeed.” Karon nodded. “Teacher had already been paying attention to this Mafa Merlin for a while. He originally wanted me to get in contact with him and see if I could pull him into the Mercury Tower. But after the recent gathering of the Magic Hand, Teacher changed his mind and told me not to be hasty and to just give him a few favors to establish a good relationship.”