Chapter 119: Necessary Sacrifices

Ambrose truly was busy. The arcane knowledge woven into the Weft was so complex that even locating the portions he actually needed had taken an enormous amount of time.

Scratch notes were piled high throughout the laboratory. Every sheet was covered in dense, cramped handwriting.

More than a dozen Mage Hands worked simultaneously, clutching quills and recording data. Even Isabel had been drafted into service, her sole responsibility being to refill ink for the floating quills.

After days of nonstop work, Ambrose finally managed to organize what he needed.

His conclusion was simple: as the elves had reasoned, mana addiction resulted from their bodies being unable to bear legendary power.

It was like strapping a child into a full suit of metal armor. Though it would certainly protect the child, the armor would apply constant pressure just by being worn.

Even lying still did not remove that burden. It merely lessened it.

In the short term, everything would seem fine. Everyone would focus on the fact that the armor was impervious. Though the child tired more easily, the drain would surely be manageable with enough food and rest.

Over time, however, the pressure brought about by the armor would damage the child's body.

It wasn't physical damage. Rather, it would disrupt the child's internal mana circulation, creating a void that could never be filled.

The elves had believed that they would be able to mitigate the damage by supplying sufficient mana to the afflicted elves. For instance, if the entire elven race's stockpile of mana potions were poured into a single individual, surely that individual would be cured.

But reality proved otherwise. As the mana addiction progressed, the void within the patients' bodies would only grow larger. In the end, no matter how much mana was supplied, it would all dissipate immediately. Nothing could be retained. Nothing could ease the agony of complete mana depletion.

To truly cure mana addiction, the void in their bodies had to be sealed.

The simplest solution was to return the borrowed legendary power before the condition worsened. Remove the burden, and the affliction would cease.

But the Elven Queen's "Selfless Resonance" could not be taken back. Worse still, it could even be inherited through genetics.

The second option was equally straightforward: elevate the patients to true legends, so that the power drain would no longer be a burden. Unfortunately, despite their manifold gifts, triggering half the elven population's legendary ascension was such a ridiculous prospect that even mass suicide would seem more palatable in comparison.

That left only one method: eliminating the mana void.

Knowledge of the Weft provided Ambrose with a solution.

At its core, the mana void was simply a special form of magical instability. The Weft was more than capable of correcting it.

Initially, magic had been so unstable that attempting to conjure a small flame could easily freeze the caster solid. If the Weft had been able to stabilize mana fluctuations to that extent, then dealing with simple mana loss would be even more trivial. If Ambrose could figure out a way to apply the Weft's stabilizing effect to elves, mana addiction would cease to be a problem entirely.

The theory was sound, but Ambrose hit a snag in actually trying to carry out such a procedure.

All magical experiments required experimental materials. The ideal subjects were elves already afflicted with mana addiction—but the early trials would inevitably be brutal and bloody. Hundreds of lives might be required just to produce usable data.

That left Ambrose in a bind. He had fewer than twenty prisoners. Even dissecting every single one of them might not yield sufficient results.

And if he sacrificed them all without producing convincing data, negotiations with the elves would collapse entirely.

"Annoying," Ambrose muttered. "Where am I supposed to find several hundred mana-addicted elves?"

When in doubt, he was accustomed to consulting the Elegiac Society.

[Megaman Tiga: Friends, I have encountered a minor problem in my experiments. I require a large number of elven subjects to obtain sufficient data and to earn the elves' trust. But without their trust, I cannot obtain those subjects. Any suggestions?]

[Human-Hater: What are you even talking about?]

[Megaman Tiga: You wouldn't understand. Don't interrupt.]

[Human-Hater: Tell me and I will understand. What's the elves' secret, anyway? I swear I won't tell the desert dwarves.

[Megaman Tiga: You'd tell the other desert races and have them pass it along.]

[Human-Hater: What? Do you really think that little of me?]

Heki Stone's fingers trembled. The lich had seen through him instantly. His intuition was absurd.

Ambrose continued impatiently, [Megaman Tiga: Drop it. Until I reach an agreement with the elves, you're not finding out about their secret.]

A moment later, Black Rose appeared.

[Black Rose: Do you specifically need elves from the Court of the Silver Moon? Or will any elves do? If it's the latter, I have plenty of drow slaves. You can have as many as you want.]

[Megaman Tiga: Not just any elves. You know what problem the elven race is facing—I need elves who've already been affected.]

Ambrose was about to dismiss the drow when he paused. Black Rose's suggestion might just work. [Megaman Tiga: Can you send me a few drow? Let me test it out first.]

[Black Rose: No problem. I'll send them over now.]

True to her word, Black Rose delivered more than a dozen drow elves in short order.

Ambrose examined their gray skin and felt genuine gratitude for her generosity. Doing business with her was always pleasant.

The drow had all been enslaved and branded. Their self-awareness had been completely erased; they obeyed orders like mindless puppets.

Ambrose wasted no time. He placed them into his extradimensional space and froze them in stasis.

Then he turned to Cicero's group of elves, from whom he drew a large amount of blood, though not enough to be fatal.

If mana addiction could be inherited through genetics, then transmission through blood infusion was also plausible.

After all, the drow and high elves were originally one race. Only after Lolth the Spider Queen betrayed the elven gods and led her followers into the Umbral Depths did the drow come into being.

Physiologically, the two were nearly identical. Their cruelty and malice were the result of Lolth's influence. Given that the drow were mortal enemies of the high elves, the Court of the Silver Moon would hardly object to their use as test subjects.

But all this hinged on whether mana addiction could indeed be transmitted through blood.

Ambrose analyzed the blood samples in detail, then injected them into the drow. Fortunately, elves had no issues with blood-type incompatibility. Transfusions were safe.

All he had to do then was wait.

He placed the drow back into his extradimensional space, supplied them with ample nourishment, and accelerated the flow of time to its maximum.

One day outside was one year inside. After a day passed, Ambrose reopened the space and examined the drow.

The results delighted him. Several showed clear increases in strength and speed. They consumed food far faster than anticipated.

Though outwardly unchanged, these drow had clearly received the effects of "Selfless Resonance." In theory, they were now afflicted with mana addiction.

It normally took many years for severe symptoms to manifest. Even with temporal acceleration, it would take months to push the affliction into full onset.

Ambrose did not have that kind of time. Since they were experimental materials to begin with, harsher methods were acceptable.

For the first time, Ambrose revealed a trace of a lich's cruelty. He summoned the Golden Throne and cast Aging on one infected drow.

Normally, the spell merely transformed the target into an elderly state. It didn't actually make them live through the process.

But Ambrose had empowered his spell with the Golden Throne.

The aged drow immediately began screaming in agony. Ambrose could feel the drow's life force draining rapidly, as if something within the drow had awakened and was devouring him from the inside.

"It worked!"

The drow rolled on the ground, his sanity slipping away. He howled madly and lunged at the others without restraint.

Just as the prophecy had shown, when mana addiction manifested in full, afflicted elves would lose their sanity.

If the entire elven race fell into this state, how many would die?

No wonder they had started a war. Far better for afflicted elves to die as martyrs rather than degenerating into monsters.

Ambrose restrained the berserk drow and began his first true experiment.

To save time, he entered the extradimensional space himself and relied on the temporal acceleration to speed up his research.

The drow was dissected piece by piece—carved up in flesh and marrow, body and soul—with nothing left unexamined. Ambrose confirmed his hypothesis. The physical signature of mana addiction was indeed a mana void, but the void wasn't merely a physical phenomenon. It even affected the soul.

Ambrose had assumed the madness was caused purely by mana depletion. Instead, he discovered that the void consumed life force and carved pieces out of the soul itself.

He sighed softly. "Damage to both body and soul… The price of wielding foreign power truly is steep."

No wonder the gods refused to intervene. The elves had gone too far. They had simply been too greedy, so much so that they had lost their reason in the face of power.

And though he had confirmed his hypothesis, a true cure was still far off.

Ambrose turned to the remaining blank-eyed drow and said sincerely, "Thank you for your contribution to scholarship. I promise you will not suffer unnecessary pain, and no part of you will be wasted, including your souls."

The next round of experiments began.