Antinoia's laboratory was as cold as an ice cellar.
The floor was covered with discarded parchment, every sheet filled with twisted lines and complex calculations.
When Bell pushed the door open and entered, Antinoia was staring blankly at a blackboard covered in formulas.
The chalk in her hand had already been snapped into three pieces.
Her fingertips were covered in white powder.
“Balin is engraving the runes, and Aunt Philan is using a blessing to strengthen the soul.”
Bell's voice was hoarse.
He walked to the table, picked up a pot of coffee that had long since gone cold, and tilted his head back to take a gulp.
Bitter.
Freezing.
It was just enough to suppress the churning acid in his stomach.
“Is there anything else I can do?”
Antinoia turned around.
A cold, sharp light reflected off her glasses.
She did not answer, but instead asked a question of her own.
“Do you know what it means to stuff a living person's soul completely into a piece of metal?”
Bell set down the coffee pot.
“It means defying fate to change a destiny.”
“Wrong.”
Antinoia threw the broken chalk in her hand into the trash can.
“It means you need a war level mana supply.”
She walked up to Bell and held up two fingers.
“Two problems.”
“First, the total volume.”
“To maintain the soul's vitality and fuse it perfectly with Mithril, the total amount of mana required is equivalent to draining every mage tower in the Royal Magic Academy.”
“Second, and most fatal.”
“Consistency.”
Antinoia's gaze became incredibly sharp.
“Once the integration process begins, it is like lighting a fuse.”
“There cannot be a single microsecond of interruption in the middle.”
“Even a lapse for the duration of a blink, and the mana supply fails.”
“Boom.”
She made an exploding gesture.
“The soul disintegrates, the Mithril is scrapped.”
“You, me, and everyone standing nearby will be blown to the sky.”
Bell fell silent.
Antinoia let out a sigh.
“I know you have money.”
“You can buy tens of thousands of mana recovery potions, you can hire hundreds of high level mages to take turns channeling mana.”
“But those are people.”
“People get tired, they get distracted, they make mistakes.”
“Mana output will fluctuate.”
“Even a powerhouse of Philan's level cannot maintain high intensity output for a day and a night without even a single ripple.”
It was a dead end.
Human power has its limits.
To achieve a miracle, relying on people would not work.
“Is there really no other way?”
Bell stared at the dense formulas on the blackboard.
Those were the results Antinoia had deduced countless times.
Every deduction eventually pointed to the same conclusion—mana exhaustion, integration failure.
“Unless you can find a heart of a god.”
Antinoia let out a cold laugh.
“Or dig up the ley lines beneath us and throw the soul directly into the magma to boil.”
Bell's pupils constricted sharply.
Ley lines.
Magma.
Boil.
These words were like a bolt of lightning, splitting open his chaotic mind.
Fragments of memories from his previous life surged wildly in his head.
That physics teacher sitting at the podium.
That thick book titled 《Thermodynamics》.
“Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.”
“It can only be transformed from one form to another.”
Bell closed his eyes.
In the darkness, countless images flashed back.
The white mist sprayed from a steam engine.
The roar of an internal combustion engine's pistons.
The massive cooling towers of a nuclear power plant.
All of these, in the end, were doing one thing.
Boiling water.
Utilizing thermal energy, converting it into mechanical energy, and then into electrical energy.
The magic world was the same.
Mana was also a form of energy.
Why did it have to rely on mages to “push” it?
Why couldn't mana be made to “flow” on its own?
As long as there was flow, there was work being done.
As long as there was work being done, a cycle could be maintained.
“Carnot cycle...”
An unfamiliar term escaped Bell's lips.
Antinoia frowned.
“What?”
Bell snapped his eyes open.
Within his previously dead eyes, two ghostly green flames now burned.
They were the product of reason and madness intertwined.
“Temperature difference.”
Bell grabbed a quill from the table and rushed to the blackboard.
He wiped away all the dense formulas Antinoia had written.
Chalk dust flew.
It made Antinoia cough twice.
“What are you doing?!”
“Be quiet!”
Bell growled.
The pen in his hand drew rapidly on the blackboard.
It wasn't a magic circle.
It wasn't runes.
It was a strange structural diagram.
Two circles, connected by complex pipes in the middle.
“We need a high temperature source.”
Bell tapped heavily on the circle on the left.
“Extreme heat.”
“For example, the core of a fire element lord, or... a lava spark drawn from the ley lines.”
He tapped on the circle on the right.
“Then a low temperature sink.”
“Extreme cold.”
“Deep Sea Ice Pith, or high purity water element essence.”
Antinoia looked at the strange diagram, her brow furrowing tighter and tighter.
“What are you drawing? An alchemical distiller?”
“No.”
Bell's hand drew a circular arrow between the two circles.
“This is a pump.”
“A mana pump.”
His voice grew faster, his tone rising.
“We don't need mages to channel mana.”
“We are going to use the rules of this world.”
“Thermal expansion and contraction.”
Bell pointed at the pipes in the middle.
“Find a medium.”
“Inert, but with extremely high mana conductivity.”
“Liquid magic silver.”
Antinoia subconsciously finished his sentence.
“Yes! Liquid magic silver!”
Bell's pen tip clattered against the blackboard.
“Let the liquid magic silver flow through the high temperature source.”
“It will absorb heat, its mana structure will expand, creating a high pressure mana flow.”
“This high pressure flow will surge into the integration array, just like steam pushing a piston.”
“Providing the most violent and direct energy.”
“Then.”
Bell's finger slid to the right.
“The spent mana flow enters the low temperature sink.”
“It releases heat, contracts, and turns back into a liquid.”
“Then it flows back to the high temperature source.”
“A continuous cycle.”
“Endless life.”
Bell turned around, leaning his back against the blackboard.
His chest heaved violently.
His face carried a sickly flush.
“As long as the high temperature source is not extinguished.”
“As long as the low temperature sink does not boil.”
“This cycle will never stop.”
“The output mana flow will be more stable and more enduring than any mage.”
“What we need to do.”
“Is not to be the donkey pushing the millstone.”
“But to build a canal.”
“To let the mana flow into Tia's body on its own.”
A deathly silence followed.
Antinoia's mouth hung open.
Her glasses slid to the tip of her nose.
She stared blankly at the crude yet strangely beautiful structural diagram on the blackboard.
This kind of idea was practically a desecration of traditional magic theory.
No one had ever thought of using such a “physical” method to manipulate mana.
However.
If one viewed mana as a fluid.
This theory...
Was actually logically self consistent.
It was even perfectly flawless.
“You...”
Antinoia swallowed hard.
Her throat was dry.
“Just what exactly is inside your head?”
“It's love.”
Bell threw the quill onto the table.
Ink splashed out, staining the priceless laboratory table black.
He looked at Antinoia.
His gaze was fierce.
“And it's hate.”
“Antinoia.”
“I want you to calculate for me.”
“Calculate the flow rate of the liquid magic silver.”
“Calculate the critical points of the high temperature source and the low temperature sink.”
“Calculate every pulsation of this pump.”
Bell leaned forward, his hands braced on the table.
He looked like a beast ready to devour its prey.
“I want to extract the heat of the entire ley line.”
“Even if I have to burn through this world.”
“I will light an eternal lamp.”
“For her soul.”
Antinoia took a deep breath.
She pushed up her glasses.
The spark of a scholar's fanaticism in her eyes was completely ignited.
“I have liquid magic silver.”
“Your family should have Deep Sea Ice Pith as well.”
She looked up at Bell.
“But for the high temperature source.”
“Ordinary earth fire is not enough.”
“To maintain a cycle of this intensity.”
“You need a true.”
“S rank fire element heart.”
Bell straightened up.
He straightened his messy collar.
“I don't believe there is anything the Lucas family does not have.”
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