Madoka: "?"
Tohsaka Rin: "?"
Kanae: "?"
Erica: "?"
Madoka: "What happened? Why did he just collapse on the ground?"
Kanae: "Same question. What did Lord Su Mo do just now? Rin, did you see anything?"
Tohsaka Rin: "No, I didn't see a thing."
Tohsaka Rin: "Was he just too fast? Erica, did you see it?"
Faced with this incomprehensible scene, the girls were all stunned. They couldn't begin to imagine how the battle had ended.
Even when Su Mo had one-shotted the divine boar, he had at least made a visible move, allowing them to guess how he had won.
But this time, they had seen nothing at all.
Tohsaka Rin suspected that Su Mo had employed a technique of such divine speed that the battle was over before it could even register in the human eye. If that were the case, Erica, who was now at the peak of Tier 2, should have been able to catch a glimpse of something, right?
However, in response to their questions, Erica could only shake her head in a daze.
Erica: "No, I didn't see anything either."
With a look of disbelief, she took a small step forward to observe Doni's condition.
Erica: "There are no injuries. Apart from his powerlessness, there are no signs of a fight."
After summarizing this information, she arrived at an utterly incredible conclusion.
Erica: "Don't tell me... Lord Su Mo didn't even make a move?"
Such a conclusion was obviously far too difficult to comprehend.
Madoka: "If he didn't make a move, how did he defeat his enemy?"
Kanae: "I don't get it. I don't get it at all."
A battle of this level was completely beyond their understanding of the world.
And it wasn't just them; even the King of Swords himself was utterly baffled.
"What happened? What did you do just now?"
Unable to get up, he simply sat cross-legged on the ground, staring at Su Mo with a look of pure bewilderment and disbelief.
It wasn't just the girls in the chat group; Doni himself had no clue why he had been so inexplicably defeated. The magical energy was still inside him, but it refused to obey his commands, and even his Authorities had fallen silent.
"I was just trying out a bit of Mythical Thaumaturgy."
Facing the defeated King of Swords, Su Mo was quite patient, casually answering his question. Whether the other party understood or not was none of his concern.
"Mythical Thaumaturgy... what's that?"
As expected, Doni, a dunce when it came to spellcraft, was completely lost.
Only the members of the chat group had some vague recollection.
Tohsaka Rin: "I feel like I've heard that name before..."
Tohsaka Rin: "Oh, right! When Lord Su Mo returned from the Astral (Underworld) Plane, I think he listed a related product in the shop."
Tohsaka Rin: "Found it! 'Foundations of Mythical Thaumaturgy Construction.' Price... one million points?!"
Seeing the price tag, she was once again staggered. As expected of a product from Lord Su Mo, its value always surpassed ordinary imagination.
Madoka: "Is this another new power that Brother Su Mo developed?"
Kanae: "Suddenly, it all seems to make sense."
Madoka: "But I'm still so curious, why is it so powerful?"
Su Mo didn't mind explaining, whether for Doni or for Madoka and the others. After all, to him, this knowledge was merely a fundamental problem he had already overcome. It was nothing special.
He was far from possessive of his knowledge.
In fact, if someone could truly understand it and put it to use, he would be overjoyed. It would mean he had found someone who could keep up with his line of thinking, someone who could become a qualified assistant.
Knowledge is meant to be circulated and shared.
The true meaning behind this statement is that only when knowledge is circulated and shared to its greatest extent can it spark more creativity and lead to greater efficiency and productivity.
"Mythical Thaumaturgy is a special type of art created with Divinity as its core, based on the Mythological Foundation. Its power generally surpasses that of equivalent Conceptual Armament Thaumaturgy."
"The core principle is actually very simple. It's nothing more than taking advantage of the natural bonus one receives when using a Divinity
to drive a related spell," Su Mo summarized succinctly.
To put it another way, the "Boots of Hermes" spell that Erica currently used could, at its strongest, only reach the Sanctuary-level. Even with the magical energy of a Godslayer, it could not break this limit.
But if Erica became a Godslayer and happened to slay Hermes himself, thus possessing his Divinity... then, even if the Authority she usurped was only related to trickery and had nothing to do with the concept of "Protector of Travelers," she could easily elevate the "Boots of Hermes" spell to the Divine-level.
The reason was simple. Without the Divinity, she had to request power from the Mythological Foundation to use the spell.
With the Divinity, however, it was a different story. She could draw power directly from her own Divinity. With no middleman taking a cut, the power of the spell would naturally be vastly different.
"The fundamental difference between Mythical Thaumaturgy and Conceptual Armament Thaumaturgy is really just the use of a Divinity as a catalyst."
Su Mo shook his head, clearly not thinking the technique was worth much discussion. Once you understood the underlying principle, all you had to do was determine the boundaries of the Divinity's influence.
Then, you could use the Divinity you possessed to upgrade what was originally a Conceptual Armament into a Conceptual Divine Armament, or Mythical Thaumaturgy.
This time, Su Mo's explanation was quite easy to follow. Although Madoka and Kanae were still a bit lost, Erica and Tohsaka Rin understood about seventy or eighty percent of it.
While not a complete grasp, they roughly knew the underlying theory.
In the Nasuverse, the twin-tailed girl shook her head, an expression of dawning realization on her face.
Tohsaka Rin: "No wonder the 'Foundations of Mythical Thaumaturgy Construction' only costs ten thousand more points than the 'Guide to Conceptual Armament Construction'."
[T/N: Original text says one million, then one hundred million, then says it's only 10k more. This is a common typo in the source; we've corrected it to reflect Rin's logic that the price difference is small.]
Viewed in isolation, a price of one hundred thousand points might seem like a lot, but when compared to Conceptual Armaments, one would quickly notice the issue.
Mythical Thaumaturgy was practically a complete upgrade. If it were truly its superior replacement, the price should have been at least ninety-nine million.
Tohsaka Rin: "If I'm not mistaken, Mythical Thaumaturgy can currently only be used by special existences like gods and Godslayers. Other people can't use it, right?"
Seeing this deduction, Su Mo nodded in approval.
Su Mo: "Correct. For now, this technique can only be used to weave a corresponding Mythical Thaumaturgy on the premise of already possessing a Divinity."
Su Mo: "Unless one can solve the problem of weaving Divinity itself, it will be impossible to lower this technique's accessibility to the level of Conceptual Armaments."
Conceptual Armaments were spells that anyone could learn with a wave of their hand. Mythical Thaumaturgy couldn't achieve that.
At best, it could only strengthen a Divinity holder's control over their own power. Even for the current Su Mo, Divinity remained a black box containing no small number of secrets.
Hearing this, others might have thought Su Mo was just being modest, but Tohsaka Rin sensed an astonishing possibility in his tone.
Tohsaka Rin: "For now?"
Tohsaka Rin: "I know this sounds impossible, but I have to ask."
Tohsaka Rin: "Lord Su Mo, you aren't actually planning to research a method for weaving Divinity from thin air, are you? That's equivalent to creating a god from nothing!"
The prestige of slaying a god was already absurd enough. But even more absurd was creating one. The former merely borrowed a god's power; the latter was the creator of gods. The two could not be compared.
Hearing Rin's question, the others in the group were also left speechless.
They had never even considered such a possibility. Could a being like a god truly be created by a human? Even for someone as incredible as Su Mo, wasn't this idea a bit too insane?
However, faced with this query, Su Mo just shook his head calmly.
Su Mo: "Weaving Divinity isn't the same as creating a god from nothing."
Su Mo: "But even if it were, so what?"
Su Mo: "Gods are born from myth, and myths are born from humanity. From the very beginning, humanity has had the power to create gods."
Su Mo: "Since the fundamental principle is sound, all that remains is the matter of method."
After reading Su Mo's message, the group was once again shaken to their core.
It was such an insane idea, so why was it that when he said it, it sounded impossible to refute?
Something they wouldn't even dare to imagine was, in Su Mo's eyes, a path to certain success.
Tohsaka Rin: "So this is the worldview of a true master... As expected of you!"
Kanae: "I didn't really get most of that, but I understood the important part: Lord Su Mo is incredibly amazing!"
Erica: "A concise summary."