The sound of festivities resounded faintly inside the walls of the magic hall.
After the funerals for the fallen heroes were held in the checkroom this morning, master ordered the kitchen staffs to prepare a grand banquet in celebration of the tenth floor's victory.
The feast was open to every resident of the lodging's second floor.
But the raid team would be receiving most of the pampering.
Raiding the tower's floors and exploit their precious loot. The tower raiders. The raid team.
Those were the terms Zecht and Norn came up with for the parties which climbed the tower and cleared the Quintal Trials.
Once evening came, the raid team was forced by the fairy to attend the grand banquet master had prepared on the second floor square. Well, Pauline and the others, actually.
Long tables and benches were set neatly above the rift of space-time. They were all decorated with embroidered cloth, candles, and flower vases, overlain with numerous delicacies prepared by the kitchen staffs.
Some of the first floor residents turned out to be musicians whom often performs at inns and taverns.
They were ordered by master to entertain the attendees during the banquet. Of course, master prepared the instruments for them out of thin air, just like how master previously produced those gifts for us.
I rejected the banquet invitation, at first, but eventually went at the fairy's urging.
How could I not? When she said nobody would dare eat or drink anything before I 'opened' the banquet. Something about me being the leader of the raid team.
I shuddered to name myself with that title considering what happened on the tenth floor.
Wanting to immediately return to my business in the magic hall, I spoke simple words of gratitude to my comrades in Party 1 and 2, a brief regard to the fallen heroes, commending everyone's contribution in winning over the siege of Loro, how they helped changing Dunia's history into a better one, and appreciated the crucial aid from the crafters, the gatherers, and the cooks in our entire climb endeavor.
The banquet finally began at the end of my short speech. I did hope it was short.
However, when I was about to turn to the magic hall and leave the banquet, Pauline snatched my arm and insisted that I ate the food on the plate she presented me.
Apparently the chief cook had predicted that I was not planning to stay long in the feast.
I tried my best to act as if I was enjoying myself in front of Pauline. The woman could be very persistent at times.
As I dined, I noticed Jonah and Darius staring uneasily toward Trudy. Shanny was simply glaring the woman as if she were a goblin.
Whatever happened between them?
I would like to find out about this tension, but once I saw Pauline turned around to speak with the chief crafter and the chief gatherer at another table, I immediately stood and swiftly slipped away from the banquet.
Shutting the magic hall doors behind me, I retreated to the research table at the end of the grand library where a pile of books and notes were scattered.
I had completed the research quota for the day. However, I was currently occupying the table for another form of research.
I inspected the magic formula written on the grimoire I obtained from the second Quintal Trial as I sat myself on the cushioned chair.
I shifted my gaze to an open book next to the grimoire and investigated whether the formula written on that book could be related to the one on the grimoire.
When mere glances could not further my assumption, I grabbed my pen and copied the two formulas on a blank paper I had prepared on the table.
I inserted numbers and altered the variables to simulate the formulas in different cases. Hoping I would find a common pattern that could relate one and the other.
Once I found the relation, no matter how small, I could finally guess what the formula on the grimoire was supposed to be used for.
If put in layman terms, the formulas on the grimoire were like a pie. A finished product.
I roughly knew the shape and smell was resembling a pie. I roughly knew the sort of outcome the formula would produce once practiced with mana. Roughly.
But I did not know what was inside the pie and what kind of flavor I would taste. I would not know how exactly the spell would unfold once casted, nor how the environment would react to the casting.
Furthermore, I did not know how to make such pie. I did not know the steps required prior the stage of the formulas written on the grimoire.
At the moment, I was someone who did not even know how to cook.
I would not know what ingredients to be used or whether I would need an oven or a pan. Let alone if I could create the exact same texture, smell, and taste.
There were quite many things I did not know!
The grimoire was incomplete in a sense.
As if it was expecting me to already be aware of some untold things. It assumed me to have the prior knowledge necessary to make sense of the formulas written on the book.
What I was trying to do through comparing the grimoire's formula and the existing formula that I already understood was like combining random ingredients and random cooking method in the hope of creating a pie.
I was completely unaware that in the process I was either making a cake, a roasted beef, a boiled egg, or maybe wine, or nothing at all.
I had spent almost my every waking hour since returning from the tenth floor repeating this process over and over again. All for just one single formula in the grimoire, of at least a hundred more in its pages.
Shanny asked me to make sure the grimoire and the crystal from the subquest would be of some use, good use, for our climb effort.
I had investigated the crystal by examining it on the enchantment pedestal.
I was certain it was a powerful material that could be used to forge great weapons.
But I could not find a way to process the crystal.
Nothing I did had any effect on the object. I could dump it to the sun and it would not melt, or even crack.
Gerrits had taken a look at it and also gave up on trying to smelt it.
The crystal was as useful as a paper weight at the moment.
I had a terrible suspicion that a magic formula in the grimoire could tell us how to process the crystal properly. The very formula I was currently researching.
The same went with the feather I found inside the grimoire. I had stored it safely in a cabinet in the alchemy lab.
Had I have the feather right by me, my mind would only be filled with the mysterious whispers. A distraction I did not need for the moment.
It was already bad enough those whispers disturbed me as I worked in the alchemy lab.
I occasionally still heard the whispers every now and then throughout the lobby. Though very faintly.
I assumed the feather could be used in alchemy given its magical properties. The grimoire probably had information about it.
It all came back to the grimoire in the end.
I would certainly make sure the grimoire was useful in some way.
Whether I discovered a powerful spell from it, or used its pages to light the fireplace, or bashing a goblin's head with its thick frame.
The grimoire would be useful!
"Failure again."
I clicked my tongue as I found no correlation between the two formulas on my 53rd simulation.
I was so engrossed in my research that I did not realize there was someone accompanying me in the magic hall.
"What can I do for you, Trudy?"
I asked the blue-haired woman.
She smiled from the hall's entrance and made her way to me at the research table.
"I saw you left the banquet and I just couldn't help but to follow you. I knew you'd be working alone in here."
"I need to make sure we can get something useful from the subquest rewards. You know what we went through to get them. We could not afford to let the rewards amount to nothing."
I told her.
"Of course, Serafina. Had I known any knowledge about magic, I would be helping you all through the night."
Having more people to help me perform formula simulation would definitely help. We would be able to figure out the purpose of the grimoire formula quicker.
Even figuring out just one would definitely be helpful.
It would definitely be one more understood formula than what we currently knew.
I could not wait for master to summon more mages to the forged land.
"Thank you for your understanding, Trudy. Are you here just to simply accompany me while everyone is out there celebrating?"
I asked her.
"I would be glad to escort you back to the banquet if you want to. We just cleared the second Quintal Trial yesterday after all. I heard you haven't got any sleep since then."
I chuckled upon her words.
"You sounded just like Jonah."
Though he had not spoken to me ever since he left the rift yesterday.
"Jonah is worried about you. But he suspected you wanted to be alone for now."
Did he?
I wondered what made him think so.
"Since you're here with me now, I suppose you disagree with him?"
Trudy's face suddenly turned uneasy.
She paused for a while before replying. There was a considerable silence till then.
"I actually wanted to speak with you."
First Shanny. Now Trudy.
The tenth floor apparently provided reservations to some of us.
"Feel free to say anything, Trudy. I promise you that I will listen."
Trudy paused for a while longer this time.
This had to be something serious or she would not have struggled to say it.
Her gaze was maintained on me, however. It never wavered.
Whatever she was going to say, she meant each word.
"I would like to excuse myself from Party 1."