The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family-Chapter 392: City Like a Corpse (9)

Lower mana meant weaker monsters. Weaker monsters meant safer environments for settlements. Safer environments meant steadier leveling for the population.

It was a surrogate System; one to replace the automatic one the Allied Worlds had taken away.

<If this works...>

It also meant that if the magic circles worked, they could slow the process of turning feral.

<First, I could create a safe zone. Places where the mana was thin enough that monsters wouldn't want to go there, or where they would be significantly weaker. Second, and more importantly, it is a backup plan for Earth in case the allied worlds play it foul.>

If the Allied Worlds pulled the plug on humanity, Reidar could use these circles to stabilize mana levels.

He ran a hand through his hair.

<That's what the Ignis were trying to do. They were building a way to survive without the system.>

And they almost succeeded.

Reidar picked up the journal again and flipped to the back. Zhen-Gora had written Vor'len's theories.

The pages were filled with diagrams of magic circles, equations for mana flow, and lists of required materials.

The journal described a prototype mentioning tests where the circles had reduced mana density by thirty percent in controlled environments. They were scaling up, preparing to deploy the technology across their major cities. If they had had more time, they might have saved themselves.

But they didn't get that time. The Allied Worlds abandoned them before they could prepare anything.

Reidar read the pages once more. His Advanced Spellcraft Mastery allowed him to understand the basic structure, but the specifics were far more complex than he could understand.

The geometry was different from the summoning circles he knew. But there were similar parts, which Reidar assumed were related to the mana gathering parts.

<They figured this out in six years?>

Reidar looked around the room again, really seeing it this time.

The Ignis had started from zero, like humanity did. When the apocalypse hit, they had nothing, and within two years, they were level 360 on average. Within three years, the Allied Worlds feared them enough to decide to leave them to their fate.

Six years since their apocalypse started, they were already creating solutions to not stay dependent on the allied worlds. That said, a lot about the Ignis and the Allied Worlds.

The latter were an interstellar alliance with ships, advanced technology, and the System itself.

<How long did it take them to create the first prototypes of the system?>

Reidar doubted it was six years.

<It must have taken them centuries, maybe millennia, to understand mana well enough to create a system that managed it while also keeping the mutations in check.> 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

The system was too sophisticated and too integrated into the biology of different species to have been developed quickly.

It required an understanding of mana physics, genetics, and probably a dozen other disciplines that Reidar couldn't even name.

But the Ignis had done something comparable in six years while being hunted by monsters and mutating into beasts.

<That's another reason they were abandoned. It wasn't just that they were independent; it was also because they were better.>

They reverse-engineered the system's core function and built their own version from scratch. That level of ingenuity was staggering. It made Reidar wonder what would have happened if the Allied Worlds had given them more time.

<If they hadn't abandoned them, would the Ignis have been the dominant race in the Allied Worlds now?>

It wasn't impossible. The Ignis civilization had produced enough skilled engineers, scientists, and mages to build functional mana-regulating technology in less than a decade. If they'd survived, if they'd been integrated into the Allied Worlds coalition, they might have become a powerhouse.

Yet the allied worlds killed a too capable competitor.

<Maybe that's also the reason they said the Allied Worlds can't save a lot of planets from mana.>

But if the Ignis were this skilled and failed, what did this tell about Mara, Silas, and the progenitor? What did it say about humanity? From a certain point of view, humans were even more terrific than Ignis, because in less than a year, the average survivor's level reached the 200s, and while that could also be attributed to Reidar's actions, it only did so partially.

At the same time, the Church created portal-opening magic circles, mana gathering magic circles, and even teleportation ones.

<Humanity is heading down the same path.>

But that could change.

Reidar looked down at the journal again, noting that the pages were worn and the edges were singed from whatever had swept through this building, while the Ignis author's last entries described the collapse—monsters flooding this city, communication networks failing, and the author mentioning trying to reach a fallback position, a bunker or research facility where they hoped to regroup.

There was no entry after that, which didn't mean he hadn't reached the place, or maybe this one itself was the place.

Reidar closed the journal and set it aside. He needed to focus. The Ignis magic circles were his last hope.

If he could understand the designs, study the remaining installations, and understand the principles behind them, then maybe he could replicate the technology. Maybe he could bring it back to Earth and start implementing it in human settlements.

But It wouldn't solve everything. The circles wouldn't stop the church, and they wouldn't prevent internal conflicts or political fractures, but they would give humanity a safety net—a way to survive without depending completely on the Allied Worlds.

And if the Allied Worlds decided to abandon Earth the way they abandoned the Ignis, then humanity would still have a fighting chance.

Reidar then walked to the window, looking out at the desolate cityscape.

<I've spent enough time here.>

Although the Vorathid Sky-Hunters patrolling the upper levels hadn't reported any movement, he still felt exposed, as being deep underground in a dead city felt too much like standing in a trap waiting to be sprung. He took a step toward the exit but stopped as he heard something.

He held his breath, straining his ears against the silence of the basement. At first, there was nothing but the settling of the ruins and the blood rushing in his ears, but then he heard it again. It was faint, muffled by the thick walls.

<Something is coming.>