206. The Glasswork

“So,” Ravenna continued, her lips curving into a razor-thin smile. “What is it you want to show me, apprentice?”Ryan swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, then sucked in a shaky breath before speaking. His voice was low, uncertain but determined.

“At first… I was going to present my discovery at the Innovation Convention Hall, to let the craftsmen and scholars debate it. But the more I worked on it, the more I realized, it might be something far greater. Something worthy of your attention, Your Highness. I… I believe it will interest a genius like you.”

“Useless flattery,” Ravenna cut him off sharply, her eyes narrowing with faint amusement. “Spare me the preamble and get to the point before my patience runs out.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Ryan stammered, bowing quickly. His palms were damp, but his words grew steadier as he pressed forward. “After studying the books you wrote for the education halls: the ones on basic craftsmanship and natural science, I found myself captivated by a question. A question no priest, nor craftsman, nor mage seems to truly know the answer to: what exactly is mana?”

He reached into his satchel and produced a small clay pot. Inside, a delicate fillet flower swayed gently, its pale petals trembling as though sensing the weight of the moment. Ryan placed it carefully on Ravenna’s desk.

“We know mana flows from flowers. We know each species carries different properties, but why? What is it, truly? What is mana?”

Ravenna leaned forward slightly, intrigued and questioned in her mind. “That is true… a question the Empire has pretended to answer for centuries without ever touching the heart of it. Even I have avoided delving too deeply into magic, despite the spells offered by the reputation system. The cost of importing flowers alone makes it inefficient too.”

Ryan's voice carried a new energy now, as if her interested look gave him courage. “So I studied what I could with what knowledge you’ve already given us. For example… in your Basics of Physics text, you explained how creatures perceive light differently. That dogs, for instance, do not see green as humans do. Their vision bends the spectrum in a way foreign to us.”

Marie perked up at that, her eyes shining with curiosity. “I remember that! I loved that book, about how rainbows split light into many colors. So what does this have to do with mana and flowers?”

Ryan smiled nervously and reached again into his satchel. This time he pulled out four large glass panels, each roughly the size of a tabletop, their surfaces polished to a faint gleam. He set them on the floor carefully, constructing a rough cube-shaped frame around the flower pot. From another compartment he produced a bundle of thin strings and several glass lenses, likely convex and concave, mounted into crude metal frames. He strung them across two sides of the panels, creating a delicate web of refractors.

“As a glassworker, light is my obsession,” Ryan said, his words spilling faster now, his earlier hesitation fading into enthusiasm. “How it bends, how it reflects, how it can be broken and remade by the simplest of lenses. But then I thought: what if mana is also light? Not the light we can see, but another form of it, invisible to our eyes, like colors beyond the rainbow. When flowers ‘activate,’ they glow. What if that glow is merely the visible fraction of something far stronger, hidden just beyond human perception?”

Ravenna tilted her head, her gaze sharpening, fascinated despite the simplicity of the thought. “So you believe mana is not energy in the abstract… but a spectrum of light. Light that we cannot see.”

“Yes!” Ryan said, his chest rising with excitement. “And if it is light, then it can be manipulated: bent, focused, amplified, by lenses, just as ordinary light is. These panels, these lenses, are my attempt to test that theory.”

He gestured toward the cube of glass surrounding the flower. “This is a tethering experiment. Fillet flowers are commonly used to trigger remote spells, they resonate with one another. Theoretically, if mana truly behaves like light, then the lenses should bend or concentrate that unseen spectrum and… perhaps… disrupt the tether.”

From his satchel, he pulled out a smaller clay pot holding another fillet flower. Its pale petals quivered faintly as he set it down outside the glass cube, as though sensing the captive flower within.

“This flower is paired with the one inside the cube. Under normal conditions, when I activate this outer flower, the inner one should glow strongly, resonating through the tether, unaffected by barriers, since magic usually flows through walls, stone, or even the ground itself.”

Marie, who had been fidgeting impatiently in her chair, could no longer contain herself. She shot upright, her chestnut hair bouncing, her eyes glittering with the same excitement as a child handed a forbidden toy.

“I’ll do it!” she exclaimed, practically clapping her hands together.

Ravenna’s smirk curved with faint indulgence. She gave a single nod. “Go ahead.”

Marie bent over the flower with eager hands, carving the activation runes across the petals. A faint shimmer ran through the markings, and the outer flower began to glow softly, light pulsing like a heartbeat. Everyone in the room instinctively turned their gaze toward the cube, waiting for the paired flower inside to answer with its own luminous resonance.

But it didn’t.

The flower inside the cube remained stubbornly dark, still as if asleep.

Marie blinked, leaning closer. “Wait… it’s not glowing?”

Ravenna’s eyes sharpened, her fascination flaring. She stepped closer to the glass box, her gown whispering against the floor. “It really isn’t…” she murmured, her voice carrying a note of dangerous intrigue. Then she glanced sharply at Ryan. “But are you certain the runes were carved properly?”

“I checked them three times, Your Highness,” Ryan said quickly, panic rising in his tone. “And Master Nille oversaw my preparations as well.”

Nille nodded firmly. “I did, Your Highness. I even had him repeat this experiment in different locations across the city to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. The result was the same every time.”

Ravenna’s eyes gleamed. She straightened slowly, her posture regal and predatory, her words deliberate. “So you are telling me that magic, something thought to be untouchable, something that transcends walls and stone can be disrupted by nothing more than a carefully arranged set of convex and concave lenses?”

The blacksmith’s apprentice looked as though the weight of her words might crush him. “I-I don’t think it applies to every type of flower, Your Highness. And I… I don’t truly understand why it works. We lack the knowledge of proper mages to consult with.”

Ravenna tapped her chin, already lost in calculations, possibilities, weaponizations. But before she could speak, Marie stiffened suddenly, her eyes widening as though struck by lightning.

“The raiders,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

Everyone turned to her. Ravenna’s gaze sharpened at once. “What did you say?”

Marie swallowed hard, her hands clutching at her dress. The memory was raw, still bleeding after all these years. “When the slave raiders attacked my village… back when I lived with Father… They placed strange glass walls around the village head’s house. Four panels. I never understood why, but—”

Her voice faltered, shaking. The image of her father falling, the laughter of armored men, the smell of blood and smoke, it all surged back.

Ravenna’s expression grew cold, steel in her voice. “Is that true?”

Marie nodded, her face pale but resolute.

Ravenna fell into silence, the gears of her mind turning. Then, her eyes narrowed into slits of sharp understanding. “If what we’ve seen here is correct… then those raiders must have used glass panels to block a message spell for reinforcement. A message the village head could have sent to nearby lords.”

Nille’s face went slack with dawning realization. “If that’s the case…” His voice broke in awe as his eyes widened. “We might be able to do the same. To block magic messages from leaving the island.”

The room froze at the weight of those words. A weapon not of steel, nor fire, but of silence. A fortress not against armies, but against the whispers of the world itself.

Ravenna’s lips curved into a dangerous smile. She stepped forward, placing a hand on Ryan’s trembling shoulder, her touch both commanding and electrifying.

“Ryan,” she said, her voice smooth and cutting, “I am giving you this project. From this moment onward, it is yours.”

The boy’s mouth fell open slightly, stunned. He looked at her as though she had placed a crown on his head.

“Nille,” Ravenna continued without pause, her gaze snapping toward the blacksmith. “See to it that he has men, tools, and all the materials he requires. Whatever he asks for, he gets.”

Nille bowed deeply, voice steady. “Yes, Your Highness.”

Ravenna turned back to Ryan, her eyes gleaming like a raven that had spotted prey. “Experiment as much as you can. Push this theory to its limits. I want to know if we can not only block magic messages… but disrupt magic itself. Imagine it, Ryan. No mage, no priest, no spellcaster will be able to use their craft if we command the field of light they rely on.”

Her hand squeezed his shoulder once, firm and promising. “We will build a mage tower in due time. But for now, you are that tower. Every discovery you make, every breakthrough, will shape the foundation of our dukedom’s defense greater than any before it.”

Ryan’s breath came shallow and quick, his heart hammering in his chest. He could barely form the words, his voice trembling as though the weight of destiny pressed down on him.

“A-at your will, Your Highness,” he whispered.