“Is that the array?” Illyan asked curiously.

  “That’s right. Or rather, this thing is complex enough to even call it a formation, but I won’t burden you with that yet. It isn’t complete yet, but it should be done in a few more weeks if the man setting it up is skilled enough. But now that I think about it, he is slower than expected.”

  Aurelia frowned. Her calcutions were wrong, which didn’t happen too often. It wasn’t just her arrogance; she just knew that Korin wouldn’t take in someone incompetent who couldn’t do this fast enough.

  “Oh... I swapped some of his documents with small changes, so that may be why,” Illyan said casually, while Aurelia cast him a side-eye.

  “That will probably dey them for another few weeks. You are truly resourceful.”

  “Haha, thank you. But there is something I am confused about. How is he building the array with the help of the grooves that were part of the city? Don’t tell me it was a built-in array?” Illyan said humbly, as he didn’t take her words to heart and asked what he was curious about.

  Magic Array. It was something he knew about only superficially, thanks to Aurelia’s teaching.

  It referred to a complex series of interconnected magic symbols of all kinds, the most common being runes, which combined together to form a magic circuit. When one mastered this kind of array, they could engrave it on any type of surface to utilize the magic the array was supposed to activate.

  If it was engraved on tools, it could work in a simir way to enchantment, where even regur swords could create bdes of fme or be able to cut down even magic spells. If it was engraved on the ground, it could also work as trap magic that would activate on touch and so on.

  The possibilities were limitless as long as you had a rge amount of knowledge of magic and the underlying logic behind it.

  Of course, this was a bit different from the profession of the Inscriptionists, who used a simir way to activate magic.

  If the Array Masters were basing their arrays on Charm Spells, then Inscriptionists were basing their spells on Wizards’ Magic Circles.

  Magic Circles were very complex models of spells that often used the runes and other such symbols as letters to create magic sequences encoded in such circles. They could substitute a rge portion of the spell that magicians performed, such as incantations. In that way, they could use magic in the same way as mages who didn’t usually chant and could fire magic with just a thought.

  On the other hand, charms were simple spells that used the power of individual symbols and the intent behind them. Magic Array only took this to a new level when these individual runes were combined into magic circuits, amplifying their power.

  They could be easily imbued into some materials, and from what Aurelia knew, they were most of the time imbued into special paper, which then could act as a type of currency.

  It was a very common thing in the south and actually the biggest source of power for weak acolytes.

  Why didn’t he meet even one with such a charm then? That was Illyan’s first question after hearing this.

  However, the answer was simple.

  Charms were simple and easy to create. However, that also made them usually weak. Weak charm items were different from weak magicians. Acolytes had their own magic field, which made it harder for their mana to be forcibly extracted from their bodies.

  Since their mana was so weak to the point that their natural mana cohesiveness could withstand the mana siphoning in this nd without any loss.

  That was the reason why their mana leaking wasn’t that serious for them.

  But for items that didn’t have such a mana field, it was different. They were quickly siphoned to who knew where and turned into scrap material.

  The Arkravav Empire used this fact to turn this pce into an even more restricted area by taking most of the magic equipment from all visitors under the pretext of this area destroying them.

  Only those who paid a hefty sum would be able to enter with some magic tools and magic stones. However, charms were useless here no matter what, so they never brought them.

  ‘Now that I think about it… Aren’t the amulets that I can create a form of charm? I always thought that the amount of power was minuscule while compared to its strength… Could this be a reason?’

  Thinking about all of the information, Illyan sighed in frustration.

  For amulets to be usable in battle, it took weeks of dedicated work. He always thought that it was simply because the inheritance wasn’t all that good, or rather because it was incomplete since the beginning.

  But Illyan wasn’t gloomy for long, as he quickly thought of the benefits.

  ‘The amulets were pretty much useless for me after getting stronger. Last time, I used it only as a springboard… But if I take it outside of the Vanaras Kingdom, then maybe its power will rise?’

  Thinking that the originally weak technique could be much better outside was an exciting thought.

  Before, Illyan felt a little bitter that this pce basically crippled his wings before being able to fly, but on second thought, he realized how lucky he was to be born here.

  He thought that it was much better for him to grow up in this pce with weak techniques than to have been born outside with stronger techniques.

  ‘Sigh… I thought I was being unlucky during my life, but this pce is actually quite friendly to weaklings like me. I guess my biggest luck was being born here…’

  If he had been born elsewhere, there was a chance that he would have already been ensved or killed.

  Despite his inner thoughts, he carefully listened to Aurelia, whose eyes turned shiny as if she was expining something fascinating. And he agreed with her outlook on it.

  “You are right! These engravings were made with arrays in mind. The st emperor created it when he was rebuilding this city. However, don’t be mistaken, it was not built just for blood sacrifice. That’s the beauty of this array. It is engraved in this square, becoming part of it. That’s why, every time they change or move something in this pce, the array would change its properties.”

  When Illyan heard that, he finally realized why they were moving the statues all day long. They were changing the array into one of blood sacrifice.

  Some of the pavement with the grooves could also be turned or even removed, which would turn this array into one of the most versatile powers.

  “I see. Is that the normal way to utilize arrays?” Illyan asked, despite already knowing the answer.

  “Of course not. Normal arrays and formations are not versatile, and once you finish preparing them, their usage is set in stone. This is a very advanced application.”

  Illyan looked surprised as he was listening to Aurelia, not only because of the content of what she was saying but also because of her expression.

  When Aurelia finished, Illyan could see on her face the expression of utter fascination and longing. That wouldn’t be so surprising, but Illyan suddenly felt a certain simirity to this.

  ‘Don’t I look the same when I am learning?’ Illyan mused amusedly as he watched the young dy excitedly talking about something she loved.

  “I am curious… This array. How close is it to perfection?” Illyan asked. It wasn’t just a random question, as he knew that Aurelia should be able to answer it.

  “Very close. But that’s only based on my perception. However, in my opinion, the biggest fw of this array is the center. Instead of powering up the entire array by several magnitudes, the creator decided to make the center isoted so that allies wouldn’t be caught up in the aftermath of the array’s activation. That was, of course, on purpose and a fully logical move on the emperor’s side. It is just that a person needs to give up on something to gain something else.”

  Aurelia’s smile didn’t recede because of this, but Illyan felt her mood worsen a bit, so he stopped asking, not wanting to make her angry without reason.

  ‘Based on her perception, huh. That tells a lot but at the same time nothing substantial...’

  What Illyan knew was that this array was high quality. If he had time ter on, he could try to study it a little.

  But now he had different worries to care about.

  “Anyway, what are these four nodes that you were talking about? They are important for this array, right?” Illyan asked.

  “That’s right. These nodes are safety steles that can, to some extent, help to control and strengthen the array once it is activated. They need to soil it with their blood and activate them to be able to enter the citadel. Else, even if the citadel’s door opened, they would not be able to enter.”

  There was no hesitation on Aurelia’s face when she said all of that. Her eyes glinted with cold resentment as rivulets of blood flowed from her mouth.

  “Blood Seal?”

  “Yes. But you don’t need to worry too much. He has no way of finding out if I vioted the blood seal.”

  The blood seal prevented someone from disclosing the secrets they knew, but it didn’t inform the one who constructed the seal.

  “Sigh... I am not worried about that. I am just suspicious why your father lets you frolic around despite you being easily able to ruin his pns.”

  Illyan said slowly as he watched Aurelia’s expression. While he didn’t suspect her of working with her father and others because of the nature of their first meeting and other factors, it was still weird that Brynjar let her do whatever she wanted despite her being an obvious threat to his long-pnned actions.

  “That’s... understandable...” Aurelia showed a wry smile as she pondered how to expin this.

  “You see... You already saw my condition. With that, it would be impossible for a normal person to get stronger. In fact, my father has the assumption that I can’t even run, let alone fight.”

  Aurelia shrugged as if it was nothing special, but Illyan was dumbfounded.

  “How would he not know? You are running around completely fine all the time. If I hadn’t seen your situation with my own eyes, I would not believe you were this ill, even if you told me.”

  Illyan didn’t believe for one second that nobody noticed her being so lively.

  “Well, most of the time, I spend with my grandfather under the pretext of him trying to treat my illness. Whenever I am in contact with my father, I act sickly to make him believe I am no threat. My knowledge in our family arts is also much more profound than his, so he can’t feel the blood energy within me.

  The only reason I have a blood seal on my body is because he recently tried to take control over me so that I can’t meet my grandfather that often. I am on this expedition just so my grandfather can’t contact me in the first pce. However, thanks to that, I at least know his pns since I am by his side most of the time.”

  Hearing this, Illyan finally understood. Aurelia’s masterful control allowed her to completely hide her power and pretend to still be incapacitated.

  However, all of this was still hard to believe. If this were really the case, then Brynjar didn’t know his daughter at all. Being able to hide this from him just showed how incapable a father he was.

  ‘Well, she managed to hide it even from Vael. Probably. And since he could check her body’s condition, she must have some stealth technique of a high grade. Not that it’s needed that much.’

  While training in Mind Power, acolytes and other magic users weren’t able to feel someone’s presence or even their stage without actively sending their Mind Power to check them out. And if the person they were checking out was trying to hide their presence or magic fluctuations, they had no way to find out unless they had better techniques.

  “Wait a minute. I can somehow understand him not feeling your blood energy, but didn’t his subordinates become suspicious when you were wandering around all the time?”

  “From what I know from my grandfather, my mother loved walking so much that even this illness didn’t break her habit. I guess I inherited it since I was walking around from a young age, so my father just thinks I am simir to my mother. Still, I have other ways to avoid his suspicions. As for his subordinates... Fufu~ There is no one who has better Mind Power than me, so I can just bewitch them.”

  Aurelia smiled teasingly while staring into his eyes.

  Illyan’s heart throbbed painfully as he stared at her. But soon, he recovered with a flinch.

  ‘W-what was that?’

  It was then when Illyan remembered how Aurelia sneak-attacked one of those insect breeders back then.

  ‘He was yelling something about bewitching, wasn’t he?’

  “If you train hard in my scripture, you should be able to use Mind Power in simir ways. In a way, my Mind Power is more unique than regur acolytes’ as I refined and condensed it to another level.”

  Aurelia stopped teasing Illyan as she proudly talked about her scripture.

  Illyan completely understood her, as he would also feel accomplished if he created something like this. Despite it not being complete, it was still something to be desired.

  “I see. I won’t ask more as I’ve decided to trust you... for now. Instead, we should focus on what we need to do.”

  Illyan conceded, as he decided that trying to dig for more information would be useless.

  Aurelia, seeing this, smiled lightly, satisfied with his consideration as she gave a suggestion.

  “I think we should ambush them. When they are activating the steles, they will be in a vulnerable state. We can weaken their forces and then use our own blood to stain the steles, ter on entering the citadel to take the hidden piece there.”

  Finally, Aurelia revealed her hidden fangs as her eyes turned cold.

  And so, the two of them oversaw the mountain ranges from the tower as they pnned the downfall of their enemies. It wasn’t until the sun went down beyond the horizon that they returned to the camp as if nothing had happened...