Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 688 - 687: Dragon and Sky

Transform one... let’s see...

With a somewhat rigid expression, Maji looked at the "Princess Veronica" in front of her. She was so used to conventional ways of thinking that she couldn’t keep up with Rebecca’s pace at this moment. Once she confirmed she hadn’t misheard, she felt a slight annoyance.

Transform one for her to see!

Is she treating me like some kind of rare animal, as if I’m an interesting spectacle?!

Having a certain resistance to her dragon form due to her body deformation, Maji felt all her blood vessels twitch when she heard Rebecca’s words, which sounded very much like the brainless demands of an aristocratic child. But reason forced her to restrain her anger, as the girl before her is the legal heir to this Newborn Empire, and even her own mistress has to remain polite in front of this princess. So she suppressed her emotions and replied as calmly as she could, "Why do you want to see my dragon form?"

Unfortunately, the thick-headed Rebecca didn’t feel any change in Maji’s emotions—if she could detect such changes, she wouldn’t get beaten up every now and then for being stubborn—this young lady just continued to smile happily, her face glowing: "I want to fly too!!"

All of Maji’s follow-up words condensed into six dots and a question mark: "...?"

Then, under Miss Black Dragon’s even more confused and shocked gaze, Rebecca somehow suddenly pulled out a large scroll and shook it open in front of Maji—it was a hand-drawn mechanical design, complete with numerous magic symbol diagrams.

The next second, Rebecca directly spread the blueprint on the ground and eagerly explained to the bewildered Maji, "Look at this, this isn’t a cone, it’s the aircraft I designed. The circle below is called the Anti-Gravity Ring, providing lift, it’s already done and very stable, and next to it is the Magic Energy Wingboard... you know the Magic Energy Wingboard, right? They are on warships too, but this is the aircraft version I designed... hey, can you crouch down? Can you see clearly while standing?"

Maji sorted through the attendant etiquette she knew, including how attendants should accompany aristocrats standing and sitting, but if an aristocrat crouched in the middle of the courtyard... there seemed to be no corresponding rules...

Because no sane aristocrat would crouch down in public!

After thinking it through, Maji crouched down next to Rebecca—after all, Rebecca spoke first...

"That’s better," Rebecca cheerfully glanced at Maji, her finger continued to move over the peculiar conical machine on the blueprint, "I referenced the elves’ anti-gravity technology here, their floating spells are much more efficient than humans, but I still haven’t figured out how to make this thing move freely. The Anti-Gravity Ring can only provide lift, or strictly speaking, it can only provide reverse gravity, which is different from the Repulsion trick—if you tilt the Anti-Gravity Ring’s force field, it won’t gain an inclined thrust but will instead go out of control, last time I hit the prototype against the ceiling..."

"I’ve also researched how the elves’ Sacred Stars Temple flies, but that thing is just too complicated. It’s a device called the ’Wave Engine’, each propulsion unit is larger than a house! And there are structures inside that even the elves don’t understand, can’t disassemble them, it’s said to be ancestral technology that no one knows how to repair anymore, and disassembling one means discarding it, I meant to suggest they take one apart, but that seemed inappropriate..."

A sentence suddenly popped into Maji’s mind: you asked me to transform earlier, was that appropriate?

Yet Rebecca continued to babble, seemingly unstoppable whenever technology was concerned: "I consulted a mage who knew flying spells, but their flying spells were all ’based on intuition’, and couldn’t be translated onto machines at all. I also designed a ’fireball pulse propulsion’ method, but my aunt vetoed it, saying it might blow up our own people. A Mage Technician under me proposed using wind runes to create airflow as propulsion, which kind of worked, but the power was so weak that the test machine was practically crawling... but talking about it, I feel the airflow propulsion scheme might be valuable in the future, provided we tackle the power issue..."

Maji heard the princess getting further and further into fields completely beyond her understanding and quickly interrupted, "Your Highness, the things you’re talking about... do they relate to me?"

"Huh? You..." Rebecca paused, then realized, "Ah yes, they do, they do! How do you dragon fly?"

"By using our wings, of course..."

"But your wings can’t provide enough lift or thrust, right?" Rebecca’s face was full of curiosity. "Your wings are indeed large, but your bodies are even larger, and the most important thing is I’ve seen how you dragonkin accelerate and decelerate, that was a blue dragon, when it accelerated, there was clearly some force field appearing at the edge of its wings, then a magical glow passed, and in an instant it accelerated to a speed that eyes couldn’t catch, in this whole process it only flapped its wings once... there is no way you could achieve that speed with just a single flap."

Maji looked at Rebecca with astonishment, having almost forgotten the original "transform for me to see" request, realizing that this reckless princess harbored no malicious intentions, nor did she make an unreasonable demand on a whim; she was researching something, something mysterious yet significant—something she couldn’t comprehend fully, but the princess had already devoted herself entirely to these research pursuits.

"I’ve heard Master Kamel mention that dragonkin don’t entirely rely on flapping wings to move air in their flights," Rebecca, not minding Maji’s change in expression, continued enthusiastically, "You essentially manipulate ’Magic Power’, create a kind of force field, and glide at enormous speed through ripples of Magic Power, allowing you to fly very, very high, even to altitudes where the air is incredibly rarefied, which no human mage or bird can reach..."

"I want to study dragonkin’s flying methods and create a device that can glide through the ripples of Magic Power; if your magic system can also be compatible with rune logic...maybe I too could fly!"

Suddenly, Maji recalled a phrase she had read in a book back in her homeland: Dragons can soar through the waves of Magic Power, even reach the edge of the sky, and touch the top of the atmosphere, where they are only one step away from leaving this planet—hence they are qualified to be called the masters of the sky—because beneath this sky, no other creature flies higher.

She gently took a deep breath and slowly nodded, "You’re right, dragons indeed don’t rely on moving air to fly, or rather, moving air is just a way for us to adjust directions and perceive the environment, our real flight power is Magic Power..."

As this sentence softly fell, the black-haired maid slightly raised her left hand, and behind her, in the air, a pair of black giant wings suddenly appeared from illusion to reality, slightly swaying in the air.

The wings were somewhat smaller than her fully transformed dragon wings, but still made Rebecca’s eyes widen.

Rebecca saw many vaguely appearing magic symbols at the edge of the black giant wings, and between the wing’s frames and veins, lines of magic power faintly emerged.

"Transforming into a dragon in the castle courtyard can cause big trouble, but I can project parts of my body," Maji said slowly, feeling a bit impulsive. After all, this was the courtyard of Silver Castle, although there weren’t many people nearby, surely many guards and attendants could see what was happening here. Yet she somewhat enjoyed the current feeling... aside from the time she left her hometown, she hadn’t done anything impulsive for a long time, "Feel free to look, but it might not be complete."

Indeed, the symbols on Maji’s wings were not complete.

Rebecca merely glanced and realized the problem with the wings of Miss Black Dragon—they had incomplete edges, and the main framework showed signs of shrinkage and deformity, as if growth had suddenly stopped halfway, then rudely damaged by some external force. This miserable appearance... no wonder Maji felt resentment towards her dragon form.

And this incomplete wing undoubtedly also led to the deficiency of the array.

Rebecca’s gaze swept over the symbols and magic power lines, finally slowly retracting, "I saw it..."

Maji waved her hand, partially retracting the projected limbs, then shook her head, "Sorry, I only have these incomplete parts, so if you want to study dragon flight capabilities, it’s best to find a real, healthy dragon. I’m not a suitable subject for research."

"...Ancestor said unless necessary, it’s best not to do business with dragons, they’re both stingy and greedy," Rebecca said seriously, "I also doubt any ordinary dragon would be willing to accompany me in research, right?"

"Stingy and greedy..." Maji blinked, suddenly couldn’t help but laugh happily, "Ahaha, you said it so well, indeed stingy and greedy... and those proud healthy Dragonkin certainly wouldn’t be willing to accompany you in research, considering they are the subjects of research..."

"I think having these samples of your symbols is enough," Rebecca continued, "Any functional array has certain self-explanatory and self-supplementing features. This feature is a common reference nature used by Rune Research Center to eliminate ineffective structures in traditional arrays. I’ll borrow a few experts from Jenni later, maybe we can complete your missing symbols—and those distorted, stacked sections due to deformity should be able to be repaired as well. Theoretically, as long as we can restore seventy percent of the symbols, we can create the first usable prototype; machine equipment evolves through usage..."

Rebecca thought about it, suddenly got excited, "And maybe we can even create something you can use!"

"Something I can use?" Maji didn’t immediately react, "What thing?"

"Trying to repair your wings," Rebecca’s thoughts ran wild, "Humans with disabilities can use prosthetics, inconvenient but they can stand up; maybe we can create mechanical wings for you, though not perfect, they can at least let you fly yourself—I heard you must rely on additional airflow or glide from a cliff to take off, right? If we succeed, perhaps you could take off on flat ground with your own power!!"

Maji widened her eyes, somewhat dazed looking at Rebecca.

What kind of flights of fancy and optimistic imagination is this—how many years has it been since she dreamed like this?

After being dazed for several seconds, Rebecca’s voice suddenly came from the side, "Hey, Maji, why are you silent? Scared by my idea?"

"No, I just... alright, I was a bit scared," Maji said awkwardly, feeling her long-maintained calm demeanor was swiftly shattered in front of this unconventional Princess. But she felt no regret, "Your idea is bold, but difficult to achieve, the symbols on our bodies differ from those humans commonly use, they are the foundation elements of Dragon Language..."

"We’ve already solved the elves’ rune words, don’t mind another Dragon Language rune, regardless of the system, at least math is unified," Rebecca said confidently, "And to my knowledge, humans’ earliest magic was created based on the patterns on natural non-human monsters, the original ’ancestral symbols’ were nature’s patterns on monsters; if our ancestors succeeded once with monsters, why can’t we modern people with modern tools succeed again?"

Maji looked at Rebecca for a while, couldn’t help but smile, "Your remark equates Dragonkin with non-human monsters; if other Dragonkin heard it, it might start a fight."

"...Wow!"

"But rest assured, I know you didn’t mean it."

"Oh, that’s good," Rebecca quickly patted her chest, "Don’t mind me, sometimes I speak without thinking, Aunt and Ancestor are always preaching that speaking like this would get me into trouble, but I just can’t change..."

Maji looked at Rebecca with a touch of a smile—what a charming girl, she had thought her to be an inconsiderate and rude aristocratic child before, truly incredible.

"Would you like to come back to Cecil Castle with me?" Rebecca continued babbling, "My research facilities are all over there..."

"I’ll need to get the mistress’s approval first," Maji mused, "To my knowledge, she is staying temporarily in the north."

"Then I’ll talk to her~ consider it agreed!"