Sovereign of the Ashes

The life of mages was often monotonous, filled with endless routines and little variation.

Sein had experienced this monotony and busyness when he was a magic initiate. Yet, this lifestyle scarcely changed upon his advancement to a full-fledged mage.

During the Viridian Venom Flame World war, Sein assessed his immediate priorities and identified gaps in his knowledge.

Now that he was back in the Magus World with a lingering desire to visit the Western Archipelago, Sein found himself with ample time to engage in experiments that piqued his interest.

In the laboratory, Sein was meticulously dissecting the oval-shaped bump on the forehead of a creature from the Neisse Civilization.

Meanwhile, Yuri, the female engineer within the glass case in a corner of the laboratory, displayed a mix of apprehension and fear on her face.

It appeared that in the Astral Realm, female creatures were inherently less courageous than their male counterparts. Whether this was due to hormonal differences or the unique physical makeup of the genders remained unclear.

Yuri was once a fearless Neisse Civilization engineer willing to die fighting against the mages of the Magus Civilization.

Yet, after witnessing Sein’s disturbing experiments in the laboratory, her fear was magnified.

For the first time, she was reminded of her own vulnerability as a woman.[1]

Yuri had lost count of the creatures Sein dissected in the lab.

She remained unfazed when he conducted experiments on the pyro elemental creatures, as they bore little resemblance to herself.

Since creatures of Neisse Civilization included meat in their diet, they regarded those pyro elemental creatures much like livestock.

However, Yuri felt a profound chill when Sein’s scalpel incised the creatures from her own civilization.

His meticulous technique, especially when slicing open the bump on the creature’s forehead, evoked in Yuri a visceral fear as if she were the one under the knife.

This empathic horror was nothing short of mental torture for her!

Although Sein was not directly hurting her, Yuri felt utterly defeated by him.

Her fear was a classic case of the weak feeling dominated by the strong, compounded by the psychological strain of witnessing Sein’s experiments over the recent years.

“So their sensitivity is higher in this area due to all these nerve endings, huh? How do these creatures pilot those mechas? What’s the secret to their ability?” Sein mumbled to himself as he studied the specimen laid out before him on the experiment table.

He cast a glance at Yuri, who was in the corner of the laboratory, with unknown intention.

Catching the brief glance from Sein, Yuri, who had been watching him, shivered, her complexion turning even paler.

Sein, however, did not let Yuri’s reactions distract him. Recognizing her value as an engineer, he had no intention of experimenting on her for fear of accidentally killing her.

The Divine Tower of Verdant Spring’s library did contain Soul Enslavement magic in the section accessible to full-fledged mages, but those spells struck Sein as rather crude and primitive.

He believed that he could find better and more sophisticated spells in Master Lorianne’s private collection.

However, with Lorianne away, Sein hesitated to venture into her private quarters.

Lorianne had probably set up prohibition arrays in her private library and Sein was not sure if she had granted him access.

Given that there was no immediate urgency, Sein decided to postpone his plans involving the engineer’s subjugation.

Seeking further inspiration from his prior research, Sein gestured with his right hand. The laboratory walls began to shift, accompanied by a flow of mana and a brief incantation.

Sein’s laboratory was already quite spacious, but the movement of the walls significantly increased its size, expanding the area to more than threefold its original size while the floor descended.

From the appearance of the space within, it seemed that the depth of the laboratory had also been extended by three storeys!

Among his peers at the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring, Sein was perhaps the only Rank One mage granted such extensive resources.

The advantage of having such access to resources and facilities should not be underestimated. These were precisely what allowed Sein to progress at a faster rate than his peers among the Rank One mages!

Genius, it seemed, was not solely a matter of innate talent. The accumulation of resources could also elevate one to the status of a genius.

In the expanded laboratory, Sein displayed part of his finds from the Viridian Venom Flame World on the wall.

Among them, a pink mecha standing over ten meters tall stood out prominently.

It bore the scars of war, with dense scratches covering the surface of its torso. The head, chest, abdomen, and arms had suffered the most damage.

One of its arms had been ripped off, and its head was dented in. There was a gaping hole in the chest, and the abdomen appeared to have been penetrated by a powerful elemental force.

Despite its battered state, Sein’s effort in cleaning had restored a semblance of its former majesty.

Sein remembered well that under the control of the captured female engineer, this mecha demonstrated combat prowess comparable to a creature at the peak Rank One or Rank Two.

Upon seeing the battered, pink mecha, emotions flashed across Yuri’s eyes.

The pink mecha was not the only construct in Sein’s laboratory. Alongside it, five other relatively intact mecha units stood within the space. There was also an assortment of miscellaneous parts tucked away in various corners.

Each item represented a significant victory and trophy from Sein’s expeditions in the Viridian Venom Flame World.

Sein approached a six-meter-tall white mecha and gazed at what appeared to be the cockpit area within its chest, pondering the relationship between the Neisse Civilization’s engineers and their mechas.

“The evolution of Neisse Civilization’s engineers likely focuses on mental focus too. The concept of operating a massive construct through mental focus makes sense, yet it calls for specialized knowledge about the constructs...” Sein mused while shaking his head

1. Author’s Note: The Neisse Civilization predominantly employs male engineers, making Yuri a rare female genius in her field.☜