A New School Unlocked!

"What are you thinking? Materials capable of withstanding Mind Storm are incredibly precious. How could I possibly use them on you? This is just a simple Flame Vortex."

Betty glanced at Roger. "Besides, you are the male master of the Divine Kingdom. I wouldn't dare use Mind Storm on you."

"Quit being sarcastic." Roger shot her a glare. "Show me how our hand... Mana Bomb works."

"Why do you always call it a grenade?"

"Um... that isn't important." Roger suddenly had no idea how to explain it. "Let's see the results first."

He had no idea why such a term had come to mind.

Maybe because it went boom when thrown?

In any case, it did not really suit this Mana Bomb.

Betty was dissatisfied with Roger's answer, but she did not dwell on it. Instead, she turned her gaze toward the box of crystals.

Diamond-shaped crystals.

They were all the same size, roughly as large as an adult's thumb.

From the outside, they looked like crystals full of impurities.

They were almost opaque and white.

"It's very simple to use. Just inject a trace of mana, then throw it."

Before she had even finished speaking, Betty tossed the little thing away.

The instant it struck the ground, mana surged, and a fiery tornado suddenly formed around the crystal.

It was not very tall and covered only about one square meter.

The temperature was decent. Even Roger, standing about thirty meters from the blast's center, could feel waves of heat rolling over him.

If it hit an ordinary person, there would basically be no saving them.

Even a mage Apprentice would most likely meet the same fate.

For low-rank mages, however, it could only be considered somewhat troublesome.

Even so, Roger was extremely excited!

This was only a prototype!

They had made such a bomb on their first attempt, in less than half a day. That was already remarkably good.

"Not bad! Very good!"

Roger could not help praising her. "Will it detonate immediately as long as mana is injected to trigger it? How long is the delay?"

"No. I also added a Tremor Rune. Injecting mana only opens the first lock. It can only be fully activated after being thrown and striking the ground." Betty spoke proudly. "If there were only one safeguard, someone might exploit it, and the one getting blown up would be us."

Roger took Betty's words to heart, but what he was thinking about was a special kind of grenade from World War II. After pulling the safety pin, it still had to be struck against something before it could be thrown and detonated.

The principles were quite similar.

Still, this was good. A double safeguard was safer!

"I didn't expect you to think of that!" Returning to his senses, Roger looked at Betty with mild surprise. But on closer inspection, it was obvious that he was not actually surprised at all.

It would have been strange if the Magic Goddess's little experimental assistant had missed such details.

"Hmph. Don't think you're the only smart person in this world." Betty snorted. "So? Is it like you imagined?"

"To be honest, not entirely, but it meets my expectations." Roger smiled. "What does this thing cost?"

"You can just carve the runes onto discarded magic crystal lamps." Betty looked casual. "The material cost is practically zero, but carving the runes and charging them both require mages. That is the troublesome part."

"A Low-Order Mage might need one or two days to make one."

"I mean this low-rank spell takes a Low-Order Mage one or two days."

"Charging takes most of the time, right?" Roger thought for a moment and asked curiously.

"Yes. Two-thirds of the time is spent charging." Betty nodded. "The more skilled they are, the larger the proportion of time spent charging."

Mana was everywhere.

But if mages wanted to use it, they had to absorb it into their bodies.

To create a mana artifact like this, they also had to charge the mana within their bodies into the Mana Storage Rune, providing the energy needed to activate the spell model.

"That works too."

After a moment of silence, Roger finally nodded. "Although it takes a day or two and is much harder than simply casting a spell, it can be stored and detonated instantly when needed. It is still very valuable."

"Yes, very valuable." Betty neither agreed nor disagreed.

"Then what if we want to use other spells? For example, Vine Entanglement. Can we simply replace Flame Vortex with Vine Entanglement?"

"Of course. All low-rank spells can use this method."

Betty was extremely confident. "We have opened up a new Mana-Artifact School! Before this, all mana artifacts required chanting, and mages had to constantly supply large amounts of mana. But now, we can prepare ours in advance."

"A Low-Order Mage may only be able to cast ten low-rank spells, but they could throw five hundred, or even a thousand, Mana Bombs like these."

The more Betty spoke, the more excited she became.

"Yes, we've opened a new school. If it did not even require mana to trigger it, that would be even more perfect."

The moment Betty heard Roger's words, she refuted him. "That's impossible! Only mana can stir mana. Without stimulation from external mana, no matter how much mana is stored in the Mana Storage Rune, it cannot be released."

"Rather than thinking about such impractical things, you should help me imagine what materials could be used to make mid-rank magic bombs. One-use consumables like these must use the most common and cheapest materials, or no one will be willing to use them."

Only mana could stir mana?

Roger thought about it and realized that seemed to be true.

Looking at it that way, the user really did need to possess a certain amount of mana to activate the Mana Storage Rune and make the entire Mana Bomb explode.

"Let's not rush into researching mid-rank ones." Roger came back to his senses. He still felt there should be another method, but his knowledge was insufficient for now, so he stopped dwelling on it. "Go have the Divine Spirits produce a batch of Mana Bombs first, then give them to that little girl carrying the coffin as well."

"I hope the mages in the mortal world can recognize their immense significance, then research, develop, produce, and spread them..."

If the Divine Kingdom relied on distribution alone, the spread of the Technology God's name would be extremely limited. But if mortals learned this idea, the speed at which it spread on its own would be viral!