Silent Crown

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

In the quiet secret chamber, amid the darkness, a crisp sound of iron sheets rubbing against each other rang out.

It resembled pebbles knocking each other.

After two collisions, a glimmer of fire was born from it. The speck of fire that resembled a candle flickering in the wind illuminated Newton's sluggish face, as well as the wound in his palm that had barely healed.

"It's fire." He looked at the flames floating above his palm, as if he had never seen fire before, and his face lit up with a child-like joy.

As his fingers moved, the heavy block of iron that was clasped onto his arm gave off a faint glow. One could vaguely see musical notes flickering in and out of sight, controlling the flames to change in a predetermined manner. The fire sometimes became ring-shaped, other times forming a square…

It was the simplest application of musical notes.

— Flame.

Despite the alchemy equipment being so basic that even apprentices would not spare a glance for it, Newton had a good time playing with it, until the high temperature radiating from the heavy block of iron on his arm was no longer tolerable, and the noise was earsplitting… A crack sounded.

The flame was extinguished.

A gap cracked open on the square block of iron.

Newton's expression abruptly stiffened, revealing a mixed look of disdain and regret.

The light slowly lit up, illuminating the secret chamber that he had been hiding in all this while and a languorous Ye Qingxuan lazing on the old sofa. Seeing that Newton's experience had ended, Ye Qingxuan lifted his eyes. "How do you feel?"

"Feel?" Newton removed the iron block from his arm with some trouble and weighed it in his hand, then scornfully threw it into the corner in the end. "A godly direction, a crappy design.

"It's so crude and rough that I wonder how its designer still has the nerve to continue living in the world. "

Ye Qingxuan's expression immediately turned to one of resignation.

He knew that the old man was coming up with innovative ways to berate him, but it just so happened that he could do nothing about it. Newton was as good as the founding fathers in this aspect, and Ye Qingxuan's attainments didn't even qualify him to hold Newton's shoes for him.

The old assh*le is really vengeful…

He curled his lips, reached out, and summoned the cumbersome square iron block on the ground back into his hands from a distance. The iron block could be hung on the arm through the gap in the middle, and looked like an oversized bracelet, or… shackles.

But at the moment it seemed that the shackles were broken.

The remaining temperature had yet to dissipate. Ye Qingxuan reached out, cut the iron shell open, revealing the densely packed gears and tiny springs underneath, and began to inspect it carefully.

"No need to look at it, the conduction system is overheated." Newton snorted. "You miscalculated the stress limit of the matter."

"No, the calculation is correct. I have checked the entire formula several times, and it should be perfectly safe," said Ye Qingxuan.

"The formula itself is problematic, or rather, from the start, the textbooks are incorrect." Newton sneered. "People like you who rely on rote learning like to make such mistakes the most."

"Okay, okay, well said, you're absolutely right." Ye Qingxuan spread his hands. "It's just a consumable used for demonstration. A free version which requires no payment and has achieved such standards is good enough.

"What about you, Newton, are you satisfied with the experience of being a musician for the short span of only a few minutes? "

Newton was silent for a long time, then started cackling softly. "Of course.

"I've never expected to experience the feeling of becoming a musician one day. Not bad, Ye Qingxuan, not bad indeed. I'm starting to believe what you have said."

He paused and looked at the odd-looking 'bracelet' consisting purely of mechanical parts in Ye Qingxuan's hand, and the look in his eyes became greedy and anticipative. "…The door to the new world."

Under the dim light, Ye Qingxuan lifted the odd bracelet with his index finger, deftly spinning it at his fingertip.

One could vaguely see a faint perception thread extending out of it and disappearing in the void unobservable to the naked eye.

Beneath the vast enchantment of Avalon, the perception thread was immersed into the nine-layer sea of aether and extended into the depths of the enchantment.

In the turbulent waves of the sea of aether, the unknown item connected to the perception thread fleetingly revealed a large and grotesque outline, and immediately disappeared without a trace.

It was as if it had never appeared.

It was the scepter domain hidden in the reflection in the sea, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth that had absorbed the power of the catastrophe, or in other words… the key component required to form the Net of Aether.

In the silence, the look in Newton's eyes changed, and God knew what he was thinking about. After a good while, he spoke up and asked, "It is what you are counting on when you bring up the plan of mass producing war musicians again with full confidence, right?

"No, even the plan is just a shell to cover up your real purpose…"

He paused, then voiced the taboo phrase. "— Artificial musician!"

"You actually caught the essence of the Net of Aether so fast?" Ye Qingxuan lamented softly. "Worthy of your fame as the best engineer in Anglo indeed."

"Not Anglo, but the world." Newton corrected him, expressionless. His gaze fell on the spinning bracelet at Ye Qingxuan's fingertip, and recalled the notebook that Ye Qingxuan had shown him before letting him try it on.

It was a notebook that the Church would burn at all costs if they were to ever find out about it. In fact, the Church would also burn everyone who had touched it, read it, heard about it, or even anyone who had been within ten meters from it.

It was Hermes' final work before he died.

— The Net of Aether!

After being inspired by Ye Qingxuan, as a token of apology and a reward, Hermes created a grand blueprint tailored for him.

An idea that… was destined to be unaccepted by the world!

If the idea that had only existed in Hermes' hypothesis, consisting only of a few formulas and lacking any concrete track of thought or details, could really be finished up by Newton and could be materialized… the taboo proposition of artificial musicians would be fully completed and become reality.

The new world was at their fingertips!

Abraham's way of deciphering, the newly built division in the Royal Academy of Music, the much scorned and ridiculed plan of mass producing war musicians, even the refusal to return Genesis to the Sacred City, and the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth hidden in the reflection in the sea…

Everything was part of a well laid-out plan surrounding the completion of the Net of Aether.

As the most taboo proposition among all taboo propositions, artificial musicians had always been the most unmentionable research topic. Despite the Church reiterating the ban, the Silence Governance hunting down wanted criminals all over the world, and the countless heretics who died being burned at the stake of the Religious Court of Inquiry, many still ventured down the path one after another, longing for such a result.

They included even the dark musicians. After all, hadn't they sought out the help of catastrophes at the very beginning due to being limited by their own capabilites?

At the root of it all was the inadequacy of their own talent.

Hardly anyone could guarantee a smooth and level walk down the path of becoming a musician, no matter how hard one had tried, how much effort one had put in, even if one was to rely on foreign objects.

It was because everything was already destined at birth.

Right at the moment of birth, everything was already predetermined. The talented were fated to be more powerful than the untalented, and those of blue-blood lineage were destined to surpass ordinary folk.

Other than the ones talented enough to break this rule, one could only swallowed up in the crowd of mortal beings. And how many of such people were there?

Since the ancient times, few had been capable of doing so.

What one sought at all costs, others were born with it.

Such was the most painful thing for the ones chasing down the path.

Musicians were pursuers of the Originator, but more often than not, one did not choose the Originator, it was the Originator who chose one.

The ones unable to become apprentices longed to become apprentices. The ones who had become apprentices longed to advance as musicians. After advancing as official musicians, they pursued powerful music theory. After distorting reality, they longed to create legends. After creating legends, they still must advance as scepter musicians. After the Level of Scepter, they longed to become a saint, and after becoming a saint, could one advance further to the next level and become one of the three kings?

Nine Levels of Musicians.

Painstaking efforts of countless people were buried beneath each step taken.

Precisely because of that, everyone desired powerful bloodlines so much. In order to arrive at the Originator, the musicians of the East placed their own pursuit and the music theory from their entire life in their blood. The nine families of the Dragon Bloodline passed down their legacies from generation to generation, but no one had ever been able to truly advance into the Originator… Not to mention the many attempts by the various schools in the West to obtain stronger power and better talent in the past years.

One example would be the Hauser Brothers that Ye Qingxuan had once come across in Romulus. By blending bestiality into human nature, Kaspar Hauser, the son of the beast, was created with pure bestiality. Another example would be the school of dragon stone, which cast bestiality into aether world as food to rear the Snake of the Atrium every generation… Even the school of stone heart, which Ye Qingxuan was a member of, did not hesitate to implant Sub-orignators to enhance their abilities.

Among the various research projects, some violated taboos, some cleverly tested the boundaries, some would be immediately halted if the authorities were to find out, and some were conducted behind closed doors despite pressure from the Sacred City.

In the end, talent became the shackles of musicians. The Nine Levels of Musicians did not require much design to set different levels apart, as it was already destined from birth.

The gap between geniuses and ordinary folk was far greater than the difference between black gold and soil.

It was also the reason why alchemy, which could turn stone into gold, was so popular. The earliest proposition of the classical school of alchemy, pioneered by Hermes, was to turn oneself into a higher form, just like how soil was turned into gold.

There was no musician that didn't long to be liberated from the shackles.

Ye Qingxuan once saw the hundreds and thousands of towering clock towers in the Sacred City and also personally experienced the wonderful sensation of being strengthened by clock towers. His own power surged, as if he had become integrated with the Sacred City, and he directed reached the Level of Master, bypassing many levels.

Strengthening by the clock towers.

Every clock tower on its own was enough to help a musician achieve the Level of Master in an instant. Thousands of clock towers meant thousands of masters. Multiplying the number of all the masters in the world at the moment by three times, would probably still result in a number smaller than that of the number of masters the Sacred City could create in an instant.

Its working principle was based on Concerto No. 5, which was engraved at the core of the clock towers. It was one of the tokens of authority belonging to the King of Red, the movement titled Emperor.

Once the movement was played, it was like an emperor's coronation, allowing a mortal to sit on the throne and enjoy the generous charism granted by god, as well as unparalleled glory.

If the King of Red was to play the movement himself, he could even bestow elements directly to an apprentice, so that his road to advance as a scepter musician would be smooth and unimpeded.

As for the King of Blue, Bach, once he unfolded his domain in the form of a forbidden zone, he could determine the life or death of any musician. Without even taking any action, he could reduce a musician's level just by will.

The domain that the King of Yellow could influence was even more terrifying. His authority could act directly on the sea of aether. Even if he was all the way at the other side of the world, he could control the density of aether in the various countries with his own power…

Such was one of the reasons why the Three Kings were terrifying.