Chapter 202: The Light-Bringer

In front of the Royal Academy of Sciences.

The angry populace clashed violently with the City Guard.

Stones and wooden sticks flew through the air, thudding against the soldiers’ shields.

In the chaos, it’s unknown who first shouted the slogan.

“Charge in! Get the witch!”

This sentence was like a spark, instantly igniting the entire powder keg.

The crowd, like a burst dam, broke through the City Guard’s line of defense and surged towards the academy’s gates.

Just then, two figures appeared without warning on the steps of the academy’s main entrance.

It was Klein and Lia.

“Look! It’s the witch!”

Someone in the crowd immediately pointed out Lia.

All the anger and hatred found a release valve in that instant.

The mob roared, brandishing their weapons, and charged towards the two.

Lia subconsciously clenched her fists, several black magic scrolls already appearing between her fingers.

However, Klein just gently pressed down on her hand.

He didn’t even look at the charging crowd, just calmly raised his right hand.

Then, he snapped his fingers.

The world seemed to have been put on mute.

The ground beneath their feet suddenly became incredibly smooth, like a mirror.

All the people at the very front couldn’t stop themselves, slipping and falling one after another, piling up like a human pyramid.

The people behind them, not knowing what was happening, continued to charge forward, only to slip and join the human pyramid.

In the blink of an eye, a human mountain composed of hundreds of people had formed in front of the academy.

And the crowd further back found that no matter how they moved their legs, they couldn’t advance an inch.

The space beneath their feet was being stretched by an invisible force.

They seemed to be running with all their might, but in reality, they were just running in place.

This bizarre scene instilled a deep-seated fear in everyone.

This was not a power they could comprehend.

“Spatial magic…” a guard mage at the entrance whispered in shock.

Klein did not answer.

He just calmly watched the struggling crowd, with no trace of pity in his eyes.

“Get out!”

His voice was not loud, yet it clearly entered the ears of everyone present.

The next moment, an irresistible force acted upon everyone.

They were pushed back involuntarily, as if by a giant, invisible hand.

Whether standing or lying on the ground, everyone was smoothly “transported” to a plaza a thousand meters away.

Throughout the process, no one was injured.

But the feeling of powerlessness, of being completely at someone else’s mercy, was more terrifying than any injury.

A riot of several thousand people was completely quelled in less than a minute.

In front of the Royal Academy of Sciences, only a mess and the dumbfounded City Guard soldiers remained.

Lia looked at the empty street, but her heart could not find peace.

She asked Klein softly, “Is… is this really okay?”

Klein’s tone was tinged with coldness. “Adults… even if they are just incited commoners, need to be responsible for their own actions.”

He turned and looked at Lia.

“Are you wavering?”

Lia didn’t speak, just silently admitted it.

“Do you think your reasoning should make you doubt everything you’ve done, just because of a bunch of fools who can’t even read a formula?” Klein’s voice held a hint of disappointment.

“I didn’t…” Lia tried to explain.

“You did,” Klein interrupted her. “You think it’s for their own good, so you feel guilty.”

“Letting them go, causing them to lose their jobs, so…”

He reached out, gently lifted Lia’s chin, forcing her to look into his eyes.

“Listen, Lia. The pains of progress cannot be cured by compromise and retreat.”

“The only solution is to cover it with faster progress.”

“What you need to do is not to stop their fall, but to create a brand new place for them to go.”

Klein’s words, like a sharp blade, cut through the fog of confusion that had been lingering in Lia’s mind.

‘Rather than sympathizing with their unemployment, it’s better to create new employment for them.’

“I understand,” Lia resolutely unclenched her fist.

“Let’s go. There’s nothing more to see here.”

He once again took Lia’s arm and left.

After the riot was quelled, the Royal Capital entered an eerie calm.

Although the incident didn’t escalate into a larger disaster, a hostile undercurrent between the nobility and the commoners now permeated the city.

The snakes who had instigated the riot were hiding in the shadows, waiting for the next opportunity to strike.

In the palace, King Augustus was at his wit’s end.

He couldn’t really throw all those thousands of people in prison; that would only incite a larger popular uprising.

Just then, he received a proposal from Lia.

“Establish a ‘Kingdom Vocational Skills Transformation and Training Center’?”

Augustus’s eyes lit up as he looked at the plan in his hand.

The core idea of the plan was simple:

Since the old jobs had disappeared, the royal family would take the lead in providing free training for the unemployed, allowing them to master new skills and adapt to new jobs.

“Basic electrical engineering, machinery maintenance, assembly line operation…” Augustus read the course names on the plan, his breathing quickening.

He immediately understood Lia’s deeper meaning.

This wasn’t just about solving unemployment; it was about preparing a qualified technical workforce for the upcoming era of industrial mass production!

“Genius! A truly genius idea!” Augustus couldn’t help but slam his hand on the table in praise.

He immediately ordered the “Royal Department of Electrical Applications” to take the lead in establishing the first new vocational skills training center in the best district of the Royal Capital.

Lia personally wrote the textbooks for all the courses.

From the most basic Ohm’s law, to the winding methods of three-phase electric motors, to the calculation of gear transmission ratios.

This knowledge, which was merely at the level of a technical school in her previous life, was, in this world, technology capable of changing the fate of countless people.

However, after the training center was built, the situation was not optimistic.

Very few people came to register on the first day.

They were still full of suspicion and resistance towards “electricity.”

They would rather complain in taverns than go and learn the “witch’s academics.”

Inside the mage tower, Adèle, who had returned, brought this bad news.

“What do we do, Lia? Those people are completely ungrateful,” Adèle said with a worried expression.

Lia, on the other hand, seemed very calm, writing and drawing on a blueprint.

“As expected,” she said without looking up. “Fear stems from the unknown. They just don’t know how wonderful an electrified life can be.”

“Then how do we let them know?” Adèle asked.

Lia didn’t answer, but instead looked at Klein.

Klein immediately understood.

He stood up and snapped his fingers.

A memory crystal levitated in mid-air and began to automatically record.

“First, the morning,” Klein’s voice sounded.

In the image, the curtains in the mage tower’s bedroom automatically opened at a set time, and warm sunlight streamed into the room.

The phonograph on the bedside table automatically began to play melodious music.

Lia played the role of the “user,” getting up from bed and walking into the bathroom.

She only needed to say “hot water,” and the bathtub would automatically fill with water at the perfect temperature.

This was a thermostatic water supply system Klein had built using an electric motor and a simple temperature-sensing magic array.

Next, it was breakfast time.

In the kitchen, a bread machine automatically toasted bread, and a coffee machine automatically brewed coffee.

Lia only needed to sit at the dining table, and a mechanical arm would deliver a sumptuous breakfast to her.

Then, it was work time.

In the study, Lia would say the title of a book, and the book would automatically fly from the bookshelf into her hands.

This was a combination of electromagnets and a small positioning magic array created by Klein.

For cleaning, there was an autonomous cleaning golem.

For laundry, there was a washing machine with a spin-dry function.

The entire mage tower was like a precision automated factory, and Lia was its sole queen.

She didn’t need to do any housework; all her time could be used for thinking and research.

Although in the eyes of an Archmage, this so-called “recording” crystal was full of flaws, in the eyes of the common people, this was real.

When this futuristic promotional video was broadcast on the giant crystal screens in the major squares of the Royal Capital via the Magic Association, the entire capital boiled over.

“Heavens! Is this how a mage family lives?”

“That’s not magic! I saw coils and gears on those machines!”

“So… ‘electricity’ is used for these things?”

The impact of the video was something no words could compare to.

For the first time, people intuitively felt that electricity did not bring unemployment, but an unprecedentedly convenient, comfortable, and elegant way of life.

They looked at Lia’s leisurely and comfortable appearance in the video, then thought about their own lives of toiling for a living every day, and the emotions of jealousy and longing instantly overwhelmed their fear and resistance.

The next day, a long queue formed at the entrance of the training center.

At this moment, Marcus, who had not shown his face for a long time, struck while the iron was hot, immediately launching a “magic battery” he had designed long ago for household use, along with a matching electric lamp.

This battery could slowly recharge by absorbing the free magic elements in the air, providing dozens of hours of illumination for one electric lamp.

He licensed this technology to the royal workshops for mass production at an extremely low price.

Soon, bright electric lamps replaced dim candles and expensive magic lamps, entering thousands of households in the Royal Capital.

The emerging electricity industry sprang up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

Factories producing wires, light bulbs, and batteries rose from the ground, creating a large number of jobs.

The workers who had been unemployed, after learning a skill at the training center, were immediately hired by these new factories with high salaries.

Their identities changed from coachmen and porters to glorious electricians and technicians.

Their income not only did not decrease, but was even higher than before.

Social conflicts were quickly diluted and resolved in the face of a rapidly developing economy and a massive number of new jobs.

The nights in the Royal Capital also became brighter than ever before.

And Lia, who had brought all this about, her reputation also reached its peak in this light.

The way people referred to her changed from “the witch who caused unemployment” to “the bringer of light.”

Her portrait was also hung on the wall of the newly established electricity guild, alongside the king’s portrait.

Children sang songs about her in the streets and alleys, describing her as the embodiment of wisdom and light.

Master Laplace’s astronomical observatory, with the help of precision servos driven by electricity, could track the trajectories of the stars more accurately.

Master Eleonora was delighted to find that under the stimulation of an electromagnetic field of a specific frequency, the growth cycle of certain magical plants could be shortened by half.

The entire kingdom was revitalized with vigorous life.

After the storm subsided, Klein made a decision.

He completely cleared out the ground-floor laboratory of the mage tower.

“The construction of the particle accelerator is being handled by the Royal Academy of Sciences and the alchemy workshops. We don’t need to do it ourselves,” Klein said.

“Then what will this place be used for?” Lia asked.

“Here,” Klein looked around the empty laboratory, a light that Lia couldn’t understand flashing in his eyes, “I’m planning to design it as your exclusive workshop.”

From then on, Klein devoted all his energy to building a fully automated living system for Lia.

He redesigned the defense and living magic arrays for the mage tower using top-tier magitech materials.

Now, every bookshelf in the library corresponded to an independent electromagnetic drive device and a positioning array.

Lia only needed to lie on the sofa and softly say the title of the book she wanted to read.

The corresponding book would automatically slide out from the bookshelf and, like a docile bird, land steadily in her hands.

When she finished reading a page, she only needed to move her fingertip, and an invisible hand of magic would turn the page for her.

“Having the Advanced Potions textbook turn its own pages is truly a wonderful feeling,” Lia couldn’t help but exclaim.

“Your ‘you-time’ shouldn’t be wasted on trivial matters like turning pages,” Klein replied without looking up, as he was debugging the control core of the bookshelves.

In the bathroom, Klein installed an even more complex thermostatic circulation system.

It could not only provide water at the perfect temperature, but also, according to Lia’s mood, automatically infuse different essential oils into the water.

It could even use magic to project a brilliant starry sky onto the surface of the water.

In the walk-in closet, Klein created an automated clothing care device.

Lia’s changed clothes only needed to be thrown into a designated basket.

The device would automatically complete the washing, drying, and ironing, and then hang them back in the wardrobe by category.

The kitchen was transformed by Klein into a gourmet workshop.

He wrote a complex alchemy program that recorded thousands of dessert recipes.

Lia only needed to select the dessert she wanted on a crystal slate, and mechanical arms and alchemy arrays would automatically start preparing the ingredients, mixing, and baking.

The accuracy was down to the milligram and the second.

When Adèle visited the mage tower again, she was dumbfounded by everything she saw.

She watched a mechanical arm making a perfect tiramisu for Lia, while Lia was leisurely reading a book on an automatically swaying hammock.

“Master Klein, are you raising Lia as if she’s an infant who can’t take care of herself?” Adèle asked a soul-searching question.

Klein looked up from a pile of complex parts and glanced at her. “I’m willing to.”

His three simple words dealt a ton of damage to Adèle in an instant.

Lia looked up from her book, a blush creeping up her face.

“Klein,” Lia called softly.

“Hm?”

“Thank you.”

Klein stopped what he was doing, walked to her side, leaned down, and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“I told you, I… I will always be watching you.”

***

Meanwhile, far away on the other side of the world.

In a heavily guarded underground base in the Iron Eagle Empire.

Konrad von Richter stood before a huge ring-shaped device, his expression cold.

In the center of the device, a death row prisoner was confined.

As Konrad gave the command, the ring-shaped device began to operate, and a powerful rotating magnetic field instantly enveloped the prisoner.

The prisoner let out a miserable scream, his facial features began to contort, and blood flowed from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.

On the liquid crystal screen, the curve representing mental power fluctuation jumped wildly, and finally settled into a straight line.

“Test subject number three, brain dead, mental field collapsed, no effective energy dissipation captured,” a researcher reported.

There was no expression on Konrad’s face.

“Increase the magnetic field strength. Change to test subject number four,” he ordered coldly.

He stared at the huge device, his eyes flashing with a crazed light.

“Since matter can be converted into energy…”

“Then, why can’t mental power, an existence more advanced than matter?”

“Professor Lia, I really have to thank you for opening this door to the realm of the gods for me.”

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