Mage? Magic Engineer!

The light from the spherical mechanism at the machine’s core faded, and its rotation slowed from high speed before finally coming to a stop.

Rorschach’s form also stabilized as the once-violent Magic Power subsided.

He appeared with a smile. Caroline frowned. "You were too reckless. Casting under these conditions is incredible, but you used yourself as the target. What would have happened if you’d failed?"

"Well, strictly speaking, I wasn’t Casting just now. I was just verifying a phenomenon." Rorschach began to explain what had just happened, and why he couldn’t stop smiling.

"The device developed by the Empire can suppress Magic Power and even prevent divine miracles. Its fundamental principle is using high-frequency, chaotic Magic Pulses to interrupt any process that requires drawing upon Magic Power."

"We all know that."

"But the Empire’s researchers, and us, have all overlooked one thing. We’ve been too focused on Magic itself, failing to realize that Magic Power inherently alters the Material Realm. So how could a device that agitates ambient Magic Power so intensely *not* affect the Material Realm as well?"

Rorschach had caught that slight blurriness during his observation. "At the device’s core, even the existence of solid objects isn’t entirely stable. They tremble along with the device’s output, and reality itself falls into a subtle state of chaos... Allow me to propose an unverified theory...

"Everything in the Material Realm has its own frequency and wavelength, so they can also be described as waves. However, this fluctuation is normally minuscule. If you think of matter as being distributed throughout space according to a certain probability, that probability distribution is usually highly concentrated, giving us definite positions and forms.

"This device now destabilizes that probability distribution. It polarizes the probability distribution of Magic Power while causing the probability distribution of matter to trend toward uniformity. Although this trend is incredibly minuscule, we Casters can amplify this tendency within ourselves.

"Incidentally, this means there’s a crack in the stability of the real world. While it prevents the Mother Goddess’s intrusion, it also opens a window for Her. I hope She doesn’t wake up and discover this." In closing one door to the Old God, humanity had unknowingly opened a window, though it seemed neither side had noticed.

Rorschach had experienced this several times before without noticing. The reason was that past Forbidden Magic Devices all emitted instantaneous pulses, achieving their goal with an initial, over-frequency tidal wave and a subsequent, brief Magic Power vacuum. The current "persistent-type" model had finally exposed this peculiar phenomenon.

Andre’s mind was as muddled as the device’s output had been. Caroline, who had some knowledge of space-time, barely managed to follow Rorschach’s train of thought. "Are you saying you disappeared just now because you dispersed your own probability distribution throughout space?"

"Yes. And by ’myself,’ to be precise, I mean the constituent matter of my body in the Material Realm. What I dispersed were two of its elements: momentum and mass. But we are Casters with powerful Souls... I didn’t dissipate. Instead, I broke free from the shackles of my physical organs and gained a far more marvelous perspective."

In that wondrous, enhanced version of Arcane Vision, he lost his perception of matter. But this didn’t mean Rorschach was blind. On the contrary, he was in a state of complete interaction with Magic Power. The background was a pitch-black expanse, and the Magic Power manifested as a brilliant tide.

This tide was not the raging torrent one might imagine. In Rorschach’s view, its probability distribution was concentrated, arranged in striped intervals that rotated alternately around the device’s center. An ordinary Caster would be helpless within this death vortex, but now, with his vision and state synced to its frequency, Rorschach felt that controlling it was not impossible.

He started by capturing a single "stripe." Rorschach interfered with the Magic Power on this stripe, changing its spatial position and form, and then further concentrated and compressed it into a fine thread.

He then saw the two brightest Spiritual Lights, flickering precariously in the "storm." With a brief flicker of perception, he knew they were Caroline and his first and greatest disciple, Andre.

Rorschach twisted this thread, splitting it and extending the two ends to touch them. If one were to take a cross-section of this "thread," they would see that the Magic Power rampaging within was still too chaotic for Casting, but manipulating the thread itself appeared to be effective and undisturbed by the surrounding turbulence.

This was how he had performed the Communication Skill within the Forbidden Magic Device. It was a revolution in Casting. He still used the vibrational frequency of Magic Power, but Rorschach had leveraged the device’s polarization of its probability distribution, pushing it further into the state of a "string," and then "plucked" it to "play."

Although he had only completed a simple Zeroth Ring Spell, this was Rorschach’s first step.

Of course, if he was the only one who could succeed, then this method of Casting would be meaningless.

’But a bold idea wormed its way into my mind. It seems I could build upon this "Forbidden Magic Device" by adding a new Magic Power polarization... no, a stringification device. Combined, could I call it a "Magic Weaving Device"?’

If successful, the machine would have a truly vicious effect—it would render the old Casting System useless, forcing Mages to pluck "Magic Strings" to perform their spells. The device could also be linked with the Tower Spirit on the Golden Tree to allow for more refined back-end control and assistance.

The assistance of the Golden Tree’s Tower Spirit would probably be very important, because Rorschach was discovering that this method of Casting was exceptionally difficult, though it was also possible he just wasn’t proficient yet.

If Rorschach were just a bit more villainous, the era of privatized Casting would be just around the corner. In the future, there’d be no need for spell rings, only VIP Level 1, 2... all the way to Level 9 Mages.

’No, no, no. A device like this could never cover the entire continent. But it could replace the Empire’s plan. Instead of a blanket ban on Mages Casting within cities, it could be changed to only allowing the new system to be used for Casting within city limits. I could even implement blacklists and whitelists...’

’If this technology can be realized, it would be most meaningful for the Magic Guild.’

’If my idea comes to fruition and the Magic Guild deploys it in all the major cities, we could seize the initiative from the Empire on this issue, with the Guild operating the devices itself. That way, Master Kano’s dream of a "powerful Guild" could be realized in the cities first. Most importantly, if the Mages complain, the Guild can just pass the buck: "Regulating Magic isn’t what we want, but the Empire is forcing our hand! They didn’t even want you Casting in the cities to begin with, so be content with this compromise!"’

Yes, Rorschach felt gratified on the Magic Guild’s behalf.

"Um... Teacher Rorschach?" Andre asked, seeing the sinister, dopey grin on Rorschach’s face after the experiment ended. He was a little worried that his teacher had suffered some kind of accident, that something had gone wrong with his mind...

"Ah? Oh." Rorschach snapped out of his reverie. He ordered Martin to distribute Energy Potions to the ailing Mages and Apprentices to help them recover, then shouted, "No one who didn’t pass out is allowed to leave! We’re not doing any work today. All of you will undergo desensitization training to adapt to the Forbidden Magic Domain!" ’If they aren’t desensitized,’ he thought, ’they’ll be half-dead every time I turn the machine on. How could I conduct any follow-up experiments?’

Caroline was still suspicious. "Rorschach, what on earth were you just thinking about?"

"I was thinking about whether I could use this as a bargaining chip to join the Aurora Elder Council." Rorschach was already working just as hard for the Guild as the Aurora Elders, but he lacked a corresponding position. He still had to ask Master Humboldt to pass messages to Master Kou Bo, or communicate with Kano and Feuerbach himself. It was all so cumbersome. What a ridiculous state of affairs.