This Is Too Damn Weird!

Theus did not need any further explanation to understand the value of this.

Transcendents had gradually declined, even leaving the battlefield before Castel rose to power. Was it because they were weak?

Of course not. Every transcendent had their own specialty. Even when facing machines of steel, they always had something unique to offer.

But the problem was that there were too few transcendents.

Training a transcendent took at least a decade, and it also came with strict requirements for talent.

That meant an entire system was necessary: selecting those with talent, training them, and fostering in them a sense of identification and loyalty toward the organization.

It was far too inefficient.

Castel's schools could teach an illiterate class to read within a few months, and in a few years, they could train a group of engineers with basic qualifications. As long as every engineer could perform even one percent as well as a transcendent, then training transcendents would be a losing proposition.

Just like how muskets were completely inferior to bows in both range and accuracy, yet the Empire had successfully crushed enemies on all sides with muskets. That was because the cost of training one qualified archer was enough to field an entire squad of musketeers.

Scale and standardization—those were the things that truly changed an era.

Only now did Theus nod in genuine agreement.

Even if Tata had been messing around with everything else, perfecting modular ritual setups and placing transcendent rituals in the hands of ordinary people was achievement enough on its own.

But Tata was not finished with his introduction.

He rubbed his hands together and walked toward a ritual module that was clearly larger than the others.

"My lord, our previous ritual required coyotes. I made some improvements in that area."

"That is indeed