Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

The next two days passed with calm and tranquility.

Antonio was quite disappointed to find that, although he had given "Sofia" several opportunities, not only did she not take the chance to escape, but she calmly accepted life under house arrest in the military camp.

A sister from St. Jeannie's Convent, Sister Teresa, personally delivered a small box, which contained, as Sofia had said, her birth certificate, baptism certificate, and some other items from the Lavoisier family.
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Sofia herself matched the eye color, hair color, and birthmark listed on the birth certificate. At this point, Antonio had almost completely believed in Sofia's identity.

The next step would be to obtain copies of the birth certificate and baptism certificate from the church where Antoine-Laurent's daughter was baptized through the channel of the church, to compare the two sets of documents. If they were consistent, it would be possible to fully verify her identity.

Reputable guarantors, birth documents, and tokens—these were the methods of the era to prove that "a person" was indeed "that person."

In other words, no matter who it was, as long as they had a full set of documents that matched the description therein, she would legally be Antoine-Laurent's daughter.

While there were many loopholes to exploit, this was the most rigorous method people of the era could have.

Sofia agreed to Antonio's proposal to treat the research content in the notes as a reward for the Republic of Vineta to restore Antoine-Laurent's honor. This was a perfect solution, and Sofia inadvertently protected the honor of both Antonio and Winters. Because Antonio had already decided that he would keep the contents of the notebook in Vineta, even if it meant breaking his promise.

In the Military Police division of the Army Headquarters, these two days had been hectic; Lieutenant Colonel Field had confirmed that no spellcaster officers in the Vineta Army had taken leave, gone missing, or died in the past few days.

At the second full officers' meeting of the Military Police division, Winters brought up a possibility: that man was indeed a spellcaster, but not from the Vineta Army. He wasn't returning to Vineta, but was heading there, and he was a spellcaster of the Provincial Army.

However, the three men of the Military Police division currently had no means to verify this, and they could only send an official letter to the Provincial Army. But considering the tense relationship between the two sides, it was expected that the letter would be like a stone sinking into the sea.

But the salvage operation did yield some unexpected findings. Sea Blue Port is a natural deep-water harbor, with coral reefs and rocks mainly at the seabed, and not much silt. Four skilled sailors managed to retrieve both guns and swords within a day.

The problem was that neither the guns nor swords bore any marks or crests that could prove the assassin's identity, rendering them essentially meaningless.

The biggest gain was actually the retrieval of Major Moritz's dress sword by the salvaging sailors. Moritz had lost his dress sword the day he drowned, and he had been using a simple old sword since, so finding his original, costly ceremonial sword was a pleasant surprise.

These past few days, however, Winters's mind wasn't on the assassination case, but on Antoine-Laurent's notebooks.

At the military academy, all spellcasters had heard their seniors mysteriously talk about a story: over a decade ago, the executed father of the spellcasters of the Alliance—Antoine-Laurent—had been conducting research in the final stage of his life that could overturn the magic system, touching the essence of magic itself. After his death, his manuscripts were lost, and his achievements disappeared with them.

No one knew where the story originated, but it was certain that the story became more like a myth over time. Winters personally witnessed two variations of this story during his three years at the officers' academy.

The contents of Antoine-Laurent's research became more and more exaggerated and mysterious in the retelling among the spellcasters, transforming his manuscripts into artifacts that could empower spellcasters to become legendary mages of destructive power, according to legend.

As a spellcaster, Winters certainly didn't believe that anything could instantly elevate a spellcaster's spell-casting abilities out of thin air. As he said to Aike, "Does giving a child a good sword make him a top swordsman?"

Still, being steeped in such stories over the years had given him a mysterious imagination about Antoine-Laurent's research notes: although not as miraculous as the stories claimed, they must have contained very important information.

However, when he actually finished transcribing the notebook, his feelings were quite complex.

The contents of the notebook were a mess, something between a diary, a collection of inspirations, and a record of experiments.

Many parts seemed to be written on a whim; some were fragmented thoughts, some were results of experiments. With hasty scribbles, erasures, and modifications, and some rough sketches in the corners that seemed to have been doodled when he hit a dead end in his thoughts.

Did Antoine-Laurent's notes contain important information?

Of course.

But for the Republic of Vineta, the most useful thing recorded in this notebook was probably the sketch of the "Fire-type Spell Potential Testing Instrument."

Although crudely drawn, Winters had figured out what it was. The instrument was essentially a sophisticated scale. Two glass spheres were placed at either end of the balance, connected by a glass tube.

The sketch was rudimentary, and the glass spheres in the drawing seemed to contain some kind of liquid.