"?!!!"
Ren's eyes widen: "Locked him up?!"
There's actually an operation like that?
My god!
How didn't I think of that?
Oh right, I can't do that. Never mind then.
Don't look at this guy as just a book, but he's a real magical creation.
And he can use all the magic the Goddess of Magic knows.
Throw him into the mortal realm, and he'd be at least a magic god to start with.
"Locked him up, so what?"
The doll waves her hand casually, and a black hole suddenly appears in front of them.
Before Ren can react, the book floats out from inside: "Betty, how could you treat me like this?! How could you lock me in that dark space? Simply unimaginable. Really unimaginable. Our thousands... tens of thousands... countless years of friendship, and you treat me like this! Do you know that physical wounds can heal, but the cracks in the heart are..."
The moment another black hole appears, the book's tone completely changes: "But, Betty, you know me, this book never holds grudges, I'm not the kind of low-level magical creation driven by emotions..."
"Book, how's the signal from the mortal realm?" Ren rubs his somewhat swollen head and cuts him off directly.
Sure enough, even locking him up won't change him!
"Signal? What's a signal? Lord Ren, you always have endless new words in your mouth, I've never heard such vocabulary."
"I mean, are you receiving information from the mortal realm smoothly? Same as the divine realm? Any delays?"
"Almost exactly the same." The book is silent for a moment, like he's comparing: "Text information transmits extremely fast through magic power, even faster than the speed of light."
Faster than the speed of light?
So that's faster than fiber optic?
Ren instantly understands.
This is good news.
The faster the transmission speed, the more you can do.
In the mortal realm.
Kingdom of Dawn's capital.
Horace finally memorizes all the information about Fireball in Magic Space.
He looks around to make sure no one's paying attention, quickly puts the ring away, and runs toward the Runic Society.
"Teacher, teacher, look, is this information correct?"
After copying down all the knowledge he just got on parchment, Horace rushes to his teacher's lab.
His teacher is a noble mid-level spellcaster.
And a senior researcher at the Runic Society.
He has an extraordinary status.
But he's a gentle person.
Especially toward apprentices with good magical talent like Horace, he's very approachable.
"Horace, you should be more steady. This is the capital, people from the Runic Society might not mind if you're rude, but other magicians, nobles, and clerics might not have such good tempers."
The old man says this while his hands aren't idle—he's already taken the parchment.
The next second, his expression starts getting serious.
"Deep Red Fireball? Silk Thread Fireball? Using these runes can compress fireballs into higher temperature forms? Converting fireballs into threads, then countless threads winding together to form a fireball?"
The more the old man reads, the more shocked he gets: "My god, such a simple Fireball spell has so many variations? Obviously the simplest runes, but rearranging and recombining them can create so many variations?"
Fireball can be said to be the most common magic.
At least one-third of magicians choose to construct a Fireball spell model when they advance from magic apprentice to official magician.
But even he never thought Fireball could have so many variations—it seems like different combinations of these basic runes can all bring different effects.
If this is true, then could all fire magic systems based on Fireball have multiple variations?!
"Horace, how did you collect this information?"
His teacher's sudden seriousness startles Horace—this is the first time he's seen his teacher show this kind of expression. He quickly tells him what just happened.
When he hears that apprentice Horace actually offended another official magician, the old man instinctively wants to scold him, but the scolding words reach his lips and don't come out.
It's not because he doesn't know how to scold his student, but because what Horace says next is just too unbelievable!
Another magician arrives, a ring carved full of runes, with a bunch of people chatting on it?
Wind Speech magic?
But Wind Speech magic can only communicate over short distances!
If it didn't require praying to the Goddess of Magic to activate, he'd even suspect his apprentice ran into cultists.
But since it involves the Goddess of Magic, there shouldn't be a problem.
That existence wouldn't allow her name to be used by other gods.
"Horace, where's that ring? Let me take a look."
Horace looks conflicted, but eventually hands the ring to his teacher.
A person at his teacher's level shouldn't steal his god-given item, right?
Taking the ring and carefully observing the runes on it, although there are some he doesn't recognize, overall there don't seem to be any runes harmful to the body.
This makes him feel somewhat relieved.
But needing to pray to activate it makes him a bit conflicted.
Official magicians generally don't worship any gods, even the Goddess of Magic—even praying is almost impossible.
He's already forgotten when he last prayed, maybe fifty years ago, maybe a hundred years ago.
But thinking about that Fireball technique, he takes a deep breath and starts praying...
"Why isn't there any reaction? Horace, did you get the prayer wrong? Or do you need some special gestures?"
Many gods have gesture requirements for their clerics, like the Church of Light not far from them—every divine spell needs different gestures. Once a cleric tried to use magical power to force divine spells without those gestures, but the result was... he lost his brain.
Literally.
His brain was burned by holy light and turned to ash, but his body didn't change at all.
"No, I've already told you everything I know." Horace is silent for a moment: "How about I try?"
Horace takes back his god-given item and starts praying. After the prayer, magic power flows from his body, the ring activates, and a screen appears in front of them.
The old man is silent for a moment: "This ring requires soul binding, looks like only you can use it... Horace, your luck is really enviable..."
Before he finishes speaking, a middle-aged man walks in from outside: "Drew, you'll never guess what I got when I went to buy potions today, a... huh? How do you have this ring too?"