The most frightening thing was to have neither hope nor a goal.
Hope gave people the will to live, and a goal gave them a direction to move in.
Once they had both, all that remained was to work toward that goal.
For an entire week, Nanahoshi Shizuka and Roxy practically lived in the Laboratory, immersing themselves in an endless ocean of runes and formulas.
It was an intense storm of intellect that outsiders could scarcely imagine.
They used Roxy's theory of "dual Magic Circles" as the framework, then fleshed it out with Nanahoshi's vast knowledge of Summoning Magic.
Day and night, the two discussed, calculated, extrapolated, and revised.
If they overlooked a single detail, they immediately scrapped everything and started again; if a theory hit a dead end, they promptly applied a new technique to reconstruct a workable theory.
They displayed a frightening, almost superhuman level of concentration.
The entire construction process proceeded so quickly that calling it "the blink of an eye" would hardly have been an exaggeration.
Cui Ciyou and Sylphy handled the logistics, while Alice impatiently dropped food at the door at the same time every day.
The four of them worked toward this goal together in a strange yet harmonious way.
At last, on an afternoon one week later, the new Composite Summoning Array, consisting of two Magic Circles, was complete.
Two Magic Circles, one large and one small, lay quietly on the Laboratory floor. Several complex energy circuits connected them, forming an unprecedented whole filled with revolutionary ideas.
"All right, I'm going to feed magic power into the Magic Circle."
Roxy stood at the edge of the Magic Circle, her expression solemn.
Her voice was quiet, but it reached everyone present clearly.
Cui Ciyou, Sylphy, Nanahoshi Shizuka, Alice, and Julie-all five pairs of eyes