The Prince’s Nanny, Her Specialty Is Assassination - Chapter 145

Chapter 145. The Prophet and the Guardian (3)

“It’s common knowledge that divine power and mana are incompatible. But every human possesses both.”

Sage lifted the mana stone from the desk.

The red light inside it seemed to swirl.

“Which one you’re more gifted with, or better suited to, is a matter of proportion.”

Most humans were born with mana and divine power in roughly equal proportions.

Those with a greater proportion of mana often became mages or knights, while those with a greater proportion of divine power became priests.

“But unlike humans, monsters are beings made entirely of mana.”

Mana stones, which consisted of pure mana, were either destroyed by divine power or corrupted it instead.

“And yet traces of divine power were detected in a mana stone from one of those monsters….”

At present, there was only one possible explanation.

Someone with divine power strong enough to leave traces had touched that mana stone.

“Master, does that mean….”

After frowning deeply for a while, Edwin asked, “Someone like a priest might be involved with the mutant monsters?”

“Yes, as crazy as that sounds.”

It seemed he hadn’t earned the title of sage for nothing.

While I watched Sage in silence, Edwin raised an objection.

“But that doesn’t make sense!”

“What doesn’t?”

“Mana stones inside monsters take time to form, don’t they?”

Naturally occurring mana stones were crystals of condensed mana, so they took a long time to form.

Mana stones inside monsters likewise needed time for the mana to condense.

For instance, a mana stone from a monster that’d only recently come into the world was no bigger than half a little fingernail.

“But if there are traces of divine power on a mana stone inside a monster, unless someone reached into its body and touched the stone….”

“If they did that, the monster would’ve died long before. Most mana stones are located near the heart.”

Sage picked up the red mana stone with a grave expression.

“As I said, this is an artificially created mana stone. It’s the fruit of the efforts of countless mages and scholars to create mana stones themselves since the first one was discovered.”

He suddenly pulled a thick book from the bookcase covering an entire wall.

When he opened its dust-covered cover, incomprehensible diagrams and complex formulas appeared.

“As you can see in this book, mana is the raw material for mana stones. As long as you have an ore that can hold mana, making one is very easy.”

Put simply, a few mages could make a mana stone by filling an extremely hard mineral with mana to its limit.

“But artificial mana stones can’t withstand the passage of time. Unlike naturally occurring ones, which grow more powerful with age.”

Even at their longest, artificial mana stones lasted no more than two years.

That was because, unlike the limitless mana in nature, there was a clear limit to the mana humans could directly pour into them.

“But about three hundred years ago, a mage succeeded in creating an artificial mana stone more powerful than a natural one.”

I’d never heard of such a thing.

If that were true, artificial mana stones could’ve completely replaced natural ones long ago.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Well, I imagine it is.”

Sage gave a bitter smile at my words.

“The method’s been forbidden since the era of the Great War.”

The old sage looked between Edwin and me, then lowered his voice considerably.

As though divulging some great secret.

“You see, the method involved turning the mage himself into a mana stone.”

Turning a human into a mana stone?

Just the sort of idea those types would come up with.

I frowned in silence.

“That can’t be….”

Meanwhile, Edwin’s mouth hung open in utter shock.

Sage showed him a neatly folded sheet tucked between the book’s pages.

Diagrams of the human body were tangled with bizarre magical formulas in a bewildering jumble.

“What’s this, Master?”

“What else? The method for turning a mage into a mana stone.”

Wait, didn’t he say it was forbidden since the era of the Great War?

How did that old man get his hands on a forbidden book from at least two hundred years ago?

More to the point, did he bring all this with him when he left Luxen? Quick hands, that one.

“Quite a fucking mess, isn’t it?”

Sage scoffed and traced the diagram with a finger.

“It doesn’t just use magic of the four elements. There are disgusting spell formulas here that only necromancers would use.”

He kindly continued explaining to the two of us as we stared in confusion.

“Apparently, to turn a mage into a mana stone, several other mages must pour all their mana into someone with a high affinity for it, trapping that vast amount of mana inside the person’s body.”

That was all theoretical, of course.

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean overloading them with mana? Wouldn’t that kill them?”

Too much of anything was worse than too little.

Mana was no exception.

There was a limit to how much mana a mere human could handle alone.

Taking in any more than that would naturally cost them their life.

“There are exceptions to everything. What did I just say? A mage with a high affinity for mana.”

“An affinity for mana?”

“A constitution that allows them to absorb limitless amounts of mana. Though it’s so rare that someone like that might not be born even once in a thousand years.”

Hmm. Continuously pouring mana into a mage with that sort of constitution.

In that case, creating a living mana stone would indeed be possible.

“A mage turned into a mana stone becomes a literal human weapon. According to ancient records, their magic is powerful enough to reshape the landscape and kill a thousand soldiers at once.”

“Master.”

Then Edwin shot his hand up, as though something was bothering him.

“I have a question.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“You said earlier that turning a mage into a mana stone was a bad thing. But if they don’t die and become even stronger, wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

He had a point.

Mages were always pursuing greater power, so they might actually welcome becoming mana stones.

“Ah, I left that part out.”

Sage stroked his beard, then casually added.

“There’s one drawback to becoming a mana stone.”

“What is it?”

“A body that neither ages nor dies.”

A living mana stone wouldn’t die from being stabbed, struck by magic, or poisoned.

They had no choice but to remain alive until all the mana within their body was exhausted.

“That’s why it was forbidden. Immortality is too great a blessing for a human to bear.”

A blessing too great was, in a sense, a curse.

To have to keep living, regardless of one’s own wishes.

‘In that sense, am I in a similar position?’

For some reason, my mouth felt dry and rough.

‘I’m still living a life I thought was over.’

While I was caught up in this unexpected wave of regret, Edwin frowned as though he couldn’t understand at all.

“An immortal body? Wouldn’t that be even better?”

Edwin tilted his head in bewilderment.

“I think it’d be wonderful to have a body that couldn’t be hurt or poisoned.”

How naive.

He might’ve grown a little wiser, but he was still a child.

I glanced at him, then changed the subject.

“But what does that story have to do with this mana stone?”

The mana stone on the desk still shimmered with an alluring red light.

Sage bared his teeth at my question. “You really are impatient. I haven’t finished explaining.”

He cleared his throat, then continued, “They say the mage who became immortal lived as the loyal servant of a kingdom until the era of the Great War came to an end.”

Unlike Edwin, who looked puzzled, I immediately noticed something strange.

“That’s odd. An immortal with that much power served someone else?”

No human would do that.

It was human nature to want to stand above others after gaining immense power.

At least, every human I’d encountered was like that.

“Exactly. Strange, isn’t it?”

Sage snapped his fingers at my words.

“That was the biggest reason this method was forbidden. A human turned into a mana stone had no choice but to obey the people who poured mana into them.”

Stripped of free will the moment their life as a human ended.

They became nothing more than a mana stone, a disposable object.

“When the Mages’ Association learned of this, they staged a sit-in. The mage who developed the magical formula was executed, and the mage who became a living mana stone vanished without a trace.”

Sage shrugged, then lifted the mana stone once more. “I can’t be certain, but I suspect this mana stone was created using an adaptation of that magical formula.”

“What? You mean….”

“There’s a good chance someone used this mana stone to deliberately create mutant monsters.”

That would explain the traces of divine power on the mana stone.

If the monsters were created using mana stones, someone would’ve touched the stones beforehand.

‘Still, a mana stone created by adapting the formula for making a living mana stone.’

I narrowed my eyes.

That meant the mutant monsters might have a master, too.

“So….”

Meanwhile, Edwin frowned, deep in thought.

“Master, you’re saying someone is using these mana stones to create and control mutant monsters?”

He continued slowly, as though he desperately didn’t want to believe it, “And that someone has very strong divine power.”