Cecily held an originium crystal and a leaf in her hand. They were the only two ‘local specialties’ brought back by her subordinate Pest.
“This is... an originium crystal constructed with human magic?” Cecily soon determined that the originium crystal was created by a human.
The Demon Realm’s utilization of the originium crystals was still in a very elementary level. After all, demons were very ‘rough’ with the way they use magic.
Cecily clenched her fist to crush the originium crystal. White runes gushed out from the crushed originium crystal and poured into Cecily’s body. When Cecily opened her eyes again, a purely white computer interface covered her field of vision.
“This is... a magic created by humans?”
Cecily extended her hand to touch the white computer interface. With Cecily’s touch, the interface provided feedback, something completely new. The Mage Forum’s interface appeared before the second princess.
“His Highness Joshua was the one who had me deliver these two items to you. I am uncertain as to exactly who created them,” said Pest.
“But, the humans are already using this magic.”
Cecily quickly skimmed through the contents on the Mage Forum. Her thoughts grew complicated.
Joshua was not the first Chaos Demon to visit Norland. Cecily had concealed her identity and visited that city multiple times.
During Cecily’s first visit, the humans of Norland were utilizing magic in the same manner as the demons — as weapons.
They were limited to reciting spells that would maneuver the magic power within their bodies to unleash ‘magic.’
But, during Cecily’s second visit to Norland, the humans had learned how to embed their magic to the originium crystals. Some were even able to embed their magic into items of steel and make them mobile.
The two visits were separated by only a dozen or so years. Yet, the humans had managed to acquire an even higher level of magic utilization.
However, the magic utilization in the Demon Realm remained at the elementary level of sending out magic power through one’s body as a means of weaponry in combat...
The Demon Realm was lagging behind the humans in magic utilization.
That was the main reason why Cecily has been attempting to negotiate with the humans all this time. Unfortunately, her negotiations did not make any headway at all.
With the influence of the Nation of the Holy Church, the humans refused to admit demons with friendliness. As for allowing demons to learn their knowledge, it would be a dream.
“Mage Forum...”
Cecily soon learned the method to use the magic network and began to browse through the information on the Mage Forum. She was especially interested in the ‘Magic Research’ sub-forum.
“Your Highness Cecily, even though this is not my first time reminding you of this, I would like to re-emphasize that if you’re interested in human magic, we sentinels could always bring back some human mages from Norland to work for you.”
Seeing how concentrated Cecily was as she browsed through the ‘Magic Research’ sub-forum, Pest couldn’t help but remind Cecily.
“The missionaries from the Nation of the Holy Church declare that we are a bunch of uncivilized and cruel monsters. Pest, if I am to do as you suggested, how will we be different from the monsters described by those swindlers?”
With slight disappointment, Cecily closed the ‘Magic Research’ sub-forum.
Even though the posts on there were all discussing knowledge related to magic, they were mostly about topics with words that Cecily cannot understand. Besides those were a bunch of crazy and unfounded ravings.
If she wanted to find useful information from all the chaotic mess, it would be easier for Cecily to study the writing style of mages.
“Did Joshua mention anything else?” Right now, Cecily was more concerned about her younger brother’s life in Norland.
“About that... if Your Highness wishes to communicate with His Highness Joshua, you could directly use a magic called ‘messenger.’”
Pest had learned the way to use the magic network in the half-month journey. She would frequently check out the ‘Hearthstone’ sub-forum to pass time.
“Messenger?” Cecily was looking at the magic network’s ‘desktop.’ She soon found the icon for ‘messenger.’
Without needing Pest’s guidance, Cecily managed to gain a rough idea of how to use the magic network’s messenger function after only a minute. She also registered her username on the messenger.
“His Highness Joshua’s name is Firebringer.”
Firebringer?
Cecily soon found that name on the messenger. The functions of the messenger were still not well-developed. Should the user not want to deliberately block strangers, one would be able to find them using only a name.
“Your Highness Cecily, if you’re not used to using a ‘keyboard,’ I can do it on your behalf.”
“There’s nothing difficult about it.”
Cecily looked at the ‘keyboard’ composed of a series of complicated runes that appeared before her. For people that were not familiar with the sequence of runes, using a keyboard might be very difficult.
But, Cecily managed to quickly memorize the location of every rune. Then, she began to utilize human language to compose a greeting to her ‘runaway’ younger brother.
Cecily began to tap at the keyboard with such fluency like she was swinging her sword. She composed a very long message. But, after she finished writing it, she deleted the entire message and replaced it with a short message. Only then did she tap send.
“Joshua, if you see this message, reply immediately.”
After sending that message, Cecily started to quietly wait for a reply. Soon, she received Joshua’s reply.
“Elder sister?”
The speed of the message transmission was so quick... It also ignored the boundary between the human world and the demon realm!
Cecily immediately thought of countless ways to utilize the magic network. They included ways to manage a town or a battlefront. But, compared to all that... she was more concerned with how her younger brother was doing in Norland.
“You’ve been staying in the human world for too long. Joshua... are you really not planning to return?”
Cecily remembers that her younger brother has lived in the Demon Realm all his life. Even though he would occasionally sneak out the Royal Capital, he had never stayed in the human world for such a long period of time.
“I will find time to come back to the Demon Realm. But, for the time being, there are a lot of things for me to manage in Norland. As such, I am unable to return right now.”
“A lot of things? You’re not hiding your identity as a demon in Norland?”
Cecily has always concealed her identity and acted with caution whenever she’s in a human city. If her identity as a demon was exposed, the worst outcome could be that she’ll end up being besieged by the residents of that city.
As such, it was very difficult for Cecily to find jobs in the human cities.
“No, I haven’t. Actually, the citizens of Norland are all quite friendly.”
Joshua’s reply still cast doubt in Cecily’s mind. Even though the influence of the Nation of the Holy Church was minimal in Norland, it was not sufficient for the humans to become friendly toward demons instead.
“Joshua, were you truly not... injured all this time?” Cecily was concerned about Joshua’s well-being.
“Although the Nation of the Holy Church attempted to assassinate me, I’ve not sustained any injuries. I’ve also managed to use their assassination attempt to sweep the Nation of the Holy Church out of Norland.”
After Cecily finished reading Joshua’s reply, she turned to look at the vampire girl standing next to her. She wanted to obtain details from Pest.
“That is the truth. His Highness Joshua not only managed to banish those hypocrites from Norland, he did so with the help from Norland’s mages. I was personally part of that operation,” said Pest.
Hearing Pest’s report, Cecily was certain what Joshua did was a magnificent feat that could enter him into the annals of the demon race. A demon led a group of humans to defeat the Nation of the Holy Church... that was something that had never occurred in the history of the demon race.