Chapter 109: The Flaw Beneath the Light

I decided not to elaborate.

Explaining that I was mentally designing a magical artifact capable of humiliating the Light Temple would probably ruin the pleasant dinner atmosphere.

And honestly, I’d already frightened enough people today.

Eventually, dinner came to an end.

I thanked the servants, praised the food, and endured another round of concerned looks from my wives before heading upstairs.

First, a bath. A proper one. The warm water eased the tension in my shoulders, and I spent several minutes simply soaking in its comforting warmth.

Afterward, I dried myself, changed into comfortable clothes, and stepped out of the bathroom. That was when I noticed something sitting on the bedside table. A cup. More specifically, a cup filled with a familiar herbal tonic.

I approached it.

The fragrance was unmistakable.

Lily.

It smelled almost identical to the restorative tonic she’d prepared for me after my previous dungeon expedition. Warm herbs. A faint sweetness. Something floral beneath the stronger medicinal scent. And, if my memory served me correctly, a rather effective sleep-inducing property. Not enough to knock someone unconscious, obviously. Just enough to make an exhausted magus feel wonderfully relaxed and increasingly sleepy.

I stared at the cup. Then slowly turned toward the bedroom door.

Something felt suspicious.

I approached quietly and opened it just enough to peek outside.

Servants.

Several of them were stationed along the corridor.

They weren’t doing anything particularly suspicious. One was carrying folded linens, another stood near the staircase, and a third was arranging something on a small table.

But considering how quickly one of them glanced toward my door before pretending to examine the wall…

Yeah.

I had a theory.

My wives had apparently established a surveillance operation to make sure I stayed in my room and actually went to sleep.

To be fair, even though I had Void Shift, I usually preferred walking around the mansion like a normal person. Teleporting everywhere would be ridiculous, especially when I had perfectly functional legs.

Well, except under certain circumstances. Circumstances involving my dignity, for example.

I quietly closed the door and looked back at the tonic. “Sorry, Lily,” I murmured.

I wasn’t refusing it. Her medicine was good, and after everything I’d put my body through today, getting proper rest was probably the smartest decision available.

I simply had a few things to finish first. Paperwork. Preparations. And definitely no touching the Maledict Sovereign Crystal tonight.

I glanced toward the cup again. “I’ll drink you after I finish.”

Then I activated my skill.

[Void Shift]

Space folded around me.

For a brief moment, I remembered that I’d specifically promised not to use any spells tonight.

Ah, well… Technically, this was transportation. Not work.

A perfectly reasonable distinction.

One that would probably fail spectacularly if Liora ever questioned me about it.

But that was a problem for future me.

Present me had paperwork.

And with that, I disappeared from my bedroom and reappeared inside my study.

The familiar scent of parchment, ink, and enchanted metal greeted me the moment my feet touched the carpet. Everything was exactly as I’d left it, including the slightly disorganized stacks of books, scattered notes, and the unfortunate evidence of eight hours of magical overtime.

Honestly, looking at my desk almost made me tired again.

There were only two unenchanted accessories remaining on the worktable. Both were made from high-quality metal ore, with excellent mana conductivity and enough structural integrity to withstand fairly complicated enchantments. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have considered them valuable materials.

But after enchanting sixty-eight accessories, the thought of creating another necklace or bracelet made me want to strangle someone with a measuring tape.

Besides, those two pieces might be useful for something else.

I collected the finished accessories and arranged them carefully inside several velvet-lined boxes. Rings, pendants, bracelets, and earrings glittered beneath the lamplight, their embedded magical circuits giving off faint traces of elemental mana.

Sixty-eight enchanted accessories.

If I had produced this many in the modern era, some luxury magical equipment company would probably have offered me a ridiculous salary, a private laboratory, and enough research funding to buy a small country.

Here?

My wives were threatening to put me to bed.

How times had changed.

Once everything was organized, I carried the boxes to a table near the door, placing them as far away from my desk as reasonably possible.

I returned to my chair, pulled several clean sheets of parchment toward me, and picked up a feather pen.

Now, then.

The Holy Relic.

I closed my eyes for a moment, allowing its appearance to emerge from my memories.

I’d observed it before. Studied it. Even drawn it during my previous research into sacred artifacts. Reproducing its structure shouldn’t be particularly difficult.

My pen began moving. First, the outer framework. Then the crystal. Then the intricate arrangement of golden supports surrounding it.

The entire artifact was small enough to fit in someone’s palm, although its appearance was far more elaborate than its size suggested. At its center sat an exceptionally pure SSS-rank crystal, enclosed within an intricate golden framework decorated with sacred patterns.

The crystal itself was filled with concentrated Light Mana.

And its sensitivity?

Absolutely ridiculous.

The slightest trace of corruption could trigger a reaction. Even a tiny amount of Dark Lord energy hidden inside someone’s mana pathways would be enough for the relic to identify something abnormal.

That property hadn’t changed even in the modern era.

Thousands of years later, after countless advancements in magical engineering, the Holy Relic remained one of the most sensitive corruption-detection artifacts ever recorded.

Impressive.

But there was one particular claim the Light Temple loved repeating that had always irritated me.

They called it a source of absolute purity.

Which was complete bullshit.

The crystal was exceptionally pure. I wasn’t disputing that. But being pure and being a source of purification were two entirely different things.

For example, the Temple insisted that the Holy Relic must always be stored in an environment saturated with pure Light Mana.

Its chamber was specifically designed for that purpose.

The walls contained Light Mana crystals. The protective formations continuously circulated purified energy, and the entire storage area was isolated from external magical contamination.

Now, why would an artifact supposedly capable of generating absolute purity require such elaborate environmental protection?

If it truly purified everything around it, shouldn’t the surrounding environment become purer simply because the relic was present?

That was the contradiction.

And whenever I raised the question, those pompous priests gave me the same ridiculous explanation.

If you owned a precious diamond, would you keep it inside a secure vault or throw it into a sewer?

Wonderful argument. Except that wasn’t what I was asking.

I wasn’t questioning why they protected something valuable.

I was questioning why their supposedly self-sustaining source of purity required a constant external supply of pure Light Mana to maintain its condition.

A diamond didn’t need other diamonds surrounding it to remain a diamond.

See the difference?

Apparently, the Temple didn’t.

Or perhaps they understood perfectly well and simply preferred an explanation that sounded better during sermons.

I opened my eyes and examined the drawing.

The proportions were accurate, the crystal’s arrangement was recognizable, and even the decorative framework looked reasonably close to the original.

Rey and I shared this particular talent. We were both excellent at drawing magical diagrams, complicated formations, and technical illustrations.

Give either of us a three-dimensional magical structure containing several hundred interconnected circuits, and we could reproduce it with remarkable precision.

Ask us to draw a beautiful woman?

Disaster.

I could probably draw a woman’s mana circulation system more accurately than her face. Which was rather unfortunate considering I had five beautiful wives. Imagine Ariel asking me to paint her portrait, only to receive an anatomically questionable sketch with perfectly labeled magical pathways. Romance would die instantly.

I shook my head and returned my attention to the relic. My gaze settled on the bottom of the drawing. More specifically, the base supporting the crystal. I leaned forward and carefully added several lines beneath the central structure.

That base wasn’t merely a decorative plate.

It was an amplifier.

A sophisticated one, too.

Its purpose was to collect the surrounding Light Mana, refine its flow, and channel the energy directly into the crystal.

In other words, the Holy Relic didn’t simply sit inside a pure environment.

It actively absorbed that purity.

The amplifier maintained a continuous circulation of Light Mana, allowing the crystal to preserve its extraordinary sensitivity while preventing external contamination from accumulating.

It also revealed a rather delicious weakness.

The crystal was the detector. But the base controlled what the detector consumed.

A smirk bloomed on my face.

I slowly leaned back in my chair.

Now, wasn’t that interesting?

Everyone was so obsessed with protecting the sacred crystal that they treated the surrounding framework as little more than a necessary accessory.

But if the amplifier was responsible for feeding the crystal its mana, then altering the amplifier’s behavior might be considerably more effective than attacking the crystal directly.

Of course, corrupting the base wouldn’t automatically guarantee success.

The relic was sensitive enough to detect even minute abnormalities. Any crude attempt to inject Forbidden Energy would probably trigger an immediate warning.

And I had absolutely no intention of marching into the Holy City, touching their precious artifact, and announcing my villainous intentions like some incompetent theatrical lunatic.

Please. I had standards.

What I needed was a way to interfere with the amplifier without making the crystal recognize the interference as corruption.

A detection system was only as reliable as its reference point.

If the reference itself could be compromised…

Well… That opened some very interesting doors.

The Maledict Sovereign Crystal immediately came to mind and a newly evolved skill capable of creating advanced magical artifacts.

I would need to understand the amplifier’s exact structure before attempting anything. My memories were sufficient to reproduce its appearance, but not every internal circuit was visible from the outside.

And without knowing those circuits, I couldn’t reliably predict how the base would react to an external influence.

So, first, I needed a theoretical model. I lowered my pen and began writing several possible configurations beneath the drawing.

For the moment, that was all.

I stared at the golden amplifier in my drawing, imagining the priests standing proudly before their supposedly incorruptible treasure.

Then I smiled.

Ah, Light Temple.

You spent generations teaching people to worship the crystal.

Perhaps you should have paid a little more attention to what was underneath it.

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!

Thank you for the Magic Castle, Bry35!

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