In the evening, Roland sat in his office, starting to brainstorm new equipment.
The pills appearing in Clearwater Port gave him a strong sense of crisis. Regardless of why the church would support both him and Garcia in the fight for the throne, just the thought of Garcia's thousands of troops made his scalp tingle.
Imagine thousands of steel warriors running on foot at the speed of cavalry, charging towards him with unstoppable momentum. His thin line of riflemen would probably be difficult to hold. As long as one person broke through the line, it would cause heavy losses to the First Army.
Fortunately, these pills did not provide immunity to damage; the users were still flesh and blood.
He needed weapons with higher rates of fire and greater accuracy, capable of continuous firing at longer ranges.
Without fulminate of mercury as a primer, Roland had to find a way around this hurdle and produce a batch of alternative equipment to deal with the potential crisis.
Anna's new ability gave him tremendous confidence. Now, as long as he could draw the designs, Anna could precisely fabricate them with amazing efficiency – compared to the flintlock parts previously forged by blacksmiths, she could now stack several plate pieces together and cut them simultaneously.
Popularizing education and standardizing weights and measures were preparations for industrialized mass production, but that didn't mean he would ignore shortcuts. Anna's new ability was simply a treasure trove with endless potential for exploitation. Roland now went to the North Slope every afternoon to study the application of Blackfire with her. If he was too busy, he would have her practice her control abilities by sculpting small items – like witch figurines.
Although her sculpting skills were still quite immature, Roland believed that one day, his display cabinet would be filled with witch figurine models of all kinds… probably?
He selected a steel ruler and pressed it onto a parchment. He had only drawn two lines when a knock sounded on the door.
If the guards hadn't announced anyone, it was most likely a witch. And at this moment, most of the witches were in the first-floor living room learning to read and do arithmetic with Scroll. So, the witch who didn't need to attend basic lessons and had time to come see him was only one person.
"Come in."
Sure enough, Anna pushed the door open and entered.
She gently closed the door, walked to Roland's desk, and held a book with gold edges in her arms.
Being able to borrow Scroll's illusionary book, which she could only materialize once a day before class, it had to be said that although Anna wasn't very talkative, she was surprisingly popular among the witches. Thinking about Nannaawa, who used to stick to her like a little tail, maybe she had a natural charm to attract witches?
"What's wrong? Did you encounter a difficult question?"
"Yes," she nodded, unfolding the book in front of Roland. "Here… you said that all things in the world are made up of small spheres, and these spheres are all different, but you later mentioned that they can turn into… waves?" Anna asked, "What is a wave?"
"If you throw a stone into the water, the ripple it causes is a wave," the prince coughed twice. "It's a concept, just take a look, no need to delve too deeply."
"Why?"
Because I don't understand it myself, Roland thought with a wry smile. The microscopic quantum realm was a mysterious thing; he should have never written that part. Thinking this in his heart, he couldn't say it out loud. "Because spheres have wave properties and material properties. We, who are composed of spheres, are the same, but we are too massive to easily observe our wave nature. As for the deeper reasons, countless generations of people will need to explore them." He thought for a moment and added, "Because this phenomenon conflicts greatly with common sense, it is very difficult to understand, just like how we in a three-dimensional world find it hard to imagine four-dimensional space. You don't need to worry about it."
Anna pouted, seemingly not very satisfied with Roland's explanation, but she quickly asked again, "What is four-dimensional space?"
"..."
By the time she stopped asking questions, the prince's mouth was parched. He really underestimated Anna's thirst for knowledge. If this continued, he wouldn't have anything left to teach her.
Especially when Roland asked her about her progress in mathematics, she replied casually, "That's much simpler; I am now seeing equations and matrices, which are quite interesting."
Much simpler, quite interesting… Roland suddenly felt that the gap between people was too great. How long has it been? In a week, she went from simple elementary functions to matrix equations and was about to learn calculus. In school, Anna would definitely be a daunting academic.
And… she was a very beautiful academic.
Roland looked at the woman who was looking down and flipping through the book, momentarily lost in thought. Her fine bangs draped across her forehead, and stray wisps of hair fell naturally beside her cheeks. He couldn't help but reach out his index finger, gather her hair, and gently tuck it behind her ear.
She turned her head, looked at Roland, her eyes filled with a smile. The lake-blue pupils were no longer as still as water, but rippled with waves. They stared at each other in this close proximity until Anna opened her mouth and said something – there was no sound, only lip movements. Roland still deciphered her lip reading.
"Nightingale is not here now."
The meaning of this sentence was very straightforward. Roland felt that it would be too stupid to pretend not to understand. The room was silent; he could almost hear her breathing and heartbeat.
As he approached, Anna closed her eyes, and a flush appeared on her cheeks. Roland smelled the faint fragrance emanating from her and gently kissed her lips.
The soft sensation was transmitted through the touch. Time seemed to freeze at this moment, and they separated after an unknown amount of time.
Before he could say anything, Anna stood on tiptoe and brought their lips together again.
...
"Eeh—ha—hey!" Miyue sat cross-legged on the bed, eyes closed in contemplation, hands raised high, muttering to herself.
"What are you doing?" Lily asked, wrapping a towel around her wet hair, frowning.
"I'm imagining myself as being made of particles," she opened her eyes and said. "I am a particle," then reached out and pointed to Lily, "You are a particle too!"
"Sick," the latter rolled her eyes and crawled into the soft quilt.
"Alas, it's not working." Miyue sighed. "I've clearly imagined everything around me as being made of particles, so why can't I evolve a new ability like Anna?"
"Because you don't believe it at all," Lily said.
"I do believe it!"
"You don't believe it," she shook her head. "The one person you can't deceive is yourself… although I'm not sure why, but Anna probably unconditionally believed what the prince said from the very beginning. Of course, she was already much smarter than you, which is also a key reason why she was able to gain a new ability."
"..."
"Anyway, stop thinking nonsense and go to sleep," Lily said, spreading her hands.
"Don't you want to have such an ability?" Miyue pouted. "I want to do more for the prince too."
"Evolve to make food last longer?" She yawned. "No interest. Besides, why do more for him? Men are heartless and fickle, Echo is right in front of you as an example."
"Saying you're not interested, but you were clearly so focused during the lesson," Miyue muttered softly. "Apart from Leaf, you were the most attentive."
Lily grabbed a pillow and smacked it on the other's face. "You go to sleep!"(。)