And Angor only glanced at her for a brief moment before he walked away.
…
The city of Hippocrotee occupied nearly a thousand square meters which held countless structures tightly stacked together. The density of buildings did not hinder the exquisite craftsmanship of Krakoks. Even the smallest street lamps displayed perfect designs on them.
“Oh, you’re here,” Shadow said. He sensed Angor’s arrival because he was beginning to use less mana to sustain their Spirit Bond.
“Yup,” Angor said. He was walking along the edge of the city instead of heading inside right away.
“I’m at the west gate. There’s a small spire thing at my knee level,” Shadow said.
Most structures in Hippocrotee had two stories. Something tall enough to reach Shadow’s knees was obvious enough, which quickly helped Angor to locate Shadow.
“Aha!” Shadow smiled at Angor as he said, “We can become those evil giants that invade small cities in those childhood stories. Let’s crush some houses, and maybe a hero will ride a dragon and hunt us down. Oh wait, they only have hummingbirds here. So a hummingbird knight will come for us.”
Angor only chuckled at the joke.
“No kidding. I really feel like stepping on these nice little houses when looking at them.”
Shadow wasn’t really going to actually do stupid things when their plan was more important right now.
“So, did you feel the magic array?”
Angor stayed quiet and scanned around Hippocrotee. He didn’t feel anything when he walked around the city just now.
He frowned when looking at a small open ground near the center of the city.
“That statue… has something in it.”
Shadow frowned at Angor’s discovery. A moment ago, he had to get really close, and he had to use his spirit feelers to find the “trick”. But now, Angor just displayed that he had better skills.
It was a common thing for wizards to have gaps in their strength. However, Shadow was feeling VERY stressed out when even such a young apprentice could show him so much, especially since he himself was an elite from Floating Mech City.
Angor moved to somewhere higher and looked down at the city. “I see. Each statue was a node of a magic array. The nodes scattered across the whole place… I see 373 of them. They belong to 12 different runes, which made up one giant magic array.”
“You know about this array? What does it do?” Shadow asked.
“No…” Angor considered for a while. “Not now anyway. But I learned about all the basic runes before. If I check their variables and apply them to those magic formulas… I can do some reverse engineering and understand the effect of the magic array.”
“You can do that? Alone?”
Shadow knew what that meant, and he also knew how much calculation was involved. Getting a result with fixed variables was easy but definitely not the other way round. Without preceding rules, there were countless ways to reach a result. Shadow didn’t believe Angor could reconstruct the calculations on his own.
If only he’d known how Angor already learned about insane mental-calculation skills when he was studying Singularity Dispersive Meditation.
Still, Angor didn’t intend to tell Shadow about it. “You know more about this place. You should check out the ritual spot and find out if that temple I mentioned contains the core of the law or the exact nature of the law. I’ll stay here and work out the magic array.”
Without giving Shadow any time to protest, Angor found a concealed spot. He then took out some tools and began working.
Shadow moaned and headed toward the temple mountain.
After Shadow had left, Angor took out his tablet. He then entered several variables that required a large volume of calculation before he let the machine do its wonder.
He could also do everything without the device, but that would take much more time.
It had been some time since he last performed “mind overdrive”, but it wasn’t a big deal as he already memorized the tactic down to the depth of his soul.
When he opened his eyes again, the city of Hippocrotee had become a bunch of numbers or data in his view. Starting from the city base, different base numbers traveled into higher variables. They then turned into formulas, and finally, final answers began to show up at the topmost level.
Time went by as he scanned each section of the city for more data.
This Sorcerer’s Garden was a small world which could simulate day and night as long as there were sufficient materials and energy.
Angor completed his calculations just the night began. He didn’t go over all of the runes since what he worked on was already enough for him to find the nature of the magic array.