Reborn As The Villain

Chapter 263 - 214 Part 1

Chapter 263: Chapter 214 Part 1Arnold and Madilith returned to the camp after being gone for five minutes.

No one questioned what they were doing. The two went their separate ways.

Arnold sat next to Anais again. she didn't ask what Madilith wanted so the two went right back to their earlier discussions.

Arnold had noticed a notification flying next to his status while he was heading back earlier.

· Death Flag detected!

This animalistic killing intent felt closer to beast than man. Arnold had been feeling it for a while now since returning to the camp. While he is able to ignore people's glares, blatant killing intent was troublesome to ignore since it can't be easily shrugged off.

Of course, that doesn't mean that it'll interfere with tasks that require his full attention. It'll still feel like a mosquito buzzing near his ear, though.

This is a Death Flag so it was something he could not ignore but in order to respond to the threat appropriately, he'd need to observe the aggressor's actions first—

The killing intent was coming from Hofir, who was sitting on the other end of the camp. Madilith was by his side casually speaking to him. Noticing that he was ignoring her, Madilith pulled his cheek with a pout. Hofir's expression loosened and he hurriedly apologized to her.

'That woman is such a...' Arnold wanted to say "bitch" but felt like she's something much worse.

"It's really impossible for ordinary magicians to multicast...?" Anais sulked after hearing Arnold's answer in response to her question from before. She was asking Arnold to help her with some important work from the academy that she wanted to finish during her spare time in the dungeon. The work wasn't needed for her grades since all of it was excluded in last year's curriculum. She was mainly doing them because they were difficult tasks that not even last year's top students could complete without guidance from professors and University students. By completing them, she'd be able to present them to the university in her portfolio.

It wasn't needed for her to go this far since she already has near-perfect marks in all her classes but she felt that this was something she wanted to do. Anais was the kind of person who wants to not only answer expectations but exceed them even if the payoff wasn't anything special.

Anais came to Arnold for help, thinking that he was more knowledgeable than her in the subjects (a misunderstanding that arose from the recent events).

Well, he was once the Supreme Sorcerer and now had the mind of a genius. Of course he can help her.

Arnold replied to Anais:

"Unless your mana channels have three extra lanes around your core then yes, it's impossible."

A mana core wasn't actually a physical object within a person but rather an accumulation of one's mana in the shape of a sphere. Your mana channels curl around this core to extract its energy and distribute the mana into spells or rather magic circles which produce those spells.

"The extra loops imply that your channels are larger than the average magician which allows you to handle larger amounts of mana and even be able to multicast. This is a rare occurrence. Only one out of ten thousand magicians are capable of multicasting. And even though they exist, they can't cast two spells higher than the second rank at the same time so not even the most elite magicians can do anything remarkable with their potential. That's even rarer. Not even the Archmage can do this even with her immense mana pool."

Hell, not even Lauran will be able to multicast two Tenth-Rank spells for example. Neither could Lufulur. The only person capable of doing this would be Elora, a Magic Manipulator, hence the name. Of course, she wouldn't be able to do this at her current level of strength and experience.

In order to help her get full control of her abilities, she'd need a certain device that will allow her to modify her class to suit her needs (yes, this is possible but only for her class). The device can't currently be built due to humanity's lacking magic technology so Elora is limited in what she could do.

Arnold might request help from the Magic Towers to build it. While he doesn't trust the Towers due to the conspiracies and schemes going on in the shadows (partly the fault of the Republic and Ronia's faction), he still considered them a valuable asset to have for the future. He'll need them to work with him to build teleportation gates since he can't exactly dedicate his time to doing something like this when he has a city to run and a school career to finish. While all this was necessary, he still needed someone capable of overseeing these tasks. Lauran was the natural choice given her immense magic potential that allows her to use Seventh-Rank magic even as an untrained magician. However, he was considering adding Elora as well but only once the two grow close enough.

Arnold looked at Anais who was wracking her brains next to him. Since his earlier answer wasn't satisfactory or what she wanted to hear, she had no choice but to leave the question unanswered. No one would blame her since the question is deliberately meant to be impossible to solve. "How to multicast" sounds easy at first but the actual answer to the question was not. Or more like it was impossible to give an answer. "A regular magician can't dual-cast" isn't exactly the answer to the question but that's all she can write down. However, adding what Arnold told her before about "the extra channel loops" should earn her half the points that the "non-existent" answer should've given Anais in theory.

The Magic University will definitely see her more favorably (as opposed to simply answering that she didn't know) if she presents this in her portfolio for next year. If one thought about it, maybe the scholars who wrote this question wanted students to lay down their theories? Any answer besides "I don't know" or "It's impossible" would be correct if the context was in the lines of "It might be possible if".

In any case...

'Anais might be a valuable ally as well... I'm acquainted with three magicians, two of which have monstrous potential. How did I get so lucky? Will I even need my original player character?'

Lauran might be tricky to get on board (given their history) but he was certain that Anais and Elora would be happy to help him out in the future.

Arnold suddenly had a curious question for Anais after he thought about teleportation gates.

"Hey, Anais. Do you think teleportation is possible with magical technology?"

"Of course," she nodded after closing her books, "That's how we're able to transfer back to our world, right?"

"The device on the 50th floor. Have you ever wondered how it works?"

"Of course I have." she suddenly looked at Arnold like he was a crazy person, "Don't tell me... You know how it works...?"

"...I don't..."

He was lying, of course. He knew the formulas (both magic and scientific) and needed materials to construct such a thing but had no idea of how to create it. The construction itself requires someone with a career in magical engineering (a non-existent field right now). The aforementioned formulas are the building blocks but you need a skilled architect to turn it into something greater.

"I've been thinking ever since I first discovered the device—what if we create something similar? It doesn't have to be capable of world travel or need the energy of moonlight to work. It should be a miniature version that allows us to reach point B just by stepping through the device. One in each nation or city would be more convenient for both supply chains and regular folk who want to visit family for example."

The first one will naturally be built in his city to promote tourism. The other nations should pay him to gain access to his device. All he needs now is a "Head Magician of Re