Kingdom of Dawn's highest meeting room.
Hand of the King Berion Rogers sat in the large chair at the head of the conference room, waiting for the kingdom's two legendary magicians.
For unknown reasons, the king hadn't shown his face for days, and the entire kingdom was running normally under the control of this Hand of the King.
This was actually his job—the Hand of the King was like a prime minister, with the power to issue orders on behalf of the king, wield authority, command armies, enforce laws, summon ministers, and manage the kingdom's operations.
This middle-aged man, whose hair was already starting to go gray but whose eyes were sharp as an eagle's, had a gentle demeanor but gave off serious pressure.
Even the kingdom's only two remaining legendary magicians felt a bit uncomfortable after entering the meeting room.
"I heard your Runic Society is researching Magic Net Rings? How's the progress coming along?"
After simple greetings, Hand of the King Berion focused his attention on the old woman.
At these words, both legendary magicians' expressions changed slightly.
The old woman sighed. "It's not going well. Many of the runes on the Magic Net Ring are unknown to our society. We need time to explore... Complete replication isn't that hard, but the replicated rings don't work properly. I think there must be special runes hidden inside, or some special methods we haven't mastered."
Every time she thought about this, she felt awful all over. With her legendary magician abilities, she'd already replicated every rune perfectly, with no issues at all. She'd even made the ring look exactly the same.
Honestly, she thought this was the most basic magical item she'd ever made, but it was definitely accurate enough... but it just wouldn't connect or activate.
Even now in the palace, her apprentices were constantly trying to activate it... and she was constantly going over each rune in her head, thinking about runes whose purpose she didn't understand...
"Are you planning to have our Royal Mage Society cooperate with the Runic Society to jointly research these runes?" Wilton, who'd just returned from the border cities, frowned. "Honestly, that won't be easy. Divine artifacts that need prayer to activate, even divine artifacts from the Goddess of Magic, could possibly..."
Was there really no escaping this?
Wilton felt totally fed up.
Hand of the King Berion noticed Wilton's expression and cut him off directly. "No, I want you to temporarily give up researching Magic Net Rings and focus on these things instead."
Opening the box on the table, a whole bunch of crystals appeared before the two legendary magicians.
"Hm? Magic crystal lamps? Discarded ones?"
"Wait, there's actually magic power fluctuations in these? This is?!"
Wilton quickly caught on, his eyes full of shock.
Magic crystal lamps were actually a type of natural mineral that just needed to be dug up to emit light for a long time, until the natural runes inside wore away.
These magic crystals clearly had no light left, but magic power was still flowing through them...
"These are new items on the shelves at that Coffin-Carrying Heddy's little shop."
Hand of the King Berion didn't mean to keep them in suspense, saying plainly: "She calls these things magic bombs. There are flame vortex bombs, vine entanglement bombs, ice spike forest bombs..."
The moment they heard Coffin-Carrying Heddy's name, both legendary magicians became dead serious.
Anything involving gods became incredibly serious.
But when they heard about flame vortexes, vine entanglement, ice spike forests... these relatively complex low-level magics, their expressions obviously changed again.
Would gods really mess around with this kind of magic?
Whatever these magic bombs were, they sounded pretty bizarre.
They even suspected that Heddy's immortal old teacher had come up with some weird stuff again and gotten Heddy to sell it.
That immortal old guy would definitely pull something like this...
Hand of the King Berion's voice continued: "It sounds hard to believe, but as a high-level magician, I can only describe these 'magic bombs' with a single word: revolutionary! They imprint these magic spell models onto discarded magic crystals and use special techniques to inject magic power into them. When using them, you just need to inject a bit of magic power and throw them to detonate."
"You probably can't imagine this, but even a low-level apprentice who just learned to meditate can use one... More importantly, no prayer required, no chanting."
He didn't need to keep talking—the two legendary magicians' expressions said it all.
No prayer meant it definitely had nothing to do with gods, at least not for firing this magic.
No chanting meant it didn't require much magic power, and definitely didn't need the user to control magic flow and activation...
How could this be possible?!
How could something like this exist in this world?
If it were any other setting or any other person saying these things, they wouldn't believe it.
They'd just think it was a bad joke.
But the one saying this was Hand of the King Berion, a man who never cracked jokes.
And he definitely wouldn't joke around in a place like this.
A few seconds later, those shocked pupils barely recovered. Wilton took a deep breath and finally asked: "Are you sure? You're not joking?!"
"You know me—I never joke." Berion glanced at him. "Once we master this technology, even our mage apprentices can become combat forces. The friction between the Gray Fort Empire and us is getting worse, and things at the watch wall are getting more unstable. We don't have much time left. This might become our trump card—our most important trump card!"
"So I hope the Royal Mage Society and the Runic Society can work together to develop these magic bombs first."
"Since Heddy is selling them, why not ask her about where these magic bombs come from? Her teacher is always coming up with weird stuff. Or why not just buy them directly from her?"
As soon as work came up, Wilton's brain started spinning fast.
"Already asked. Heddy says these magic bombs are divine artifacts too. Co-developed by the God of Technology and the Goddess of Magic." Berion's expression finally changed, and he sighed before saying: "They don't have that many either. War would require an astronomical number of magic bombs to consume."
"Especially when facing the Gray Fort Empire's army of spellcasters!"
The Goddess of Magic's divine realm.
Ren looked at the book with some surprise. "You're sure? Someone in the mortal realm has already replicated Magic Net Rings and tried to connect to you, but you rejected them?"